Hi Alliance friends,

I have been thinking about the Alliance this weekend, wishing I could be at the convocation, and I thought it might be time to give you all an update on some of what I am doing.

Thanks to the Alliance of Baptists, I was able to attend the Global Baptist Peace Conference in Rome where I was an official "storyteller."  This was a deeply moving experience for me, as I reconnected with Baptist friends from Italy whom I had not seen in 24 years.  It was a great joy to discover that they are leaders in the UCEBI (Italian Baptist Union) for issues of peace and justice.  I also made new friends (including the Hoskins who are fellow Kentuckians and Alliance folks) and felt that wonderful feeling again of not being crazy; to get nods instead of blank stares when I talk about redefining Christian mission as pursuit of the Kin(g)dom of God that can be done hand-in-hand with Muslims and other persons of faith and good will, where Muslims are not seen as targets for evangelism or enemies to be vanquished, but rather neighbors to be loved and partners for peace.

I spoke right after Norm Kember, the British Baptist Peacemaker who was a hostage in Iraq.  In a later session on interfaith issues, we were talking about struggling with prejudice against Islam and Muslims in our churches.  Norm spoke up and said we had to be careful not to judge even those who show such prejudice, but to help them have other experiences of Muslims.  He said (and I quote), "Some people haven't been as fortunate as we have to have such strong positive experiences with Muslims."  He put himself in the category of fortunate people who had had "such strong positive experience of Muslims."  Powerful.

Tonight, I am hosting an interfaith conference on poverty at our university:- The Three Abrahamic Faiths Speak on Poverty.  The university Imam, the Rabbi from Fez and I will all speak on poverty and our faith traditions then we'll open the floor for discussion.  We really hope it will go well and allow for some good discussion.  I've still got some details to iron out -- like dinner!  So this email missive will not be long.

This weekend the Eglise Evanqelique au Maroc (the national Protestant church in which I serve on the pastoral team) will hold its Executive Commission Meeting in Casa; we had a pastoral team meeting all day in Rabat yesterday.  This will be an emotional meeting because we will say goodbye to David and Julie Brown who for four years have coordinated ministry to Subsaharan African refugees and migrants.  They are the only folks in country doing this kind of ministry full time; there is a Jesuit priest and two nuns who have started devoting a larger portion of their energy to this ministry now.  But there are some 25,000 migrants and refugees in Morocco.  This is an humanitarian crisis, and we covet your prayers as our churches (made up almost entirely of Sub-Saharan African students) continue to organize to minister.  We hope that others will come to join us.  (Anybody interested?)

Next week, we will host a choir made up of Kentuckians from Kentucky Baptist Fellowship Churches which will join a choir made up of church members from around Morocco, practice together (having already sent music to each other), then tour the country giving concerts.  We are excited about bridging all kinds of cultural and linguistic barriers to present a witness for peace and reconciliation.   Students at AUI have organized another interfaith conference going on the first week in May, so I will not be able to travel with the choir to all its destinations, but I'm coordinating the logistics.  So I also ask for prayers for this.   We think this choir is an important symbol of unity that embraces diversity.

The day after the folks from Kentucky leave, we have our church retreat.  I am scrambling to find a new venue for that due to a bedbug infestation at our favorite beach place. We've been working on (and being challenged by) the Beatitudes since the beginning of Lent, and will build on that work at the beach.  Our community is up to TWO Orthodox participants this semester along with the usual Protestant and Catholic crowd. 

In June I will go to Germany to preach and speak on interfaith issues at a regional Lutheran Church synode meeting (EKIR -- Evangelische Kirche Im Rheinland.)  They are partners with the EEAM in our ministry to refugee and migrants and are interested in our interfaith work, also.

I can't send you an update without mentioning the Shepherding community of Tarmilat.  The weaving project is still going strong, though we have been thwarted at every turn in trying to get it registered officially as a cooperative due to the fact that the community is officially "squatting" on the land.   Jeff Street Baptist Community in Louisville included the young women of Tarmilat in their Reclaiming Christmas Offering this year, so 12 young women are attending vocational ed classes and literacy classes at a center in Ifrane.  The older women had pretty much stopped coming to literacy classes, so we decided to take advantage of a program offered for young women in town rather than continuing to send a literacy teacher on his bicycle to them.  Now we pay transport and bring them into Ifrane.  I am going to the center this afternoon to work out some kinks in the transportation.  The Tarmilat Elementary School is going strong in its second year: 21 first - and second-graders between the ages of 6 and 15.

I am deeply grateful for your support.  And even more grateful just for the fact that you are there, Baptists in America who believe that interfaith work is valuable, and is part of standing against the powers and principalities and standing for the reign of God.

Grace and peace,

Karen