Christian Peacemaker Teams hosts peacemaking trips called delegations while also sending full time peacemakers to places all over the globe that are experience war and violence. I am going on a delegation next month. This is an article that I received from CPT yesterday - which speaks to the importance of the work that they do.
We Are The Message
By Jerry Levin
I recently received a question from a reader who wanted to know, "What
is CPT doing over there to share the Gospel of Jesus?"
The following was my answer.
"I'm not sure exactly what you mean. I thought our reports made it
clear that we share the Gospel of Christ by trying to exemplify its
meaning. It's something we do every day. By our actions CPTers witness
what kind of followers of Jesus we are trying to be. In so doing, we
demonstrate, we hope, the power of nonviolence, the power of Gospel
love, sacrifice, and hope to the terribly oppressed Palestinians, as
well as our solidarity with and thanks to the many Jewish Israelis
with whom we work who are standing up along with us in the West Bank
for their Palestinian neighbors. They too are demonstrating that they
understand His message.
"But that's only part of what we do. Through our reports we hope that
fellow followers of Jesus elsewhere in the world will take seriously
to heart the words and pictures we send back of the desperate
conditions under which Palestinians are obliged to live debilitating
minute by debilitating minute. We hope that these readers in turn will
be encouraged to take part in the struggle in their home countries to
influence an end to the oppressive occupation that is tragically so
similar to the Roman occupation two thousand years ago and the
Crusader conquest a thousand years after that.
"Some of the Palestinians we are trying to stand with, by the way, are
Christian. But can you imagine? Where Muslims with whom we interact
daily are concerned, we don't have to say a thing about the Gospels.
By our willingness to risk standing with them, they get the message
powerful and clear.
"Here's something else that may be difficult to imagine; but it's
true. Many many of the Muslims whom we try to help are already living
the kind of life that Jesus taught. They put their trust in God
[Allah] unhesitatingly. They admire, respect, and love Jesus greatly
(They call him Issa.). They pray much more often and regularly than
many Christians do. And when they do pray, they seem to be far less
interested in what God can do for them and much more in what they can
do for God. Powerful sentiments for a people in the Holy Land from
whom much has been taken with nothing given back in return.
"Finally our experience here and what we know is taking place in the
United States convinces us that an extremely fertile ground for
sharing the Gospel of love is back home amongst millions of
Christians, some of whom are the nation's most powerful political and
religious leaders. By their actions they are tragically complicating
the lives dangerously of the very people here in Palestine and Israel
whom they would like to see become followers of Jesus too. Clearly a
self-defeating process.
"I hope this explanation helps."
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