 Good evening. My name is Ken Saladi, and I'm the conference minister of the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ. We'd like to welcome our audience to this conversation with my guest tonight. Michael Joseph is a mission partner serving in the country of Columbia. Welcome Michael. Thank you Kent. So we're glad you've joined us as part of our conversation this night. If you, a member of the audience, have questions, we will get those questions relayed to us as part of our time tonight. I do want to say a couple of words about our partnership here in the Connecticut Conference with Columbia and how our partnership began. It began about 17, 18 years ago and was part of an initiative that started as a relationship between the Reverend Barbara Gerlach of First Congregational Church in Washington, D.C. and my predecessor, Davida Foy Crabtree. And Barbara and Davida are very good friends and Barbara had adopted a couple of Colombian children and as a result of that bringing her children back to Columbia, she would take pictures of children in the country. And when Davida was visiting Barbara, her heart was moved and moved so much that she said we've got to do something about learning about what's happening in Columbia and what our response as a conference might be. Davida then engaged our conference and then her friend, John Deckenback, who is the conference minister of the Central Atlantic Conference, in beginning to explore what a partnership might look like with the country of Columbia. At that point in time, we did not have a missionary presence in Columbia and the two conferences worked together with some delegations to first get an on-the-ground experience of what was happening in Columbia and then from there a synod resolution which resulted in a missionary presence through global ministries. And so we're very excited that Michael is able to be with us. He is in what is called itineration mode, a chance for him to get out and about in the Connecticut Conference and in the Central Atlantic Conference. He can tell us a little bit more about that. So we wanted to give Michael a chance first to introduce himself to you and talk a little bit about the work that he's doing in the country of Columbia. So Michael, why don't you share a little bit about yourself? Sure. Thanks, Kent. I'm glad to be here. So I'm Michael Joseph, your global ministries missionary in Columbia. I've lived in Columbia for a total of 10 years, eight of those as global ministries missionary, a year and a half, almost two years with an organization before that called Witness for Peace back in 2000. And missions is part of who I am and has been part of who I am since I was a little kid. My family, I was born in Tennessee to a Baptist family. My father's a Baptist minister. And we went to Brazil when I was seven years old for the first time. And we lived on an island in the Amazon River called Padinchins for two and a half months with a group of college students from the state of Tennessee who built a or helped build with the Baptist there in Brazil. What was called the Samaritans village, a social service center for the inhabitants of that island, very remote area Brazil at that time. So from the age of seven on, that kind of became normal to me. That's what life was like and supposed to be about. Of course, as a seven year old, I loved the adventure of an overnight boat trip to this island in the Amazon River. And my parents moved back to Brazil with my sister and I in tow, of course, as missionaries when I was 10. So I grew up in Brazil from 10 until I graduated from high school at age 18, came back to college in North Carolina, then went back to Latin America after college with Witness for Peace, lived in Nicaragua for a year and a half, Cuba for a year and a half, and then Columbia in the year 2000. First visited in 99 and then went to live there in the year 2000. And really since then, Columbia and US policy in Latin America in particular in Columbia has been near and dear to my heart. It's been something I've really been passionate about. So I wanted to ask you, I think one of the things that I have observed over time is our kind of continued understanding of what missionary and what mission is about. The classic and probably more traditional understanding of mission work is about senders and receivers. And so what we want to do is send people who need our help. And that's been a kind of traditional understanding of mission. I think in the world of mission, that's evolving that there's a new direction and a new way to look at mission being more of aligning ourselves with God's activity in the world. Can you say something kind of about when people come up to you and they find out you're a missionary, what's the reaction and what's your response to that? Sure. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's a mixed response. I'm aware that some people and know that some people and you see it in the reaction when they hear that you're a missionary in a church or somewhere and you've spoken, you know, they're extremely appreciative, they're excited and you get the sense that their view of you is as someone who's very brave, who's given up everything to go to a foreign land, left your homeland in almost this heroic way. That would be kind of an extreme position, but a lot of people kind of do have that view of missionaries. And I understand that and that is the case for many people. Then on sort of the other end of the spectrum, you'd have folks who have studied and who understand sort of the colonial legacy of mission work. How in the region that I work in in Latin America, the missionaries came along with soldiers or the first Bibles that came to Latin America came with the Spanish conquistador. So the Bible and the sword came at the same time. And so this long history of mission work being connected to empire, imperialism, colonialism, and even today, neocolonialism and sort of the expansion of US values, which may or may not be in the best interest of the folks there. So for others, the term missionary is a bad term. It's a term that needs to be done away with. We need to change it. We need to get rid of that and don't want to talk about missions or missionaries. And so others are kind of in between and they understand both of those things. And that's more where I am. There is sort of a reconciliation of the two positions or the two extremes. Because I think as church, obviously we want to be about doing God's mission. And so that's really where the term missionary comes from. So the question is not missionary or no missionary, but how do we do mission? And you spoke to that. You know, it's more about aligning ourselves with others, whereas perhaps mission in the past was about sending people to go and preach. Perhaps we need to go and listen first. We need to listen to our partners on the ground. How are they doing God's work? And then join them. Where we share values, we can join them in doing that work. Thank you. So I'd like you to share a little bit about the context of Columbia. It may be that everyone who's watching this or who will watch this knows everything there is to know about Columbia. But let's just do some basic understanding of the context that you find yourself in in the country of Columbia. Can you share a little bit about for those of us who may not know a lot about Columbia? Or we hear things or make assumptions about what Columbia is? Can you help us think that through a little bit? Sure. So you know, the broad context of Columbia is that Columbia has been in a civil war essentially. An armed conflict for the last 50 years, approximately. With leftist guerrillas fighting to overthrow the Colombian government, democratically elected government in Colombia. And then it's complicated by a few more factors. There's more than one guerrilla group. So there's sort of multiple different guerrilla groups with different interests all trying to overthrow the government. There's also right wing paramilitary groups sometimes referred to as death squads that are also organized into different groups with different names in Colombia. But they're also fighting part of that war. And then there's drug trafficking that is going on in Colombia. And so actually all of the groups get money from drug trafficking in one way or the other. So it's a complex war that's going on in Colombia. And it's been a devastating war. It's the longest war in the hemisphere, around somewhere between 250 and 300,000 deaths caused by the war, at least 80% of them civilian deaths. And then around 7 million victims officially recognized by the government of Colombia that 7 million of Colombia's population have been victims, are victims of this war in one way or another. And that's out of a population of only 48 million. So a very large percentage of the population have been victims of this war. Most of them through forced displacement. When an armed group shows up in the countryside, wants to control that part of the country, then often the civilians are forced to flee to avoid becoming victims, to avoid being killed by one of the armed groups. So you've got millions and millions of people that have fled the countryside going to the cities. So then the cities have a lot of poverty in the cities. So that's sort of the context in which our churches work. Both our urban churches that are dealing with receiving the victims that have fled the countryside. Our rural churches that are dealing with how do you survive? How do you do ministry? How do you minister to victims in a countryside that's being hard hit by the war? So let's hone in a little bit more on your work and the work that we're doing with our partners in Colombia. Can you share kind of those of us who are following the news know that these are things are looking good around a peace process. But can you share a little bit about kind of what your work entails? What's an average month of time look like and what you're doing and who are the partners that you're now working with? Yeah. So I was appointed to work with the officially with the peace commission of the Colombian Council of Churches, it's known as Setacal in Spanish, but particularly with their peace ministry. So you have a council of churches about 70% of the Protestant evangelical churches of Colombia are part of this council and then it has a peace ministry. So I'm appointed to work in particular with that peace and justice ministry known as the peace commission of Setacal. And I should say that only about 15% of the population of Colombia are Protestant or evangelical. The majority of Colombia is Catholic. So it's sort of a minority faith if you will, at least a minority expression of the Christian faith in Colombia that then has this group of people that are committed to peace and justice and human rights that are trying to do that work in a very difficult context. So we try to meet them there and accompany them in that work to support that work. So for most of the eight years that I've been there, I've been supporting in particular one project, which is a human rights documentation project, the goal of which is to document the impact of this war, this violence on our churches, how our churches and members of our church is being affected by this violence. To date, we've documented over 10,000 violations, human rights violations, only against that 15% of the population because all we're able to do, we aren't even able to document all of that because we don't have enough resources to do it. So we've been, we've sort of been documenting the violence. Then when cases are identified, we try to support the victims, provide them pastoral care. If that's sort of not enough, we'd refer them to psychological care, psychosocial care, also provide them with some level of legal aid or assistance if they want to try to prosecute their case or carry their case into the court system. So sort of trying to holistically accompany them and then do advocacy on what we're seeing. We can advocate, we do advocacy on individual cases. We do advocacy with entire communities. We have entire communities that are in the midst of a land struggle. They're struggling to keep the land that these peasants have settled and you have large landowners that are trying to violently take the land away or force the peasants off the land. So we're doing advocacy and accompaniment with entire communities. And then we're also doing advocacy on a national and international level with embassies, et cetera, with the U.S. government, state department here in the U.S. So working with that program, coordinating that program has been what I've been doing. Now, three years ago, a peace process started between the largest guerrilla group, the FARC, and the Colombian government. So it would be a huge step forward for peace in Colombia if that peace accord is to be signed. The process has gone well, as you would expect. Any peace negotiations is difficult. It's had ups and downs. But today, they, as of today, they've agreed on four of the five main points that they had to negotiate on. In fact, just yesterday, took a step forward on the fifth one that hasn't been fully signed yet. But we're very excited and very hopeful that this peace accord will be signed. So for the last several months, the last year in particular, we've been supporting a new effort called the Interchurch Dialogue for Peace, the PAS, which is a group of both Protestant and Catholic churches and organizations coming together to support the peace process in some very particular ways. So that's been a focus of my work for the last year as well. So one of, if I understand correctly, after 50 years of conflict in a country, that becomes a way of life that the people, in essence, adjust to, you know, that they're, that's sort of their reality. Now there's this glimmer of hope through the negotiations with the FARC. And what's the church's role kind of moving forward? You know, where's the church going to be involved, do you think, in the civil society movement to tell the truth and reconciliation, all these things that, you know, you're used to something and now it's going to change dramatically. Where do you see the church's work? Yeah, yeah. And just to refer to your first point there, you can't overstate the impact of this war on the Colombian population. In 50 years, so virtually almost everybody that's alive in Colombia has lived their whole life or almost all of their life with their country at war, at a civil war, with at least 7 million out of 48 million being officially recognized as victims. There's not a Colombian family that doesn't have a family member that's been deeply affected by this war. I've never met a Colombian say, I haven't been affected by the war. It doesn't exist. Right. Everybody in Colombia has been affected by this in deep ways. So, the church is there in the midst of that, doing their work. Moving forward, there are a lot of ways which we can imagine that the church will want to be involved. And in fact, we've talked about it a lot, both in D-Pause and the Peace Commission. Really, we see ourselves being even more involved in a post-conflict scenario. When you start to talk about peace-building, reconciliation, restorative justice work, getting a victimizer and a victim to talk to each other, doing that type of restorative justice work, and that's what the church is all about. That's what we should be doing as church everywhere, in every context where we work. So, we know there's, and society's going to look to the church to help do that. And it already does. When soldiers demobilize, they often go to the church and say, help me demobilize, help me get involved in society in a positive way again. So, we know that we're expecting and planning and trying to be ready for those challenges of doing that type of work. So, as a citizen of the United States, I would observe that much of our attention as a country is paid to East-West relationships, that the kinds of things that get our focus are usually not in the Southern Hemisphere. One of the things, when I have begun this journey in learning more about Colombia over these last 16 years, one of the things that I'm continually amazed by is how little we know about the U.S. role in Colombia. Up until recently, Colombia was the number three recipient of military aid by the United States government. And with Iraq and Afghanistan entering into the equation, it's still in the top five of the receiver of military aid. Earlier today, you and I looked at the numbers out of Congress for fiscal year 16, seeing how some of that has shifted over the time period to postwar life and providing resources from our tax dollars in the United States to helping Colombia through that. And with less of a dependence on military aid, can you speak to that reality that some people will be surprised maybe to hear that Colombia is the fifth largest recipient of military aid in the world? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, in the year 99-2000, Colombia and the United States together really came up with what was called the Plan Colombia. U.S. was sold. The idea that Colombia was a nation on the brink of collapse that it was about to be lost or the guerrillas were about to overthrow the government, which was probably somewhat overstated. Coupled with the drug war rhetoric, Congress approved a massive increase in U.S. military aid to Colombia. And so since the year 2002 today, it's been over $7 billion. In 2000, 2001, 2002, Colombia was the third largest recipient of U.S. military aid after Israel and Egypt. And then you're right, with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, those two have jumped in there, so Colombia is now fifth. And it's been fifth for much of that period. Some of the military funding has gone down since 2008. And unfortunately, though the good economic aid, the social aid for social programs, aid that would address the root causes of the war, it went up a little bit in 2008, and it got a little more balanced, but it was still more military aid than economic aid. And that trend has continued. It's continued to, both of them, essentially, to go down a little bit less military aid, but also less social and economic aid, which is a problem. If you want to address the root causes of a problem, you need some money to be able to do that. We spoke about seven million people that have been displaced from their homes, the cost of trying to help them move back to the countryside and get their lives back on track, or to adapt and get ready to live in the city. That's costly. And we've been eager and willing to fund the military side of things and it would be ideal if we could get the US government to put up the same amount of money for peace building in Colombia. I think this is getting a little bit off topic, but it's timely. I know the United States has been dealing with this massive wave of immigration from Central America and children from Central America. And there's a cycle there. We fought wars in Central America in the decade of the 80s. And then there wasn't the money there to rebuild Central America and create an economic stability there. And certainly much of the immigration out of Central America and North United States these days is because of the deep poverty in Central America. And the same thing could happen in Colombia. So the justification for the resources, particularly around Plan Colombia, was to fight the drug war. I know you have a different perspective around that being actually a national issue here in the United States. Could you give some voice to that? Yeah. Yeah, it might take on a lot of the drug war, but drives that is US policy. And really is politicians' desire to say or to look like they're being tough on drugs. Everybody recognizes that there is an epidemic of drug consumption here in the United States with all sorts of social and health impacts connected with that. And that's a problem that needs to be solved, that desperately needs to be addressed. Study after study has shown that the best only real way to address that is again dealing with the root causes here in the United States. Why do people consume drugs? And there's ways that we treat that and help people that are in that situation with drug prevention and drug treatment programs essentially. And it's much more cost effective than shipping weapons and helicopters and spraying fields where cocoa is being grown in Colombia. But there's a perception that you're being tough on drugs if you fight the war, if we take the war, the war on drugs to Colombia, even though in reality that's not an effective way to do it. So unfortunately, until we can change public perception about the best way to deal with this public health problem, so really that's how it needs to be treated as a public health issue. That's how we have to deal with this problem, not by by sending billions of dollars to Colombia to fight a drug war. So besides the drug war, which is the rationale for the military expenditures, why is Colombia in the southern hemisphere? Why is the United States so interested in Colombia as a country? Yeah, so beyond this domestic drug issue, Colombia has a lot of natural resources. It has the one of the three, Venezuela, Brazil and Colombia have the three largest oil deposits in South America. In fact, Colombia possibly has the most untapped oil resources in South America. It also has lots of gold, the largest open pit coal mine in the country, so there's all sorts of natural resources. Colombia is one of the second most biodiverse country in the hemisphere after Brazil. It leads Brazil in certain biodiversity indicators. So there's a lot of wealth in Colombia and there's a lot of natural resources. So mining corporations and others are very interested in maintaining the U.S.'s influence and economic interests in Colombia. So the question I guess that we've heard already articulated in your short time here in Connecticut has been the question around what can we in local churches here in the state of Connecticut do? Is there a message that you would bring to us from Colombia, from your experience there? Are there things that we as individuals might be thinking of and doing? Is there advocacy work that we should be thinking of? Why would we want to be interested in this? Help make the case for that. You don't have to make the case for the work that you're doing, which is so valuable to the peace process and we are so happy for your presence in Colombia. But what could a local church member do or think about in regards to the state of Colombia at this point? Yeah, I think there are a couple of things. You touched on advocacy, so a lot of what we've been talking about is that there's a lot of connection between what's going on in Colombia and what we're doing. We are in relationship. Colombia and the United States through policy, politics, funding, military aid, economic aid, our countries are in relationship. So one thing to do is to say, am I comfortable with how this relationship is going? Are my values being expressed in how U.S. foreign policy is in Colombia and how funding is going to Colombia? Do I want more of my money to be military aid or would I rather see more money be social and economic aid? And in particular, directed towards the IDPs, the internally displaced persons, could the resources that are coming out of our tax dollars be utilized in a more effective way to help build a social infrastructure to help settle in some new ways those persons who have been displaced from their homeland? Absolutely. I mean, after World War II, we knew we have to rebuild Europe. So after war, you have to invest a lot of money to rebuild countries that have been at war. And it takes generations. It takes a long-term commitment to building a stable, peaceful country. So signing the peace accords will be a great step, but the peace building process is where we really need a lot of support. And sometimes we think, you know, great, we've supported them, they got there, they signed the peace accord, now we can move on to the next conflict. But we need that long-term engagement. So and that long-term engagement means talking to my senators and talking to my Congress people here in the U.S. to try to get the funding that the U.S. is sending to Colombia to represent my values, to represent what I want and what I think is just and what is right for Colombia. So there's a whole set of advocacy things that we could talk about and we could do, we could define, you know, how do we want to do that as the United Church of Christ here in Connecticut? What message do we want our senators and Congress people to be fighting for in Washington on our behalf in terms of Colombia? So that's one set of things. And part of that, part of advocacy is really becoming informed, knowing what the issues are, understanding what the issues are, and then from our perspective, advocating for peace, for justice. Those core values of what we in the United Church of Christ stand for, we can advocate once we are informed. So part of it is not only being an advocate, because we got a briefing, but also taking the time to learn the context and how we might be most effective. Right. Other things that we can do. Yeah. And just while we're on that, you know, I think it's part of sort of this new paradigm and mission means that we in global initiatives to talk about, we share persons in mission. So we don't just send persons in mission. We receive people in mission. That's something that global ministries can do as well. So that would be something for the Connecticut Conference of our churches to consider. Are we open and willing to receive someone that, you know, could come from Colombia to work in East Hartford for six months, for a year, to help us engage with our things that we're dealing with here, bring a new fresh lens voice way of looking at things. A lot of experience from some tough context that they could share with us here. That's a new way of doing mission. And that's being open to hear and learn and listen from them as well and recognize their gifts. So reverse mission. Absolutely. I mean, that's the, that's the phrase that, that our partners have something to teach us that isn't a one way street, that there is a mutuality that their experience and the experience of the Colombian people in being in conflict, they've learned something about absolutely what that means and how that could help us in our own country around issues that we face critical social issues as well. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I was privileged to be on my third trip to Colombia this past May. And one of the things that struck me about that was a visit to El Garcal, which is off the Magdalena River. There is a small community there of farmers, campesinos, who are trying to make a living off the land. And part of what you helped us see as the delegation that was present from our respective conferences and national setting of the church was to see what the issues were literally on the ground. I was struck by a couple of things. One was on that, on one of the plots of land that we were at in El Garcal that had been taken over by some military group, not sure what kind of military group, whether they were Paras or others, paramilitary for us. And actually it was across the right there in Garcal across the river in the community of Guayao, I think is what you're talking about. We were in two communities. Guayao is where a farm had been in essence taken over by these armed actors. And the community in the midst of that having the children on their way to school passing by these military armed actors, watching them having people walk by and threatening them. They decided that they would not let that take over their community and they ended up building a new community center directly across the road and the pathway from that particular farm that had been commandeered, taken over. And it struck me that people have asked me on these trips, well aren't they dangerous and aren't you fearing for your own safety? But what we were told was that we were providing protection for that community because there was an international presence in the community that in essence the eyes of the world were watching what was happening in that community. It was clearly humbling to think that just by being there we were making a difference. Absolutely. Can you speak? Absolutely. Yeah, that's accompaniment. That is the core value of how we think we should be doing mission. It's accompanying our partners. There's now a fairly long tradition of what's called international protective accompaniment. So it's actually been studied. Books have been written about it. About how that works when an armed doctor who might carry out violence against a political leader or religious leader in a country in conflict, they're doing political analysis. They're more likely to hurt that person if they think nobody's going to pay attention. Yes. If they think there's not going to be any repercussions for hurting that person. So by placing an international presence, by having an international presence with these folks who are at risk, with a political leader, human rights worker, a religious leader who might be at risk from an armed group, it creates protection for them because the armed actor is then going to think twice about it because they know there's going to be repercussions if they carry out an act. It increases the eyes that are watching. Most criminals, most people that want to carry out a violent act would prefer to do it when nobody's looking. Sure. So by having people around watching, paying attention, gathering information, sharing that information with ways to share that communication to broader audiences with these types of resources, it makes them think twice. It makes them stop. It makes them not do it. We've been very concerned about the community of Kuala Lumpur. Erick Pajares, who's the leader of that community, has received numerous death threats, credible death threats, as well as rumors that he would be arrested because of the work he does in leading that community and protecting their land. But it hasn't happened yet. You can never say for sure which presence it was, and there are multiple groups that accompany that community. We're one of those groups, and we're very happy to be one of those groups because we believe that that is likely what has protected Erick's life and has protected the life of that community, their lives individually, but also their ability to stay there. Were Erick to be killed or someone else to be harmed, it's likely that members of that community would be afraid and would flee. They would simply join those 7 million who have been forced to flee their land. So by going and being a presence there, by accompanying our partners, we can help protect them. And by doing the advocacy on their cases when we get back. So the two are connected. There's both a going, walking with, accompanying, learning about, being present there with them, taking on some risk with them, though Erick was much more at risk when we left than while we were there. That's the easiest way to think about it. But then also coming back and doing the work when you're back home. Continue to learn about it and advocating. And when there is an action alert that sometimes is generated from you to say that our response by sending emails or faxes to the location where that you deem is appropriate does get attention and literally in some cases we believe have saved lives. Absolutely. Absolutely. We have multiple times. Both the U.S. Embassy and the Agrarian Reform Agency of the Colombian Government have both told church folk in Colombia quit sending us faxes, quit sending us emails. I've never received so many faxes or emails. And a judge, there's a third case I can think of, have all said that. And it's church based. It's us and the Mennonites together doing this work. But we're able to generate enough pressure that government agencies, embassies, and judges will listen to us. And that can save somebody's life. So there's an impact there that's absolutely life giving. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's hard for you to imagine that when you're sitting at home and you get an email and you maybe send off an email. But it can make a big impact. Absolutely. Yeah. So I wanted to remind our viewers that if there are questions behind the scenes, Eric Anderson is sitting there. If anyone does have a question they like Michael to respond to our answer. We want to give an opportunity for that. I'm going to keep talking and Eric will raise his hand at me if there's somebody who feels moved. If you do feel moved to ask a question, cover something that we haven't talked about yet tonight. You can type it in as I understand it type it in the chat box. Eric's shaking his head. So we'll continue the conversation a little longer so that we can give folks if you do have a question you can certainly ask it. I wanted to ask you what's your passion for doing this work? Why is it that you feel called to be a critical presence in the country of Columbia specifically about the Columbian context? What is it about it that makes your heart sing? Yeah. There's a lot of things. A little bit when I was sharing my own personal story. I've lived in Latin America as much as I've lived in the state. So I'm sort of a hybrid in what's called a third culture kid. So I'm comfortable being a bridge. The joke about third culture kids is we're most comfortable on the airplane. Neither in our country of origin or the country we go to because we're kind of outsiders in both but we're comfortable in that in between space. So there's a personal thing there that this is part of who I am and I feel blessed to be able to play that role, to be a connector between folk in the United States, folk in Latin America or Colombia who care about each other. There's a vision of the kingdom of God there. We're all brothers and sisters but we have some human-made, man-made boundaries of language and nationalities and borders and passwords and things that kind of get in the way of us getting to know each other. So I really enjoy being able to connect the two to be an emissary from here to Columbia showing our brothers and sisters there that we care for them and vice versa sharing their stories with their sisters and brothers here. Then within Latin America, as we mentioned before, this is the oldest conflict, the bloodiest, most violent conflict in Latin America. So there's a huge humanitarian need in Colombia. Some people would be a little bit afraid of that but again I feel capable of being in that situation so I feel drawn to sort of the human need there to try to walk with our brothers and sisters there. We're not going to solve it but we can be present. We can walk with our brothers and sisters and show them love in that way by being present with them and maybe in walking together we'll come up with some new solutions and some new ways out of problems again that are on both sides, both here in the United States and in Colombia. Great, wonderful. Well we want to thank you Michael for your time tonight. Michael is itinerating in Connecticut for the next three weeks or so. Yep, three and a half weeks. So you'll be appearing in some of our congregations, you're preaching, you're doing some programs with different churches, groups of churches and we're grateful that you've spent some time with us tonight but also for being in the conference for these next few weeks. And for the work that you do, for the partnership that we share, we are really grateful to you and give thanks to God for your ministry. Thank you Michael. You bet it's my pleasure and I should thank all of you. As I mentioned this is what I feel called to do and I can't do it on my own without support, financial, spiritual, emotional support and so I receive that from all of you, from our congregations, from this conference and you all enable me to be able to do that work and join with me in it and that's a joy. So thank you. Thank you. So we're grateful that you have joined us for this conversation with Michael Joseph, our global missionary in the country of Colombia and we are grateful for my colleagues behind the camera, Drew Page and Eric Anderson for bringing this to you this night. We wish you God's speed and God's presence.