Meet the Peace Trainers: Members of Winnipeg church want to get peace back on track











For four members of a Winnipeg church, joining the Peace Train is a way to try to get peace back on track in Canada. 

The four—Gordon and Lori Matties, Val Falk and Agnes Hubert—are among 40 people from across Canada who boarded VIA’s The Canadian Nov. 15 in Vancouver to travel to Ottawa to ask the federal government to establish and fund a Centre of Excellence for Peace and Justice focused on research, education, and training in conflict resolution, diplomacy, and peace operations.

They are part of River East Church, an Anabaptist congregation that is affiliated with Mennonite Church Manitoba. 

While the four have different reasons for participating in the Peace Train, they all seek one thing: To see Canada play a more active role in finding ways to prevent or deescalate conflict in the world.

Gordon is a retired university theology professor who is inspired by how the Bible “imagines a hopeful future, a future without war, a future of peace with justice for all of creation.”

Thinking about the amount of money Canada spends on NATO, he asks: “Wouldn't it make sense to spend a portion of that money on training and providing resources for diplomatic solutions to conflict?”

For Lori, the death of her son two years ago due to cancer “intensified my horror of the tragic and irreplaceable loss of the world's young people to war. How can we think that killing our hope for the future will solve anything?”

Through the Peace Train, she wants to contribute “to the hope for recovery of Canada's voice for peace . . . history has shown that war never results in lasting peace. More than ever, I believe we are all called to love our neighbours, and the only way to get rid of our enemies is to make them our friends.”

Val is a retired educational assistant. For her, it’s about seeing Canada reclaim the peacekeeping tradition she remembers growing up as a child in the 1960s.

“Our world is in desperate need of more peacemaking,” she said, adding she grew up Mennonite and peace was always a strong value in her home.

For Agnes, a former teacher and administrator, the Peace Train is a way to “highlight peacemaking and diplomacy as a role that Canada can make its own in a more substantive way.”

She is also inspired by her Anabaptist background, with its emphasis on peace. “It's important to me because I think it is a faithful interpretation of Jesus' teachings,” she said.

After arriving in Ottawa on Nov. 20, Peace Train participants will attend a multi-party reception and public event, meet Members of Parliament to make their request in person and be part of a rally on Parliament Hill.

For more information about the Peace Train, visit the website at https://www.peacetraincanada.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

“You are inspiring in these difficult and uncertain times.” Peace Trainers meet Members of Parliament in Ottawa

Image
“ You are inspiring in these difficult and uncertain times.”   With those words, Gord Johns, NDP Member of Parliament for Courtenay—Alberni, welcomed Peace Train participants to a reception in Ottawa at the Sir John A. MacDonald Building.   Eleven Members of Parliament attended the reception—something Johns noted was exceptional considering how busy Parliamentarians are each day. “This is a tremendous showing,” he said, noting that every political party was represented at the event. Johns praised the Peace Trainers, saying they were bringing an important and hopeful message to Ottawa in calling for a Centre of Excellence for Peace and Justice—something he was glad to support. Following Johns was John McKay, Liberal Member of Parliament for Scarborough—Guildwood and Chair of the Standing Committee on National Defence. McKay said he spends most of his time thinking about the latest threats. “We live in a fraught environment,” he said, adding “I’m glad to see you here...
Read more

Cross-Country Peace Train Seeks to Get Canada Back on the Track Towards Peace

Image
Getting peace back on track in Canada—that’s the goal of the Peace Train.   The 40 or so people travelling on VIA Rail from Vancouver to Ottawa Nov. 15-22 plan to ask the Canadian government to establish and fund a Centre of Excellence for Peace and Justice focused on research, education, and training in conflict resolution, diplomacy, and peace operations.   “In the face of ever-increasing violent wars, nuclear threat, climate disruption, and humanitarian crisis, the Peace Train seeks to raise the voice of Canadians about the need for us, as a country, to find peaceful ways to promote stability, security, and human rights both here and abroad,” said Keith Wyton of Port Alberni, B.C.   For Keith, who is organizing the Train with his wife, Bernadette, it’s not about Canada doing something new but, rather, recovering its “honorable history of peace efforts going back to 1957 and Lester Pearson’s Nobel Prize for helping create the first UN Peacekeeping force,” as ...
Read more