Hebron’s Old City has one main street.  It connects the Ibrahimi Mosque to Bab il Balideyya, an open square next to the Beit Romano settlement and military base.  Along this cobblestone road, narrower streets branch off, meandering deeper into the Old City, intersecting with other less trafficked alleys.  At night, the Old City is dark, with only the main road lit, and there, only in scattered places.

Colombian social organizations led by women are always the most vulnerable and least heard.  Sometimes I wish God's justice came swiftly and unquestioned the way Jesus dispensed it in Mark 5:21-29.  I see women who denounce the perverse and announce that which gives life, that which is to be enjoyed and shared with others.  Others today may be touched by the mantle that thousands of years ago reached out to a woman condemned by doctors and society to remain sick and excluded all her life.  We cannot ignore this story in our culture that silences women's voices—a society that chooses to isolate women because women don't live up to its standards.  It is a culture that constantly represses and trivialises the work of hundreds of mothers, sisters, sisters-in-law, and daughters.  At end of the day we hear these voices calling, "There is only one hope to see a different tomorrow."

The multicolored van wove its way along the rocky dirt road, and gently up a hill. Looking ahead I could see them -- twenty five or so young children dressed in their school uniforms, standing in front of the building, swarming about their two teachers. As they spied our vehicle (not terribly hard to do), they began to jump up and down, jog in place, and wave to us.

Sun, clear sky and a little mild weather made it seem like spring in the winter. The situation in the streets was normal; traffic was light, making for an ordinary day!! This was the situation on 26 Dec. 2011 when the CPT team arrived in Kirkuk to accompany the Christian community for the day. 

 It is late afternoon. The sun has disappeared. It is fairly cold. We are seated on benches in front of a home in the Makhmoud refugee camp in northern Iraq, speaking with Josef and Armeena. About two years ago, they were part of a delegation of about forty-six persons who formed a Peace Brigade. They had intended to meet with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan and deliver a letter to him simply explaining that this group, and the Kurdish people, were not terrorists. They wanted peace. They wanted what all of us want (and many of us expect) -- our basic human rights. Mr. Erdogan refused to meet with them. Instead, the group was arrested, tried and sentenced to ten to fifteen years in prison. Josef and Armeena fled. Ten of the group remain in prison today.

“CPT!  CPT!  Come, come!  The soldiers have a man!”  Her voice startled me.  Jean, Rosie, and I had been on afternoon patrol, but I had lagged behind to look at a few shops in Hebron’s Old City.  Though I did not know the woman requesting my presence, she knew who I was because of my red hat and gray vest bearing the Christian Peacemaker Team logo.  I was alone, inexperienced in the field. 

In the last weeks of 2011, the United States officially withdrew the last of its troops from Iraq.  Within a couple of days, news reports from Baghdad were filled with more violence, death and destruction.  On December 22, a series of bomb attacks killed 63 people in the capital city.  These events seemed to confirm speculation that conditions in Iraq will worsen with the departure of U.S. troops.

Already we have waited for an hour, inside the prison courtyard. We have come to gather with family and friends of Ibrahim, a man who before resided in Halabjah. Police officials apprehended him more than two months ago and brought him to this closed facility. Outside the entrance to the prison, guests purchased an assortment of fruits and pastries to share with the inmates. This once-a-week encounter is all the opportunity provided for family and friends to stay in touch with their husband, father, brother, uncle and friend. Now as we wait, the others throughout the 30-meter square yard spread rugs and mats with provisions brought for sharing a picnic experience with their imprisoned host.  We are among more than 40 people most of which have made the journey from Halabjah to the provincial capital city of Sulaimaniya to see Ibrahim once again.

Following God’s Call 

by Pierre Shantz

Advent is a time of hope and waiting.  We all anxiously await the birth of Jesus. It is a time of celebration. We sing our favorite hymns. We prepare the wreaths and light a new candle for every Sunday.  Every day, we open a new window in our Advent calendars looking for a treat or a lesson for the day.  For us who know the outcome of the story -- the entering of God into our broken world -- it is one of our favorite seasons in the church.

Witness To The Arriving Christ
by Caldwell 'Carlos' Manners

Life stands as the central theme in John's gospel (John 20:31), and it is in and through the incarnate Christ that this life of abundance is manifest and brought  into reality (John10:10). It is in this overarching theme that the narrator compels us into a world of contesting powers --  transports us through time to the beginning, when all things came into being. The one journeying from heaven to earth is rejected by his own and is forced to embark on conferring childhood rights to all those who believe in him- -- stirring contrasting images: the violator and the violated, the powerful and the powerless, the colonizers and colonized. It is in these spaces and dimensions of travel, as it unfolds throughout the gospel that we like John are witnesses.