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hi folks,
we were really privileged at our church, last
friday night, to host a 'Peacebuiding dinner'. it was a joint effort
by PPBI (more below), UnitingJustice Australia and our
congregation.
the alan walker college of evangelism has been
running what's become known as Pacific Peace Building Initiatives
(PPBI) which has been (and still is) a 7 week course covering practical training
in building peace. it has focussed on empowering people working in
volatile situations in their efforts to make peace in their contexts. many
of the participants were the official 'guests' of the evening, but in the way of
these things, i suspect that we hosts received more of a blessing that we might
ever have imagined.
i'm telling you all this because i'm keen for
people to know just how powerful an experience it was for all of us who
attended.
firstly, the keynote address was given by rev.
elenie poulos and i asked her if i could post the text of her speech to some
lists. her speech was titled 'Peacemaking: Why the church cares'. it
can be found at http://nat.uca.org.au/unitingjustice/issues/peace/index.htm
and i highly recommend taking the few minutes out of your busy days to meditate
on her words.
we also heard from rev. ian stehbens about the
background to the course being established and his own experience of 'making
peace in our backyards' - the backyard, he approached as both the place in which
he grew up as well as the issues facing our pacific neighbours.
we were able to sit at table with sisters and
brothers from pacific islands and hear, albeit far too briefly, of their stories
of struggle and hope. the woman whose job it is to walk into warring
factions and ask them to lay down their arms. or re. miriam arthur who is
responsible for children's ministry in Bougainville, which means between 3 and
4,000 children, but the church has no money so she and her husband serve as
volunteers - she told us a little about a time she heard that BRA were coming in
the morning, 'grasscutting' through her village - a term used to mean that
anything that was alive when the forces swept through would be chopped into
pieces.
one of our members wrote the ministry team an email
which said:
"It's a pity
that the whole church (not just West Epping) seems to know so
little about the very serious work that the church is involved with, and the real contribution that we can make helping/supporting the local people achieve true reconciliation. It's sad that we can spend so much energy on issues which seem to have no possible means of resolution, and which can divide us so deeply, and so little effort on the things that unite us and are the very things that we are called upon as Christians to do --- help people know the love of Christ. There seem to be so many ways that we can demonstrate the love of God, and make a difference in our neighbours' lives." i've just been really encouraged by the experience
and figure that stories of hope are worth sharing. this is a story of hope
for me because in a time where we seem to want to spend most of our time and
energy on the things that divide us, people are willing to risk their lives in
places where arguments over ordination are a luxury they can't afford.
with the venom and emotional energy that has been spent on such topics in recent
weeks we have dropped the ball - focussing on the things that really matter -
and i really appreciated the chance to be reminded to keep my eye on the
ball.
so, i'm thankful to God for the
reminder.
:-)
kent
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Rev. Kent Crawford West Epping Uniting Church 61 2 9868 3574 61 2 9868 5339 (fax) [EMAIL PROTECTED] (email) www.soulsearch.ws (web) |
