In This Issue
Study Guide Now Available
Give to MennoPIN
Palestinian Children’s Rights
Atlanta Church Summit
Wave of Prayer
Also Recommended
Kairos Palestine Study Guide Now Available!
We are delighted to announce that a study guide for Kairos Palestine is now available! Many thanks to MennoPIN member Rod Stafford, who adapted a study guide from the Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for a Mennonite audience.
This four-part study provides a great way to help your congregation learn more about Israel-Palestine. It is available as a free download from MennoPIN’s website. Print copies are available for $5/each from MennoMedia.
Help support MennoPIN’s work
Help us cover the costs of producing the study guide and ensuring that key leaders in the church receive a copy. To donate, please write a check to Pleasant View Mennonite Church, with MennoPIN in the memo line. Mail to: Pleasant View Mennonite Church, Attn: MennoPIN, 1101 N Lucas Street, Mount Pleasant IA 52641. Thank you!
Congressional Letter on Palestinian Children’s Rights
The No Way to Treat a Child campaign has worked with Rep. McCollum’s office on a congressional letter to President Obama, requesting that he designate a Special Envoy for Palestinian Children. Urge your representative to join the letter, which is open for signatures until May 20.
Atlanta Church Summit
On April 19-20, Palestinian and U.S. church leaders met in Atlanta. They released a statement, “Pursuing Peace and Strengthening Presence: The Atlanta Summit of Churches in the USA and the Holy Land.” Ervin Stutzman, executive director of Mennonite Church USA, is a signatory. The document affirms the use of “economic leverage on commercial and governmental actors to end unfair and unjust practices and policies which violate international laws and conventions.”
Resonating with the Kairos Palestine document, this is yet another affirmation of the call for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions as a nonviolent response to Israel’s colonial occupation of Palestinian life and land. Statements such as this–as well as this letter to the Mennonite World Review that calls us to “Stand with Palestinian Christians”–are helpful correctives to the tendentious representation of boycotts and divestment as “coercive.”
From the Sabeel Wave of Prayer…
God of justice, we are at a loss when we see countries who are in power ultimately have no power to stop the land-grabbing and illegal settlement building Israel engages in. Strengthen the voices of the international community, God, and do not let them give up. Open Israel’s ears to hear so that peace can one day come to this land. Lord, in your mercy…
Also Recommended
Kairos Palestine has issued an alert, Bethlehem in Danger, raising concerns about construction on the separation wall that cuts through the Cremisan Valley.
Sen. Patrick Leahy and 10 House members sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry on Feb. 17 that lists several examples of alleged Israeli and Egyptian “gross violations of human rights” that should be examined. The letter led to an interesting exchange between Prime Minister Netanyahu and Senator Leahy.
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Mennonite Palestine-Israel Network
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Steering Committee:
Jonathan Brenneman (Lima Mennonite Church, Lima, OH)
Tom Harder (Lorraine Avenue Mennonite Church, Wichita, KS)
Joy Lapp (Pleasant View Mennonite Church, Mt Pleasant, IA)
George Muedeking (Albuquerque Mennonite Church, Albuquerque, NM)
Rachelle Lyndaker Schlabach (Peace Fellowship Church, Washington, DC)
Timothy Seidel (Community Mennonite Church, Lancaster, PA)
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