Henriette Thompson, director of The Anglican Church of Canada’s General Synod Partnerships Department, attended the recent Americas Conference on Mutual Responsibility and Mission. There she had an opportunity to hear and record the story of a fellow delegate, Enrique Espinosa Bentancor.
In 1972, Enrique worked in Bao, a unionized soap factory in Montevideo when one day he was rounded up with others simply for belonging to a union. The state deemed him (and an estimated 6,000 other people) to be threats.
The next 10 years of Enrique’s life consisted of deprivation and torture in a prison and town ironically named Libertad (Liberty). For the first 10 months of his detention, he was hooded and tortured most days depending on the information he was willing to divulge to the prison guards. To Enrique the extreme violence and brutality of his captors was unanticipated. He suffered prolonged blackouts. He was beaten so brutally that he lost sight in his left eye.
Yet, he resolved to hold himself together by concentrating on his responsibility not to “confess” about fellow union members. In his mind, he reconstructed books, movies, stories, and conversations from the past, and then reinvented them endlessly. He recalled an ineffable Presence that sustained him and prevented him from hating his captors. The palpable spirit of Jesus as his companion comforted and strengthened him.
Read more about Enrique Espinosa Bentancor here.
Read more on the Five Marks of Mission here.
Read the Conference of the Americas and Caribbean Communique here.