Resurrection Peacemaking: Plowsharing the Tools of War
eBook - ePub

Resurrection Peacemaking: Plowsharing the Tools of War

Thirty Years with Christian Peacemaker Teams

Clifford Kindy

Share book
  1. 176 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Resurrection Peacemaking: Plowsharing the Tools of War

Thirty Years with Christian Peacemaker Teams

Clifford Kindy

Book details
Book preview
Table of contents
Citations

About This Book

The author draws the reader through the drama and mediocrity of his personal experience. The hard work of peacemaking is clearly strengthened through team efforts. Space is provided for the reader to step into the shallows of peacemaking and then on into the depths. This book is intended to be acted into being!

Frequently asked questions

How do I cancel my subscription?
Simply head over to the account section in settings and click on “Cancel Subscription” - it’s as simple as that. After you cancel, your membership will stay active for the remainder of the time you’ve paid for. Learn more here.
Can/how do I download books?
At the moment all of our mobile-responsive ePub books are available to download via the app. Most of our PDFs are also available to download and we're working on making the final remaining ones downloadable now. Learn more here.
What is the difference between the pricing plans?
Both plans give you full access to the library and all of Perlego’s features. The only differences are the price and subscription period: With the annual plan you’ll save around 30% compared to 12 months on the monthly plan.
What is Perlego?
We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, we’ve got you covered! Learn more here.
Do you support text-to-speech?
Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.
Is Resurrection Peacemaking: Plowsharing the Tools of War an online PDF/ePUB?
Yes, you can access Resurrection Peacemaking: Plowsharing the Tools of War by Clifford Kindy in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Politics & International Relations & Peace & Global Development. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Chapter 1

Gaza Night

In the summer of 1993, Gene Stoltzfus, the first director of Christian Peacemaker Teams, approached me. He said, “Cliff, we think you should be part of the team that goes to the Gaza Strip.” My family and I talked about this request, and then responded that since our two daughters were still young and I felt responsible for them, I’d better not go.
At the time, I was a member of the Steering Committee of Christian Peacemaker Teams. CPT had sent short delegations to Palestine and other hot spots, but this would be the first team sent for a longer time.
Gene asked again. The team would be going July, August, and September, the busiest time for our market garden, our primary income source. We felt I couldn’t leave all that work for Arlene and the girls and told Gene so.
Gene asked again. He was persistent. Miriam, 12 years old at the time, said, “Daddy, many fathers and sons leave home in Gaza and never return, but you will only be gone for three months. Maybe we should make it possible for you to go.”
Daddy went.
Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom met the CPT team in Jerusalem to prepare us for the trip to Gaza. He said to us, “When you cross the borders into Gaza, you cross the borders into hell.” We were a team of four that finally entered Gaza: Elayne McClannen from Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Phyllis Butt from Louisville, Ohio; David Weaver from Hartville, Ohio; and I from North Manchester, Indiana. Duane Ediger, our fifth team member, was refused entry at Tel Aviv because he had been arrested for crossing the so-called Green Line between Israel and Palestine a year earlier.
According to the United Nations, Gaza was the most densely populated area in the world. Unemployment was over 80% since Israel had closed its borders. Gaza’s Palestinian workers employed in agriculture and construction jobs in Israel could no longer get out to their work. Schools, kindergarten through university, had been shut down by the Israeli occupation for four years.
Giardia was in the water supply. Public water also had 400 parts per million nitrates and 600 parts per million chlorides. A two-liter pop bottle of tap water placed on the counter overnight settled out a milky fluid in the bottom half. There was no sewage system; I would straddle an open ditch as I walked the narrow alleys, my backpack nearly hitting the homes at each shoulder. There was no garbage pickup either, so shepherd boys grazed their flocks on the trash that blew and collected into drifts.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) office in Gaza City, under the strong leadership of Raji Sourani, had invited Christian Peacemaker Teams to send a team. This was a trial run for CPT: would it help reduce the violence to have an international peacemaking presence in a conflict zone? This would be the first permanent team CPT sent into a conflict zone. Team members were to stay in the homes of refugee families—a different family each week.
The second week Islamic Jihad scrawled a message on a wall, reading, “All North Americans should be either kidnapped or killed.” This was a bit sobering, so our team examined the options. With the promise of support from PCHR, we finally decided to stay.
About the third or fourth week I was headed to Rafah Refugee Camp, on the border with Egypt. As we got close to the camp, we were met at an Israeli checkpoint. A soldier poked his gun in the front window of the car and said, “Let’s see an ID.” He waved us on in, and I could see bigger Israeli guns up an embankment above us.
As we drove into the Shaburra section of the camp, we entered a vast open space where Palestinian homes had been demolished by Israeli bulldozers. Israeli military forces were on the roof of a tall two-story building. With the sweep of guns they patrolled the area within their view, an area where children played. I could hear gunshots in the distance. Occasionally jeeps raced up, squealed to a stop, and soldiers jumped out with guns at the ready. We had entered a war zone.
That afternoon my host accompanied me to a wake. A day earlier Israeli soldiers were pursuing a young Palestinian man. He could be wanted for some infraction at a checkpoint or for being from the wrong political party. His younger brother stepped in front of the pursuing soldiers and took seven shots below his waist. Rafah, despite a population of two hundred thousand, had no hospital. So medical personnel took him to Khan Younis, a nearby city. There he died in the hospital when Israeli soldiers refused to allow the doctors to enter. We were at his wake. Even with tight checkpoints on the streets, and soldiers on rooftops around the wake site, about two thousand people attended.
Mid-afternoon, his family asked me through an interpreter if I would be willing to stay with them through the night. Soldiers had raided the home the night before, ransacking each room in the house, shooting out the only shower and sink in the house, shooting holes through the metal roof, and stomping on the hands of a baby sleeping on the floor as they departed. The family was afraid they might return and wanted me to stay with them.
I am an organic market gardener in Indiana. I use wheelbarrows and shovels; we don’t have guns in our home. Quickly in my mind I pondered, Well, Cliff, why did you come?
“Okay,” I said, “I will stay with you.”
At 9 p.m., the nightly curfew started and thirteen of us filed into the home. We ate supper. Well, three of us did, two of the family and the guest. I don’t speak Arabic and they didn’t speak English, but we could exchange names and I could learn some new words. I could sense the tension in the air.
At midnight there was a knock on the door. It got more insistent, a gun butt beating against the door. The sister, who became the presence of the Spirit for me that night, went to answer. Seven Israeli soldiers barged in, knowing exactly what was to happen that night and how it was going to happen. Then they noticed me sitting against the wall in my pajamas and sandals, heart pounding in my chest. They didn’t know who I was, but it was clear that I wasn’t from Rafah Camp!
They hesitated then proceeded politely through each room of the house, trying to regain control of the situation. On the way out they seized the two older brothers. The sister made it very clear to me that if anything was to occur, it would be outside—and if I wanted to be present, I’d better get outside.
The squad was asking the brothers to take down the posters of Muneer, the brother who had been killed. They also asked the brothers to take down the tarp that had shaded the wake area and to whitewash the walls. The walls served as a newspaper since no newspaper was allowed to be printed in Gaza. The brothers did take down the tarp but refused to do the other tasks.
I had tried earlier to speak with the soldiers, but they indicated they spoke no English and I didn’t speak Hebrew either. Ariel, whose name I understood means lion, was the captain of the squad. He was the type of person who makes lists and crosses off tasks as the jobs get done.
Things weren’t happening very fast and there apparently was still lots to do this night. Ariel played the point of his gun across my chest and asked, “Cliff, why don’t you take down the posters?”
I had heard of reflective listening, so I responded, “It’s very important for you that the posters come down, right, Ariel?”
“Yes, Cliff.”
“And you want me to take them down?”
“Yes, Cliff.”
But I didn’t know where to go next with reflective listening. I was not looking forward to spending the night on the streets of Rafah Camp if I took the signs down after the brothers had refused to do so. On the other hand, I didn’t relish the alternative of not even needing a place to stay that night! I was saved from my dilemma when four more soldiers came in off the street, for no one could speak English anymore and each had to be more macho than the others.
Soon some soldiers knocked on a neighbor’s door. There was no answer and I could hear the door splinter...

Table of contents