Jim's Peacemaking

Jim's Sharing #5 Warm greetings, friends, I just returned from seven days with our sister community Valle Nuevo in El Salvador. This visit included visiting with friends of many years, and also seeing signs of new growth. One of the most significant things was to find out about the big change in their internal relationships. It seems for years now they have been having trouble with bickering amongst themselves about how to proceed with titling the 265 acres of land we helped them buy. The bickering had made any progress almost impossible. Seems an act of God that they have been able to draw together the many factions of their leadership and come to agreement on major decisions like the land titling process. Many confirmed this new direction. At this point there have not been any concrete decisions, though things look more hopeful than they have in a long time. A major surprise to me was their concern about the war in Iraq, even though it doesn't directly affect them. Many,...

Jim Fitz and Jim Foxvog of Plow Creek helped get this ad run in the local papers. War with Iraq? According to top army and intelligence off cials, attacking Iraq is a bad idea. It won’t make us safer. It’s a distraction from the war on terrorism. It’ll alienate our closest allies. According to United Nations estimates, a war with Iraq will kill up to 500,000 innocent Iraqi civilians, and cost U.S. taxpayers as much as $1,600,000,000,000 Tough weapons inspections can disarm Saddam Hussein without costing a single life. That’s why over 90 U.S. city councils are saying: Inspections Work. War Won’t. “Successful disarmament of Iraq is possible without Baghdad’s active cooperation...” Hans Blix Chief UN Weapons Inspector Feb. 7, 2003 Reuters “All the generals see it the same way, and all the others who have never fired a shot, and are hot to go to war, see it another... We are about to do something that will ignite a fuse in this region that we will rue the day we ever ...

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 prop...

Friends #2 Hello, again. I’ve decided to try to write short updates of my peacemaking work every two-three weeks, as a way of keeping friends like you informed. If at any point you need to use the delete button because you are overwhelmed with e-mail, rest assured I will not be offended; I use it a lot myself. So, you can expect to receive a letter like this every few weeks. One thing that stands out for me lately is how central the teaching “ to love our enemies” is to peacemaking and the teachings of Jesus. This has led me to put George Bush and each of his cabinet members on my prayer list. Praying for them has been transforming me so that I can see them more as brothers and sisters and less as the evil opposition, as I previously have often seen them. Along with this has come the insight that we really all have the same goal in mind--peace--though we differ on the means. This has led me to think that there might be a space in which we can be in solidarity with each other. ...

Peacemaking Report #1 Hello Friends, This last month I participated in an intense training session for those who are planning to be part of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT). This is some sharing from my experience during the training that might interest you. Training was very intense and full. Much of the info was just introductory because of limited time, just giving us tastes of the subjects. We were encouraged to do more study later. One topic was racism. Training was located in a "rough" neighborhood -- police even stopped and informed us this was not a safe place to be. I become aware that when I walked down the street and I passed a stranger of color I often had a certain fear that was absent when the stranger was white. After going to church at the First Church of the Brethren, which is 80% black, I often asked for a ride to the training center. I began to notice how I always asked whites, so the last time I asked a black man. ...

Life, some say, is a journey. If my journey had to be characterized by one word, that word would be peace. Others have said the Journey of Life has both an inward and outward aspect. The inward part of my Peace Journey has been life long - in part, a heritage from my religious upbringing in an historic peace church. Growing in faithfulness to a disciplined practice of time set aside daily for prayer, scripture and other inspired reading, and listening for God has been a part of my life for at least the last 30 years. In 2003, my journey took a more outward turn toward following a call to a life of more full time peacemaking. Since then I have volunteered 2-3 months a year with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) in Colombia, South America . The presence of CPT gives protection from the threats of the paramilitaries and guerrillas to some 80 rural families. During the rest of each of those years, as invitations come, I have shared slide presentations about the work of CPT in Columbia, tryi...

Mennonite Central Committee is a relief, community development and peace organization with some 1000 workers in 53 countries. MCC is sponsored by Mennonite and Brethren in Christ churches. Go to http://mcc.org/acp/ to see examples from their magazine of the work they do. Click on “Involved” at the bottom of the page to find service opportunities. Christian Peacemaker Teams joins local partners to reduce violence through biblically based peacemaking and non-violent direct action in Iraq, Palestine, Colombia , and other places. Their address is http://www.cpt.org . Pray (or as some say, “Lift to the Light”) friends, enemies, government leaders, situations from local to global. Most days I spend over an hour daily interceding by just reading names of people and concerns I wrote in my prayer book. I have sensed that a real connection with these people takes place in this simple practice. It has become a time of meditation for me as well. Request a Presentation Make arrangements so I ...