Margarita (no last name given), the kinder- garten and first-grade teacher, stands in the doorway of her classroom. She is one of three teachers in the community.
provided homes for young Kogis pursuing a university education. Eventually Gawthorne and her
colleague developed a set of symbols that they used to transcribe Kogi, which had never been written down. In 2015 a printed and audio New Testament were published. In February more than 200 Kogi
Bernabe, a third-grade boy, shows his homework.
long process of creating a Kogi- language New Testament under the direction of an organization of Bible translators. To learn the language, “we sat and listened for thousands of hours,” she said. “We would point to things, they would give us a word, and we would write it down.” During Colombia’s civil conflict,
Gawthorne moved to safer quarters in Bogota. Tere she continued her work on the New Testament and
celebrated as the printed books were carefully unpacked and the words of Matthew’s Gospel rang out over solar-powered players. “Te Kogi legends always talked
about a ‘lost book’ but also made a promise,” Gil said. “Te promise was that someday the ‘book’ would be returned to the Kogis. “Te lost book has once again
arrived in our hands, and because of that many have been animated to read and listen to it. Even non- Christians keep asking for the New Testament and the audio New Testa- ment in Kogi.”
The Christian Kogi live on a mountain range, and it can take anywhere from two to five hours to walk to their community. This is a typical Kogi home.
Flourishing in faith and life Aſter three decades of uncertainty, the Kogi are now flourishing. An infrastructure of Kogi-led health, education and pastoral ministries is beginning to solidify, as companions from the ELCA and Colombia work alongside the people to nurture the new church. Teir farms, purchased in part
with grants from ELCA World Hunger, are fertile and produc- tive. Health promoters, also trained through a World Hunger grant, serve Christian and non-Christian alike in remote areas where dis- tances are measured by hours spent walking. Kogi teachers are strengthening
the school’s curriculum and attract- ing traditional families who want a quality education for their children. To sharpen their ability to advo-
cate for themselves, they’re looking at the dynamics behind the discrim- ination they face and devising ways to overcome it in workshops led by personnel from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Colombia. Hand in hand with Colombian
and North American Lutherans, the Kogi are shaping their new church and its work. Yet the church body has no plans to add “Lutheran” to its name. Neither will it be accepting invita- tions from evangelical or Pentecostal groups that have made over- tures and inquiries. No, say pastors like
Gil. Tey appreci- ate the theology and friendship of others, but they say they are Kogi. Tey are the Kogi Christian Church. Period.
June 2015 39
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