“Five minutes.” I heard our host when he said it: he’d learned it took them 5-8 minutes to get anywhere in the city. So when the checkpoint guard told us, “Five minutes,” I knew what that meant.  And, just like clockwork, three heavily armed Israeli military were hiking toward us.

Greetings from Bethlehem! My delegation and I arrived safely on Tuesday, after a lovely evening in Amman, Jordan. Our days have been filled with meeting people, hearing their stories, receiving extravagant hospitality, visiting sacred sites, bearing witness to apartheid and ethnic cleansing, processing election results, and delighting in Palestinian food, joy, and culture.

Board president Luz Amparo Chagüendo Ospina issues a statement on staff and leadership transitions.

Jason Smith shares a message with BPFNA's network of peacemakers.

Ximena Ulloa and Jason Smith offer gratitude and reflections on Peace Camp 2024, Peace Rooted in Justice, in Mars Hill, NC.

We at BPFNA~Bautistas por la Paz abhor the violence that took the life of two people in Pennsylvania on Saturday, July 13.

Each experience and encounter has been part of a path that has led us to where we are today, Everything I experienced in that summer conference marked me and left a seed in my heart that over the years has been nurtured by the other experiences I have had with BPFNA, this great peacemaking family that has welcomed and embraced me. And I'll always be grateful.

The Supreme Court’s ruling in U.S. v. Rahimi underscores the importance of common-sense gun regulations and the critical role they play in protecting lives. By upholding restrictions on firearm possession for individuals with domestic violence restraining orders, the Court has rejected the extremist position of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that temporarily disarming individuals found by a court to pose a danger to their victims and their communities is unconstitutional.

The search to find the type of deep-thinking, hard-working, world-changing individuals to participate in the journey of theological training is caught up in a dual frontier facing both the church and agriculture.The modern church and the modern farm both find themselves at a point where significant cultural shifts are needed to ensure the health and longevity of the human condition.

What is happening now in the capital city and in the whole country of Georgia (Sakartvelo) is indeed the fight for justice. Now, I want to say something, which may sound like I am just fulfilling my professional duties. However, it is much more than that. I say that there is no fight without prayer.

In the last few weeks, many of us have watched protests swell on college campuses against the war in Gaza. Some have criticized the student protestors, saying they have “lost the message.” As peacemakers, our sights should always be set toward solidarity with people clamoring for justice. So in the vein of focusing on the message, let’s remind ourselves why these students are encamping around the world

This year’s Peace Fund cohort include projects fostering peace with justice in five countries, each responding to needs and opportunities in its local context.

I wanna be honest, when I started to write a piece on Love for Advent, I thought it would be easy. It wasn’t. I didn’t realize how hard it is right now, for me, to see the love in the world. So what do I do? I call out to the universe for help. I ask the ancestors, the collective, God, the powers that may be, whoever is out there listening to help. To show me. And they did.

The third week of Advent invites us to cultivate joy. Yet the notion of rejoicing in times like these might seem impossible, if not morally wrong.

It’s two weeks from Christmas: today’s reading of the Annunciation stops me in my tracks. The images on offer by Google are typically anachronistic, with Mary disturbed at her desk while reading a book, or unrealistic in their portray of some well-to-do chatelaine, draped in her blue robes, welcoming her winged visitor. My mind, in search of an image, goes to Faidah.

Following Malkhaz Songulashvili on a hike through the Caucasus mountains, one realizes that “trail guide” is yet another hat he wears. In November, the metropolitan bishop of the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia and pastor of the Peace Cathedral in Tbilisi welcomed an interfaith delegation of peacemakers, of which I was honored to be a part, to offer a blessing on this project for peace and justice.

The Christian people, the people of God, are a people of hope, and that is so because their God is their hope. Hope is wanting something you don't have. It is trusting that the desire will come true. It is waiting. In the biblical sense, hope is wishing, trusting, waiting, walking with a transformative praxis towards the possible. God is in us, and we are in God. It is also resistance to obstacles along the way.

In the midst of all of this bloodshed, it is easy to point the finger and to lay blame on one side. While that may help in the short term as we try to make sense of the horrors of war, our stance as peacemakers and justice seekers needs a different and better voice. There is another way forward, rooted in scripture and painted on our hearts. Jesus’ most radical words were, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” He didn’t say how, he just said to do it. He also said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”

I keep thinking about a mural of Jesus in the oldest church in Beirut, Lebanon. It’s a fairly standard painting of Jesus’ judgment, except in this one there are holes in Jesus. The holes are left over from the Lebanese Civil War, a reminder of that deadly conflict that tormented the nation and its people from 1975 until 1990.

This current horrific and deadly confrontation between Israel’s powerful military and Palestinian resistance is a vivid example of reality versus propaganda. Listening to the drone of media describing the heart-breaking situation in Gaza is not enough. In addition, as a Palestinian American Christian with deep roots in Gaza, I don’t hear my story in any of the narratives.