By Elise Derstine
For Mennonite Weekly Review

	Faith communities from around the country added segments to a rope displayed during the public witness in Upper Senate Park. — Photo by Elise Derstine/MWR

Several hundred activists of many faiths convened at the witness, as the ecumenical Christian Peace Witness group teamed with the Olive Branch Interfaith Peace Partnership to bring religious traditions together with a common cause: ending the Iraq war, denouncing torture and working nonviolently to heal war wounds.

The pastors arrested were André Gingerich Stoner of Kern Road Mennonite Church in South Bend, Ind., and Karl Shelly of Assembly Mennonite Church in Goshen, Ind.

Tamara Gill, a student at Eastern Mennonite Seminary in Harrisonburg, Va., said a group had been praying outside the Senate building in the late afternoon when people decided to go inside. Several people made a circle, prayed and sang.

Police surrounded the group and gave three warnings to disburse before arresting individuals one by one. Gill, who went inside the building but did not disobey the police, said Senate staff members and others in the building watched from balconies as the activists prayed in the rotunda.

“I walked up the stairs and talked to them about what we were doing,” Gill said. “I sensed God’s leading in each of the conversations.”

Gill’s housemate Alicia Horst was one of those arrested. Horst attended CPWI workshops about civil disobedience — which some participants called “divine obedience” — before deciding to pray with the group in the rotunda.

“It seems so bizarre to me that I live in a country where people are allowed to go kill people, and that to peacefully pray would be worthy of arrest,” Horst said.

Mennonites were well represented among the several hundred people who participated in the second annual Christian Peace Witness for Iraq. — Photo by Elise Derstine/MWR

“Your letters matter; your calls matter,” Landis said, recalling the words of one of the advisers. “Your voice has an authenticity because you are not speaking as a Democrat or a Republican.”

After the meeting, Landis joined the group in the rotunda.

“This is evangelism in its true sense,” Landis said. “People were asking, ‘What are they doing and why?’ . . . It was a true way to speak truth to power.”

The arrests in the rotunda concluded a day of events in Washington, beginning with Christian services at more than 10 houses of worship on Capitol Hill. Anna Roeschley, a Washington resident serving with Mennonite Voluntary Service, attended a service that featured Mennonite hymn singing.

“What I needed today was to lament, to consider hope,” she said. “The service provided a space to grieve the tragedies of war, to confess the ways in which I am a part of this war.”

After the services, hundreds of worshipers processed through the pouring rain to Upper Senate Park for a public witness featuring speakers from Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist traditions.

A rope, made of segments sent by faith communities around the country and decorated with colorful messages of peace, stretched through the crowd.

The rain-soaked crowd was small compared to last year’s witness of several thousand.

“Bigger numbers mean bigger impact, but it’s more about the way you feel as a participant,” said Jonathan Miller of Washington.

Miller hosted his parents, Wayne and Leabell Miller of Shipshewana, Ind., and his brother Jeffrey Miller of Goshen.

“We are definitely against this war, and we wanted to be a witness for peace,” Leabell Miller said as they walked through the rain to the Capitol.

In addition to the witness in Washington, more than 75 local faith groups planned vigils around the country to pray for peace, registering their events on the CPWI Web site. Roselyn Wilson of Reba Place Church in Evanston, Ill., is an organizer for a vigil March 14 at Reba.

“We’ve asked members of our own community to speak about how they’ve responded to the war — people who have gotten involved in Christian Peacemaker Teams, who have gotten arrested at sit-ins for peace in local legislators’ offices,” Wilson said. “It’s worthwhile just to come together and mourn, to say this war is wrong. I also think it’s important to remind ourselves and others that we don’t have to be trapped and voiceless.”