Hello Friends #3
Greetings. I know that this letter is coming to you fairly soon after the last letter. However, the urgency of the war situation has made me feel I need to get this out to you; it is to encourage us to commit ourselves to pray for peace. Your honest feed back on these sharings are always appreciated.
The dialog which we held last Sunday, titled “War? Peace? What Do We Do Now?” went really well. The participants felt so good about it that when a 70-year-old vet suggested having another discussion on Sunday March 2, only positive comments were offered in spite of people’s busy schedules. The dialog was held in an Open Space format. The results were not quite what I had hoped for, but I understand that Open Space formats usually have the outcomes that the participants had been hoping for and not what the leadership tried to direct. If you want to find out more about how Open Space works go to http://www.openspaceworld.com/users_guide.htm
Below is a proposal that my discussion group in the dialog came up with, which I would like to invite you to participate in if you are so moved.
Uniting in prayer - Jim Fitz
Proposal: Invite persons to commit themselves to praying for peace.
Is any one interested in working in your churches and organizations or participating personally by:
·Making announcements about Uniting in Prayer for peace
·Talking personally to friends in or out of your congregation
·Talk to people you know in other churches about them organizing in their churches
Simply invite persons to make whatever commitment they want to praying for peace, once a week, month or day, and give the number of minutes they wish to commit themselves to. I would let participants know the number of participants and the amount of committed time so as to encourage each other. If there are things from this experience you would like to share with other participants let me know and I will try to see that they are shared with other participants.
Join us by emailing or calling me. [Jim Fitz fitzfamily6@juno.com 815-646-4672].
Let this be your invitation to do this -- either to just participate personally and or do some of the above. I'll just wait and see if I get any response from you. I will be the first. I commit myself to one minute a day to pray for peace. I started yesterday, and found to my surprise one minute was not enough; I continued to pray for five minutes.
Peacemaking continues in Colombia. I recently got a letter from a fellow CPT trainee who is in Colombia, saying that things are calm in the Opon. There are only 4 CPTer's there now because others can't get visas. There has not been much activity by armed groups in the last two weeks, something I praise the Lord for. He also said he would appreciate it when I could come to help; this makes me want to go. As of now I have no specific plans to go to Colombia.
I am planning to go to Valle Nuevo, El Salvador, our sister community, from March 15-March 23. I have also been encouraged to consider going to Valle Nuevo during the month of June, to help them work on some difficulties.
My sense is that the war makers have an uphill battle; I think war can be averted and an important part of that is our acting and praying for peace.
3/2/03, just finished the Dialog, only 11 people come,but it still was real worth while, had some good discussion and made a plan of action to gather together support for putting an ad for peace in the local paper. The participants felt the situation is so serious they decided to gather again next week, for dialog and follow up on the action.
Just a quick note that Gary Dean and Neil Horning have decided to take on managing the farm here.They have ask me to consider running the Ready Pick part of the Strawberry sales, and I am considering that depending on what develops as far as peacemaking work.
Greetings. I know that this letter is coming to you fairly soon after the last letter. However, the urgency of the war situation has made me feel I need to get this out to you; it is to encourage us to commit ourselves to pray for peace. Your honest feed back on these sharings are always appreciated.
The dialog which we held last Sunday, titled “War? Peace? What Do We Do Now?” went really well. The participants felt so good about it that when a 70-year-old vet suggested having another discussion on Sunday March 2, only positive comments were offered in spite of people’s busy schedules. The dialog was held in an Open Space format. The results were not quite what I had hoped for, but I understand that Open Space formats usually have the outcomes that the participants had been hoping for and not what the leadership tried to direct. If you want to find out more about how Open Space works go to http://www.openspaceworld.com/users_guide.htm
Below is a proposal that my discussion group in the dialog came up with, which I would like to invite you to participate in if you are so moved.
Uniting in prayer - Jim Fitz
Proposal: Invite persons to commit themselves to praying for peace.
Is any one interested in working in your churches and organizations or participating personally by:
·Making announcements about Uniting in Prayer for peace
·Talking personally to friends in or out of your congregation
·Talk to people you know in other churches about them organizing in their churches
Simply invite persons to make whatever commitment they want to praying for peace, once a week, month or day, and give the number of minutes they wish to commit themselves to. I would let participants know the number of participants and the amount of committed time so as to encourage each other. If there are things from this experience you would like to share with other participants let me know and I will try to see that they are shared with other participants.
Join us by emailing or calling me. [Jim Fitz fitzfamily6@juno.com 815-646-4672].
Let this be your invitation to do this -- either to just participate personally and or do some of the above. I'll just wait and see if I get any response from you. I will be the first. I commit myself to one minute a day to pray for peace. I started yesterday, and found to my surprise one minute was not enough; I continued to pray for five minutes.
Peacemaking continues in Colombia. I recently got a letter from a fellow CPT trainee who is in Colombia, saying that things are calm in the Opon. There are only 4 CPTer's there now because others can't get visas. There has not been much activity by armed groups in the last two weeks, something I praise the Lord for. He also said he would appreciate it when I could come to help; this makes me want to go. As of now I have no specific plans to go to Colombia.
I am planning to go to Valle Nuevo, El Salvador, our sister community, from March 15-March 23. I have also been encouraged to consider going to Valle Nuevo during the month of June, to help them work on some difficulties.
My sense is that the war makers have an uphill battle; I think war can be averted and an important part of that is our acting and praying for peace.
3/2/03, just finished the Dialog, only 11 people come,but it still was real worth while, had some good discussion and made a plan of action to gather together support for putting an ad for peace in the local paper. The participants felt the situation is so serious they decided to gather again next week, for dialog and follow up on the action.
Just a quick note that Gary Dean and Neil Horning have decided to take on managing the farm here.They have ask me to consider running the Ready Pick part of the Strawberry sales, and I am considering that depending on what develops as far as peacemaking work.
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