If Friends rule out military responses to war and injustice what do we have to offer that is equally strong? Protest is important, reform essential, and in the meantime, positive action for change is needed. The peace testimony that led Friends to protest military interventions in Somalia and Haiti (for example) could also have led us to active nonviolent intervention there. Practical examples of effective nonviolent intervention are beginning to appear. Our sister peace churches (Mennonites and Brethren) supported Christian Peacemaker Teams' presence in Haiti, which on a small scale prevented the sort of violence that the US intervention was supposed to prevent throughout the whole country. Had there been thousands of Christian Peacemakers in Haiti instead of tens of them, would there have been a need for the Marines?

The Friends Peace Team Project began in 1993 with a group of Friends who were distressed with the military aspect of UN Peacekeeping Forces and the need to respond to the situation in Bosnia. After they issued a call to all Yearly Meetings to participate in its organization, a consultative meeting was held and a Coordinating Council formed. At this writing, the project has just opened an office in Baltimore Yearly Meeting, and is finalizing details of a relationship with Friends World Committee on Consultation.

The peace team movement has been developing as such over the last decade. It draws on the challenge of responding to the many outbreaks of non- nuclear war that continue to plague the post-Cold War world. While nonviolent protest has been an effective means of social change, the peace teams initiative offers an opportunity to work pro-actively.

US Friends have been strongly influenced by their participation in Witness for Peace and Peace Brigades International, among other organizations. Activists in most of the industrialized countries are calling for the development of corps of well-trained volunteers who would be ready and able to travel to areas of conflict at home and abroad. A number of Quakers including David Hartsough, Elise Boulding and George Lakey have participated in international conferences on the subject.

Peace Team work has roots in some of the great nonviolent campaigns of this century--Gandhi called for the formation of a "Peace Army", and Martin Luther King, Jr. recognized the need for a corps of dedicated participants who were well trained in nonviolence. The concept has been influenced by the affinity group model of organization of anti-nuclear protests, and the Human Rights work of Peace Brigades International.

The effectiveness of even relatively small groups of nonviolent witnesses in preventing some of the brutality of war have been shown by Witness For Peace groups in Nicaragua. The work of the Fellowship of Reconciliation in training Filipinos in nonviolent activism contributed greatly to the victory of People Power over the Marcos regime. Many groups, both nongovernmental and even within the U.N., are experimenting with nonviolent, third party intervention in both international and domestic situations.

In January, 1995, I joined Christian Peacemaker Teams, a project of Mennonite and Church of the Brethren congregations, after attending their training in Chicago. Until then, based on my reading of literature about peace teams, I had thought of peace team work as including accompaniment of local peacemakers; verification of treaty accords or Human Rights monitoring; nonviolent interposition; mediation and negotiation and training local people in these skills as well as in bridge-building and group process techniques; and the work of local groups that support the peace team volunteers in the field. As I completed the training, I added public witness and nonviolent civil disobedience to my list.

Perhaps because of a desire to reduce the polarization in scenes of armed conflict, most proponents of peace teams take, at least at first, less confrontational, more neutral positions than Christian Peacemaker Teams does. Christian Peacemaker Teams' current work in the Middle East, for example, could easily be seen as an alliance with Palestinian groups, but it should be remembered that they have been involved in the area for several years, and they have witnessed many abuses of power by the Israeli Defense Force.

Christian Peacemaker Teams have involved several hundred people in the last year. They sent volunteers and delegations to Haiti, the West Bank, and Washington D.C., supported opposition to military activities in the U.S. and Canada and organized a campaign against violent toys. Closely affiliated with the New Call to Peacemaking, a collaborative effort of the traditional Peace churches (Friends, Mennonites and Church of the Brethren), it has provided educational information to congregations, to its constituency and the media in general. Christian Peacemaker Teams sees nonviolent civil disobedience as a mandate, and in our training, arrest and imprisonment were likened to the trials of church martyrs.

Drawing upon biblical examples, we studied Jesus' conflict resolution plan--Matt. 18:15-18: negotiation, mediation, arbitration, which was aimed at maintaining compassionate/forgiving inclusion of wrongdoers (or expulsion with loving contact). We recalled that Miriam and her mother disobeyed Pharaoh by saving Moses. We looked at Biblical theologian Walter Wink's analysis of what Jesus' "turn the other cheek" and "Go the extra mile" (Matt. 5:39-41) meant--forcing the Romans to acknowledge the humanity of the people they oppressed. We learned of early Anabaptist martyrs who stressed the primacy of discipleship and holy obedience over state demands.

While enjoying the Christian Peacemaker Teams training in its own right, I considered myself an observer for Friends Peace Teams Project as well. Christian Peacemaker Teams' spiritual resources are drawn mainly from within the Anabaptist tradition. It is a unique model of conscientious, spirit-led peacemaking. As a part of our training, we brainstormed about the strengths and weaknesses of the Anabaptist heritage, many of which are shared by Friends.

Our reflections revealed that Anabaptists (like Quakers) have a very strong peace testimony that sometimes impedes them from acknowledging or openly dealing with conflict within families, and congregations, as well as in the world, to the extent that it may be called an addiction to niceness--or denial. Sometimes the Anabaptists' pacifism has become "passivism". They take pride in the history of martyrdom and achievement by forebears, but many sense there is no call today for heroism/suffering for their faith. A mixed dynamic of isolation from and assimilation into mainstream US culture has led to a wide spectrum of responses to the issues of our day, as have differing theological tendencies (from Old Order Mennonite, for example, to liberal urban churches).

While there is a strong emphasis on the Bible in Mennonite and Brethren churches (more than in unprogrammed Friends' practice), there are wide variations of belief. Simple living and community remain strong values, but life in a wealthy urban society has weakened these. Except for mission congregations, Anabaptists are white, middle class folks, and while there are congregations and missions among people of color overseas and in North America, there is also a fear of or closedness to diversity. Anabaptists also tend to hide their light under a bushel. (Much of this sounded familiar to me as a Friend.)

On the positive side are traditions of self reliance, appreciation for hard work, decentralization, closeness to the land, interest in social justice, taking the Bible and especially Jesus' (radical) teachings seriously, and a history of service and discipleship.

Based on my experience with Christian Peacemaker Teams, I believe that Friends Peace Teams Project could become a similar expression of the Quaker Peace testimony. Friends' understanding of recognizing "that of God" in everyone is an important complement to the Anabaptist tradition of non-resistance to evil (meaning not returning evil for evil). Quakers have developed processes of decisionmaking and clearness, among others, that are unique and of considerable value to the peace team movement. Additionally, our practice of discerning and following leadings and corporate discipline would be refined by organized efforts to embody the Peace Testimony. This does not mean that only Friends could participate in Friends Peace Teams, but that the work would be firmly grounded in Quaker faith and practice and closely related to Meetings and other Friends bodies.

Friends Meetings and Churches might take Christian Peacemaker Teams's Project in Urban Peacemaking in Washington D.C. as a model. In May 1994, Christian Peacemaker Teams provided a core of four full-time volunteers to work in a crime-ridden neighborhood. After a Listening Project that identified the violence, prostitution and rug-dealing associated with a crack house, the Christian Peacemaker Team members and neighborhood residents worked to get the house closed, and were successful in a relatively short time. Nonviolence training for residents and youth were also provided, and neighborhood meetings, patrols and celebrations were fostered.

Cole Arndt, one of the project's founders, wrote about the evening that the crack house was bricked up: "The greatest triumph for me was to see three of the former residents holding candles that evening, and probably wondering how it was they came here to be vigiling with the same people who, in effect, kicked them out of their house." The project is ongoing, and now focuses on a multi-unit apartment complex. In addition to Christian Peacemaker Teams members, now the AFSC and local Friends Meetings are participating in the project which also includes a wider section of the neighborhood.

Finally I believe that North American Friends need to find more ways to incorporate volunteer service into our practice--not only for the good it does for others but also for the good of the Society itself. I believe that service work, the simple lifestyle it usually entails, and especially the exposure of volunteers to the lives of the poor, are essential to the formation of Quaker conscience. British Friends are on the right track when they support Quaker Peace and Service as mutually complementary activities.

Mennonite and Brethren congregations have maintained a strong tradition of supporting full-time volunteer service work--out of the 12 Christian Peacemaker Teams trainees in my group, 9 were or had been stipended volunteers (that is, supported financially by Mennonite or Brethren voluntary service programs, such as Mennonite Central Committee, Mennonite Volunteers Service and Brethren Volunteer Service) for full-time work. Four out of five of the younger members' parents had been volunteers, as well.

When I think how hard it has been for me (and I presume others) to let go of all that forms our everyday lives--home, friends, family, profession, plans, the known, I understand the difficulty of maintaining service programs. Except for those who see it as their correct path to detach themselves, those who find it hard to commit to dealing with the minutiae of everyday life, and those who are at points in their lives where the ties are looser (young, empty nesters/midlife crisisers, newly retired, among others), few are even called to full-time peace or service work of any sort.

We could start with people where they are, building short term and part- time programs that encourage people to "act locally and think globally". But also we should, I think, look toward developing ways of contacting and supporting people from (at least) the first and third categories above for more long term commitments. I believe that we will benefit from reminding ourselves of not only how good/useful/important the results of the work are, but also how they encourage in us the development of conscience, insight, and compassion which are characteristics we want to have as individuals and as Friends.

If Quaker organizations do not encourage this as a part of our faith and practice, and support it institutionally and financially, not only for young Friends, but for Friends of all ages, then I believe that we will become the "salt which has no savor", a group of inward looking people concerned with only our own lives and salvation. We will as a Society enter a new period of quietism, this time withdrawing from a corporate expression of an important part of the Peace testimony, as some eighteenth and nineteenth century Friends withdrew from government.