Colombia
Called and chosen for God’s purpose on earth.
Where there is vision there is provision.
When the intention is to bring heaven to earth, it has God’s full support.
Thirty-three years ago, we heard a call for evangelism and church growth.
We began to participate in the Mennonite congregation in our home town Anolaima. At that time the pastor Peter Stucky gave us the endorsement to participate in the leadership and direction of this community. In those days there was a decline in membership to the point of wanting to close.
In the municipality of Anolaima it was never easy to evangelize because of its cultural background. We began the tasks of evangelizing in places outside the temple (church building). We wanted to preach the gospel where the lost were.
So we decided to go to the schools to preach to the children and to the young people, providing them with biblical principles and values as tools.
We also organized family conferences with the sole purpose that they would know us as an open broad-minded alternative, developing a culture of the kingdom of God.
We created a school for businesspeople as a model of self-sustainability.
We worked in the parks recovering spaces as an example of service and living better.
In those days, we received a vision from God to create a park to evangelize from nature – where the heavens tell the glory of God and the firmament announces the work of his hands (Psalm 19).
So we dreamed of a park in the midst of nature recreating the Word to help in the meeting of needs and delivery of the good news of salvation.
Why a park?
We couldn’t understand it but we began to dream without knowing, without money, but intent on it being God’s dream. In a meeting of fifty people from the church and using a clay vase as a symbol of our intention, we sowed a sunflower seed and gave birth to God’s dream of building a park so as to create a kind of tourism involving conversion and transformation.
It took some time before we were able to invest in a property. We saved US$ 30 000, bought and sold a 6 000 m2 property for US$ 45 000, and then acquired a 51 000 m2 plot of land for that amount.
When the vision is from God, faith becomes the currency that buys without money, since the seller charged US$ 75 000 and honoured us by sowing the remaining amount.
God is always faithful to provide for his own dreams when we make them our own.
We have had to learn to trust God: the work is God’s; we only accompany him.
An encounter with God
“IgleParque” (church park) presents moments from the biblical narrative in a natural setting. We respect nature, making the most of its majestic colours, diversity of birds and animals to enrich the biblical panorama.
Over the year, we attend to some 2 000 to 3 000 visitors including young children, families and congregations who spread the news by word of mouth.
Our purpose is to encourage visitors in their faith and in each of their felt needs, whether emotional or physical; to bring direction, light to their paths, through the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
We transmit a message of peace, since this is our mission as Mennonites.
IgleParque is an open space in a natural environment where visitors take with them an “unlimited” experience with God, since this project´s skies break the barrier that hinder their encounter with their Creator. Creativity is the primary instrument for a different evangelization, contemporary but with biblical elements.
For those who visit it, the park is a voice of hope because for any need there is a solution. There are 17 spaces to share biblical advice and interact with the good news of salvation.
IgleParque is a blessing not only for the visitors but for the city itself, since through it there has been blessing to hotels, restaurants and transportation. Due to its proximity to the capital city Bogotá (we are only 70 km away), it has been a meeting point for international visits. IgleParque has become a place to visit that opens a door for evangelism.
God has given us the strategy for an evangelization without limits. It is a two-hour tour that recreates faith, history and conviction for those of us who need God.
The park is at 60% of its construction, according to the vision, but the community is committed to finish what God faithfully began with us.
Passion drives the work
For more than 10 years, we have developed the IgleParque project step by step. It is a process with ups and downs, but we do not lose heart because God has given us his strength. We are learning to build by the power of the Word, faith and perseverance, making the impossible possible and the invisible visible.
In the process God has added people, one after another until we became a team and a family with the passion to turn a dream into a reality.
We have learned to build on the model of Jesus serving and managing divine, human and physical resources and transforming them with the creativity and blessing that God places in our hands.
We hope to be inspiration, motivation and testimony for the fulfillment of the Great Commission to go and make disciples of the nations from the perspective of a peacebuilding gospel (Matthew 28:19) but above all of faith in God and his Word.
—Eduardo and Lucy Bautista are pastors in the community of leaders at Iglesia Menonita Anolaima, Colombia.
