Jim's Peacemaking

COLOMBIA: Letter from Carol Rose (edited for length) The week before last I visited a couple of villages that have been affected by US sponsored fumigations. While almost everyone agrees the growing of illicit crops in large amounts (coca) is problematic, the devastation caused by the generalized spraying of herbicides is devastating. I do mean generalized spraying--over homes and yards, over food crops, over schools and water sources. People are sick. Their legitimate sources of income wiped out. And the coca recovers with relative ease. So fumigation leaves communities even more dependant on the growing of coca. Three weeks ago a couple of men from the communities along the Opon River where CPT has our primary work were disappeared and are believed dead at this point. We're working on a worship service to help the community grieve. It's particularly hard when you're not sure about what happened and you have the armed group's reactions to worry about. This one was prob...

Sharing #7 The gift of the enemy The gift of the enemy is the theme of the 3 seminars I will be doing next week at the Cornerstone music and seminar Festival 7/1-5/03. Perhaps one of the most important question before us for our present time in history is how we will embrace the call to "Love our enemies", A good litmus test to evaluate our religious and political leaders is how do they embrace this hard teaching of Jesus. Jesus calls us to love our enemies, in order for us to be children of God, for God has it rain and shine on the good and evil and just and unjust alike. A point of solidarity with our enemies is in our common evil. We like they are a mix of good and evil, just and unjust. As we come to recognize these negative aspects of ourselves , do you notice how we tolerate and accept these things in ourselves? When we see this common ground with our enemies, then we can come to see our enemies sin much more objectively and even come to look at them with co...

Are our leaders ripe for Peace?? This has been a question I’ve been pondering lately. As I look at recent history, I see a pattern in Israeli leaders, one that I remember particularly starting with Begin in the 1970's. He started out very warrior--like, giving the impression he was going to straighten things out by using strong military force. He was going to fix those Palestinians once and for all. But after a few years he gradually began to sing a different tune. He came to see that military might just was not getting anywhere and began to question if all the bloodshed was worth anything. This all brought him to the point of talking with Arafat, which led to reconciliation that developed into an actual friendship between the two leaders. As you might remember, Begin was then assassinated, after which Arafat spent over an hour with Begin’s widow consoling her. She has remarked about the miracle it was when she came to appreciate Arafat and his compassion through this whole experie...

Thank you for your interest in being a part of bringing peace and justice to this hurting world. Christian Peacemaker Teams policy is that volunteers such as myself raise all of their own funds. Therefore, I depend on donations in order to give presentations to increase hope and encourage people to do their part to bring peace and justice to the world. I invite you to take part in this effort by praying for peace and/or making a donation. Make checks out to Jim's Peacemaking and send to : Jim's Peacemaking 723 Seward St Evanston, IL 60202 You can pay online: You can also donate with Paypal via a credit card or bank account . Ps. Again I ask you to please consider supporting this vital work to bring peace and justice to this hurting world. Thanks, Jim Due to present situation, donations are currently NOT tax deductible.  But donations are greatly appreciated to keep this peacemaking going.

Hello, here is a letter I sent to some newspapers, that articulates where my peacemaking journey has taken me to this point. It was printed in at least one of the local papers To the editor Peacemaker views Iraq war "Did you see all that?" he asked, his eyes filled with tears. "Did you see that little baby girl? I carried her body and buried it as best I could but I had no time. It really gets to me to see children being killed like this, but we had no choice." Martin's distress was in contrast to the bitter satisfaction of some of his fellow marines as they surveyed the scene. "The Iraqis are sick people and we are the chemotherapy," said Corporal Ryan Dupre. "I am starting to hate this country. Wait till I get hold of a friggin' Iraqi. No, I won't get hold of one. I'll just kill him." The London Times March 30, 2003 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-628258,00.html (free registration required) ...

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 ...