Our Peace Catalyst team in Seattle recently hosted its first live peacemaking event in over two years. Two local churches combined their efforts to host the local Uyghur American community in a community-wide Listening Event on the last day of the Winter Olympics. The timing was in solidarity to the worldwide Uyghur community whose concerns about holding an Olympic games in a nation where genocide is happening in real time were ignored by the IOC.

Just over a week ago I enjoyed a delicious Uyghur meal with friends who are refugees to the U.S. from China. We came together to learn, to celebrate culture, and to discover what connects us all as human beings.

At Peace Catalyst, our goal is to build peace between Christians and Muslims, and what better way to make peace while spreading the word about the Uyghur genocide in China than to do it in partnership with the American Chinese Church?

You don’t have to live with the violence and hatred in the headlines. You can make peace instead. Peacemaking teams of Muslims and Christians are working together in cities across the U.S. and around the world to heal the fear and division that leads to violence. This work happens because of you, so with every year-end donation you can help expand these partnerships and bring peacemaking teams to even more cities.

If you’ve kept up with recent world news, you may have heard what’s happening to the Uyghur people in China. Most ethnic Uyghurs identify as Muslim, and over one million of them are currently detained in Chinese prison camps just north of Tibet with the stated purpose of “preventing terrorism.” These prison camps resemble those established by oppressive regimes throughout history, and Uyghurs around the world are living with that deep pain. That’s why, through the bridge-building efforts of Peace Catalyst staff members Bill and Julie Clark, a Pasadena Foursquare church hosted close to 20 Uyghur adults and children for a Peace Feast.