Song & Storyfest is going virtual! In 2021, you'll be able to attend the virtual campfires and experience a time for community building, discussion, reflection and prayer. 

Sing-along with us the following days:

• Mar 5, 2021 08:00 PM

• Apr 2, 2021 08:00 PM

If you're interested in attending, please email Ken to be put on the list! 

Following two sessions of Community-Based Responses to Asylum Issues, OEP’s Migrant Justice Learning Action Community and the Oasis Center invite individuals and faith groups to attend six biweekly training sessions led by Kathryn LaPointe, director of the Oasis Center. LaPointe will guide efforts to actively serve and care for our neighbors seeking asylum using a Kingian Nonviolence approach. Each 90-minute session will focus on addressing the violence of the U.S. immigration system and accompanying asylum seekers through the lens of a Kingian Nonviolence principle. There will also be ample opportunities for community-building and resource-sharing.

The times and dates of the six training sessions are as follows:

Monday Evenings from 5:00-6:30 PM (PST)/ 8:00-9:30 PM (EST)

• February 8: Nonviolence is a Way of Life for Courageous People
• February 22: The Beloved Community is the Framework for the Future
• March 8: Attack Forces of Evil, Not Persons Doing Evil
• March 22: Accept Suffering Without Retaliation for the Sake of the Cause to Achieve a Goal
• April 5: Avoid Internal Violence of the Spirit as well as External Physical Violence
• April 19: The Universe is on the Side of Justice

Click here to find the start time in your time zone!

Learn more about Kathryn LaPointe and OEP’s Migrant Justice Learning Action Community below: 

Kathryn serves as the director of the Oasis Center, an interfaith service initiative of San Diego Church of the Brethren. She has been involved with all aspects of the U.S. asylum system, including training sponsors, starting church shelters, reunifying families, coordinating detention releases, and accompanying those seeking asylum to court and ICE check-ins. Her prior work included roles as a corporate paralegal, a human resource director for the American Embassy, a client relationship manager for an ethical finance firm and too many food service jobs to count. She loves drinking coffee, walking her dogs, and then drinking more coffee. 

OEP’s Migrant Justice Learning Action Community is an inclusive community that provides awareness, education, collaboration, and action among advocates and organizations committed to migrant justice. Through relationship and capacity building, it is a platform that unites and empowers its members to actualize values of love, peace, justice, belonging, and human concern for migrant communities.

What to expect:

• Presentation of information relating to asylum in the U.S. and Kingian Nonviolence
• Personal sharing with the entire group about community-based responses to asylum issues
• Building community with migrant justice advocates

If you plan to attend the training sessions, please RSVP below. Once you do so, you will receive an email with the Zoom meeting information. The same link will be used for all six sessions.

If you have any questions or concerns, please email: [email protected]

WE HAVE HAD TO CANCEL THIS EVENT.

Please join the On Earth Peace Prison Justice Learning Action Community here on Facebook (click).

Ever thought about having a Penpal? Well, now here’s your chance! Join the On Earth Peace Prison Justice Learning Action Community in a discussion about prison Pen Pals and find out how you can become one. We will be meeting on Wednesday, March 10, 2021, at 5:00 pm Eastern Time. Click here to see the start time in your time zone. Come learn how your words can inspire others.

We will be joined by Rachel Gross of the Death Row Support Project. 

What to expect: 

• Orientation to being a pen pal with people who are incarcerated
• Options for signing up 
• Build community with other people concerned about prison justice

Event Date: Wednesday, March 10

Event time: 5:00 - 6:00pm Eastern Time

Contact: Shayla Certain, [email protected]

Always with Us?: What Jesus Really Said about the Poor

Jesus’ words “the poor you will always have with you” (Matthew 26:11) are regularly used to suggest that ending poverty is impossible, that poverty is a result of individual moral failures, and that the poor themselves have no role in changing their situation. In this book Liz Theoharis examines both the biblical text and the lived reality of the poor to show how that passage is taken out of context, distorted, and politicized to justify theories about the inevitability of inequality.

Would you like to read, reflect, discuss, strategize and act? You are invited to a 10-week book study and action/reflection group. We intend to strengthen relationships and purpose for activism through these gatherings. We encourage you to invite folks in your area to join, as taking action in a local context may strengthen and deepen the work. All are welcome. 

We’re active with Poor People’s Campaign and On Earth Peace and look forward to deepening connections among these organizations as we read, reflect, discuss, strategize and act. If you haven’t heard of either organization you are still welcome to participate! 

We encourage you to check these links to see with whom you may be spending Thursday evenings as Zoom sessions are set for Thursdays from 7:00-8:15 p.m. Eastern (March 18 through May 27, with a break for Holy Week on April 1).

Click Here to find this event start date and time in your local time!

Sign up using this form and you’ll receive the Zoom link & reading schedule.

If you have any question or concerns, please contact: 

Join us for our first OEP community meetup of 2021. These meetups, initiated as the pandemic arose in early 2020, are relational gatherings with a theme. In each meeting, we welcome new and returning friends and seek to build community, conviction, and capacity. These sessions are not "webinars" - they provide a time for relationship and conversation, with focused content that we engage together. 

The theme for this Good Friday event is Resurrection Peacemaking.  Resurrection is visible in the power of nonviolence, in contrast to the events of Good Friday. Jesus’ crucifixion together with his resurrection proved that life is greater than death. Our call will build from this faith foundation, as we link these ideas to the power of nonviolence to Myanmar, India, and Palestine in today’s news. How can we build a better future by learning from nonviolence movements today?  How can we ourselves catch the spirit of resurrection peacemaking, not just on Easter weekend, but for our ongoing faith and engagement with the world around us? 

We will be joined by Cliff Kindy, author of the Resurrection Peacemaking: Plowsharing the Tools of War--Thirty Years with Christian Peacemaker Teams (2020, Resource Publications, purchase here). It is recommended but not required to read his book in advance of the discussion. Cliff is an organic farmer from Liberty Mills, Indiana who has worked with Christian Peacemaker Teams or Church of the Brethren disaster delegations in Palestine, Mexico, DR Congo, Nigeria, and across the US and Canada. He is a member of Eel River Community Church of the Brethren. 

What to expect: 

• Cliff Kindy sharing stories and readings from Resurrection Peacemaking

• Prayer practice, music, art 

• Small and large group sharing and discussion 

• Personal reflection time 

Event Date: Good Friday, April 2, 2021

Event Time: 3pm-4:30pm US Eastern

Click here to find the start time in your local time zone.

If you have any questions, please email Dennis Duett ([email protected])