COLOMBIA - Survivor of a guerrilla massacre, preaches forgiveness
12/09/05 - Rebuilding a life shattered by violence
Alex Puerta is convinced that God spared his life for a purpose. Nevertheless, the road he has travelled in the nine years since surviving one of the worst terrorist attacks in Colombia’s history has not been easy:
“I have gone through times when I felt God was silent,” Alex says, holding his young wife’s hand. “It was only my faith in Christ that kept me going – nothing else.”
He pauses before adding quietly, “I want to thank Open Doors for helping me rebuild my life.”
More than His Share of Tragedy
Alex, 36, has seen more than his fair share of tragedy. Raised on a small farm in the torrid Urabá region of northern Colombia, he was 17 when his father was murdered. A neighbour, angry that the Puertas’ cattle had broken through a barbed wire fence and damaged his crops, ambushed Mr Puerta and shot him to death.
At 19, Alex nearly died of malaria. He called on a Christian evangelist to pray for him and experienced a miraculous recovery. That convinced him to accept Christ. He soon became a fervent evangelist himself.
Alex was in his mid-20s when he met Rocio Otero at church. Eleven years younger than Alex, Rocio had moved with her family to Urabá from Bucaramanga. Despite the difference in their ages “I thought I heard God telling me that she was to be my wife,” Alex says.
The couple courted discreetly for over a year before Rocio moved back to Bucaramanga and Alex took a job at the Rancho Amelia banana plantation in Urabá.
Ambushed by Guerrillas
That is where he faced by far the worst tragedy of his life. A guerrilla army operating in the area mistakenly believed that Rancho Amelia harboured a rival paramilitary squad. One morning in September 1995, they ambushed a bus carrying plantation employees, tied them up and threw them face down into a gully. The guerrillas then opened fire with machine guns on the helpless workers.
In the midst of the shooting, a bullet struck Alex Puerta at the base of his left eye, fractured his skull from the inside and exited, destroying his right eye and cheekbone. Amazingly, Alex did not lose consciousness, despite the excruciating pain and despite nearly suffocating in his own blood.
“The guerrillas came down the rows to find those who were still moving, finishing them off with a machete blow to the neck,” he recalls. “They reached me and I told them that Christ loved them. ‘This one’s alive!’ they said, and hit me twice very hard. They broke two teeth and cut off an ear lobe, but the machete did not penetrate my neck. Then they left.
“In that moment I heard a voice say, ‘Fight for your life.’ I felt such a strength and vitality that I succeeded in breaking my bonds. It hurt, but God gave me strength. When help arrived, they found me sitting up.”
Alex was the only victim to survive the massacre. Twenty-five of his Rancho Amelia co-workers, including several women, lay dead in the gully.
Survival has been difficult. Alex underwent five surgeries to rebuild his shattered face. Doctors told him that he would never see again. He remembers the long months of convalescence with nothing to do but sit at home, with only the family dog to keep him company.
‘Please forget me’
He could have had Rocio Otero’s company, but Alex refused to see his former girlfriend.
“I wanted so badly to visit him after the accident, but he would not allow it,” Rocio says. “He said that he would never be in a position to marry and support a wife, and that I had no future with him.
“You are a lovely, highly intelligent young woman with great prospects,” Alex told Rocio over the phone. “I can offer you nothing now. Please forget me and move on with your life.”
But Rocio did not forget Alex. She continued to phone him every year on his birthday, at Christmas and other holidays. Still, Alex never wavered in his refusal to see Rocio and continued to insist that their relationship was over.
Finally, at the end of a call one Christmas, Rocio wished Alex well, said she would not be calling again and hung up the phone.
Preparing for ministry
By then Alex had enrolled in the Biblical Seminary of Colombia in Medellín to prepare for ministry. He had regained some sight in his left eye, but his severely impaired vision hampered his studies. He depended on special tutors to read textbooks to him.
Financial aid from Open Doors covered Alex’s seminary tuition and helped to pay his medical bills. Alex used a portion of the funds to purchase a special computer monitor that magnified the text, allowing him to read unaided.
Hard work, sheer force of will and the grace of God got him through seminary. By mid-2002, Alex had completed the coursework and was ready to write his graduate thesis. For that project, his professors sent him, of all places, to Bucaramanga, to do research.
He realised he would need help in finding his way around the strange city, so he contacted Rocio Otero. Considerable time had passed since her final phone call and Alex assumed she was no longer interested in him. He arranged to meet Rocio and her sister at a Bucaramanga shopping centre.
“How will I recognise you?” Rocio asked. “I haven’t seen even a photograph of you since your, er, accident.”
“That will be easy,” Alex chuckled. “I’m the one with the eye-patch!”
‘This is your wife’
“When I met Rocio that day, I hardly knew her,” he later confided to a friend. “But I heard a voice in my heart say, ‘This is your wife.’ It was a huge emotional blow.”
Alex endured three sleepless nights gathering the courage to share his heart with Rocio. When he asked if she would marry him, she laughed and said, “Yes.” She had waited eight years to give him that answer!
It would be nice to say the couple lived happily ever after, but real life is simply not like that: “We had to work on some character issues before we could marry,” Alex explains. “I had some attitudes from the past trauma I’d lived through. It’s a process, but we are getting on top of it now.”
The couple took a year and a half getting reacquainted before their June 2004 wedding. They now live in Medellín, where Rocio pursues studies in history at the University of Antioquia and in theology at the Biblical Seminary.
The Foundation is forgiveness
Alex serves as a voluntary chaplain of Prison Fellowship, preaching in chapel services at the Bellavista National Penitentiary and counselling inmates there. Some of the prisoners with whom he has shared the Gospel are former guerrillas. At least one, he has learned, was involved in the massacre at Rancho Amelia.
Alex let it be known that he has forgiven each of the assailants who blinded him and killed his friends. “If one decides to follow Jesus, the foundation is forgiveness,” he says. “Without it, there is no real Christian life.”
Recently, Alex accepted an invitation from Open Doors to become a regular trainer for their ‘Standing Strong Through the Storm’ (SSTS) seminars, which are presented at churches throughout Colombia. Feedback from seminar participants indicates that Alex is particularly effective in teaching forgiveness, a key subject in the SSTS curriculum.
These past nine years have been long and difficult, but Alex Puerta is certainly getting closer to discovering the purpose for which God spared his life.
Open Doors has supported the suffering Church throughout the world for 50 years. To find out more, call Open Doors UK & Ireland on 01993 885400, email info@opendoorsuk.org or go to their website at www.opendoorsuk.org.
End. 1,262 words.
Ends.
Open Doors strengthens persecuted Christians in over 45 countries across the world by
1. Training Church leaders and Christian workers
2. Supplying Bibles, hymnals, Sunday School materials and other Christian literature
3. Providing livelihood training and self-help opportunities
4. Visiting, comforting and encouraging those who are suffering
5. Raising awareness of the difficulties persecuted Christians face and mobilising prayer for them throughout the western world.
For other articles/press releases on the Persecuted Church, go to:
http://www.opendoorsuk.org.uk/press/articles/
http://www.opendoorsuk.org.uk/press/releases/
http://www.opendoorsuk.org/media_photos/world_watch_list_pics/html/index.htm