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Madriz Bolaños, Obedience to God Requires Decolonization 125 

 

 

Obedience to God Requires Decolonization:  

Reflections of a Practitioner  
 

Maria Fernanda (Mafer) Madriz Bolaños 
 

 
 

Before commenting on CRDA’s special issue on 

decolonization, I want briefly to explain the lenses 

through which I am reading. I'm not an expert on 

decolonization and I am not an academic. Instead, I am 

a practitioner who has worked at Compassion 

International in Central America for close to twenty 

years. The roles I have had have been different and 

varied; some have been in direct implementation, and 

others have involved supporting local church partners 

so they can implement the program. A lot of my time 

has been serving in a regional role and most of my day-

to-day work involved taking the big strategy for 

standards developed by our headquarters and 

mediating and bridging that perspective with the 

different contexts and nuances and perspectives of our 

local country teams. Now, more recently, I have served 

in a global role and have lots of learning and lots of work 

to do. I was born and grew up in Guatemala, in a 

marginal community, in poverty. Even though I was not 

subjected to it myself, I nevertheless witnessed the 

discrimination that my fellow Guatemalans of 

indigenous descent suffered, a reality that continues to 

the present day.  

Reading this special issue as a non-expert on this 

topic provided me with space to reflect and gave me 

language and additional definitions. I think I'm in a 

better place now to identify areas in my own work where 

more intentional work is needed. The articles all 

conclude that the importance about decolonizing 

international development lies in the image of God, 

imago deo, that all human beings are created equal and 

in the image of God. The core question we need to 

answer is — Are we going to accept this truth and are we 

going to take action?  Are we convinced enough to act 

on it? We could also argue that localization, when 

solutions are developed locally, is more effective, more 

relevant in the context and more likely to be sustained 

over time. But it's very clear to us that decolonization is 

important, because it is an act of obedience to God. It 

goes beyond mere effectiveness. This work is also 

important because, as we're seeking to do justice in our 

work and humbly obey God, he transforms us. We get 

a truthful understanding of who we are, and then we are 

able to perceive and participate in God's plan for 

reconciling the world to himself. He's the protagonist 

and the owner of the plan, and we have the privilege of 

joining him in what he's already doing in the 

communities we seek to serve.  

I want to underscore practical lessons that I got, 

especially from the articles about MCC, Tearfund, and 

ANADESA. Their journeys and collective efforts bring 

valuable insights for all of us in the realm of 

international development. The first such insight is that 

these organizations created spaces for reflection on the 

Word of God with regard to their mission and their 

approach to mission. They were willing to struggle with 

the tough questions. Some of these questions are—

What are the primary interests we are concerned with? 

Who has the power in decision-making in this 

relationship? Which voices do we hear most often? 

What is our role in what God is doing in the 

communities where we want to serve? As a result of 

their commitment and their openness to be shaken by 

scripture, all three organizations achieved deeper and 

clearer understandings of their mission and the 

meaning of justice.  

The other important practice to highlight is that 

clear understanding moved them to take action, and 

they moved from direct implementation and central 

design to accompaniment and localized design. As a 

result, they witnessed increased partner confidence and 

institutional capacity in their partners. One of the 

organizations, Tearfund, made changes to their 

organizational structure to include more voices from 

the majority world in the board and executive roles. As 

a result, they experienced more diverse voices, both in 

setting the agenda and enriching debate. These 

organizations also let go of some extreme biases. They 

became willing to accept that they didn’t know 

everything and became more open to local tools and 

approaches. As a result, they were able to see more 

creative solutions, mixing local Global South 

perspectives with Global North perspectives, and also 

were able to support them and promote the use of 

locally developed tools. Finally, these organizations 

were humble, but they were also bold enough to 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 5(2), Winter 2024  
 

Madriz Bolaños, Obedience to God Requires Decolonization 126 

 

acknowledge where they needed to decolonize their 

work and take action.  

I was especially impressed with the article about 

ANADESA and MCC, and I want to highlight some of 

their significant insights. ANADESA is an Indigenous 

community development entity located in Santiago 

Atitlan, Guatemala. They started working with MCC as 

a partner right around the time when MCC was moving 

away from direct implementation and toward 

partnership and accompaniment. As part of their 

journey, it became evident to MCC that ANADESA 

did very transformative development work, but in 

unique ways, ways that were nevertheless very effective 

in their context. ANADESA also talked about their 

work in unique ways. Their leaders and staff gradually 

changed their story and their narrative from talking 

about needs and lacks to a conversation about human 

rights, worth, and vision. They were now able to push 

back on MCC and express their preferences as an 

institution and in partnership. Finally, it is encouraging 

to learn how ANADESA’s female staff were able to 

identify when they were being subject to coloniality, the 

legacy of colonialism, and discrimination by their fellow 

Indigenous male colleagues who were leaders of their 

organization at the time. Because they had a truth-based 

view of who they were and a vision for what their 

organization should be or what they what they wanted it 

to be, they put a plan into action to change the 

leadership, and they were able to get accompaniment 

and support from their partner MCC to see it become 

a reality. This is particularly exciting, because one can 

see how the women internalized the truth that all 

humans are created in the image of God, which gave 

them confidence to be able to identify and overcome 

coloniality within their own community and 

organization.  

Contemplating the future of decolonization, I 

believe we will fail to progress unless our organizations 

spend time in the Word thinking about mission, but 

also bring in more diverse voices from the majority 

world to set the agenda for these conversations. I also 

believe that this needs to be done alongside an effort to 

bring donors and funders with us on the journey of 

understanding God’s truth about equality and justice. 

 
 

 

Maria Fernanda (Mafer) Madriz Bolaños directs 

Compassion International’s partnership efforts 

focused on mobilizing and strengthening the capacity 

of local church partners. 

 

Author email: mmadriz@compassion.com. 
 

mailto:mmadriz@compassion.com

