Most of us in the USA either travel or have friends who travel. ECAPC urges people to add meaning and purpose to their travel. You have probably read on this site about the amazing Palm Sunday international nonviolent action in Bethlehem, Palestine in March of 2005, just past. That happened because Sis Levin, our amazing Episcopoalian ECAPC peace educator in Bethlehem, listened to the children when they said, "Why can't we ride on donkey's to Jerusalem like Jesus did?" ECAPC, in cooperation with the Holy Land Trust in Bethlehem, is sponsoring another trip to Israel/Palestine in April 2006. Your local ECAPC group can begin to plan now to send someone on that trip. Think of what that would do for your group, your church, your community! As a group project, not just as the whim, or even passion, of one individual you plan, educate, rasie funds, create expectations, pray, hold public meetings, write stories, do research and particpate in a REAL peace process in the Middle East. When your delegate, or delegates, return, you will have a credibility to hold public meetings, write in the local paper, do presentations in your church and engage in conversations which you could not have imagined previously. Here is the information on our trip next year http://www.ecapc.org/scheddetail.asp?control=47 The dates are March 31-April 11. The cost is estimated at $2,390. That sounds like a like, but think of it this way: every dollar that is donated, every dollar raised, is in investment in peacemaking and adds real action to the thoughts and intents of the donor and the fundraiser. So go for it, get started, give meaning to your Christmas observance this year by sending your prince and princess of peace to Bethlehem in 2006. At the website above there are inspiring articles about last year's trip. They will motivate. And if the Middle East is not the place of your passion for peacemaking, but Iraq, Colombia, or somewhere else is, look at the CPT (Christian Peacemaker Teams) delegation trips to sites around the world in the US and Canada http://www.cpt.org/ or use the connections which your group has with other organizations to travel for nonviolent peacemaking. This is the 4th in a series of 16 ECAPC Local Action ideas on the web. See the list http://www.ecapc.org/newspage_detail.asp?control=1416.--John Stoner feedback
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