Lakambini (aka Joji Pantoja) travelled to Amsterdam from 23 June to 02 July 2019 as part of her duties as Chair of the Peace Commission of the Mennonite World Conference. In that capacity, she welcomed the participants at the 2nd Global Mennonite Peacebuilding Conference and Festival.
Peace Commission
Joji’s primary responsibility was to serve as chair during MWC’s Peace Commission meetings last 24-26 June 2019. They worked on the following key tasks:
- Conscientious Objector Document;
- Peace Sunday Themes;
- Statement on Religious Freedom; and,
- Indigenous Peoples Resource Booklet.
Andrew Suderman, the Peace Commission secretary also gave a report on Global Faith Forum that was held last October 2018 in Rome.
Finally, the Commission reviewed the guidelines regarding internal conflicts of member churches, and explored how to better support member churches who are experiencing internal conflicts.
Second Global Mennonite Peacebuilding Conference and Festival
A gathering of academics, church workers, practitioners, artists, and others who work for peace with an Anabaptist perspective was held last 27–30 June 2019. The event was held at the Mennorode, Elspeet, The Netherlands.
The MWC Peace Commission formed three pairs of listening teams guided by a set of reflective questions:
- Who are Anabaptist-Mennonite peacebuilders/peacebuilding?
- What defines Mennonite peacebuilding or peacebuilders?
- Is there anything distinctive?
- What do Anabaptist-Mennonite peacebuilders do? (Or, what have Mennonite peacebuilders done?)
- What has changed over time in Anabaptist-Mennonite peacebuilding?
- With what issues do Anabaptist-Mennonite peacebuilders wrestle? Challenges? Failures?
- Where are we going from here?
- What are the potentials and challenges for networking among Anabaptist/Mennonite peace builders?
- What is needed to support such networking?
During this conference, MWC’s emerging Global Anabaptist Peace Network (GAPN) was launched.
This new network increases our confidence that our local and national justice and peace concerns can be heard globally and that the global issues affecting us locally would immediately be in our radar as local ground workers.
