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Friends United Meeting |
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May 2002
News from Friends United Meeting
Staff Changes at FUM
Maxine Nash has been appointed to serve as Assistant Director of World Ministries beginning April, 2002. Maxine Nash served for six months as a lab technician at the Lugulu Hospital in Kenya where she also made a significant contribution to the administration of the hospital. She has attended Dewart Lake Friends, Indiana Yearly Meeting, Hesper Friends, Iowa Yearly Meeting and Reedwood Friends, Northwest Yearly Meeting.
After Dennis Mills returned to the United States following a strenuous trip to Ramallah, Palestine, and various sites in Kenya, FUM announced that he will not be continuing in the position as Director of World Ministries. Maxine Nash will give leadership to World Ministries for the immediate future.
Additional staff appointments include Terri Johns in charge of Quaker Life's circulation and subscriptions, Kathy Sawyer filling the newly created marketing associate position for Friends United Press and Quaker Life, and Kim Schull, part time bookkeeper.
2002 VBS Mission Project: Classrooms in Samburu
Friends United Meeting's 2002 Vacation Bible School Missions Project is the building and equipping of two new classrooms at Lotulelei Friends Mission Primary School in Samburu. The school, located at Samburu Friends Mission Center, has primary school classrooms from standard 1 to 6. New classrooms are needed for standards 7 and 8 next year and the following year for the students who are moving up into these classes.
The cost for the buildings, furnishings, and equipment will be around $5,000 U.S. Your contributions through FUM's 2002 VBS Missions Project will help provide the classrooms. The money will also boost the Samburu economy since the project will use local materials and labor.
Classroom curriculum for FUM's 2002 VBS Mission Project is available at no charge from Friends United Meeting. We will mail a copy of the curriculum to your meeting by the first week of May. Materials for five class sessions include instructions for the teacher, maps and worksheets for students. Students will learn about the Samburu culture, the Friends Samburu Mission and how they can help. We've designed the packet for use as Vacation Bible School curriculum; however, any part of the curriculum could also supplement another VBS curriculum of your choice or fit into regular Sunday School classes.
Samburu Friends Mission, which includes Lotulelei Friends Mission Primary School, is located in Samburu District in the Rift Valley Province of Kenya, East Africa. It began its services and ministry as an FUM field project in 1985 under the leadership of Isaiah Bikokwa, a graduate of Friends Theological College, Kaimosi.
Last year, students and adults in yearly meetings associated with FUM contributed more than $7,000 for playground equipment at the Ramallah Friends Schools through FUM's 2001 VBS Mission Project. We thank you in advance for supporting education in Samburu through this year's project.
A CPT Delegation to the West Bank
By Ben Richmond
"CPT!" came a call in the gathering dusk.
Frank and I were walking in the central part of Hebron as part of a Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) two-week delegation to the Middle East in February. It was our first time finding our way on our own and the streets were deserted since the markets shut at dusk. I tried to ignore the call.
"CPT! CPT!" The cry was more persistent so we allowed the man to catch up. He was wearing a suit and behind him was a woman in traditional Muslim head covering, carrying an infant with two young children trailing behind.
I suppose the distinctive red caps worn by Christian Peacemaker Team members had given away our identity. We explained we were trying to get to the CPT team's apartment. "Is this the way?" we asked, focused on our own need.
"Yes, yes," the man indicated and pulled us into a side street I was pretty sure was not the way we wanted to go at all. Our lack of Arabic and his lack of English made communication difficult, but the word "soldiers" was clear enough. The ubiquitous invitation to have "coffee" sounded reassuring! In the growing dark, the family took us through narrow streets, down black alleyways until finally they turned into an arched doorway and went up stairs to what was clearly their home. A few gestured directions and we were within a few hundred yards of the CPT apartment.
Without knowing what we were doing, Frank and I had participated in an act of "accompaniment." That family had been caught away from home when a curfew was imposed on their part of the city. The back alley route had avoided a sandbagged watch post they would normally have passed on the way to their apartment. Walking with them through the deserted streets gave me an insight into the fear ordinary Palestinians experience under occupation and the important role international monitors play in a situation where the balance of power is so heavily weighed against them. It also spoke volumes for the trust the small band of CPT long-term team members had built with the Palestinians in Hebron.
During four of the five days we were in Hebron, the central part of the city was under a twenty-four-hour curfew. Curfew means the Palestinians living in the central part of the city cannot leave their homes, while the 520 Israel settlers, the 3,000 soldiers sent there to protect them and other internationals such as CPT members have free use of the streets. Palestinian shopkeepers next to the CPT apartment could not open their businesses; owners of chicken coops next door could not get out to tend their flocks. Just up the road, however, the Jewish market bustled. This erratic treatment leads to a fragmentation in Palestinian society.
The delegation experience was an intensive course in the political situation. We met with a wide variety of Jewish and Palestinian peace and human-rights organizations, plus a smattering of individuals, such as: the Spirit-filled Palestinian pastor of the House of Bread Church in Bethlehem, wh prayed with us for peace and justice; the self-described moderate leader in the Jewish settlement of Efrat who spoke of his willingness to live at peace with Palestinians on the land but also characterized Arafat as a crazed sociopath personally responsible for the murder of 10,000 Jews; the Islamist journalist who reminded us that the last words of the Prophet were, "Be kind to the people of the Book"; the secular Zionist living in West Jerusalem whose greatest fear is that without a written constitution Israel will fall under the rule of rabbis setting up the halacha in ironic parallel to the Islamic rule of the mullahs. He urged withdrawal of all settlements with a policy of unilateral walled separation between Israel and most of the occupied territories. We met Jewish and Palestinian groups that have worked valiantly to build nonviolent resistance to the occupation, but for the most part, they expressed little hope for a resolution. They look to the outside world to intervene.
I came away with a new awareness that since the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin, the Oslo peace process has been used by Israel to consolidate its occupation of the West Bank through doubling settlements and a massive system of bypass roads (which serve as military security barriers between Palestinian territories), roadblocks and checkpoints plus an astonishing system of zoning laws, building and work permits, agricultural land use regulations and arbitrary military powers. Collective punishment and closure (in violation of Geneva Conventions) have combined in what Palestinians described to us as the "silent transfer"—an attempt to force Palestinians to disappear.
Bret and I had the opportunity to stay overnight in the home of a Muslim family. They remain in central Hebron despite the curfew, the father's loss of his business as a driver when his car was smashed by settlers who live next to their home and being offered lots of money to sell their home to the settlers. Their sixteen-year-old son (an avid computer game player) asserted that simply by continuing to live here, they are resisting the occupation. The next morning, we accompanied him as he evaded a group of soldiers on his way to school.
Early one Sunday morning, I went for a walk in the Old City of Jerusalem. A group of Israeli soldiers near the Damascus Gate was stopping Palestinian men for ID checks. In consequence of listening to experienced members of the CPT team in Hebron over the previous week, I knew enough to walk past the soldiers but stop and watch what was going on from about 20 yards away.
In succession, three young men were stopped. Two were released, but three soldiers continued questioning the third. Two additional soldiers came over and very soon, one of the new soldiers raised his arm and slapped the man on the face. He was about to strike a second time when I advanced a few paces and said loudly, "Hey, why are you doing that?"
The soldier lowered his arm and said something in Hebrew to me, to which I responded, "You don't need to do that." He and his buddy left the group and walked past me through the Gate. I continued to watch and one of the other soldiers said something to me in Hebrew, signaling with his arms that he wanted me to leave. But I continued to watch. In another minute or so, the soldiers released the man and the incident was over.
As we walked out through the Damascus Gate together, the Palestinian and I soon determined that he spoke no English and I no Arabic. At the top of the steps we parted with a handshake. What struck me was that he was somewhere in age between that of my two sons, age 17 and 20. I couldn't help thinking what emotional scars they would carry from an encounter like that. But this was a minor experience, common to life under occupation.
The soldiers, too, were of the same age. In the last week, six of their own were killed at a checkpoint north of Ramallah. No one should be in these positions, particularly children. I'm glad that by my presence, I was able to call forth the better conscience of the Israeli soldier, and I pray this little intervention might be a spark of hope for the Palestinian boy.
Following the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon last September, I helped write some of FUM's statements of our belief that war is not the answer to these crimes. That is simple faithfulness to the teaching of Jesus, but many have challenged us by asking, "So what would you do?" The active non-violence of Christian Peacemaker Teams is part of that response.
Mennonites, Brethren and Friends developed CPT following a speech by Ron Sider at the Mennonite World Conference in 1984. He said:
"Those who believed in peace through the sword have not hesitated to die....
"Unless we...are ready to start to die by the thousands in dramatic vigorous new exploits for peace and justice, we should sadly confess that we never really meant what we said, and we dare never whisper another word about pacifism to our sisters and brothers in those desperate lands filled with injustice. Unless we are ready to die developing new nonviolent attempts to reduce conflict, we should confess that we never really meant that the cross was an alternative to the sword."
Ron is quoted in the foreword to Hebron Journal: Stories of Nonviolent Peacemaking (Herald Press, 2001, 301 pages, $17.99), a book by Art Gish about his experiences working with CPT in Hebron during the last five years. It is a marvelous window into this extraordinary experiment in violence reduction and advocacy.
Friends United Meeting is a sponsor of Christian Peacemaking Teams. To
join a delegation or learn more about their long-term team members and
reserve corps, contact:
Christian Peacemaker Teams
Box 6508
Chicago, IL 60680-6508
(312) 455-1199
E-mail: cpt@igc.org
http://www.prairienet.org/cpt/
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Copyright (c) 2002 Friends United Meeting
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