When heavy rains swept through northern Colombia and flooding began to rise around 27,000 families, the question was not whether the church would respond — but how quickly.

Tearfund has been working with churches in Córdoba and neighbouring Antioquia for years, supporting them in building the capacity to respond to community needs. When the floods came, that investment paid off. Local churches became shelters for displaced families, providing food, rest, faith support, and safety. Sonia Osorio, a Tearfund facilitator, turned her own home into a collection centre for aid. Young people from Tearfund's Latin America Youth Network were among the first to mobilise — some travelling by river to reach the communities that needed help most.

This is what Tearfund calls "the local church as the first responder" — not an abstract theological principle, but a lived reality. In Córdoba, when the water rose, the church was already there.

The story has a wider dimension too. Tearfund attended the UN climate summit COP30 to engage and mobilise churches on climate change advocacy, recognising that the flooding in Colombia is not an isolated event but part of a pattern of increasingly severe climate impacts that fall hardest on the world's most vulnerable communities. The church's response to immediate crisis and its advocacy for systemic change are two sides of the same coin.

Find out more and give at tearfund.org.