Everyone has to deal with conflict.

Conflict is normal and inevitable. Leaders in all walks of life have a responsibility to help others work through their conflicts. The Mediation Skills Training Institute presented by the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center (LMPC) is designed to equip church leaders with the skills necessary to deal effectively with interpersonal, congregational, and other forms of group conflict. The five-day institute also includes a component on congregational intervention and consultation, placed within the context of family systems theory. Although focused primarily on the church setting, the skills learned are directly transferable to other settings. Thus managers in business, attorneys, experienced mediators and others in leadership will be enriched by the training as well.

March 15 - 19, 2010: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
May 3 - 7, 2010: Hartford, Connecticut
October 4 - 8, 2010: Chicago Area
November 15 - 19, 2010: Location--To Be Determined
June 20 - 26, 2010: Religion and Dispute Resolution in Florence, Italy

Lombard Mennonite Peace Center, (630) 627-0507, http://www.LMPeaceCenter.org

Albuquerque Mennonite Church recently created a newspaper ad in response to the recent government decision to send more troops to Afghanistan. The ad is customizable and is available on our website at: http://peace.mennolink.org/resources/nowarad.html.

Finding and Creating Saints by Harold Confer is a book sharing stories and poems from the author's fifty years working as a workcamp volunteer and leader. This life mission led him to workcamps in the Americas, Europe and Africa. These workcamps were sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, United Methodist Church, the Episcopal Churches of Canada, Britain and the USA and the Mennonite Disaster Service. Read the story, never before told, of the interfaith coalition responding to the domestic terrorism that burned hundreds of houses of worship between 1995 and 2007.

To read more and to order your own copy go to http://hjconfer.home.att.net.

Mennonite Church USA sponsors calls to

• Give current national legislation updates
• Give inspiration on God’s love of the sojourner
• Encourage networking among congregations working with immigrants in their communities.

The next conference call will be in February. To join the immigration email list, to suggest speakers and content, or for clarification, contact Susan Mark Landis

Please pass this information on to others who are interested, especially on a congregational level, in immigration issues.

Save the date! The Beyond Borders Conference at Bluffton University will be March 19–21, 2010.

Keynote speaker: Daniel Carroll Rojas, author of Christians at the Border: Immigration, the Church and the Bible.

Who should come: the academic community, the church community and immigrants

Starting with Friday evening's keynote by Danny Carroll and ending with a bilingual worship service at Lima Mennonite Church Sunday morning, the weekend will be filled with workshops, discussions, videos, and a cultural event Saturday evening. Baldemar Velasquez, President of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, is also an invited Keynote speaker.

Workshops: immigrant mental health, enforcement issues, immigration in Midwest rural communities, immigrant experiences and stories, congregational stories, the new sanctuary movement, and videos on immigration produced by Rev. Ryan Grace (Bluffton First United Methodist) and Goshen College students.

The conference will place special emphasis on how we can work to transform the immigration crisis in the United States today. Contact Paul Neufeld Weaver at 419-358-3327; weaverpn@bluffton.edu.