Mennonite Weekly Review

LONDON — Christian Peacemaker Teams held its first training in Europe as it expands its connections on the continent.

Participants in the Christian Peacemaker Teams October training in London debrief after a role play in the garden of the London Mennonite Centre. — Photo by Tim Nafziger/CPT

CPT trained eight people Oct. 1-31 at the London Mennonite Centre to prepare them for accompaniment and peacemaking work in CPT’s projects.

Three of the trainees were from Sweden, two from Scotland, two living in Germany (one from England and one from the Netherlands) and one from California.

“It was a great group of people to spend a month with,” Tim Nafziger, CPT outreach coordinator, wrote in a blog post for The Mennonite. “We worked through modules focusing on biblical themes of nonviolence, undoing oppressions, conflict media, working styles, human rights documentation.”

CPT had nine European members of the Peacemaker Corps — who work on CPT projects part or full time — before the training; the number has now doubled. CPT usually conducts training at its Chicago headquarters, though it has held regional trainings in the other parts of North America and held its first training outside North American earlier this year in Colombia.

While in Europe, Nafziger spoke with Mennonites and Quakers in the Netherlands and Germany about promoting CPT. CPT members in Sweden are interested in doing the same, he said. CPT and these partners hope to attract people for delegations to CPT projects in several areas in Colombia and Palestine, in northern Iraq, and in First Nations communities in Ontario, Canada; as well as occasionally to Congo and the U.S. Southwest.

CPT also built a German language section of its Web site.

Public witness actions

For several years, CPT had envisioned having a U.K. regional group and perhaps a training there, Nafziger wrote. A regional group began to form in 2004 while Nafziger was working in London.

During their training, the U.K. trainees planned and led two actions on issues related to CPT’s work. On Oct. 7, the eighth anniversary of the campaign in Afghanistan by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, CPT trainees and other peace activists held a communion service in front of the gates of the Northwood Headquarters north of London. As a base for the British armed forces and NATO regional command, soldiers there coordinate bombings in Afghanistan.