Mindanao, Philippines--Sept. 2011

At the end of a long training trip in the Philippines I headed to Davao City, Mindanao with three of the staff from the Convention of Philippine Baptist Churches (CPBC). We were scheduled for a 3-day training on interfaith peacemaking.

Mindanao has been the hottest place in the Philippines in terms of violent conflict. The majority of southern Filipinos are Muslims, concentrated on the islands of Mindanao and Sulu. A major ethnic group among the Muslims are the Moros. For decades the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) has been fighting for independence, but has in recent years established a cease-fire with the government. Meanwhile an Islamist group spun off from the MNLF, calling themselves the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The MILF has been in recent peace talks with the government of the Philippines, but those recently broke off. There's also a small more extreme group called Abu Sayyef. Alongside that conflict is another decades-old conflict with the New Peoples Army (NPA), a Communist insurgency that had declined following the 1986 People Power movement that ended the Marcos dictatorship. But the growing economic disparities and desperation of the poor have brought new life to the NPA insurgency.

So we were intending to focus on interfaith relationships as one particular peacemaking component. I'd hoped to have a more equal participation of Christians and Muslims, but that wasn't what developed. We had a large group of Baptists, one Pentecostal, and one Muslim. The Muslim was a young imam named Karem from a nearby mosque who could only be with us the first day. So I knew I'd have to be flexible in my workshop design to make the most of the situation which presented itself to me as a trainer.

The first day we dealt with more of the theory of conflict transformation that was most relevant to the situation in Mindanao. We covered getting to win/win solutions with a special emphasis on identity conflicts. We also did a lot of work on mainstream/margins. The imam was an excellent participant, not being intimidated by being the only Muslim in the group (definitely margin in this group!). He had a deep commitment to peace and broke a lot of stereo-types that the Christians in the group had.

The second day we focused on interfaith relationships. But we were all Christians since Karem had to conduct exams at the Islamic school at his mosque. We began with a little exercise called "The Big Wind Blows" that is kind of like musical chairs (without removing an additional chair each round). I said, "The Big Wind Blows for everyone who has been inside a mosque." Only one person had! These are the leaders and peace people in a conflict area where Christian/Muslim relationships are one of the key fault lines. So I knew we had to change that right then and there.

I asked the pastor who had invited Karem (and was the only one who had been in a mosque) if he could arrange for us to visit Karem's mosque later in the day. Meanwhile we worked on a number of interfaith relationship issues. We also exercised our curiosity about Muslims and constructed a list of questions the group had.

At about 2:30 we walked from our retreat center to the mosque (we'd been able to hear the calls to prayer throughout our time at the center). Karem greeted us warmly. We were given a tour of the school, spending time with short discussions in various classes. We discovered that half the teachers were Christians, though all the students were from Muslim families. We met with some of the leadership in the school to ask our questions about Islam and the various practices of their faith.

At the time for prayers we went into the mosque for, the men in the main hall, the women in a smaller area partitioned off in the back. We observed the prayers. Then we talked a bit more with Karem about the prayer time before heading back to the retreat center to debrief our experience. I closed saying, "The Big Wind Blows for everyone who has been to a mosque!" Everyone laughed and cheered.

We closed out the workshop on the third day looking at various strategies for building relationships for peacemaking work and how to move people with varying degrees of support or opposition to the issues that concern us. Participants worked on specific plans for their return home, including dealing with disagreement within their own Christian communities about even entering into positive relationships with Muslims (a challenge in many U.S. congregations, too!). The participants all left feeling very positive about what we had achieved. Afterward I talked further with the CPBC staff about next steps in peacemaking and training, both training that would involve me and things they could do on their own.