The Peace, Justice and Mission Committee (PJM) has met almost monthly for this past year.  Below are the highlights of the events that we spearheaded, or supported.

In January, during a potluck, we invited Mike Nickey to share with us his work on healthcare, and the healthcare reform law in Massachusetts.  We leaned a lot  about healthcare reform in general, and the specific roles that different organizations (including the non-profit healthcare plan that Mike works for) that are working together to help provide universal coverage for Commonwealth residents.

In February, during a  potluck, we invited Munir Jirmanus to present a very moving and personal account of how and why he (and others in our congregation) became involved in Middle East issues, as well as the views of the national Presbyterian Church and its involvement for the past 40 years.

In March, we helped to facilitate our Lenten retreat at Tufts University, where we worked toward finding a biblical theme to help undergird our mission work.  We had wonderful food, stimulating conversations, wonderful community building activities and powerful insights as we worked through scripture, and worked toward the beginnings of a true vision of the mission of our church.   Later in the month we held the inaugural Sunday Night Forum with Sheila Provencher, from a Christian Peacemaker Teams that lived in Iraq for 2 years (2003-2005). Naila Jirmanus helped us with this program.

In April, some of us attended the  Step It Up rally, held in Davis Square.  We listened to speakers, heard great music, participated in a photo (to be put on website to help make real our call to congress to reduce U.S. carbon emissions by 80% by 2050.  We also plugged our church and advertised our April Sunday Night Forum, which was Al Gore’s Oscar winning “An Inconvenient Truth.”  After viewing the film, member Kristy Graf facilitated a question and answer session with the audience.  In addition, we heard from Tufts student, and congregant Salome Otami about the work she is doing in her home country of Ghana to bring progressive educational tools and ideas to teachers and administrators there.

In May, our Sunday Night Forum was given by member Hilary Rantisi on the challenges facing Christian and Muslim Palestinians.  Her focus was an attempt to put a face on and show the human reality facing people in the Israel/Palestinian conflict.  She also looked at the conflict through the lens of Christianity, and asked how all the suffering should be looked at through the biblical image of all people being made in the image of God.  When looked at in that light, we must pursue peace, but with justice.

In June, we once again collected new and used school supplies for children in Nicaragua through the Clean Your Desk campaign. 

In July and August, we had two evenings with light supper and further talk on retreat topics and other topics pertaining to Adult Education, Presbyterian women and general bible studies.  These meals provided opportunities for fellowship and a way to brainstorm for topics that would appeal to a group of members.

In November,  we begin a food donation drive for Somerville Early Head Start, through member Salam Lebbos, who works for the organization.  We also had a  potluck presentation on Somerville Early Head Start lead by Marie Galvin, who is the Program Director there.  Our Sunday Night Forum featured the film “ Peace is Every Step – Meditation in Action:  The Life and Works of Thich Nhat Hanh “.  Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist, who advocates for mindfulness and interbeing, believing that we are deeply interconnected with every person and thing, thus every being must be valued.  His lifelong work as a peace activist was discussed during a forum after the film, lead by a local student of Hanh. Member Liz Cavano was instrumental in bringing this forum to Clarendon Hill.

In December, we collected and distributed holiday gifts for two families from Somerville Early Head Start. 

A wonderful “behind the scenes” relationship has been building and continues to build as member of PJM have had on-going meetings (almost every month) with members of Temple B’nai Brith,’s Social Action Committee,  the Muslim-American Society and Somerville’s 1st Congregational Church as we plan a concert fundraiser to be held in April or May 2008 as a benefit for RESPOND.  This is a great interfaith opportunity, and had it not been for a snowstorm in December we would have had a potluck with members of Temple B’nai Brith,  the Muslim-American Society  and us to talk about our faiths.

In addition to continuing to try to get a feel for the types of needs in Somerville, we have also been working with the session to identify organizations in Somerville that we can work with, either on a volunteer basis, or with local mission funds.   We will continue that work in the coming year.

Although we presented dates and topics that would be covered in Sunday night forums for this spring back in September, life and health changes our members forced us to cut back on our initial ambitious programming.  However, we have planned several programs for the spring.  In February, we hope to have members who traveled to Bethlehem recently, through the city to city program Cambridge to Bethlehem join us (including one member of Temple B’nai Brith.)  In March we will invite Muslim-America Society to come and speak with us about a topic of their choosing – what they would like us to know about Muslims.  In April or May, Mary Jirmanus will do a potluck presentation for our congregation on the work she has been doing in Ecuador.  And in June, we hope to hear the powerful stories of  Somerville residents who are immigrants.  

As always, we are interested in your opinions and ideas, so please let us know if there is anything that you would like to learn more about or anything that you would like to present to the congregation! 

Working for Peace, Justice and Mission,
Paul Beran
Liz Cavano
Kristy Graf
Naila Jirmanus
Ellen Schemerhorn