Jim's Peacemaking

--by Stewart Vriesinga "I thought you were dead! I had orders to kill you! I knew you were a good man –a man of integrity — and I couldn't carry out those orders, but I thought another one of my colleagues would!" –a demobilized paramilitary Reverend Salvador Alcántara, from Garzal township of Simití municipality in the southern Bolívar province, is a remarkable, exemplary and inspirational man. He is a husband, father, grandfather, pastor of a local church, farmer, president of the Garzal town council, and vice-president of ASPROAS – Association of Alternative Producers of Simití. That he is able to take on all these tasks and do them well has earned him the respect of both the larger community of Simití and his own smaller community of Garzal. His interpretation of his pastoral duties has led him to become involved in his community's struggle to stay on their lands in the face of constant threats of forced mass displacement. The much-heralded achievements of the Ur...

Hello friends, Over our cell group lunch Sharon Moriarty Doran shared how her father said, “...many cruel things in the course of one ten to fifteen minute conversation which left me in tears. He referred to my daughter and his granddaughter as a little sh*t, and how much pain it caused her emotionally. He brushed it off as just being funny remarks. This is the way he has always been, he will never change.” One of us said, “That is a lie, to believe he will never change; that keeps us in the same old rut. You need to let him know how it makes you feel with an “I statement”. He probably doesn’t realize the pain this is to you. Your not letting him know is enabling his negative ways to continue. If you do it, just let him know how it makes you feel, without accusing him, be gentle.” We then prayed together for the situation. That night Sharon wrote an email to her father trying to do the above. The next morning she received an email back in which he apologized, He had asked his wif...