“But he had to go through Samaria” (John 4:4). These words from John’s Gospel took on new meaning during my five years of mission in Ethiopia as a Comboni Missionary Sister. Like Jesus who deliberately chose to cross the “dangerous” territory of Samaria, I too had to cross my cultural and religious prejudices to truly encounter the Other.
When I arrived in Ethiopia, I carried with me—unconsciously—that colonial mentality that considers the West as center and everything else as periphery. Ethiopia, however, taught me something extraordinary: here Christianity has never been an external import. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church traces its roots to the fourth century, when King Ezana converted through the influence of two Syrian Christian brothers, Frumentius and Aedesius.
The Christian Heritage I Didn’t Know
Discovering the richness of Ethiopian Christian tradition was like finding a hidden treasure. The rock-hewn monasteries, the manuscripts in Ge’ez, the liturgical celebrations lasting for hours: everything spoke of a faith as ancient as ours, but expressed in forms that initially appeared “different” to me and therefore, I admit with humility, less valid.
It was while reading the account of the Samaritan woman at the well that I understood my error. Like the disciples who were amazed to see Jesus speaking with a Samaritan woman—”Why are you speaking with her?” (John 4:27)—I too wondered why I should dialogue with Christian expressions so different from mine.
The answer came from Jesus’ own words to the woman: “Neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem… but in spirit and truth” (John 4:21,23). The place of encounter with God is not bound to a specific cultural or liturgical tradition, but to the sincerity of heart.
The Comboni Charism in Dialogue
Saint Daniel Comboni understood this principle when he wrote: “Save Africa with Africa”. It wasn’t about imposing Western models, but about recognizing the seeds of the Word already present in local cultures and helping them flourish.
My experience in Ethiopia showed me how urgent it is to apply this principle to interreligious and intercultural dialogue. When I began studying Ethiopian theology, I discovered that many of their spiritual insights enriched my understanding of faith, just as the Samaritan woman enriched Jesus’ understanding through their dialogue.
From Monologue to Dialogue
For too long, mission has been understood as monologue: we who bring truth to those who lack it. But the encounter at Jacob’s well teaches us otherwise. Jesus not only teaches, but learns; he not only gives, but receives. The Samaritan woman becomes his interlocutor, not merely a recipient.
I experienced this transformation personally when, instead of seeing Ethiopian Christians as “needing correction,” I began to recognize them as brothers and sisters in faith with specific gifts to offer the universal Church. Their ascetic traditions, their theology of incarnation, their liturgical spirituality: all of this enriched my journey of faith.
The Space of Dialogue
In the language of spatial theory that I studied, Jacob’s well represents what is called “Third Space”—a place of encounter that belongs neither to one nor the other, but emerges from the encounter itself. It is here that true transformation occurs.
In Ethiopia, I found this space in daily life: in the marketplace, in celebrations, in moments of shared prayer with Christians from different traditions. It is in these “marginal” spaces that the deepest understandings and most authentic exchanges are born.
As a Comboni missionary, I learned that my calling is not to bring God to others, but to recognize where God is already present and working in their lives, their cultures, their religious traditions.
An Invitation to the Church
The twenty-first century Church urgently needs this paradigm of dialogical mission. The world is increasingly interconnected; migrations create unprecedented encounters between different cultures and religions. We can no longer afford to think in terms of “us” and “them,” of center and periphery.
The Ethiopian experience taught me that when we abandon our prejudices and open ourselves to genuine dialogue, we don’t lose our identity but enrich it. Like Jesus who, at the end of his encounter with the Samaritan woman, is recognized as “Savior of the world” (John 4:42), we too, through encounter with the other, can discover unprecedented dimensions of God’s mystery.
The Mystical Dimension
The encounter at Jacob’s well reveals something profound about the nature of mission itself. It is not primarily about doing something for the world, but about being with the world in a way that expresses God’s very life—the missio Dei. This requires what I call a “liminal epistemology”—a way of knowing that emerges precisely at the boundaries, where our certainties are stretched and our hearts are opened to fresh possibilities.
The journey to the margins, like Jesus’ journey through Samaria, is not merely a physical displacement but an existential pilgrimage to that liminal space beyond our boundaries—ethnic, cultural, religious—where our minds and hearts are expanded. Neither Jesus nor the Samaritan woman remained unchanged after their encounter: Jesus is later identified as a Samaritan (John 8:48), and the woman leaves her jar behind at the well (John 4:28), suggesting her transformation.
Living the Encounter Today
Jacob’s well still exists today, in every place where we choose to encounter the other not as an object of evangelization, but as a subject of dialogue. It is there that, like the Samaritan woman, we leave our jar—symbol of our prejudices—to run and proclaim that we have encountered the Lord in a new and unexpected way.
In our globalized world, where Christians from ancient Eastern churches migrate to Western countries and Western missionaries serve in lands with deep Christian roots, we are called to recognize that the boundaries we once took for granted are being redrawn. The “center” and “periphery” of Christianity are being reimagined, and this presents both challenges and unprecedented opportunities for authentic encounter.
The postcolonial understanding of mission I discovered through my studies and experience demands humility—the sine qua non condition for respecting and appreciating someone else’s culture and religious expressions. It requires us to establish symmetrical relationships based on equal partnership, where mutual exchanges in the “marginality” of daily life become catalysts for transformation that bears traces of God’s dream for unity and reconciliation.
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Laura Diaz Barco, CMS
