In This Issue
Preparing for Orlando
BDS Webinar Now Available Online
Churches Call for Equality
Changes to Steering Committee
Prayer
Lent Resource
Preparing for Orlando: Help Us Out!
There’s a MennoPIN subcommittee meeting regularly to prepare for our presence at the Mennonite Church USA convention this summer in Orlando. Please help us out by sending a quick email to mennopin@gmail.com to let us know whether you are going to Orlando, who your congregation’s delegates will be and whether you think they will support the resolution on Israel-Palestine. Lots of tasks remain to help get ready for convention and also to provide a strong presence at the convention itself, so if you’re able to help out, please let us know that too!
BDS Webinar Now Available Online
If you missed the Feb. 20 webinar, “The BDS Movement: What it is, what it isn’t, and how it relates to Mennonites,” or want to share it with friends, it’s now available online. Speakers included Garik Ruiz of the BDS National Committee, Mark Regier of Everence Financial, and Andre Gingrich Stoner of the “Seeking Peace in Israel and Palestine Resolution” writing committee.
Churches Call for Peace, Justice and Equality
On Feb. 15, the day that Prime Minister Netanyahu met with President Trump, 15 national Christian organizations, including Mennonite Central Committee U.S., sent a briefing paper to all members of Congress and to the Trump administration. The paper said that “equal rights and opportunities must be assured for all people in the region – not someday based on an idea of future negotiations, but as a fundamental human right today.”
Changes to MennoPIN Steering Committee
A big thank you to George Muedeking and Erica Littlewolf, who are both stepping down from the MennoPIN Steering Committee. Both brought much wisdom and energy to our group and we will miss their contributions.
We also want to welcome back Tom Harder as chair of MennoPIN, after a period of time away. Additional changes to the Steering Committee are in the works, so stay tuned for further updates.
Prayer
Holy God, in the beginning you created the heavens and the earth
And you called it good.
The earth is yours, and all that is in it,
The world, and those who live in it.
And yet, through human greed, carelessness, and violence,
Your good creation is destroyed.
Today we pray for the land called holy, caught in an unholy conflict.
We pray for Palestinian communities threatened by settlements and settler
violence…
–Excerpted from a prayer from the ACT Palestine Forum. See the whole prayer service online.
Lent Resource
You may want to also check out “What Would They Say Now? Encounters with People of the Bible,” a six-week Lenten resource from Friends of Sabeel North America.
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Mennonite Palestine-Israel Network
mennopin@gmail.com | mennopin.org | facebook.com/mennopin | twitter.com/mennopin
Steering Committee:
Tom Harder (Lorraine Avenue Mennonite Church, Wichita, KS)
Joy Lapp (Pleasant View Mennonite Church, Mt Pleasant, IA)
Rachelle Lyndaker Schlabach (Peace Fellowship Church, Washington, DC)
Timothy Seidel (Community Mennonite Church, Lancaster, PA)
MennoPIN 