Ideas for Action

We haven’t been able to think about anything else recently. The images of unarmed protesters in Ferguson facing down cops in riot gear through a haze of tear gas are on loop in our brains. If you’ve been watching the news at all, you know some version of the story: an unarmed 18-year-old African American named Michael Brown was shot by a police officer while he was walking home. The circumstances of the shooting are disputed. Riots and looting ensued and heavily militarized cops rolled in.

The first time Jesus preached in a synagogue, he said that he came to proclaim release to the captives (Luke 4:18). Those captives include people who have disabilities, sometimes literally. My friend Margaret who works overseas with people with disabilities told me that some of them have scars on their wrists from being chained to their beds for years as children. Pastors from a number of different countries have told me similar stories.

One injustice that I've recently become more aware of is what I've begun to think of as "dream-killing," and it's an injustice that those of us in the church practice all too often against our young people. 

Are you interested in the plight of refugees? Would you like to sponsor refugees as a group or church? The book The Middle of Everywhere by Mary Pipher is a great resource to help you.

Every day at five am in the small rural community of Basurú, on Colombia’s Pacific Coast, a group from the local Mennonite church gathers to broadcast the events of the day. Using a microphone connected to megaphones hoisted high above the community on bamboo poles, the technology may be archaic but the messages are not. The only way to reach the community is by boat on the San Juan river; access to local news is a way to keep the community connected and informed of what is going on in the world around them.

If you won a court case for horrendous abuse, what would you demand? Money? Indigenous peoples in Canada asked for a chance to tell their stories of residential schools to the nation, to teach others about a part of our history that often doesn’t get much space in the history textbooks. (If you’re American, you’re not off the hook. Our countries share a very similar story about residential schools.)

When Egypt gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in January 2011, I prayed that there would be real change in that country. I prayed that Egyptians would be freed from their bondage beneath the thumb of dictatorship, poverty, and social injustice.

When uprisings began in Yemen and Libya, I prayed that the reformers would win. When bombs went off and barricades rose and protestors marched, I prayed that the underdogs would win out against their overlords. When the weak stood up to the strong, I prayed.

This is one of my favorite passages from Nicholas Wolterstorff. I first appreciated its significance on July 4, 2011, when I was living in Colombia, South America, participating in the Mennonite Central Committee’s Seed program. We were a mix of people from all the Americas: Peru, Colombia, Mexico, US, and Canada. On American Independence Day, with the smell of brownies in the oven and Taylor Swift playing in the background, we came together—not to celebrate our country, but to recognize where we came from.

There were five things that I took away from the conference that I can do. I’ll go through them one-by-one and elaborate.

We just moved – packed up all we own and migrated across the Rockies and across the Georgia Strait. We’re now in a town that shares borders with two reserves. I admit that I don’t know a great deal about these neighbours. That’s not entirely true; at a certain level, I’ve learned a great deal. I know that they are the first residents of this land. I know that through a series of treaties and promises and no shortage of sneakiness and partial truths, we managed to squeeze them onto small reserves.