The exhibit complements a major meeting of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on Sept. 20, where UN officials will focus on rights and needs of children of incarcerated parents for the first time in history.

Zehr is a professor in the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at ˛ÝÝ®ÉçÇř.

“Despite affecting millions of children worldwide—over 2 million children in the USA alone are believed to have parents in prison— this is the first time that this neglected issue has been discussed substantively anywhere in the UN system,” said a statement issued by “NGO Group for the CRC.”

Rachel Brett of the Quaker United Nations Office added: “This is an issue where no one country or region is a clear world leader.”

Zehr’s photo-portraits originally appeared in a book issued early in 2011 entitled “What Will Happen To Me?” Co-authored by Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz ’81, the book was “intended to alleviate the sense of shame and isolation felt by the children of prisoners and to support their resiliency,” said Zehr.

“What Will Happen To Me?,” is available through or any major online retailer.

That’s how Barbara Kingsolver, best-selling author of "The Poisonwood Bible" and "The Bean Tree," describes multifacted Carrie Newcomer, who will be in concert 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 15, in Martin Chapel of the seminary building at ˛ÝÝ®ÉçÇř.

Carrie Newcomer

Newcomer has recorded 10 albums for Rounder/Philo Records, including her latest, "Regulars and Refugees," a follow-up to her critically-acclaimed recording, "Betty’s Diner." The 13 songs on her newest album take the listener inside the world of the same southern Indiana diner, offering a collection of well-hewn stories that say things important and true about the human condition.

"A basic attitude that I have is one of sacramental living – that there isn’t a great gulf between sacred and ordinary," Newcomer stated. "We live with the divine very close and all about us, if we’re open to seeing it that way. The borders are blurred in many wys. The whole story of Betty’s Diner is about moments of grace and forgiveness and hope. This is just the way I see the world," she added.

Newcomer’s songs "are all about telling the truth, however gritty and unpleasant that can be at times," one critic noted. For the artist, connecting with the truth is made easier by filtering her songs through the characters that live and breathe in and between the lines of the songs on "Regulars and Refugees." Betty’s Diner is for real.

Workshops Focus on Peace and Justice

The artist leads workshops across the country on songwriting, creative writing and peace and justice and faith and vocation themes. Her activism springs from her Quaker faith and from her belief in the power of an individual’s calling in the world. It manifests itself in the thing about which she has the most passion – her music.

The musician has shared the stage with such performers as Alison Krauss, Bonnie Raitt, Rosanne Cash and Mary Chapin Carpenter. The string band Nickel Creek covered her song, "I Should’ve Known Better," on their 2003 Grammy award-winning album, "This Side," produced by Alison Krauss. Since 1997 she has done benefit concerts and given a percentage of her tour album sales to charitable organizations ranging from Literacy Volunteers of America and the American Friends Service Committee to Habitat for Humanity and Second Harvest.

She was "artist in residence" at EMU in April, 2005, speaking in chapel and classes, leading workshops on creativity and sustaining joy in work, interacting with students and faculty and giving a public concert of her original music.

General admission to the concert is $8. Tickets are available in advance by calling the EMU box office, 540-432-4582, after Sept. 1. They are also available on-line at . Tickets will also be on sale at the door.

A former student in the (CJP) at ˛ÝÝ®ÉçÇř is among the four hostages currently being held in Iraq by a group calling itself the Swords of Righteousness Brigade.

The American, Tom Fox, 54, from Clearbrook, Va., took the “Strategic Nonviolence” class at CJP with , associate professor of peacebuilding at EMU, in spring 2004 and has been working in Iraq with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CTP) for the past year and a half.

EMU held a candlelight vigil for the four CTP hostages Wednesday evening, Nov. 30, on the Campus Center plaza. More than 60 persons attended the vigil as a symbol of solidarity and commitment to a non-violent resolution.

Those gathered held lighted candles and listened to information about the four abductees, spent time in silent reflection followed by a period of prayer and the singing of the hymn, “O Healing River.”

“Tom learned about other non-violent heroes in this course,” Dr. Schirch told the group. “He believes that as peacebuilders, we need to take the same risks as military people.”

Fox, a Quaker, has worked with CPT in partnership with Iraqi human rights organizations to promote peace. In Iraq, he sought a more complete understanding of Islamic cultural richness. He is committed to telling the truth to U.S. citizens about the horrors of war and its effects on ordinary Iraqi civilians and families as a result of U.S. policies and practices.

“Fox has devoted his life to working for peace,” according to CJP staff member William Goldberg, who helped organize the vigil along with Schirch and EMU campus pastor Brian Martin Burkholder. He noted that Fox is scheduled to speak at EMU about his peace work in mid-February.

At his web blog, Fox quoted a Quaker theologian: “Be patterns, be examples in every country, place, or nation that you visit, so that your bearing and life might communicate with all people. Then you’ll happily walk across the earth to evoke that of God in everybody. So that you will be seen as a blessing in their eyes and you will receive a blessing from that of God within them.”

More information on Fox is available at .com.

For updates on the hostage situation, go to .