Trip will be third for 70-year-old
STAN JOSEY
Allan Slater figures that the old have been sending the young off to perish in wars since time immemorial, and maybe it's time for old men to help stop them.
That's why the dairy farmer from Tavistock is heading this Friday to Iraq, where he'll bolster a Christian Peacemaker Team in Baghdad depleted by the abduction of four members on Nov. 26, including Toronto's James Loney. Fear is not a factor for Slater. Nor is age.
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At 70, Slater will do his third tour of duty in Iraq with the ecumenical group. "The people there have the same hopes and aspirations as Canadians," he says. "There are 25 million people in Iraq and the vast majority are not car bombers or terrorists, and most will survive this terrible state of affairs."
But the danger of this long-planned mission hit home when Loney, 41, and three other CPT members were abducted. There has been no word from them since a Dec.10 deadline, but Slater is confident they are alive.
"When they are released, as I am sure they will, they will need all the help and support they can get," says Slater, who considers Loney a friend.
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It is dishonest to call the Christian Peacemaker Team an ecumenical group. When people think of a ecumenical they think it includes Roman Catholic, United, Anglican etc. not Brethren, Quaker and Mennonite.
ReplyDeleteThanks for checking into it stonetown. I don't know much about the CPT, but I haven't heard much recently. Maybe good news? Maybe not so good news. Here's a definition of ecumenical:
ReplyDeleteecumenical |ˌekyəˈmenikəl| adjective representing a number of different Christian churches See note at universal . • promoting or relating to unity among the world's Christian churches : ecumenical dialogue.
Perhaps the CPT did in part promote unity amongst the world's Christian Churches.
Whatever the case, I wouldn't go so far as to call the report "dishonest." Perhaps there was an error in word usage, but I would need corroborating evidence in order to accuse the author of dishonesty.
Hmm interesting I didn't know they were so narrowly based when I wrote the story, FYI A mennonite edited that story.
ReplyDeleteStan