The four will be joining 21 other international observers assembled in Florida by Pax Christi, a Catholic organization devoted to promoting the gospel imperative of peacemaking.

The election-monitoring effort is part of the Voting Justice Campaign for the U.S. Presidential election on November 2. The four counties on which it is focused are Broward, Duval, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach.

“We chose Florida because of the improprieties that occurred there during the Presidential election of 2000,” says a statement posted on the organization

The event will open at 11 a.m. with multi-media presentations and music.

The day will continue with a Middle Eastern lunch at 12:30 p.m. Several of the CTP student-cooks will be observing Ramadan and thus deserve special thanks for their hospitable efforts to offer guests food that they themselves cannot eat until after sundown.

There is no charge for the meal, but donations are welcome. Persons planning to attend should call Bonnie Price Lofton at 432-4234 to help determine how much food should be prepared.

After lunch, CTP students will tell their stories on conflict and peacebuilding in informal group settings between 2-4 p.m.

Visitors are invited to remain on campus following the open house to see a provocative dramatic production on the theme of war, “Bury the Dead” by Irwin Shaw, performed by EMU’s theater department at 7:30 p.m. in Lehman Auditorium. Tickets will be on sale at the door.

Ms. Lofton noted that a special celebration is being planned for June 3-5, 2005 to mark the 10th anniverary of the start of the MA in Conflict Transformation Program.

The MCC-sponsored Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI) participants from the Middle East, from left: Suzanne Dababne, Bassem Thabet, Rita Sawaya, Nabil Korieh (Father Daniel), and Rev. Radi Atalla Iskandar. This year, MCC provided scholarships for 17 of the 170 SPI participants from all continents.
Photo by Joel Fath

“The Middle East wouldn’t be itself without the Christians,” says Rita Sawaya, a Lebanese archaeologist and human rights worker.

But in the land where Jesus was born and where churches trace their history to the first centuries following his death and resurrection, the number of Christians is declining steadily. They are struggling to define their role and envision a future.

Sawaya was one of five Middle Easterners sponsored by Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) to attend this year’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute at EMU in Harrisonburg, Va. The others came from Palestine, Jordan, Egypt and Syria. Their backgrounds highlight the diversity within the Middle Eastern Christian community, but all five also speak eloquently on a common theme: the unique role that Christians can play as peacemakers in the Middle East.

Nowhere is the declining number of Christians in the Middle East more dramatic than in Palestine, Jesus’ birthplace. In 1950, Christians made up 15 percent of what is now the West Bank and Gaza Strip; today, they are less than 2 percent.

Bassem Thabet, who works with MCC in Jerusalem, says Palestinian Christians are in an extremely difficult position. Squeezed by the Israeli occupation and attempts to “divide and conquer” on one end, and by the growth of Islamic extremism on the other, many are choosing to emigrate.

“Emigration is open to me,” says Thabet, whose brother lives in England. “But I feel that I need to stay.” While Christians’ minority status makes them vulnerable, it also lends credibility to their calls for both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to work for peace, he says.

In Lebanon, Christians’ numbers are also dropping. Once a majority, with more access to wealth and education than their Muslim counterparts, Christians now make up some 30 percent of the population. The country was torn apart by civil war during the 1970s and ’80s.

Sawaya, a former refugee, remembers the horrors of that time.

“When you’ve suffered a lot, you sense the real meaning of peace, both within yourself and with others,” she says.

Her dream is now to create a conflict transformation program in Lebanon similar to the one she saw at EMU. Influencing her country in this way is part of her duty as a Christian, Sawaya says, pointing out that Christian thinkers and leaders have long played a key role in shaping the culture of the Middle East.

For Radi Atalla Iskandar, a similar conviction developed as he grew up in an area of Egypt split evenly along Christian-Muslim lines. The region was volatile, with Muslims resenting Christians’ great economic prosperity and power. But Iskandar observed how his father, a village official and a Christian, was able to maintain peace by building good relationships with Muslims.

Now a Presbyterian pastor in the city of Alexandria, Iskandar is an enthusiastic promoter of Christian-Muslim dialogue. Religious leaders with whom he works have begun to cooperate on addressing social problems, such as poverty, that create the conditions in which religious extremism flourishes.

“This dialogue is a journey, not something that’s finished,” he says.

His commitment and that of other Christians in the region give Sawaya hope. She draws a cross and labels each of its four points with one of the Middle East’s major religions: Islam, Judaism, Druze, Christianity. Christians are at the bottom of the diagram, she says, “because I see them as holding up and supporting the peace process.”

Rachel B. Miller Moreland is a writer/editor for MCC Communications.

Fiji

Some 140 students and faculty from Mennonite, Brethren, Quaker and other schools across the United States and Canada gathered in Harrisonburg, Va., Feb. 20-21 for the annual Intercollegiate Peace Fellowship hosted by 草莓社区. The conference is held on a different campus each year.

“The program theme, ‘Stories of Healing,’ sought to offer both theoretical and practical knowledge in developing healing skills for personal use after a traumatic event and for accompanying others on the journey to recovery,” according to meeting organizer Bill Goldberg of Harrisonburg.

The event drew participants from Bethel College, Bluffton, Catholic University, Earlham College, Conrad Grebel, EMU, Eastern Mennonite High School, James Madison University, Menno Simons and Canadian Mennonite University.

A theater piece, “A Body in Motion,” written by EMU graduate and professional dramatist Ingrid DeSanctis and based on the book, “Transcending: Reflections of Crime Victims” by Howard Zehr, co-director of the Conflict Transformation Program at EMU, was presented during the conference. Because the play is emotionally intense, a lengthy discussion followed the performance.

Local groups “Red Fish Blue Fish” and “Oscar’s Mad” provided special music in the Common Grounds Coffeehouse on campus. A talent show also proved popular.

Asked near the end of the conference to indicate a highlight, many persons pointed to the opening talk by Peter Loge, a former director of the Campaign for Criminal Justice in Washington, D.C., citing appreciation for his comments on the unique role and opportunities that Christians can have in peacebuilding efforts in the world.

Lynn Shiner, director of the Pennsylvania Victims Compensation Program,tells her “survivor’s story” in a plenary talk at the conference.
Photo by Jim Bishop

Other speakers and workshop leaders included Lynn Shiner, director of Pennsylvania’s Victims Compensation Program; John Glick, a local acupuncturist and board member of the Gesundheit Institute; Cheryl Talley, assistant professor of psychology at James Madison University; Jayne Docherty and Barry Hart of the Conflict Transformation Program faculty and students in both undergraduate and graduate programs at EMU.

Shiner shared her personal story of her two children being stabbed to death on Christmas Eve, 1994, by her ex-husband, who then took his own life.

“For all practical purposes, my own life was over,” she told her spellbound audience. “The hardest part was learning things about my late husband’s past that should have been revealed to me. Many times I felt that I was the one most responsible for my children’s deaths.”

Shiner went on to work for the passage of legislation in Pennsylvania – Jen and Dave’s Law, passed in 1996 – that gives new rights to ex-spouses with shared custody to find out if their ex-spouse had been arrested for any crimes.

Tracey King, a student in EMU’s Conflict Transformation Program, took part in a workshop, “Ritual and Movement: Creating Community and Peace among Women.” The workshop, for women only, was designed to explore the power of dance and ritual and how they can be used to provide a safe place where women can support and encourage each other. After a time of talking together in small groups about women

Howard Zehr has been awarded the 2003 International Prize for Restorative Justice by the PFI Centre for Justice and Reconciliation. The cash prize was presented in recognition of his “significant contributions to the implementation of restorative justice worldwide.”

Dr. Zehr is co-director of the Conflict Transformation Program at 草莓社区 in Harrisonburg, Va., and also serves as professor of sociology and restorative justice at EMU.

The award was announced during Prison Fellowship International