This week's Peace Feast at Hoyo's Somali Kitchen in Columbus was a great success! We ended at 9pm and by 10:30pm we still had people talking and laughing and enjoying one another, and we've gotten responses like, “this was the best conversation I’ve had with a stranger in a while,” and “I really made friends Saturday night!” Others who weren't able to attend have asked for another event soon. 

For the past five years I have been working with Muslim refugees in the Phoenix area and trying to get the Church to faithfully love the neighbors that God has brought to our city. On this journey God has been faithful to teach me, through many failures, how to effectively move people toward loving the neighbors they would never otherwise spend time with. Here are some lessons I've learned.

The FBI agent was a sharply dressed young woman. I wondered why she was attending the Somali Peace Feast. Another friend who works with local internationals said this FBI agent had been a friend to the international community, helping both the agency and the local police department be more sympathetic with the immigrant populations.

Working with Muslim refugees in Phoenix is a powerful opportunity for peacemaking and for promoting the peace of our city. Today we'd like to share the video story of Sally Harr, one of our faithful volunteer partners with the Somali Bantu.

We at Peace Catalyst are priveleged to have an ongoing partnership with the Somali Bantu refugee community in Phoenix, and we wanted to share with you a quick video of what goes on at our many weekly English classes. We're so thankful for our amazing new Somali friends and our incredible group of volunteer teachers who make this all possible!

This last week we hosted an urban youth group from San Diego for a week of service. For the first teaching time, I taught them about the parable of the Good Samaritan. I asked the group to imagine how Jesus would have retold the story if he had walked the streets of San Diego. The first guy started in, without hesitation, and told the story of the Good Somali who helped the wounded Mexican.

On October 16, 2010, two Somali women were attacked by another woman at a gas station in Tukwila, a town just south of Seattle. These Somali women represent just two of the thousands upon thousands of Somali refugees that have come to make the greater Seattle area their home. Among men, women, children, and young and old from varying tribes, there is one thing that unites them all: Islam.