Wear an orange shirt on September 30

This week’s writer is Miriam Sainnawap, co-coordinator of MCC Canada’s Indigenous Neighbours  Program.

The fourth annual Orange Shirt Day is taking place on September 30th — a day to commemorate the experiences of residential school survivors and their families. Wearing an orange shirt  when we gather is way to raise awareness of the legacy of the Indian Residential School System and build solidarity with the survivors.

Phyllis Webstad is a former survivor at St Joseph Mission (SJM) residential school and one of the leading founders of the Orange Shirt Day. The day is an outcome of her own story. When she was a young child, her grandmother bought her a shiny new orange shirt for school. The shirt was taken away on her first day of school at St. Joseph Mission. The first Orange Shirt Day was held in Williams Lake, BC in 2013. Phyllis’s story is a shared history for every survivor and their families: of something taken away, contributing to loss of language, culture and the sense of identity of who one is and where one belongs.

The intergenerational legacy of residential schools has left an imprint on families of every generation where many of us; including me, are on the journey of restoring our collective ties and knowledges within our respective Nations. We exemplify our resilience and strength, we are gracious people.

Every September 30th, I’m committed to wearing a orange shirt in honour of my family and friends,  my community and  all the survivors and intergenerational survivors, because they matter to me. As the slogan printed on my shirt says, “Every child matters.” Indeed, every child does matter.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission issued 94 Calls to Action, encouraging all Canadians to come to terms with the dark history of Canada’s residential schools system when children were taken away from their families. It is about dealing with the uncomfortable truths.

Canada is at a beginning point of the right relationship with Indigenous peoples. Honestly, we still have a long way to go and we’re not fully engaged enough to moving forward. The key is to have courage. We need each other, and we create momentum when we come together. in a spirit of mutual respect, responsibility and partnership.

MCC Canada staff on Orange Shirt Day, September 30, 2015.  MCC photo/Alison Ralph

Colombia’s long road to bread and peace

Angélica Rincón could not stop smiling. All around her, crowds of people cheered and waved signs, banners and Colombian flags. Rincón – like others who have worked with MCC Colombia’s partners [Justapaz] – had longed for this turning point toward peace for many years.

After nearly four years of negotiations, [a historic peace accord] effectively ended the longest-running armed conflict in the Western hemisphere. Fighting between diverse armed groups has killed some 260,000 people and displaced close to 7 million since 1958.  (Elizabeth Phelps, Saying goodbye to war and hello to peace in Colombia.)

Angélica Rincón of MCC partner Justapaz lights a candle for peace. Photo courtesy Anna Vogt

This week churches and community groups across Colombia will be marking the International Day of Peace – September 21.  For years churches, organizations and communities across Colombia, including many of MCC’s partners like Justapaz, have come together to celebrate this day with a call to action – calling for the basic necessities of life – Pan y Paz (Bread and Peace). A positive peace is more than a lack of armed conflict; it is a world where everyone has enough to eat and all are able to live without fear. On this day churches and communities march through the streets with candles, singing songs of hope and peace and offering bread to everyone they pass.

In September 2014, in my first blog post as policy analyst for the Ottawa Office and while still working in Colombia, I shared the hopes and dreams for peace of a small community just outside of Bogota, San Nicolas in Soacha. Residents of San Nicolas, especially the youth, have long felt the impacts of violence and threats of violence on a very regular basis.  After more than five decades of armed conflict, the cries ringing out from this community represent the cries from across Colombia – “We just want peace.”

The political context in Colombia is quite different in September 2016. After almost four years of peace talks, the Colombian government and the largest and longest running guerrilla group, the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC), have announced peace accords, coupled with a bilateral ceasefire and an action plan for implementation. The announcement of the ceasefire was made in late June – resulting in celebrations throughout the streets of Bogota – and the final agreement was reached by both parties at the end of August 2016, with the objective of signing the accords by the end of September.

The peace accords themselves follow the original agenda of the negotiations:

• Political participation in the national arena for the FARC;
• Agrarian reform aimed at supporting small-scale land owners and property rights;
• Greater investment in legal crops, creating incentives for farmers to disengage from the illicit economy;
• Commissions and special courts to hear directly from victims of the armed conflict;
• A roadmap to wide scale demobilization of the FARC, to be monitored by international bodies.

MCC workers, together with partners, celebrate the June 2016 announcement of coming peace accords.  Photos courtesy Anna Vogt

MCC’s partner organizations and staff, such as Justapaz, have worked tirelessly for years in the lead-up to negotiations, and connecting with communities and civil society as the talks progressed. But the work is hardly over.

One could say we are just beginning generations of work.

The first step is gaining approval from Colombians in a national plebiscite (referendum) to be held on October 2, 2016.

But  beyond this lies the challenge of turning the peace accords into reality. Although the announcement of accords was publicly celebrated in the streets of Bogota, how will the various regions respond to the post-accord era? Many critics claim past demobilization processes of other armed groups had significant problems. Will disarmament, support for development and recovery reach all corners of Colombia? And how can the government accommodate the needs and concerns of over 6 million victims of forced displacement? Critics of the accords also claim excessive leniency was granted to both FARC and government perpetrators. Plus, the roots of the 50+ year conflict run very deep, relating to longstanding inequality and access to land and resources. Finally, many Colombians are hesitant to trust this process, as several previous attempts by the FARC and the government to reach a sustainable peace agreement have failed.

Photo courtesy Anna Vogt

Despite the excitement around the peace agreement, MCC’s partners across the country, as reported by staff on the ground share many of these and other concerns. Integral peace goes beyond high level negotiations. Integral peace calls for a just society where everyone has access to sufficient food, resources and livelihoods; where everyone across the country can live in dignity and pursue their dreams; where people can live without fear or the imminent threat of violence.

As churches and communities mark September 21 this year, calling for Pan y Paz, my thoughts and prayers continue to follow the communities across the country, rural and urban, including Soacha, where communities and local leaders stand up for peace and justice, despite continuing challenges. My prayer is that this year’s Pan y Paz continues to reflect calls for peace and dignity throughout the communities of Colombia, as the country begins to move down the long and challenging road to peace.

By Rebekah Sears, policy analyst for the Ottawa Office

 

Pursue Peace: Recommendations for Canada’s International Assistance Review

Summer is typically a time for rest and relaxation in Ottawa. Parliamentarians head home to their ridings, and civil servants can, at least in theory, breathe a little easier.

Not this summer.

The government’s wheels have been turning madly these past few months. With public consultations launched on defence, immigration, missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, electoral reform, climate change, prison farms, Canada Post, innovation, accessible transportation, and the list goes on (check out the “Consulting with Canadians” website for the whole kit and caboodle), it’s been hard to keep it all straight!

All of this busy activity is, of course, very welcome. Particularly welcome for MCC and our civil society colleagues is the (rather historic) International Assistance Review, launched by Minister Bibeau on May 18th with the aim of creating an international assistance policy and funding framework that will “help the poorest and most vulnerable, and support fragile states, while advancing the implementation of the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development.”

Civil society has long been chomping at the bit for an opportunity like this.

As the most comprehensive examination of Canadian development policy in 20 years, this public review—launched with an accompanying Discussion Paper—provides the government with the opportunity to chart out new priorities, directions, and approaches for responding creatively to the full array of challenges facing our world today.

From mid-May until July’s end, Global Affairs Canada (GAC) hosted a flurry of in-person consultations featuring dynamic break-out sessions on the discussion paper’s six themes. As part of the review, MCC—like partners such as Mines Action Canada, KAIROS, Canadian Council for International Cooperation, Canadian Foodgrains Bank, Food Security Policy Group, Coalition on Climate Change & Development, etc.—not only participated in various consultations, but provided a more substantive written submission to Global Affairs.

In this submission, MCC made recommendations relating to humanitarian response; peace and security; funding and partnerships; and policy coherence across Canada’s development, trade, and foreign affairs agendas.

More specifically, we encouraged GAC to:

1. Integrate disaster risk reduction more effectively into programming and funding mechanisms across all branches in order to reduce risk of disaster and promote poverty alleviation (pages 2-3);
2. Increase investments in conflict prevention initiatives, strengthen support for peacebuilding and psychosocial interventions, and champion the women, peace, and security agenda (pages 3-6);
3. Provide long-term, predictable, and flexible funding suitable to Canadian INGOs working with local grassroots organizations, and commit to growing Canada’s international assistance envelope with a clear timetable for reaching 0.7% of GNI (page 6);
4. Ensure policy coherence across development, trade, and foreign affairs agendas serves to strengthen—rather than temper—Canada’s commitment to the interests of developing countries (pages 6-8);
5. Generate a white paper that clearly articulates Canada’s priorities for the next five years as well as corresponding strategies, policies, and action plans it will develop to implement that framework (page 8).

Given MCC’s experience working in conflict zones around the world, peacebuilding was a particularly important priority (recommendation 2, pages 3-6). We strongly affirmed Global Affairs’ prioritization of peace as a stand-alone, strategic orientation for Canada’s international assistance programming, and urged the government to integrate a conflict sensitivity lens across all of Canada’s development strategies, regardless of the sector.

More specifically, first we strongly encouraged the government to invest in conflict prevention initiatives that seek to resolve, manage, or contain disputes before they become violent. In the same way that a long-term commitment to strengthening disaster risk reduction can build resilience and strengthen peoples’ capacity to deal with unexpected shocks, early intervention is the most effective way to prevent violent conflict from erupting.

Second, MCC called for greater support for civil society groups and religious and community leaders seeking to address ethnic and religious divisions through innovative peacebuilding and conflict transformation programs. In regions of ongoing violence, it is critical that local communities have strategies to resolve and prevent identity-based conflicts before they lead to sectarian violence.

Third, MCC encouraged greater investment in initiatives that provide access to safe education and psychosocial support for children and families traumatized by violence, displacement, and social upheaval.

Finally, MCC called on Global Affairs to champion the women, peace, and security agenda. Understanding the gender dimensions of armed conflict and peacebuilding is essential because of the demonstrable impacts that women’s meaningful participation in peace processes has on the successful implementation of agreements at the community level.

We’re certainly mindful of the hefty task before Global Affairs to take careful consideration of ideas put forward across the country and to translate them into (what will hopefully be) concrete policies, tools, and programs.

As Parliament resumes next week and kicks House business back into high gear, the consultation wheels will continue to turn. Word around Ottawa is that the outcomes of this review (rumoured to be completed before the end of 2016) will inform Budget 2017.

As they say, the proof will be in the pudding. And we will eagerly be waiting to see how it tastes.

Click here to read MCC’s full submission.

Jenn Wiebe is MCC Ottawa Office director

 

Advocacy, living water and a prayer for parliamentarians

“If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. … whoever drinks the water I give will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”  John 4:10, 14

If Jesus offered you a drink of “living water” what would you hope to receive from it? What would you need from the water?

These were questions asked by Kati Garrison from MCC’s liaison office at the UN in New York, as she led a devotional during a recent gathering of staff from MCC’s three advocacy offices (Ottawa, Washington and the UN). Kati was reflecting on the story of Jesus meeting a Samaritan woman at a well — a passage  made familiar by Sunday School and the occasional sermon — and relating it to the work of advocacy.

I personally have never really considered what it might mean for me to receive “living water.” And in particular, what support and strengthening do I need for working in advocacy?

Staff from MCC’s advocacy offices pose in front of famous words from Isaiah, near the United Nations offices in New York.  MCC photo/Doug Hostetter

Each participant at the gathering was encouraged to write their response on a piece of paper shaped like a drop of water and to place it in an empty pitcher. At a later point, we were each invited to receive some “living water” by returning to the pitcher and removing a drop. I had written “hope” on the drop I deposited and found “peace” on the drop I received. May I offer hope to those needing an advocate and may I find peace for the long journey that is advocacy.

Kati also encouraged us to remember that it was to a Samaritan woman that Jesus first offered a drink of living water. She was someone the disciples viewed as “other.” In our current contexts, who do we view as “other”? How can we see past their “otherness” to see one another as human beings and find God’s light in each other?

In our work in advocacy, it is often all too easy to see politicians as “other.” We sometimes forget that they are people, too, struggling with difficult decisions and challenges. Sometimes we only see them as the government or part of a particular political party and not as individuals like ourselves seeking to make a difference in the world. Occasionally we may even see parliamentarians and civil servants as part of the problems we are seeking to solve or the challenge we are trying to overcome, rather than a part of the solution as God intended.

Parliament Hill, Ottawa. MCC photo/Alison Ralph

In less than two weeks, parliamentarians will be returning to Ottawa to resume the first session of the 42nd Parliament. Here in the Ottawa Office we will be watching a number of government initiatives including: a possible peacekeeping mission in Africa, the inquiry into murdered and missing Indigenous women, the government’s ongoing response to the Syrian refugee crisis, and next steps following consultations and reviews around international humanitarian assistance and defence. As we monitor these and other issues, we will also be praying for those “others” that we may hear each other, understand each other, and find God’s light in one another.

Lord,

Thank you for the gift of living water and the love, hope, peace, courage, trust, patience, community, and so much more that it provides. As we receive this gift may we also find ways to be “living water” for others. May we offer hope, understanding, strength, compassion, love, and light to those we meet and interact with each day as we seek to make this world a better place.

We pray for parliamentarians who face long days filled with meetings, debates and events, while away from their families for weeks at a time. Grant them strength and wisdom to make difficult decisions around complex issues. May they have the patience to hear the voices of all those concerned. May we see them as individual people seeking to serve the people of Canada and not just part of a particular party or system.

We pray for government officials and civil servants that they may receive wisdom as they advise members of Parliament, understanding as they work to implement government decisions and policies, and patience as they strive to work within systems that do not always value people.

We pray for all the support staff working in the high pressure environment of Parliament Hill that they too may find strength, wisdom and patience as they assist with the work of government.

May God’s light shine through each of us, casting away the shadows so that we may truly be revealed to each other.

AMEN

By Monica Scheifele, program assistant in the Ottawa Office.

 

Love in the time of sanctions

This reflection is written by Jacob Greaser, who recently completed an internship with the MCC U.S.’Washington office, focusing on U.S. foreign policy.  It originally appeared on Third Way Cafe. For information on Canada’s relationship with the DPRK, click here.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK/North Korea) is probably one of the most mysterious and least visited places in the world for North Americans. Even for many U.S. policymakers, DPRK is often seen through a political cloud of fear and presented as an unknowable and unpredictable enemy. For the U.S. government, the label of “enemy” usually leads to punitive measures such as sanctions. For Christians, the label of “enemy” should mean something quite different.

Jesus’ teaching to “love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44) may seem to be a meaningless phrase in the midst of political complexity, but it is an important perspective that is often missing from U.S. policy. In fact, there are more open avenues for peacebuilding in DPRK than many people realize. DPRK has been placed under increasingly strict sanctions by the U.S., but humanitarian assistance is still permitted and needed. In the recent flurry of policies directed at the DPRK government, it is important not to ignore cries for help from vulnerable citizens inside DPRK.

Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), one of just a few organizations providing humanitarian aid in DPRK, assists individuals with tuberculosis and provides orphanages with food and other material resources. MCC heeds Christ’s call to address the needs of the most vulnerable in society and believes this applies everywhere, including DPRK. Over 20 years of working in DPRK, MCC has been allowed access to verify that our resources get to those vulnerable people. Through MCC’s commitment to serving vulnerable people everywhere, MCC has the rare opportunity to work and build relationships with people in DPRK.

These children at the South Pyongan Kindergarten Orphanage in Pyongsong, DPRK receive soya milk made from soybeans provided by MCC. MCC photo/Rachelyn Ritchie

The picture that is painted of DPRK as a repressive, secretive country often leads people to forget that DPRK allows humanitarian workers and even tourists into parts of the country. By working in DPRK, MCC is able to challenge assumptions that engagement with DPRK is impossible and shows that some level of trust can be built through consistent engagement over 20 years. Even though the relationship between the U.S. and DPRK governments is tense right now, MCC finds hope in the relationships it has built with partners in DPRK and sees relationships on that small scale as one potential path towards a larger dialogue.

MCC’s commitment to vulnerable people looks beyond the political rhetoric to love our enemies. This ultimately opens up spaces for relationship building and ongoing dialogue. While both governments frequently blame the other for escalation and refusing engagement, this destructive cycle of blame denies all possibility of meaningful engagement or understanding. MCC is able to challenge the narrative of DPRK as unreachable through the individual relationships it has built and to provide an example of small scale engagement.

Eventually, small examples of love can open the door for large acts of peace.

 

The awful grace of God: Thoughts on an MCC learning tour to Lebanon

This reflection is written by Jon Nofziger, constituency relations coordinator for MCCBC.  Jon wrote this reflection as he led a group of MCC constituents on a learning tour to Lebanon, where they learned about the Syrian refugee crisis and met with Syrian partners. 

“What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by.  The Life-Light blazed out of darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out.”  John 1:4-5 The Message

“He who learns must suffer, and even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.” Aeschylus, fifth century BC Greek playwright of tragedies

I liken a learning tour to being enrolled in the College of Life and taking a course in “hard knocks.”  While our group did not endure the same “knocks” as people  we met in Lebanon, one thing is certain: we learned that many who have passed through the crucible of suffering will acknowledge they have found themselves better for the experience—bitter though it may have been. These saints have insights to offer a hurting world.

Syrian refugees, living in Lebanon and receiving psychosocial assistance informal education activities from MCC partner Popular Aid for Relief and Development, pose with members of the learning tour. MCC photo/Scott Campbell

For centuries, skeptics have argued that the presence of evil in this world negates the idea that a good God exists. It is alleged that if an all-powerful God exists, who refuses to put an end to evil and suffering, then certainly God could not be all-good.

But blaming God for current woes in the world is akin to charging Henry Ford with the responsibility for the death of a person killed in a drunk-driving accident.

The argument against the goodness of God, grounded on the basis of earthly evil, assumes there is no logical purpose to be served by God’s toleration of human tragedy.  Yet at the end of the day, we must own up to the fact that we simply are not qualified to judge what God is doing. Our scope of vision is microscopic.

This is one of the lessons the patriarch Job had to learn when, in his suffering, he became very critical of his Maker, questioning the Lord’s wisdom. God gave him an examination to show him how “small” he actually was (Job 38-41); Job was in no position to subject the Almighty to critical analysis.

Rather than question God’s wisdom and purpose, we, like Job, should acknowledge God’s company/communion with human tragedy.

 With our lives, we testify to believe in one of two Gods: either an omnipotent idol that controls and arranges everything, or the God of hope who works alongside us. – Dorothee Soelle, German theologian.

While in Lebanon, our group was introduced to the suffering of the church in Syria through our partner, the Fellowship of Middle East Evangelical Churches (FMEEC). We met and heard from Father Walid, a Catholic priest from Syria.  He and his volunteer crew of 16 have been distributing material resources from MCC and other NGOs to over 2,000 families in rural areas in the western part of Syria.

Father Walid and his team assist with the distribution of MCC blankets, September 2015. Photo courtesy of FMEEC.

Father Walid is a quiet, unassuming man. Another MCC partner translated from Arabic to English as Father Walid shared with us details of his work. At one point he stopped, visibly overcome with emotion. He swiveled his chair so his back faced us, taking deep breaths and gathering himself in order to continue. When he was ready to begin again, he said, “The burden is too heavy.”  He also made clear that his primary work is not simply to provide material help. Rather, it is to “bring hope and be with the people.”  When asked what does hope look like, his quick, humble response was simply, “We are Christians aren’t we?”

To be honest, I didn’t fully comprehend the profundity of his reply.  To my western, affluent ears, the words sounded rather fatalistic. Upon return to Canada, I went surfing the web for insight to what Father Walid could have meant by his reply.  I came across some writings of Ivone Gerbara, Brazilian nun/philosopher/liberation theologian who worked alongside Dom Helder Camara (grandfather of liberation theology).  She offers similar sentiment:

 God is our hope because we want to go beyond the terror, violence, and fear that crush us. God is our hope because we often have no visible hope, because the haze of fear that envelops us seems terrifying. God is our hope as the ultimate cry for justice: a no to unjust killing, to arms and armies, and a yes to dignified life. God is our hope in our despair…For this reason, within the mystery of our lives, God is our hope.

When we suffer or share in the suffering of others, our compassion for others deepens. It has been said that the difference between “sympathy” and “empathy” is that in the former instance one “feels with” (i.e., has feelings of tenderness for) those who suffer. One becomes aware there are 1.2 million refugees now living in Lebanon. With “empathy” one almost is able to “get inside” the one who suffers—because the one offering comfort has been there!  For example, we have met Amlah (not real name) and two of her children and she invited us into her current home, a UNHCR-provided tent.

If you choose to enter into other people’s suffering, or to love others, you have to consent in some way to the possible consequences. – Ita Ford, Maryknoll sister, murdered in El Salvador 1980.

While our learning tour group has not suffered as those we met during our days in Lebanon, we will share in their suffering.  We will have images, names and faces, not just statistics, because we have been there.  We will be changed people.  There will be consequences. Thanks to the awful grace of God.

Prayer:  May acceptance of our brokenness, of our healing, of our being called to serve, be a sign of our faith in the ongoing goodness of a God who journeys with us– in the power and love to remove any barrier within and among us; in the mystery of the challenge given to each one to make bread and life and beauty available to everyone. Amen.

A prayer for peace in August

by Joanna Hiebert Bergen, peacebuilding and advocacy coordinator for MCC Manitoba. This is one of a series of prayer services for peace that she has written for MCC staff and volunteers. 

During the month of August, MCC Manitoba invites you to join us in prayers for peace. The theme comes from 1 Corinthians 13, with its focus on faith, hope and love.

Faith and hope abide alongside love as a triad, those elements of our spiritual journey that allow for perseverance. We acknowledge a God who lived with us in the person of Jesus, exemplifying all three of these elements. God continues to show up in our world in visible and invisible ways, manifest through encounters with the natural world and with one another, pointing us to faith, hope and love.

As we take time to reflect on the work of peace in a broken world, may there be comfort taken from the verses of 1 Corinthians 13. “And now I will show you the most excellent way…”

Amina Ahmed, a Nigerian peacebuilder 5th from the right, leads a group of MCC staff and partners in prayer, Jos, Nigeria, 2014. MCC photo/Dave Klassen

Gathering Reflection:

In what or whom do we place our faith? What pulls us in, hooks us into believing salvation lies in this or that promise? Political personalities, larger than life, demand our attention with promises of something better, retail markets lead us to believe possessions will foster the good life, and even communities of faith can promise a sense of belonging with programs and activity options. Ultimately, a sense of inner peace and security calls for embracing the mystery of God’s presence, both the visible and invisible.

During this summer, our hearts are breaking for those murdered in Paris, Nice, Orlando, Istanbul, Baghdad, Medina… for those who love them, and for all who are suffering atrocities in Syria, in Palestine and Israel, in Central African Republic, in Nigeria, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Myanmar, in inner-city Canada and America, and other places around our nation and world too numerous to name.

In what or in whom do we place our faith?

Reading:

Psalm 116

Context: 

Richard Rohr, Franciscan contemplative, writes the following, “Both Jesus’ and Paul’s notion of faith is much better translated as foundational confidence or trust that God cares about what is happening right now.”   The Psalmist trusts that God will deliver him, indeed has delivered him from anguish, distress and sorrow, tears and stumbling–deep-seated emotions that can overwhelm the sense of hope for a more just future. God sees and listens, understands and delivers.

As people of faith, we are called to live into the darkness as people of the light, resting in the goodness of God despite a climate of fear and terror. There are many manifestations of goodness that affirm this faith. Take a few minutes to contemplate where you have experienced God’s caring presence in recent months.

Prayer of the People:

God of surprises,
You call us:
From the narrowness of our own lives to new ways of being with one another,
From the captivities of our culture to creative witness for justice,
From the smallness of our horizons to the bigness of Your vision.

Clear the way in us, your people,
That we might call ourselves and others to freedom and renewed faith.

Jesus, wounded healer,
You call us:
From preoccupation to the daily tasks of peacemaking,
From privilege to pilgrimage,
From insularity to inclusive community.
Help us to overcome our fears of ‘the other’–
To seek understanding and listen with an open heart to stories outside of our own imagining.

Clear the way in us, your people,
That we might call ourselves and others to wholeness and integrity.

Holy, transforming Spirit,
You call us:
From fear to faithfulness,
From clutter to clarity,
From a desire to control to deeper trust.

Clear the way in us, your people,
That we might know the beauty and the power and the danger of the gospel.

 Sending:

Go in faith to be part of
The new creation of human community.
Go in love to take the hand of those who suffer and long for peace.
Go in peace.

Participants in an MCC-sponsored peace club in Lusaka, Zambia end their meeting with prayer. MCC photo/Matthew Sawatzky