Christian Peacemaker Team worker Tom Fox was eulogized in an on-campus memorial service Wednesday evening, Mar. 15, as an example of active love and nonviolence in a place of protracted conflict.

At the same time, the one-hour service celebrated the thousands of others who are working on behalf of peace around the world and remembering those who continue to suffer as a result of violence everywhere.

More than 300 students, faculty, staff and community persons gathered in Lehman Auditorium to remember Fox and others who have put their lives on the line for the cause of peace in Iraq and other countries.

Human Rights Worker

Fox, 54, was a (CPT) member investigating human rights violations, helping ordinary Iraqi people rebuild their shattered lives and telling the truth to U.S. citizens about the horrors of war. He was taken hostage on Nov. 26, 2005, along with three fellow CPT colleagues, by a group calling itself the Swords of Righteousness Brigade.

Fox’s body was found by Iraqi police in western Baghdad on Mar. 9, 2006, with evidence of having been tortured before being shot. The status of the other CPT hostages remains uncertain.

The service opened with a candlelight processional by current students in EMU’s (CJP) program and a welcome from EMU President Loren Swartzendruber.

Kenneth J. Nafziger, professor of music at EMU, led the audience and the EMU Chamber Singers in music, including “O Healing River,” “If the War Goes On,” “God of Grace and God of Glory” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”

Peace Mission in Iraq

Fox, from Clearbrook, Va., took one semester of graduate work in EMU’s graduate-level Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, studying “strategic nonviolence” with Lisa Schirch, associate professor of conflict studies, to prepare himself for returning to his peace mission in Iraq. Schirch visited Fox in Iraq last summer and stayed in close touch with him through e-mails.

Dr. Schirch offered sample readings from Fox’s communications while a series of photos were projected on a screen of the CPT worker’s activities in the Middle East.

“Tom was my student,” Schirch said. “He was dedicated to praying for and working for peace. He wanted to tell the world what was happening in Iraq. He would want us to plead to God today to send down healing waters and wash the blood off of the sand.

“Tom would want us to continue our fervent prayers for the remaining CPT hostages James Loney, Harmet Sooden and Norman Kember, for journalist Jill Carroll, for the Iraqi people who have suffered so much and for the U.S. soldiers who are our neighbors from here in the U.S.,” she said.

Memorial Fund

Guest books were made available for audience members to sign and offer personal reflections and condolences. These will be forwarded to Fox’s CTP colleagues, who will in turn convey them to Fox’s two college-aged children.

A Tom Fox Memorial Fund for CJP has been established to support the continuation of Fox’s work through the training of additional persons in peacebuilding, nonviolent action and advocacy for social justice.

More information is available by contacting Bonnie Price Lofton, CJP director of development, at 540-432-4234; e-mail: Bonnie.Lofton@emu.edu.

U.S. forces in Iraq recovered the body of kidnapped Christian Peacemaker Teams activist Tom Fox, CPT confirmed on Mar. 10.

Tom Fox (seated right) participates in a Christian Peacemaker summer camp in an undated photo. Fox was absent from footage of hostages being held in Iraq that was broadcast by Al-Jazeera on Tuesday.
AP Photo / Christian Peacemaker Teams Iraq, File

Fox, a Quaker from Clearbrook, Va., was found by Iraqi police with his hands bound and with gunshot wounds to the head and chest the evening of Mar. 9, according to the Associated Press. When police saw the body was that of a Westerner, U.S. military authorities were called to the scene, reports said.

Fox had studied one semester in EMU’s graduate program before going to Iraq as a CPT peace worker. He was kidnapped in Baghdad Nov. 26 along with fellow CPTers Norman Kember, 74, a Briton, and Canadians James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32. The four were seized at gunpoint by a group calling itself the Swords of Righteousness Brigade and have been shown in videos released by the group, which has demanded the release of all detainees in U.S. and Iraqi prisons.

The most recent video, a silent 25-second clip that aired on Aljazeera Mar. 7, showed all of the hostages except Fox.

Memorial Service Planned

A memorial service to reflect Fox’s life and work will be held 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Mar. 15, in Lehman Auditorium.

The service will include hymns, scripture reading, visuals, candlelighting and reflections by persons who knew Fox, with an emphasis both on “the meaning of Tom’s life and mission as a Christian peacemaker and remembering his three fellow CPTers and others still being held captive” in Iraq.

The service is open to everyone.

Professors and Staff Respond

, associate professor of conflict studies in EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacemaking, had Fox in her “strategic nonviolence” course at EMU.

“May we all hold every human being in Iraq in our prayers as the trauma, anger, fear and sadness rages on and on,” Dr. Schirch said in response to Fox’s death. “And may we all find a way to renew our own personal efforts to transform those energies into something more positive.

“Let us remember Tom for the bravery and hopefulness that came with his determination to be in Iraq to monitor human rights and provide a different kind of American presence there – one that sought to be in solidarity with the suffering,” Schirch added.

EMU President Loren Swartzentruber, in Florida during EMU’s spring break for development contacts, issued a statement to the campus community:

“Tom’s death, while serving with Christian Peacemaker Teams, reminds us of the tragic deaths of people of all nationalities through senseless violence around the world. I agree completely with a statement from Carol Rose, co-director of Christian Peacemaker Teams, quoted in the news – ‘In response to Tom’s passing, we ask that everyone set aside inclinations to vilify or demonize others, no matter what they have done.'”

“Please pray for Tom’s family, co-workers, friends and for CJP faculty member Lisa Schirch and others on our campus who knew him personally,” the president said.

‘Break the Cycle’

, co-director of EMU

Some 70 草莓社区 students, faculty, staff and community persons gathered Monday evening, Jan. 30 on Thomas Plaza of the Campus Center for a second prayer vigil on behalf of four kidnapped Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) members in Iraq and others on all sides of the conflict there.

The four CPTers

By Rob Longley, Daily News-Record

Friends of Tom Fox, the former 草莓社区 student held captive in Iraq since Nov. 26, made a renewed call for his release on Saturday, the same day Al-Jazeera aired new video of the kidnapped peace activist.

Fox, 54, of Clear Brook, and three other peace activists were kidnapped in the fall while protesting human rights abuses in Iraq.

The men were in Iraq as part of a group from Chicago-based Christian Peacemaker Teams.

The previously unknown Swords of Righteous Bridges has claimed responsibility for kidnapping them.

“Tom Fox and the other Christian Peacemaker Team members are the friends and guests of the Iraqi people,” EMU professor Lisa Schirch, a friend and former teacher of Fox, said in a statement Saturday. “I plead with those holding Tom, the other Christian Peacemaker

Islamic militants holding former 草莓社区 student Tom Fox and three other hostages in Iraq extended the deadline for the captives’ execution to Saturday, according to Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based Arab news network.

The network announced the extension late Wednesday night, giving hope to Fox’s friends and family, including many at EMU, that negotiations for the hostages’ release are moving forward.

The militants, calling themselves the Swords of Righteousness Brigade, abducted Fox and three other men on Nov. 26. They initially had threatened to kill the peace activists by Thursday if their demands for the release of Iraqi prisoners had not been met by that time.

Fox, 54, of Clear Brook and fellow hostages Norman Kember, 74, of Great Britain; James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, both of Canada, were in Iraq as part of the Chicago-based group Christian Peacemaker Teams.

The men were working with other peace activists to protest the torture of prisoners and other human rights abuses in Iraq, says EMU associate professor , a friend of Fox.

Fox took Schirch’s “strategic nonviolence” class while studying earlier this year at EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding.

Extension ‘A Good Sign’

The deadline extension came late Wednesday night as Schirch continued her efforts to help free Fox and the other hostages.

“I’ve been in constant contact with [Christian Peacemaker Teams] and with a lot of his friends and I’ve been working with some of my Muslim students to use their channels,” in the Middle East, she said.

A former student from Iraq, Schirch adds, is working with his contacts there and in Palestine to lobby Islamic leaders for help in freeing the hostages.

The deadline extension is a good sign, Schirch says, as are the calls from Islamic militant groups like Hamas and Hizbollah to free the men.

“I’ve been hearing the [deadline move] is a good sign,” she says. “I’ve been told that means diplomacy may be working.”

‘Hope With All My Heart’

EMU hosted a vigil for Fox and the others on Nov. 30 to pray for their safe return. It was one of dozens of vigils that have been held in the last two weeks around the United States and in the other hostages’ home countries, Canada and Great Britain, according to Christian Peacemaker Teams.

“I just hope, as everyone does, that all four people come out happy,” Fox’s friend, Leslie Keffer-King, 22, of Harrisonburg said at the EMU vigil. “I hope with all my heart.”

Schirch describes Fox as a peace-loving man who “believes in the humanity of every person,” and who was working in Iraq to “lay the foundation for a secure and peaceful society.”

Fox’s daughter, Katherine, echoed that sentiment in a statement released through Christian Peacemaking Teams.

“He remains committed to [the] belief that peaceful resolutions can be found to every conflict,” she said.

A former student in the (CJP) at 草莓社区 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 .