Mission Co-workers visit First Christian Church in La Grande, Oregon

Alexandro Maldonado-Lizardi and Xiomara Cintron-Garcia, mission co-workers from Colombia, visited our First Christian Church in La Grande, Oregon, on Sunday, August 24, 2025. Below is the newsletter article from First Christian Church about their visit.

Alexandro Maldonado-Lizardi and Xiomara Cintron-Garcia visited our church on Sunday, August 24th. They are a delightful couple and brought enthusiasm to their presentations. During the sermon time, they gave us a lot of information about their four years of work in Colombia and took a Q and A period during the potluck following.

Shirley Cook hosted the couple on Friday and Saturday nights and took them to the Farmer’s Market, library, and Art Center East on Saturday morning. Alex and Xiomara were delighted with Shirley’s artistic skills, especially her painted gourds.

Xiomara spoke a lot about the dangers women and girls face in Colombia. A lot of girls don’t attend school because of the real possibility of being sexually abused on the way. So, many people in Colombia can’t read or write, especially women.

Both Xiomara and Alex talked about having to change their presentations at meetings in Colombia when they learned that the majority of the attendees couldn’t read or write. Xiomara told of a time when she had wanted the women in her meeting to write reactions to her message. She had them draw their responses instead. She said that the women enthusiastically responded to that.

Alexandro talked about his work of getting various groups to work together. He told of one three-day meeting he attended, where former members of a powerful gang met with some of their former victims. Some of the victims had lost family members to the gang, and others had been sexually assaulted by them. The first day focused on the gang members, the second day on the victims, and the third day on discussions between the two sides. There was a lot of reconciliation and forgiveness given on the third day. Also, Alex spoke about the problems of getting different Christian groups to work together.

I especially want to thank Larry and Karen Campbell for allowing Hank and me to use their car to travel to the Tri-Cities airport twice. I also want to thank Linda Minnich, Judy Lucius, Shirley Cook, and Debby Riggle (among others) for helping with the potluck set-up and clean-up. Lastly, thanks to Pastor Archie and our church for allowing us to connect with Global Ministries and pursue hosting this event.

     – Cheryl Hudson, World Outreach Chair