Planting Peace Begins - Saturday August 21

Hello folks... I don't know how to start a blog, but I know how to send an email. (See the MCC Alberta Facebook for Michaels daily update on Planting Peace.) I am sending this because of the set of 3 events, called Planting Peace, How do we stop Killing Each Other? that began to happen yesterday in Alberta. As the next days evolve, you may see some more of these emails from us. The reason is to be consistent with the events themselves, which have one purpose ... to bring people together from some countries and from some provinces, to talk with each other about many things, and about how we can become, all of us, better equipped as practical peace makers. I hope that by sending an email to you folks, this bringing people together, even inside of MCC, , is broadened. MCC people support and build amazing Peace work, all over the world. We hope that PP in Alberta contributes to that broad and creative and God-given work.

I am attaching an article that Kim pulled off the internet last night, after the day at the airport, written by one of our guests, a young Israeli man named Aylam, who is a peace maker activist in that on-going tragedy between two peoples and two (sort of) countries in the Middle East. (See below) Every guest who is here, brings some conflict and some life and energy to Alberta this next two weeks. Ryan Hauck and two other Albertans recently traveled to Jordan to attend a Peace Seminar with many other young adults. Ryan made a comment that interested me. He said that it appeared that one of the main reasons they were brought together to this MCC-Sponsored Seminar was to "be together". To get to know each other as people. Too simple maybe for some, but is there any other way that the people of the world will stop needlessly killing each other than to find ordinary and extraordinary ways to be together? Our hope in Alberta is that the young adults, ( some from Alberta that are not so young anymore), will find ways to be together, to plan together, to talk about each others' conflict areas, to find the good in each other and in that way, to be able to return to each of their home communities, better equipped and more encouraged to think and act as if Peace Making is in fact a really urgent way of living that applies to Mennonites, and Presbyterians ... Christians, Jews, and Muslims and to every human being that participates in any way in a community, in a family, in a country, in a culture, in a relationship.

Yesterday, they began to arrive. Daniel and Alejandra from Colombia, Rosemary and Dianna from Uganda. Diana had missed her flight early on, and they arrived separately. But after thinking we had lost Rosemary in Brussels or in Montreal, she found us in the airport. We had walked past each other at least 3 or 4 times. (First lesson in any Peace Seminar maybe... figure out how to make contact. But don't go home if it doesn't happen right away. ) Usama from Palestine. Sharon and Aylam from Israel. Nicolas from East Jerusalem. (These three were supposed to be on a 9:40 pm flight, but weren't. Some anxiety there. They arrived one hour later on another flight. Luckily, we were still there, hoping they were somewhere in the airport.) And this morning, we hope that Gopar and Sani (our facilitators) will arrive from Nigeria. At the last minute, yesterday, we had to buy them tickets from Calgary back to Nigeria, because they were not granted visas to the USA after all; without a complete return tickert that they most likely would not have been allowed onto the flight in Nigeria to come here. (Expensive to buy one-way tickets at the last minute. Thank you Bruce for your quick encouragement to move ahead and "just do it".)

During week one, the group will interact with 40 campers and the counsellors and staff from all over Alberta, at Camp Valaqua, an hour north of Calgary. Next weekend, a public event in Calgary, and then we move into the FCJ Center here in Calgary for 3 and a half days where we will be joined about 20 young adults from Alberta and Saskatchewan, plus Daniel and Esther from MB, and some other local Alberta people including a number of MCC Alberta Peace Team and other staff, and two IVEPers, from Jordan and the Dominican Republic. Thank you, Claire for sending us some SK folks.

As they began to arrive yesterday, amidst the confusion and tension of hoping everyone will arrive, it became more and more obvious that having people who in every case, do not actually know the other person from their own country even, nor anyone else who has come, is going to turn into a challenging and delightful (we hope) learning experience of "being together". The first to arrive were Daniel and Alejandra from Colombia, joining Dina from Jordan and Elimer from the Dominican Republic. These four had lunch with the MCC Alberta staff yesterday. Afterwards, they all went shopping at the Thrift Shop. These strangers to each other, and in a strange land. Daniel and Alejandra were cold. And when Kim and Michael dropped them off at the FCJ Center, where everyone is spending their first two nights, they saw Alejandra and Dina (Alejandra speaks almost no English .... less than 1% she says) already walking down the hallway, arm in arm .. "talking" with each other. Peace in this world and in our communities is possible. It is God's wish. It is our need. It always leads to the possibilities of rebuilding. It always has the participation of the Holy Spirit in his "accidental ways". And it seems to have so much to do with finding ways, and pursuing them, as Dina and Alejandra did in less than two hours, of communicating, and being together.

See the article below. Also, Michael Harms will be updating the MCC Alberta Facebook as daily as he has time to do. Please have a look if you have time.

Thank you, Country Reps from Uganda, Colombia, Nigeria, Jordan, and your Area Directos in Akron, for helping to bring this group of people to Alberta and for wanting to help us carry out this pretty complicated set of Peace Events. Thank you to the Alberta Board for supporting and encouraging this kind of work. Thank you to our Peace Team Staff for putting in the endless hours of coordinating and leading to get to now, the starting point. Well, it started yesterday, and in many ways, long before that, when we learned about "Living With Shalom" that creative and so simple Peace Program in Uganda. Say a prayer for us all. The wheels can come off events like this, or they can become wonderful builders.

(For your information, the MCC Canada Public Engagement Funds from CIDA are paying for this set of events, pretty much. Thank you, Deo, Aaron, and Monica. Not sure yet how we are paying for the two last minute return to Nigeria flights yet.)