CPTnet
16 December 2005

IRAQ/AMMAN REFLECTION: Waiting, hope, and action

by Peggy Gish

[Note: Gish has served on CPT's Iraq team since before the multinational
forces invaded in 2003. She is currently doing support work for the Iraq
team based in Amman, Jordan from where she writes this reflection.]

It's always hard to wait. It's especially hard now, as we are hoping and
waiting for the safe release Jim Loney, Tom Fox, Harmeet Sooden, and Norman
Kember, colleagues of ours working with the Christian Peacemaker Teams in
Iraq. They were taken by force in Baghdad on November 26 after attending a
meeting with an Iraqi organization with which the Iraq team is collaborating
on the work documenting the abuses of Iraqi detainees under the Iraqi prison
system.

It is hard for the missing CPTers' families. It is hard for us not knowing
where our four colleagues are, how they are holding up during this time, or
when they will be released. We pray; we cry; we wake up in the night feeling
tense with worry. We ask God for more faith and trust as we call for their
release and work to share the stories of who these men are, of the work of
CPT in Iraq and other places of conflict and injustice. We care about these
four men, yet we also feel the same urgency for all Iraqis and their
families who are suffering fear and pain because their family members have
disappeared or been killed or imprisoned.

Advent is a time of waiting and longing for something to happen. Perhaps
the time before Jesus was born was a time when people felt the same kind of
urgency and cried out for release, wholeness and healing from the oppression
or captivity they knew. They, too, had heard God's promises, yet didn't know
how it would all turn out. Some were able to keep walking ahead in faith,
expectant of God breaking through and working in seemingly impossible
situations.

Waiting does not mean being passive. Our calling is to an active waiting.
We can act boldly, taking risks, because God is with us, giving us hope.
Even death, persecutions, or violent forces will not separate us from the
love of God! If we follow the way of Jesus, we will expect hardships and
suffering. We can expect to die, but we don't give up the way of the cross.
We may need to cull away the things in our lives that hold us back and weigh
us down. We may have to grieve and cry together, and support each other
more deeply, but we keep going and working where God leads us.