An American missionary has received an award for his decades of work ministering to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or the FARC, whose 50-year fight against the government had been the world’s longest continuous war when it ended in a peace agreement last August.
Russell Stendal has been in Colombia for over half a century, having first arrived with his parents – also missionaries to the indigenous people there; it was this which later helped him build relationships with the rebels.
Mr Stendal has been kidnapped by the FARC and by other rebel groups, but he launched his Bogota-based ministry, Colombia for Christ, with his captors in mind. His audacious vision: that all of the FARC can learn about Christianity and that, if embraced, it will change guerrillas’ hearts and minds.
Mr Stendal was presented with the award in Bogota on Sunday by First Step Forum. The Shahbaz Bhatti Freedom Award is named after Pakistan’s first Christian Cabinet Minister, murdered almost five years ago for his criticism of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and his defence of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman still on death row for “blasphemy”.
In his speech, First Step Forum’s Finnish founder, Johan Candelin, said Mr Stendal deserved the award for his “extraordinary peace work for 32 years”, saying that his work had led to a change of heart in many FARC leaders, and also in Colombian Army leaders: “Many have been healed as a result of prayer”, he said.
“I have never seen anything like this,” he added. “God’s hand has been on Russ Stendal’s work in a unique way.”
Previous recipients of the award include Pope Francis, Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Dr Hany Hanna in Egypt and Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili in Georgia.
Mr Candelin told World Watch Monitor that Mr Stendal (known by his other name, Martin, to Spanish speakers) had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by several Colombian Army generals who said “FARC would never have signed the agreement without the hand of God”. Mr Stendal, with his daughter Alethia, has written a book, The Hidden Agenda: An Extraordinary True Story Behind Colombia’s Peace Negotiations with the FARC, published by Aneko Press in 2014.
