Participants of the PAR Initiative in Occidental Mindoro
Twenty-eight Christian leaders in Occidental Mindoro have finished the 6-hour orientation seminar on Peace and Reconciliation (PAR) Community Organizing. They are pastors, educators, business people, and civil society leaders.
It started two years ago when Dr. John Tayoto, President of the Asian Center for Leadership Education and Development (ACLEAD) invited PeaceBuilders Community, Inc. (PBCI) to be a partner in teaching Peace Theology and other courses that advances biblical peacebuilding. (Bishop Tayoto is also the chairperson of the PAR Commission of the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches). PBCI eventually entered into a Memorandum of Agreement with ACLEAD. The students and graduates of my class caught the vision of PAR and they suggested a partnership between PBCI and their provincial ministerial group called Occidental Mindoro Ministerial Fellowship. Their leaders visited us in Davao City last year during the opening and dedication of the new PBCI Center. It was then that we decided to do a couple of modular Doctor of Ministry-level courses for the selected Christian leaders in their province.
The ACLEAD Doctor of Ministry students in Occidental Mindoro
The classes were held in January 21-26. Book readings were assigned two months before the class sessions. A major paper will be turned-in after two months.
In-between classes, they also gathered the key people in their organizations to attend a public orientation seminar on PAR. The orientation seminar was held for three consecutive afternoons. Those leaders, after going through the orientation process, have agreed to formally invite the PBCI PAR Training and Consulting Team to actually establish the three-month training period for the core group of PAR Community in this province.
Before I left San Jose, Occidental Mindoro, the leaders met with me and made a commitment to organize PAR Occidental Mindoro in the next few months.
