Advertisement I often can’t tell if it’s a genuine question or an accusation.
But anyone who has asked this, or anyone who would like to know more about the peace Islam offers, or anyone who would like to learn about the human dimension of the war in Iraq can go see Sami Rasouli this Monday.
The Iraqi native is director of the Muslim Peacemaker Team, which has cooperated with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq. He will speak at 7 p.m. at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse’s Graff Main Hall Auditorium.
Fasting children
Jean Jozefowicz, aka “Mrs. Jo,” doesn’t just teach religion through books. She also teaches it through bodies.
Last week, 23 of her students at St. John’s Middle School in Prairie du Chien, Wis., volunteered to do a 30-hour fast in order to experience the hunger children experience daily in some other countries.
The students spent last Friday night at the school, doing activities that brought a taste of the suffering of others to their lives.
Seamus Murray, a sixth-grader, was one of those students.
“It was very difficult,” Murray said. “I personally was feeling hungry, but I didn’t actually start to feel pain in my stomach until we were watching TV, were watching food commercials. And that just made me so hungry.”
Mrs. Jo teaches the 14 Works of Mercy, which include feeding the hungry.
“We teach them that the whole world is our responsibility,” she said, “that God created us and asked us to be responsible for everyone.”
She said some students thought they would die if they didn’t eat for 30 hours.
Through the fast, the students raised more than $2,800 for children in Indonesia.
Pastors exiting
The evangelical landscape is changing in La Crosse.
The Rev. John Splinter, founding pastor of Point of Grace, a non-denominational church in Holmen, Wis., moved back to St. Louis on Leap Day.
There, he has helped open a branch office of the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families, which works on issues of sexuality from a biblical perspective.
Part of the organization’s efforts combat pornography.
“If the church doesn’t stand up and address this issue, no one is going to,” said Splinter, who lived with his family in St. Louis from 1975 to 1998. “Our culture is just attacked and the church hasn’t said or done much about it.”
Last month, Splinter met with another former La Crosse leader, Archbishop Raymond L. Burke, head of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, and said he’ll be working with a Catholic task force to promote biblical sexuality.
The Rev. David Holt, pastor of First Evangelical Free Church in Onalaska, Wis., for more than 17 years, is moving with his family back to Georgia this summer.
Read more about Holt’s move in an upcoming story in the La Crosse Tribune.
Founder’s Award
Bishop Jerome Listecki, head of the Diocese of La Crosse, has established a new award.
During the next several years, nine awards given in the name of the nine bishops who have served the Catholic diocese, will be given, each with a different theme. (Listecki won’t be giving one in his own name.)
Bill Medland, former president and current chancellor of Viterbo University, received the first award this past Sunday: The Most Rev. Michael Heiss Founder’s Award, given for dedication to Catholic identity.
Joe Orso can be reached at jorso@lacrossetribune.com or (608) 791-8429.
