World Accord at the Peacemaker's Summit
As the new executive director of World Accord, I had the good fortune to receive an invitation to the Community of Christ Peacemaker's Summit. It was held in Independence, Missouri on Monday and Tuesday of this week. This Summit was an opportunity for the Church to get together with affiliates of the church. Some of the organizations were quite formalized and others, not so much. For some the affiliation with the church was clear and formal and with other organizations the affiliation was less clear. This hardly mattered though.
What mattered was that all the people in the room were working toward creating or maintaining Peace in their respective communities through many different approaches. I was struck by the thought of how the Peace mission of the church was being brought to fruition through these many and varied pathways. If we look at the influence we are having as a total, it is incredible. And that is just the officially recognized affiliates. There are so many spin-offs.
For instance, Mary Burbidge went on one of our construction expeditions and felt called to do something for the cold and sick kids in the mountains of Honduras. She started up the pneumonia vest knitting project that has not only given people an opportunity to help here in Canada but has probably touched upwards of 20,000 children around the world that have received a knitted vest or hat. And hundreds of people have participated in World Accord's construction expeditions through the efforts of volunteers Al Wigood, Richard Kirsh and Jens Schoenrank. And this is just one piece of the pie.
Then there is the individual contributions by church members. We stayed at the home of donors Carol and Dave Baltz. Their giving hearts are incredible. The help they have provided for some seriously marginalized youth is truly inspiring. If we were able to look at the sum total of all the good that is done by Community of Christ affiliates, members and friends, I am sure the result would be astounding.
World Accord was well represented. In addition to myself, we had Rod Downing, a former-director of World Accord, representing his Peace and Justice newsletter; Mary Jacks-Dynes, a current World Accord board member, representing the church; and WA Treasurer Lew Shepherdson (on the board of at least three church affiliates), representing Encounter World Religions. World Accord staff member Terry Fielder was there with me but also represented Sionito since he is a member of Sionito's board of directors.
As a group we developed goals and action steps to achieving those goals that will have us all working together more effectively to support the creation and maintenance of Peace. It was an inspiring event to say the least.
posted by World Accord Staff @ 2:01 PM
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