For many sessions: Robert Sessum, Liaison to Executive Council. Brian Grieves, Staff Liaison. Tom Hart, Staff Liaison.

Suzanne Peterson, elected temporary chair at a telephone conference meeting on January 22, oversaw our first day of meetings. Madeleine Trichel led an exercise in which we considered:

• Where are you from; and what is said about you by one thing you're wearing or have with you?
• Describe the passion that you bring to this commission.

We also looked closely at our charge:

Canonical Authority Title I, Canon 1.2.(n)1: There shall be: A Standing Commission on Anglican and International Peace with Justice Concerns consisting of 14 members (4 Bishops, 4 Priests and/or Deacons and 6 Lay Persons). It shall be the duty of the Commission

• to develop recommendations and strategies regarding common ministry opportunities and concerns with other Provinces of the Anglican Communion as to the work of this Church and the Anglican Communion on issues of international peace with justice and

• to make recommendations pertaining thereto to the Presiding Bishop, the Executive Council and the General Convention.

Bishop Griswold joined us at our table..

Tom Hart (Washington office) and Brian Grieves (Peace and Justice Officer at the Episcopal Church Center) talked to us at length about major areas of concern world wide, noting existing church policy and noting where they would welcome more policy to guide them.

.

We appointed Jackie Batjer to be our representative to the workshop on racism one day early (February 8) at the February 9-11,1999 meeting of interim bodies. Louie Crew is our alternate, and Mary Ann Weiss is our second alternate.

We committed ourselves to 100% participation with communication by email. Kris Lee, director of ECUSA’s internet presence, has agreed to assist two members in grant applications for computers to join the rest who are already connected.

We reviewed General Convention procedures for finances and signing off on vouchers.

We debriefed from our meeting with Brian Grieves and Tom Hart, and focused particularly on areas where new policy might be welcome.

We also identified major groups with similar missions with whom we will coordinate our work, especially

• The Commission on World Mission,
• The Subcommittee on Global Issues of Executive Council’s Committee on Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation (JPIC),
• The Anglican Communion’s Office at the United Nations,
• The Presiding Bishop’s Fund for World Relief
• The United Thank Offering
• The Anglican Peace and Justice Network (APJN), a subset of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC)
• The Committee on Social Responsibilities in Investment (SRI)

We brain-stormed to connect issues and places.

Resolution B032, the Kuala Lumpur Resolution, has already been referred to us by the General Convention Office. It deals with issues of International Debt and Human Sexuality. We agreed to delay our response to this charge until after the Lambeth Conference, where the resolution is expected to generate discussion. Before we deal with it directly, we will have someone set the context for us: who was there? who chaired? what does it mean to us?

We will also investigate issues around “prisoners of conscience” in Puerto Rico.

Another issue concerned us that does not fit neatly into any of these categories, but speaks to our effectiveness as a Church in all these areas, and more, viz., we want to ask the church to create an Episcopal Youth Experience international in scope that would engage our young people in servant ministry for 1-2 years in service away from their homes, and would bring young Christians from around the world to minister among us as well.

We continued to identify issues and places for our study. Brian Grieves met with us a second time to answer questions arising out of our previous discussion.

Patrick Mauney visited with us and shared his perspectives. He has spent the last fifteen years on Presiding Bishop’s staff as Director of the Office Anglican and Global Relations. He also serves as the Presiding Bishop’s deputy for Anglican Relations.

We began to draft our calendar and continued to identify our priorities, focusing especially on where to make site visits. At 11:30 we went into Executive Session to discuss issues of international sensitivity.

We met with persons from two different groups

• Episcopal Peace and Justice Network (EPJN). We met with representatives.
• World Mission. We met with the full commission.

We committed ourselves to go to Haiti, and while there, to focus on issues of concern to other countries in the Caribbean as well. To prepare we will go first to Washington, where we will be briefed by experts on Haiti and the Caribbean assembled by the Church’s Washington Office.

We completed the draft of our agenda for the triennium.

Recorded by Louie Crew, Secretary