by Markie

Hi kids!

Kathy and I have been going to a LOT of meetings  in the last two weeks.  It’s so hard to sit still for that much time!  Maarten Van der Werf from the Netherlands taught us about Nonviolent Communication for the first week.

Maarten’s on the right, talking.

Then we went to Bethlehem so the team could plan it’s work for the next three years with the help of Gerry O’Sullivan. I like the part where we drew pictures.  Gabriel drew the best one.  Kathy tried to draw one with two CPTers watching children going through Qitoun checkpoint to get to school and it didn’t come out so well.
I also liked going out to lunch with people.  Tarek, the Palestine Project Support coordinator can eat chicken every day!

Tarek is in the white shirt.

But most of the meetings were really confusing. People talked and talked and talked and talked, and broke into small groups and talked some more.  Then we thought we had a plan and realized we didn’t and had to talk some some more.

We had a one day off in the middle of the week.  Mona was sick of her hair and there is a hair stylist in Bethlehem she really likes so she and Kathy decided to go there. Kathy got her hair cut short.

Mona got her nails done (She says she can do a better job herself at home) and then she got her hair cut and styled.

She was thinking about changing the color, but the stylist convinced her not to .

Finally on the very last day, Gerry was able to organize everyone enough so she could put together Christian Peacemaker Team’s 3 Year Strategic Plan 2013-2016.  Hurray!

Well that’s all for now. Next time I’ll write about our trip to the wall in Bethlehem!  More pictures!

P.S. The plan ended up being 40 pages, but this is the news release the team is going to put out about it:

CPT Palestine makes plans for new work

CPT’s Palestine team will continue to remain based in Hebron, a microcosm of the Israeli military occupation of Palestine, and make human rights promotion a focus of their work, but plan to expand their work into new peacebuilding enterprises over the next three years.

Most of the full-time CPTers (Israeli authorities had denied Jonathan Brenneman entry into the country three times on September 17, 24 and October 9) and several reservists gathered for a five day retreat in Bethlehem from 9-15 October 2016.  Under the guidance of professional facilitator Gerry O’Sullivan, they produced a three-year strategic plan, in effect through the year 2016.

New goals will include

• making plans for Palestinian national delegations, with a long-term objective of increasing the number of Palestinians on the team
• becoming more deeply connected with Palestinian and Israeli partners and campaigns that are addressing the wider context under which Palestinians live
• encouraging the creation of a “City of Nonviolence” in the H-2 area of Hebron that will be a model for other Palestinian regions supporting nonviolence
• Working towards the organization of a civil society based on nonviolent  principles to prepare for a time when nonviolent actions increase in strength and frequency
• providing a forum for Hebronites to discuss common challenges of the occupation
• Providing nonviolence trainings for university students and teachers and parents of schoolchildren who pass through the checkpoints CPT monitors
• Developing an introductory programme geared toward Hebron’s context to transform how people look at conflict and tools for addressing it
• Providing nonviolence training for trainers.
• Researching and publicizing Israeli denial of entry for Palestinians and internationals

Tarek Abuata, Palestine Project Support Coordinator notes, “”CPT Hebron continues to be committed to building equal transformative partnerships with our Palestinian partners in Hebron, and we continue to be committed to re-envisioning and giving our work new life through our faith”.