The Evangelical Alliance Relief Fund

PRESS RELEASE

May 13 2009

Key peace-building role for TEAR Fund director

In addition to his role as TEAR Fund NZ executive director, Stephen Tollestrup has been appointed as The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) director of Peace-building and Reconciliation Initiative (PRI), a special project launched by WEA in a bid to expand its existing global Christian peace-building efforts.

“I am delighted to appoint Steve Tollestrup as the director of our Peace-building and Reconciliation Initiative,” said Dr Geoff Tunnicliffe, the International Director of WEA.

“Steve brings experience, skill and passion to this very important role. As we look across the globe we recognize this initiative is more needed than ever. I want to see us to be on the frontline of promoting and reconciliation.”

One of Mr Tollestrup’s first assignments in the role will be to visit Sri Lanka where heavy fighting between governments and Tamil forces are creating a huge humanitarian crisis, with thousands of civilians being killed or wounded. He will visit with an international delegation which will involve some Kiwis.

“I believe this peace-building initiative can really make a tangible difference in Sri Lanka and many other nations struggling with war and its after effects. As well as the civil conflict there are religious tensions to be bridged.

TEAR Fund is already working in Sri Lanka, building peace and trust between Sinhalese and Tamils and there has been a great measure of success that the PRI can build on.” This will be even more critical once the war is over and people return to their homes and rebuild their lives again, he said.

At the 2007 WEA International Leadership Team meeting in Africa, the organisation’s leadership agreed that peace-building efforts are a priority for the alliance. With this in mind, the WEA made a goal to have at least 40 per cent of its 128 national evangelical alliances, member organisations, partners and commissions help cultivate and sustain peace in places impacted by violence. WEA has encouraged its partners to especially focus on children of impoverished nations stricken by armed intrastate conflict.

"From my reading of scripture, reconciliation seems to me a unique Christian ministry that cannot be separated out from either proclamation or works,” said Mr Tollestrup, who is also a member of the Global Reconciliation Network which was initiated at Lausanne 2004.

“To be Christian is to be a peace-maker. I can’t think of poverty anywhere in the world that can’t be traced to some conflict.” For this reason Evangelicals must become conflict literate and be able to contribute to reconciliation and peacemaking. As Jesus emphatically stated; 'Blessed are the peace-makers...’”

Mr Tollestrup said the plan is to initially build awareness among WEA membership of WEA PRI and its goals, expand their mailing list, develop their website and make available simple peace-building resources. WEA PRI wishes to build cooperative relations with other Christian peace and reconciliation networks throughout the world as they look to prepare for Cape Town 2010, the third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization.
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“I am approaching this with a real sense that we are late-comers on the scene of Christian peace-making. Many Christians and their networks have for years, even centuries been concerned for peace-building.
One only has to consider the Mennonites for instance. So with a sense of humility I want to work with others as a learner and a listener as build WEA PRI over the coming months and years."

Mr. Tollestrup has previous experience in field based reconciliation programmes throughout the world and was awarded a New Zealand Government Scholarship for work in impact assessment among poor communities in the developing world at the PRIA Institute in New Delhi.

In the past, he has served as the chairperson of the New Zealand Council for International Development and currently serves on the Executive Council of the Integral Alliance and the New Zealand Micah Challenge.

World Evangelical Alliance (WEA): World Evangelical Alliance is made up of 128 national evangelical alliances located in 7 regions and 104 associate member organisations.

ENDS

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