Gene Stoltzfus, founding director of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), will be appearing in Lincoln and Crete, October 25-28. All are free and open to the public.

•  Thursday, October 25, 10:30 a.m. – Academic Convocation - Union College, Lincoln – Administration Building Basement Amphitheatre

• Thursday, October 25, 12:30 p.m. – Theological Conversation - Doane College, Communications Building CM 07, Crete

• Sunday, October 28, 9:30 a.m. (teaching) 10:45 a.m. (preaching) - First Mennonite Church, 7300 Holdrege St., Lincoln

• Sunday, October 28, 6:30 p.m. – Evening Service - Warren United Methodist Church, 1205 N 45th St., Lincoln

Stoltzfus spent extensive time in Iraq in 2003, consulting with Muslim and Christian clerics, Iraqi human rights leaders, families of Iraqi detainees, and talking with American administrators and soldiers. As the third anniversary of the November 26, 2005 abduction of four CPT workers in Baghdad approaches, he is convinced that a team approach is required for effective peacemaking today.

Gene’s commitment to peacemaking is rooted in his experience in Vietnam as a conscientious objector with International Voluntary Service during the US military escalation between1963 and 1968. He recalls that watching helicopter personnel unloading their cargo of bloodied bodies in Saigon forced him to ask "whether I was as willing to die for my conviction as the Vietnamese and American soldiers all around me were being asked to do. "

Prior to founding CPT, Stoltzfus co-directed the Mennonite Central Committee program in the Philippines during the Marcos’ martial law era focusing it on human rights and economic justice. He then went on to help establish a grass roots international peace and justice organization in Chicago to connect U.S. and Third World people. He served as director of Christian Peacemaker Teams from is founding in 1988 until his retirement in September 2004.

CPT trains and places violence reduction teams in high conflict situations like Iraq, the West Bank, Colombia and various native communities in the United States and Canada. Teams and peacemaker delegations have worked in Chiapas, Mexico; Vieques, Puerto Rico; and Washington D.C. Investigative teams have visited Chechnya and Afghanistan. Christian Peacemaker Teams, originally an initiative of the Mennonite, Brethren and Quakers, has expanded to include a wide variety of Roman Catholic and Protestant participation, with 36 full time and 152 part-time peacemakers.