Bernice Barnett Gonzalez remembers early Cumberland Presbyterian mission days in Colombia, South America.

From the original Foreword:

Ever since the Fiftieth Anniversary of the founding of the Cumberland Presbyterian mission in Colombia, many church friends have urged me to write of our early work there. As the stories were recounted during the anniversary , it was felt that they should be written down showing the obstacles, the ups-and-downs, the achievements, and the triumphs of those early years. In book form, they would be available for years to come for as many as would want to know how the Cumberland Presbyterian Church began in Colombia.

I have chosen to relate the events chronologically as best I can, peppering them with anecdotes to show the human response to what took place. Some of the stories, all of them factual, are amusing now, whether they were at the time or not! Others were pathetic; still others were soul-stirring, showing God at work in the lives of those we served.

As the writer, since I must rely on my own memory and files for what happened, I do write more about my own experiences than those of others. Unfortunately, it would be impossible at this time for us founders who are still living to collaborate in compiling this account because of the distances between us and our physical handicaps.

From the time I left home, I wrote long letters to my family, called "journals," carefully numbered for reference purposes. Although later, I finally became too busy to write such long letters, I still have copies of all of them up to 1933. They have helped me recall the succession of events in proper order and kept me from forgetting many interesting and important incidents that should not be overlooked. At times I in• elude an excerpt from a "journal "to make thehistorical aspect of it more vivid, or because the quotation is worth more than a digest of it.

While beginning with the first plans of the Woman's Board to establish a mission in South America, this account covers roughly the first ten years, beginning in 1928, the year in which the first public church services were held and the school opened for primary grades. Ten years later the Cauca Valley Presbytery had been organized and the first building of the Colegio Americana constructed. Also in 1938, the first ministerial ordinations took place in Colombia. All of us considered this event to be the high point of our mission work to that time.

I left Colombia in 1942; nevertheless, with the help of records and some of the workers on the field now, I have prepared a kind of epilogue in capsule form. This epilogue includes a brief account of the regrettable period in Colombia known as the Violence (1948-56) at which time our church suffered irreparably. It also points out the growth and achievements made to the present by the work in Colombia through the leadership of dedicated North Americans and Colombians.

My purpose in writing this narrative, besides documenting the events themselves, is to show that being a pioneer missionary was both discouraging and challenging, that our years of service had their moments of fun as well as frustration; that though the time was full of much hard work, it was supremely rewarding. Above all, I want to show that God kept his promise to be with us always; that many of those whom we led to Christ became such dedicated Christians that they interpreted Christ's teachings to us missionaries in a way that we had never known.

It is my hope that those who read this story will also become better Christians for having learned from the example of those Colombians who became loyal co-workers for good in our mission. May all who read about this report of God's work be glad that our Church, through Christ, made it all possible.

Bernice Barnett Gonzalez, Kansas City, Missouri 1981

Bernice Barnett Gonzalez was born March 1, 1903, in Lawton, Oklahoma and united with the Chapel Hill Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Odessa, Missouri in 1916. She was educated in the public schools of Odessa and graduated from Bethel College with a B.A. and George Peabody College with an M .A. She has done further graduate study at Vanderbilt University, the University of Missouri at Kansas City, and at Middlebury College in Vermont. She is the mother of two sons and one daughter. From 1928 to 1942, she was a missionary in Cali, Colombia, serving as evangelist, teacher, and administrator. Or­dained by the Lexington Presbytery in 1934, Mrs. Gonzalez was one of the three ministers who constituted the Cauca Valley Presbytery at its organization in 1935.