The Reverend Mary Lawrence is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church, and has served churches in Massachusetts for eleven years. She was born in England shortly before the outbreak of WWII. She came to the United States in 1974.

In 1985 her interest in peacemaking took her to the Soviet Union on a Christian Leaders’ delegation with Bridges for Peace. She has been a participant in various peace groups and peace studies over the last twenty years and has been an Amnesty International Partner of Conscience for the past sixteen years.

In 1996, as a recipient of the United Methodist Stowell Scholarship, she made a study tour of the Holy Land. She visited Israel/Palestine again in 1998. In 2000 she traveled to Hebron in the Occupied West Bank as a delegate with Christian Peacemaker Teams and experienced first-hand the difficulties of living under Israeli military occupation. In January 2001 she completed her training with CPT. At her denomination's Annual Conference in June 2001 she was appointed to the peacemaking mission of the church, and became a member of the Christian Peacemaker Team in Hebron.

Rev. Lawrence has completed two and a half years of her three-year term with the Peacemaker Team. Between June 2001 and December 2003 she spent fifteen months working with CPT in Hebron and the surrounding areas in the Occupied West Bank, and fifteen months preaching and teaching in the New England area. She is scheduled to return to Hebron in March 2004 to continue her work there.

Rev. Lawrence holds a B.A. in psychology from Boston College, an M.A. in Pastoral Counseling from Emmanuel College, Boston, and a Masters in Divinity from B.U. School of Theology. She and her retired engineer husband live in Lunenburg, Massachusetts. They have four adult children and two grandsons.