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Read the articles online:

• A sunset in Bethlehem: Discovering hope in the midst of rubble– Ben Davies
• An advent of peace: Continuing the witness and waiting for God– Stephen Kriss
• Since God is great: Opportunities for peace in the Holy Land– David Landis
• An unpredictable journey: Following the call to bilingual pastoring by Marta Castillo– Marta Castillo
• Living out our committment to peace: Three congregations offer love and hospitality to refugee families– Jessica Walter
• Calling all volunteers: Peaceful Living collaborates with Salford Mennonite Church to meet a growing need– Joe Landis
• Getting out of our comfort zones: This is my story, this is my song– Nate Clemmer
• Telling my story: Sharing hope and a reason to live– Wanda Lindsay
• Philadelphia Praise Center hosts Ramadan feast– Lora Steiner

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Ben Davies, Franconia
bd1194@messiah.edu

The sun had just finished its descent over Bethlehem and the call to prayer rang crisp in the evening air. I breathed in the sent of Arabic coffee mingling with olives and lime trees while sitting with Samir Sababa on the back porch of the Sababa house.

We were both sipping the warm coffee, which was really more like a shot of espresso than a cup of Maxwell House. Squinting into focus some whirring figures just past the low garden wall, I could make out the silhouettes of children piloting their bikes back and fourth on the neighbor’s crumbled patch of macadam. Although I could not understand their Arabic, it was enough to hear the joy in their laughter. “Surely this could not be the Palestine I have always imagined,” I thought to myself. Where were all the extremists and constant gun battles that the American news had told me about?

No, the only extreme I could find there on the porch was the deep brown of Samir’s Palestinian eyes which were staring off intently. He represents the fourth generation to live in that house and now shares it with his parents, Fáud and Louris. He is 28 and married, with a child of his own, Salina.

Samir had completed his undergraduate studies in engineering in his early twenties, but there was little work for him in that field in Palestine, so he works the days away in his fathers mechanic shop slaving over dusty engines. At night he comes home to work just as hard at being a father.

I remembered how, that morning, he had taken me to the unfinished second floor of the house. With an air of gauged accomplishment in his voice, he led me through the rough concrete walled structure holding the future for his young family.

“That room is for Salina and this one is the kitchen,” he pointed, as we stepped over some water and electric lines which dove down through a hole in the floor. I imagined the new space with its final coats of paint and tiled floors smooth with the satisfaction of living well.

Interrupting my thoughts, Samir said, “Here it is like a big jail.” I thought I understood what he meant, but quickly realized that I never really would, I couldn’t. For it was not the grey walls of his second story construction that he was referring to, but another wall, one whose height sprung just as far above the ground; only it served a much more strangling purpose.

“During the last intifada,” he said, “the tanks drove up our road. We had to leave, to hide in the city.”

With the immediacy in his voice I felt as though he half expected me to feel the ground beneath them shiver under the 65 tons of an Israeli Merkava Mark IV tank crawling just outside his bedroom window.

I followed his detached gaze to an oddly vacant lot across the alley. “They blew up our neighbor’s house,” he said, as he turned to measure the weight his words had on his silent listener. It was clear that the cold steel tread and the concussion of the 120mm shells still weighed heavily on Samir like a mallet of judgment for sins he had not committed.

I could still hear the laughter of the children on their bikes, only now it was layered by giggles and squeals coming from Salina. I caught a glimmer in Samir’s eye as he looked contentedly at his wife and daughter.

Then I began to understand that he was not driven by the fear and frustration of those memories, but by hope. His daughter was his hope, his wife and parents were also. They were the freedom and peace that no walls could smother and no tanks could crush.

Ben was a participant in the Franconia Conference and Mennonite Mission Network Youth Venture team to Nazareth Village. Ben and his wife Karah currently attend Messiah College. Ben is in his senior year studying Religion and Karah is a junior studying Nutrition.

To read more reflections from the Nazareth Village team (click here)

Photos by David Landis and Timoyer (Click here) to view more!

Stephen Kriss
skriss@mosaicmennonites.org

Peace is every step. –Thich Nhat Hanh

Love bears all things, believes all things, love never fails.–Paul of Tarsus to the church at Corinth

At Franconia Conference Assembly, we annually commit ourselves to bear witness of nonresistant faith and to waiting for God to appear among us. It’s a ritual that I enjoy, even if at times the words seem a little awkward for my 21st Century mind and voice. I like the connection that brings us back annually to this commitment to witness and watch.

It seems it’s been easier to know how we’d manifest nonresistant witness in the past. We’d live simply, set apart and peaceably. In times of the draft in the 20th Century, we found alternative ways to serve that wouldn’t require us to bear the sword or shoulder a gun. We’ve born the label as a “Historic Peace Church” well but some of us have found this very “peace position” to be a stumbling block to opening our congregations to persons of other ethnicities and experiences. We’ve for some reason found the position of peace to be at odds with sharing the Good News of Christ’s coming into our world.

I think it’s time to call a truce. It’s time for those of us who have supposed either speaking the Good News or living the way of peace to be at odds to find ways to integrate and extend those same calls to witness and waiting. It’s time to turn our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks. It’s time for us to cultivate relationships in the spirit of being the Good News the world is longing to hear by recognizing the possibilities of creating peace, embodying shalom not only for ourselves but even with our enemies. It’s peace that is beyond not going to war. It’s peace, as Jonathan Larson suggests in the Broadway musical Rent, that’s the opposite of war but actually creation.

Greg Boyd, pastor of Woodland Hills Church in Minneapolis, was a presenter at a recent conference at Hesston College and worries that Mennonites are losing their sense of identity by succumbing to both liberal and conservative perspectives that impair our witness and discipleship. He identifies readily with being Mennonite, committed to both active peacemaking and active evangelism. But he’s worried that we aren’t holding these realities in tension or integration effectively and that our identity as a people is at stake.

I agree with Greg. I am also afraid that this Mennonite community that I love, that I found myself planted in after my post-hippie parents sought a faith community that embodied peaceableness and hospitality, won’t survive the pulls of postmodern life. World-renowned Mennonite peace educator John Paul Lederach suggests that building and cultivating peace takes imagination. Los Angeles-based Mennonite bishop Jeff Wright says that to have a future we must re-frame our reality.

At my ordination, my friend Heather Kropf from Pittsburgh sang a song from the 60’s, Come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, start to love one another right now. Love is just a song we sing and fear is how we die. You can make the mountains ring or make the angels cry.

We know that the emphasis on peace and love are a hallmark of 60’s and 70’s spiritual and social awakening. But I have been wondering more and more if love isn’t what will move us through this strained relationship of peace and evangelism, of witnessing and watching.

Meister Eckhart suggests that whenever God is doing something, there is an outpouring of compassion, that our souls are stirred toward response. In these pages of Intersections, this Advent season, I see both witness and waiting for God to appear as we work to embody compassion and love.

There’s something creative in building shalom whether it’s in welcoming refugees from lands of political strife to live in the lands that William Penn deeded to us for the same purpose, observing possibilities for peace and hope in the Holy Land, or opening doors to those formerly perceived as enemies in South Philadelphia. We are continuing to bear witness, taking steps and moving toward peace and in peace by putting flesh and bones to the message of the Good News that God has come among us.

Marta Castillo, Norristown New Life
castillos@juno.com

My name is Marta Castillo. The name itself puts me in a box I do not fit. I am not Latina or originally from a Spanish speaking country. Perhaps I should say that my name is Marta (Beidler) Castillo. A few of you may recognize the “Beidler” name. “Beidler” does not, however, elicit images of the bilingual associate pastor that I have recently been called to be at Nueva Vida Norristown New Life Mennonite Church.

God has invited me on an unpredictable journey of twists and turns, rooted deeply in God’s love and faithfulness.

At a young age, 8 or 9, I remember seriously wanting to serve God for the rest of my life as a missionary or mission worker. At that time, our family was living in Indonesia and I knew that my parents’ faith in God was strong enough for them to move their family, learn to live in a new culture, and learn a new language in order to serve God.

Even when we returned to the United States in 1986 (I was 16), my goal was to finish high school, go to college, and return overseas. It was not until after I graduated from college and was almost signed up to go to Egypt with Mennonite Central Committee that I realized God was not calling me overseas at that time. My relationship with God suffered during my college years and I did not find a church that I felt I could relate to during those years or the following three years that I lived in Washington, DC.

In 1994, I came to a crossroads in my life. I was attending a Quaker meeting on and off but really had made some mistakes in my life. I realized that God was giving me a choice. Move back to Pennsylvania and chose to renew my spiritual life or stay in DC and walk further away. I knew that I had to choose God and I moved back to Pennsylvania.

I began to be involved at Nueva Vida Norristown New Life, and I experienced “church” for the first time. These were people who spoke openly and freely of their shortcomings, gave their testimonies, and accepted each other across cultural, economical, language, and racial lines as brothers and sisters in love.

Accepting one church commitment after another, I grew in the Lord. I learned much diversity of worship and prayer from my Spanish speaking brothers and sisters, as well as having strong mentoring relationships with two pastors, one of whom was my father.

About three years ago, I began to sense a call to pastoral ministry, but being a married woman with small children, I could not see how it would be possible. I expected that the Lord would prepare my husband and I to serve together in ministry as a team. God just kept working and guiding gently and I continued to have opportunities to be stretched in ministry.

In May of 2006, I went on a spiritual retreat and God confirmed to me that I had a calling to pastoral ministry. I was confident in God’s calling but was unsure how God would work it all out. In December of 2006, I quit my part-time job, sensing that 2007 would bring the changes God had planned.

God has encouraged, prepared, and gently led me each step of the way. All God wanted was my willingness. God has and will continue to take care of the equipping, empowering, love, and wisdom needed for pastoring. So here I am, Marta (Beidler) Castillo. God has called me and my congregation has supported me in my calling. Blessed be the name of the Lord!

photo provided by Marta Castillo

Jessica Walter

What if your family had to move to a new town? What would you need in this new area? You’d need a place to live, jobs, a new bank, a new doctor, and new schools for your children. You’d also need a way to get around and a map or kind neighbor to show you where things are. What if you were moving to a foreign country because of fear for the safety of your family, with little more than a suitcase full of some clothing and priceless family memories? What more would you need then? Not only a house, but also furniture and other necessary housewares. Not only schools for your children, but also language classes for yourself. Not only jobs and a new doctor, but also caring people who can help you walk through the fear of settling your family into a new country.

These are the questions being answered and the needs being met by Blooming Glen Mennonite Church, Plains Mennonite Church, and Souderton Mennonite Church. These congregations are assisting three families recently resettled in the Philadelphia area by Lutheran Children and Family Service’s Refugee Resettlement program.

Blooming Glen
Blooming Glen has been helping to resettle refugee families in the United States for around four years. According to Patsy Miller, coordinator for Blooming Glen’s ministry, their first two families were Muslim Meskhetian Turks. Blooming Glen is currently helping a Burmese family who arrived in the United States three months ago.

“Working with these families has certainly been a positive learning experience for all involved,” says Patsy. “It has brought us even closer as a church working together to help this family rebuild their lives here in America.

It has also been a joy watching them blossom in their newfound freedom. The Turkish families are still in touch with many of our church members. The sad part for us this time is seeing the family from Burma leave us for Colorado where they are joining family before we have really had time to establish a long term friendship. We will miss this wonderful family and wish them God’s blessings on their new journey in America.”

Patsy also noted that providing support to a very strict Muslim family has been a struggle; one challenge Blooming Glen faced in resettling that family was finding a job for the father where there was no pork in the building. However, she also expressed Blooming Glen’s joy in being able to share Christ’s love to those of other faiths.

“I think that any time we open ourselves up to sharing and learning about each other’s faith, we build bridges of friendship and peace. It certainly has broadened our worldview, learning about the families’ cultures and experiences of living in a refugee camp or as an outcast people like the Meskhetian Turks.”

Plains
Plains has also participated in resettling refugee families over the years, including a Sudanese family in 2000, and currently is supporting an Iraqi family originally from Baghdad.

from left: The Na family. Sha Mi Na, Ray Ha Na, and Kate Landis play on their scooters. Center photo: The Issa family at Plains Mennonite Church’s retreat in the fall.

Steve Landis coordinates the resettlement efforts at Plains and notes that when the idea of helping to resettle a refugee family was proposed to the congregation, people were immediately interested in participating and supporting the family.

“Our friendship with this family and the support we’ve been able to provide feels like a contribution of peace into a situation where violence and hatred continue to destroy or impact many lives,” reflects Steve. “It’s been a lot of work to set up a household for a family of six and help them work through the many challenges that face strangers to our culture and language. However, it has also been very rewarding to be a part of a group that is committed to sharing God’s love with our neighbors and to feel the emotional connections between our Iraqi friends and the church family. ”

Souderton
When Souderton was asked to help an Iraqi family settle into the area, Pastor Gerry Clemmer asked Dorothy Engstrom to coordinate their efforts. That next Sunday, while sharing about the project and asking for volunteers, Dorothy told her congregation that she agreed to serve as coordinator for several reasons: the history of the Mennonite Church and in particular the congregation’s commitment to peace rather than war; the congregation’s continual prayer for peace in worship services and in private prayers since the beginning of the war; and the fact that “even though one congregation can’t stop the suffering and death of the war, it could help one family and thus live out its commitment to peace.”

In fact, Dorothy was attracted to the Mennonite church partly because of “its vision to bring social justice and peace to those who are in need and suffering.”

Souderton has reached out in this ministry of resettlement for several years and has also helped families from Cambodia, Cuba, and Africa. The congregation is “convinced that participating in this ministry is at the heart of what we understand it means to be followers of Jesus and to live by Sermon on the Mount values,” says Dorothy. “Reaching out to ‘strangers’ and those in need of our help is a witness to our commitment to Jesus as well as being the Church beyond what is familiar and comfortable to us. When we are made aware of needs, how can we not respond? It reflects who we are as God’s people.”

Dorothy has been blessed by the enthusiastic response her congregation has shown in volunteering to take care of the needs of their refugee family. It has also provided “an avenue for persons to work together on various teams who may not have known each other,” due to the size of the congregation and two worship services.

“We are also learning a lot about the resiliency of the human spirit as we get to know our family. They have drawn out of us feelings of love, compassion, and caring. With that resiliency comes the reality that our Iraqi family has extended family still living as refugees in Jordan as well as family still in Iraq. Our joy in relating to the family is tempered by the reality that there are an estimated 2.3 million refugees from this war with only about 170,000 approved for resettlement in all the countries of the world.”

“Globally, even though we are helping just one family of six persons, it is one way of lending our voice against the pain and suffering brought about by the war,” says Dorothy. “In some small way, it is a redemptive act in the face of mass suffering, destruction, horror, and trauma.”

Saja and Israa Joda (Issa) learn to fish with Pastor Dawn Ranck (Plains). Dorothy Engstrom (top left) and the Sahul family visit the Freddy Hill Farm.

photos provided by the congregations featured

Joe Landis, Salford
jlandis@peacefulliving.org

In the 1980’s I began to request volunteers from denominational agencies because I noticed a growing need for human services workers in the area. I had gotten into human services by volunteering myself through Mennonite Central Committee’s (MCC) PAX program. Specifically, I worked with people with disabilities and was an “orderly” in West Berlin, Germany for two years, instead of going to Vietnam. Having experienced a life-influencing time of voluntary service, I thought this would be an excellent opportunity for someone who might be interested in the field. However, this area was considered too wealthy and, with the concept of voluntary service fading in the US, it was increasingly difficult to find volunteers; as a result units were closing and urban area became the focus.

However, about two years ago I was talking to a representative from Christliche Dienste, a German Mennonite agency which is responsible for sending German volunteers around the world, including Peaceful Living, in collaboration with MCC and Mennonite Mission Network’s Mennonite Voluntary Service (MVS) program, and discovered that volunteers were not always located in economically depressed urban areas. When I approached MVS this time, they informed me of a new approach, “If a congregation will sponsor a unit, so will we.” They also have a new initiative to integrate urban volunteers in the suburbs, which aligns with our approach.

During this time a member of my small group at Salford Mennonite Church brought a new study guide: “Healing Healthcare: A Study and Action Guide on Healthcare Access in the United States” which is a study guide for congregations, published by the Mennonite Church USA, surrounding key issues of healthcare access. We began to talk about this and spun off in all directions, from the 45 million uninsured to Medicaid cuts and limits in the federal budget. We decided that one area we could make a small difference was to try to find volunteers to respond to some of the unmet health care needs in our own neighborhoods. We then sent a recommendation for a MVS Unit to Salford’s Justice and Peace Ministry Team. They in turn recommended it to the church board. In February of this year the congregation voted to accept the proposal.

There are multiple needs and opportunities for volunteers in our area. Around 1,500 people with developmental disabilities are waiting for services in the Montgomery and Bucks Counties. Hundreds of internationals are moving into our area, some refugees from Iraq, needing language training in order to find work. An agency which teaches English as a Second Language is maxed out with 400 people enrolled in their classes and 500 more on its waiting list. Another local human service agency that provides services for troubled youth and families, told me the majority of their staff live out of the area because there is no affordable housing nearby. We have a chronic staff shortage of human services workers in the Bux-mont area. There is already interest expressed from six local agencies, including Peaceful Living, for volunteers from this unit.

While we are waiting for approval from Mennonite Mission Network for this specific MVS unit a committee of members from Salford has formed to begin planning. We have decided to call this the Greater Philadelphia MVS house and aim to attract volunteers from both the US and abroad. The unit will recruit volunteers from six different sources, including Mennonite, Catholic, and Muslim agencies. We want our community to model our Anabaptist values of service and loving reconciliation. The Lord has already blessed us with a gifted committee, prayerful support, and several necessary resources. We hope for continued support as the project moves forward.

photo provided
by Peaceful Living

Nate Clemmer, Souderton
nate.clemmer@thproperties.com

I know all of the written and unwritten rules of being a Mennonite. I know what to say and when to say it. I know when it is appropriate to clap in church and even when it is permissible to say “Amen” without causing the entire congregation to turn around.

I have an “acceptable Mennonite” last name. In fact I have Clemmer blood on both sides of my genetic makeup. Thanks to the financial sacrifices made by my parents I have been blessed to have been educated for seventeen years at Penn View Christian School, Christopher Dock Mennonite High School, and Eastern Mennonite University. These three schools have been referred to as the “Triple Crown” of Mennonite education.

In short, I am like most of you. The rhythm of my song and the language of my story should sound strikingly familiar. However, I am finding all too often that these things are where the similarities end.

During many of the formative years of my life I placed a stronger emphasis on being a “Good Mennonite” then I did on being a passionate follower of Jesus Christ. I appreciate the tradition of the Franconia Conference and enjoy the comfort that comes from knowing I am among friends. But I am learning that comfort can be controlling. I find myself in a constant battle between playing it safe and stepping out in faith, wrestling with the tension between who I am and who I should be, how it is and how it could be.

I am discovering that for many of us church has become a place we come to reconnect with friends and be fed. It has become more about what we can get as opposed to what we can give back. Stewardship has become something that we teach as opposed to an outflow of gratitude that we feel. Outreach and evangelism has become something we leave to the experts. The kingdom of heaven has become a place we seek to go when our time on earth is done as opposed to living out our existence in a manner that strives to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth. As a result, I feel that Jesus Christ is being lost in a religion bearing his name.

Please allow me to be clear in saying that if there is any blame to be assigned it should be directed at me, because I am the biggest part of the problem. I have been blessed with the opportunity and ability to influence change and make a difference, but for the majority of my life I have chosen to sit on the sidelines and play it safe. Why rock the boat when you know how to play the game and can play it well. Let me also be clear in saying that I can no longer rationalize with that still small voice and with great fear and trepidation I am attempting to step into the skin I was created to fill.

This is my story and this is my song, but I am convinced that I am not alone. My desire is to use the platform of Delaware Valley MEDA to galvanize those who share a similar passion to see the church restored to the original vehicle Jesus intended it to be. Over the course of the next year our dinner programs will spotlight individuals in the business and professional arena who are battling against the tension of the world and seeking to utilize their God-given talents for the glory of the kingdom. Our hope is that the stories of others will serve to fuel the fire to dig deeper within ourselves.

photo provided
by Nate Clemmer