For most of us, arrival on the tip of the wedge blade is not life threatening. For some, it is. At my request, our Lisa Tos-Brightup gives us an account of her experience on a Christian Peacemaker Team. She adds that at the time she served, her future spouse Natalie, begged her not to return because the danger was so great. This article about being on the tip of the wedge blade is just a tip of the ice burg of her service and experience.
Phil Dietz
Christian Peacemaker Teams is an organization that works unarmed in war zones around the world , accompanying people who are in danger because the various groups of armed actors , (guerilla forces, paramilitary, or legal military), are fighting for land and resources. I worked with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Columbia in 30-to-60 day high stress spurts from 2002 -2005, returning to the US to teach for a few months before making another trip. In Columbia, my teams job was to continually motor our canoe to small villages in the jungle along the Opon River, making sure folks were safe , but also making sure that armed groups knew we were nearby. They knew that if they committed atrocities near us, we North Americans had the power to report their dirty deeds around the world within moments. In addition to protecting villages, we sometimes accompanied individuals who were targeted because they spoke out against the armed groups , (such as when Coca Cola began brutally murdering their union leaders and their families). We interceded with the legal military , worked with local justice groups, reported to a world-wide network of supporters , and overall did our best to be trustworthy so people might feel they could whisper to us the latest rumor they’d heard about what an armed group had done or was going to do.
Lisa Tos-Brightup