Let Your Life Speak

16 Pages·2015·7 MB·English

Let Your Life Speak
Learning from lives that inspire
how to use these cards
Let Your Life Speak
Learning from lives that inspire
Dear Friend,
Thank you for taking the time to read these stories. This
project shares seven profiles of AFSC staff, program participants,
and Quakers acting faithfully for justice, peace, and love.
To enjoy these stories, first sit with those you love: your
family, a committee, or your meeting during hospitality. Read
each profile aloud once through, taking time between the sections.
Settle into waiting worship. Out of the silence, speak to the query.
How is Spirit moving you to respond? Share these thoughts
with your family or assembled body. If used with your family,
we recommend you read them once each night for a week and
reflect over a meal. If used with a committee or another body, we
recommend reading several at a time perhaps for two sessions.
We hope you find joy, transformation, and inspiration in
these stories of Spirit-led action. AFSC encourages you to find
your place to support these efforts, be it a ministry of giving or
one of action or accompaniment (find nine ways to work with
AFSC for peace with justice at afsc.org/friends/resources).
Blessings,
Lucy Duncan, Director of Friends Relations
Find out more about getting involved with AFSC at:
afsc.org/friends/let-your-life-speak
marshall “eddie” conway
Marshall “Eddie” Conway
“We operate off of the premise that all people have good
in them. No matter what their past might have been, all
people are redeemable. In order to do the work that we do,
we have to love.”
As a Black child growing up in Baltimore in the ’50s, Eddie
Conway visited a white school. Unlike his own, the white school
was modern and clean, with proper materials and numerous
amenities. He was shocked by the differences between the two
communities, and the realization made him feel inferior. Aware
of the disparities and determined to help his community, Eddie
later joined the Black Panther Party and worked in many ways
for change.
In 1970, Eddie was sent to prison for a crime he maintains
he did not commit. Eddie’s community activism continued even
while he was incarcerated. Supported by AFSC, Eddie created
Friend of a Friend, which builds relationships and transforms
conflict. In 2014, Eddie was released after almost 44 years. He
continues to remain actively involved with Friend of a Friend.
Read more about Eddie:
afsc.org/friends/interview-eddie-conway
query:
Eddie says that Friend of a Friend works to “restore hope” in prison.
How do you feel Spirit moving Quakers to work for healing justice?
crystal gonzalez
Crystal Gonzalez
“I feel like the sacred is really honoring each other and
honoring each other’s value and each other’s experiences.
Valuing that at the heart of who we are, the core of who
we are, is really love and Spirit. Those spaces where you’re
really just honoring each other, they’re ways to practice
how to be in the world.”
Program staffer Crystal Gonzalez works with AFSC’s Roots for
Peace program in Los Angeles. Roots for Peace is a food justice
program. Participants learn how to grow their own food, and
how to advocate for changing policies that impact their access to
healthy food and livelihoods.
Crystal works with youth in Lincoln Heights, a neighborhood
on the verge of gentrification. Recently, the beloved local pollos
rosticeria (chicken roastery) closed and was replaced by a craft
beer store, despite a moratorium on bars. Mourning the loss to the
community, youth created a moveable mural and staged an action
in front of the new store. Youth read poetry and spoke about how
these changes were affecting them.
Read more about Crystal:
afsc.org/friends/interview-crystal-gonzalez
query:
How are you or your Meeting involved in your local community,
and how do you support your community in working for economic
and food justice?
tabitha mustafa
Tabitha Mustafa
“Maybe you complete your goal, or maybe the process
becomes your goal … We find that a lot more gets done
here when we do things the way that we know how to do
them best.”
Born and raised in New Orleans, Tabitha Mustafa joined
AFSC in Summer 2015 with Peace by Piece (PxP). She brings
community organizing experience and a love and knowledge of
New Orleans to her work.
Tabitha loves seeing youth take the skills they learn and
utilize them to analyze their experiences and tell their stories.
Around the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, PxP created
a short documentary, “Katrina X/Storm Surge: Hurricane
Katrina, New Orleans, and Disaster Capitalism” with the Real
News Network. One of the PxP interns took the lead on the
project as the director. Her influence on the project was such
that she joined experts on a discussion panel after a screening in
August.
Read more about Tabitha:
afsc.org/friends/interview-tabitha-mustafa
query:
Where is the place for Friends far away from places like New
Orleans, Ferguson, or Gaza in the pursuit of justice? How can
Quakers support these communities, while acknowledging that we
do not know what is best for them?
florence ntakarutimana
Florence Ntakarutimana
“I fell in love with Quakerism. To me this is my right place.
Quaker faith is a process of reflection and action: You learn,
then you do it. Healing and Rebuilding Our Communities
(HROC), so much based on Quaker principles, is my
everything, it is my doctor, my everything.”
Florence is a Burundian healer with HROC, an AFSC partner.
After losing both parents after the civil war in the ‘90s, Florence
focused her efforts on helping her community rebuild and
recover relationships damaged by the conflict.
Florence devotes her energy to these efforts in part because
she knows their effectiveness firsthand – she was healed by
HROC programs as well. During the crisis, her family fled to her
mother’s sister’s house. Florence’s aunt was unhappy with the
intrusion, and made demands of the family they were not able to
meet. Her aunt poisoned her mother, who died in 1996. HROC’s
trauma healing programs enabled Florence to heal from her
mother’s murder and forgive her aunt.
Read more about Florence:
http://afsc.org/story/transforming-pain
query:
Our world is besieged with violence and conflict. How does your
Meeting heal from these injustices, and how can that healing be
encouraged in the wider world?