Something that impressed me was the way of life of the brothers and sisters. I saw their area as a desert where a strong wind lifts up sand; I couldn’t open my eyes well, yet I saw how in the midst of this, they struggle to live. How significant it is not to have water! Water for us is life. Their faith is strong through it all; the Lord works with people with needs. Comparing their lives with ours is like thinking that we live in a place of luxury. Our land produces; we have water; the children enjoy the rivers a lot. I didn’t see any rivers there. As indigenous people and Christians, we need to continue protecting nature.

The brothers and sisters work hard, but they can’t grow some plants because of the lack of water. They produce what their land will give. Our land gives a lot. I want to continue talking about these themes in the churches. We need to preserve water and nature.

 I was impressed by their physical characteristics. When I showed my video of the trip in Panama, many of the brothers and sisters became emotional, saying, “This person looks like such a person in my community.” It doesn’t matter where we are from – as indigenous people, we have a lot that unites us.

After a week among Latinos, I felt I had arrived home in the Paraguayan Chaco because of their hospitality, language, etc.

 In the baptism, I observed the whole process. It was very different. We go to a river and afterward to our homes. I saw it different there. After the baptism, they continue with something important yet. They accompany the baptized one as they give a blanket. That is good. I was reflecting on what it meant to return to the church after the baptism and sit among the congregation. It moved me and made me think about Matthew 28:20, to continue teaching after baptism.

 This trip for me leads to a lot of reflection in the process of developing ministry. As a Wounaan indigenous woman, this trip inspired me first to serve others with the blessings that the Lord gives us. It challenges us to continue working with a lot of responsibility in developing our ministry, and gives us insight regarding ecology and how the Lord has entrusted us to administer creation.

 The word of God, the Bible, goes beyond cultures. We have to be wise to preserve cultures, traditions and customs that edify our faith and our lives, and to understand the message of the word through them. Our call is to be an indigenous church in the light of the word because we are created in God’s image as Wounaan people.

Our non-indigenous brothers and sisters need to know and understand our customs, traditions and beliefs about God the creator because we are a very different culture with a worldview different from that of the Western world. There will always be differences between indigenous and non-indigenous people, no matter how Christian we all are.

 Many times when non-indigenous Christians come to share the word of God, they want the indigenous to adapt to their ways, their culture. I want to share a clear example from my family.

 My husband’s mother is not Mennonite. The church she is a part of required that she dress as a Latina with long skirts and long-sleeved blouses. Her husband wasn’t a Christian, and so they were told they had to sleep separately until they decided to get married by a judge, which he did because he loved his wife. In our culture, it is not by a judge’s order that a man and woman become a true husband and wife. For us, when we get together as a man and a woman, it is until death that we separate.

We have Christ as a model. He divested himself of his divine prerogatives to be incarnated among people – eating, living and walking together with them, learning and teaching. This teaches us that we need to adapt to the communities where we arrive to share or visit, in order that there can be a good understanding of the word of God.

Mennonite World Conference, the mission agencies, and other organizations of service in Christian fellowship, help open spaces for indigenous brothers and sisters to express ourselves as a people and as followers of Christ. In this way, we can extend ourselves further in our relationships as people of God.

I give thanks to God for the opportunity that was given me to get to know and to learn from brothers and sisters in the visit and during the MWC assembly. I give thanks also to the brothers and sisters who helped achieve this purpose. May the Lord bless them.

Alina Itucama is part of the Wounaan indigenous group in Panama. She took part in an indigenous learning tour, supported in part by Mennonite Mission Network, among people groups from Argentina, Canada,  Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and the United States following Mennonite World Conference Assembly Gathered in summer 2009.