Last year our new International Seek Facilitator, Oscar Suárez, joined Mennonite Central Committee General Orientation in Akron, Pennsylvania. I’ve been meaning to share Oscar’s section from a MCC article about some of the people from around the world joined orientation. Please find it below and read the full article on the MCC website.

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Whether through his work as part of a global group of young Anabaptist leaders for Mennonite World Conference or his year in the U.S. through MCC’s 2018-2019 International Volunteer Exchange Program (IVEP), Oscar Suárez, who is from Ibagué, Colombia, has prized the chance to connect across cultures and to live out his Anabaptist faith.

So when a friend pointed out an MCC opening for an international facilitator to serve in Cambodia with the Seek program, a young adult program focused on service, discipleship training and cross-cultural sharing, Oscar was intrigued but not quite ready to act.

Then, in April 2024, at a meeting of IVEP alumni in Bogotá, Colombia’s capital city, memories of his time with MCC and MWC – of crossing cultures, of being part of a global team – came rushing back.

“Being able to connect with people with different languages, with different faith traditions, I wanted this again,” he says.

Before the meeting ended, he had pulled out his phone and pushed send on an initial application for the MCC position.

He moved to Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital, in August, relishing the work of digging into Anabaptist theology and exploring ideas with the Seek team for learning and reflection. “I’m learning a lot,” he says.

That learning continued with MCC orientation in Akron in October, a deep dive into the organization. But the moment that moved him the most was when the group visited a nearby Material Resources Center, seeing cartons of MCC canned meat and hearing how meat was going out to places like Ukraine.

In Ibagué, his mom had helped with a project reaching out to displaced people. He’d seen those cans and knew the difference they could make.

Tears filled his eyes as he thought of those who would receive the meat. Not only would they have something to eat. “They will feel the love of God,” he says, “from people they don’t know.” He was struck by the work of the volunteers who had helped to can it, and of those across the world risking their lives to give it out.

“I was praying at that moment and saying, ‘Thank you God. This is where I want to be.’”