African Refugee Journeys

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Cover of Africa Refuge Journeys by Etienne Paul Mungombe“African Refugee Journeys: Listen, Love, Learn and Act” by Etienne Paul Mungombe was the 2019 Sunderland P. Gardner Lecture, presented at the Gathering of the Canadian Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, on August 4, 2019, at Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Etienne Paul Mungombe is a birthright Friend from Uvira, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Paul was forced to flee to Tanzania as a refugee in 1996 due to the First and Second Congo War. In the refugee camp, he completed theological training and was ordained as a Friends Church pastor.

In 2008 Paul’s family was moved by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) to Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, where he started and pastored Kakuma Friends Church. While in Kakuma Paul completed training in peace making, Healing and Rebuilding our Community (HROC, an Alternatives to Violence program) and other de-traumatization education, and led workshops to support refugees and displaced people recover from trauma. Paul completed his teaching diploma and started studies through Friends Theological College in Kenya. In 2012 Paul helped to create Hope and Voice for Disabled People, a community based organization in Kenya that does peace work through games and workshops.

In 2016 Paul and his family were offered refugee settlement in Canada. They arrived in July 2016. Since then Paul has established a Friends Church in Montreal and is associated with Montreal Monthly Meeting. With other refugee Pastors Paul has been involved with founding Union des Églises des Amis/United Friends Churches (UFC) in Quebec.

CQLS Pamphlet: “Come All Ye Who Are Heavily Cumbered”

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Front Cover for "Come All Ye Who Are Heavily Cumbered: Simplicity As The Radical Path to Peace, Justice, Community and Care Of The Earth"Come All Ye Who are Heavily Cumbered: Simplicity as the Radical Path to Peace, Justice, Community and Care of the Earth by Mark A. Burch

This is text of the Quaker Study Sessions for Canadian Yearly Meeting in August, 2014 where Mark Burch took us on a journey into simplicity. Since much of the violence in the world is structural in nature and is imposed on our behalf on distant others whose suffering is out of sight and therefore out of mind, Mark urges us to reduce it by cultivating personal and regional self-reliance through simple living.  He explores how our lives have become encumbered, the spiritual roots of simplicity, and how we may regain it.

This PDF is formatted as two sheets per page, to be printed in landscape form double-sided.  The resulting 9 sheets can then be folded in half, stapled or stitched in the middle, and be a readable hard-copy pamphlet with the pages in the correct order.   You are advised to also download the detailed printing instructions: Printing a PDF QuickPrint Pamphlet.

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Meeting was originally the Sunderland P. Gardner lecture given by Deborah Haight at Canadian Yearly Meeting in 1987 and published as No. 26 of the Canadian Quaker Pamphlet Series.

Canadian Yearly Meeting 2007 requested this reprint, as recommended by its Consultation and Renewal Working Group (C’nR) because too few Friends have experienced either the spiritual community or the profound sense of a spirit-led Meeting for Worship for Business that can occur at Yearly Meeting. Very few have any understanding of the work of our various committees. We found that many Friends in local Meetings felt that Yearly Meeting was not highly relevant to them, although intellectually they knew it was important to be connected to other Quakers.