Lorraine Avenue Mennonite Church – Kansas, USA
September 13th, 2009
Peace Journey 2009: one congregation’s witness
The Lorraine Avenue Mennonite Church in Wichita, Kansas, is completing a year-long peace witness. We have called it the “LAMC Peace Journey 2009.”
The Peace Action Committee invited all congregation members to make commitments to specific peace actions. At a worship service early in the first quarter of the year, members brought written commitment statements to the front of the church. The commitments promised both inward actions such as memorizing Scripture passages or keeping a peace journal, and outward actions such as writing letters to public officials and participating in demonstrations against the war in Iraq.
The families of two recently deceased long-term LAMC peace activists, Harold Plenert and Peter Bartel, decided to use memorial funds to purchase a limestone Peace Pole for the church lawn. The Peace Pole was dedicated following the worship service on September 13. It proclaimed in ten languages the message, “May Peace Prevail on Earth.” Several other congregation members placed Peace Poles on their front lawns.
Jim Juhnke is the Peace Journey Task Force Chairman at Lorraine Avenue Mennonite Church.