Whitworth University Modern Languages Department Spotlight

Modern Languages

Department Spotlight

Whitworth Alumna Takes Helm of International Peacemaking Organization
The Reverend Carol Rose, a 1981 Whitworth alumna, became co-director of the Christian Peacemaker Teams organization (CPT) in September 2004.

Rose took over as CPT's co-director for operations from retiring director Gene Stoltzfus, who had held the position since 1987. Based in Chicago, she shares organizational oversight with Doug Pritchard, co-director for program, in Toronto.

"At Whitworth, study of the scriptures and the world came together, and I am still weaving that tapestry," says Rose, who held a double major in Spanish and ministry in Latin American culture. "I am grateful for the solid base in learned compassion that Whitworth nurtured."

Rose will spend three weeks in November and December visiting CPT's project in Hebron, the West Bank, in the aftermath of Yasser Arafat's death and of recent incidents of settler violence against members of the Hebron project.

"Our team in the West Bank is doing crucial work for peace," Rose says. "They have responded with valiant nonviolence to attacks and injury. This is a time of crisis in the larger context of Palestine-Israel. It is, therefore, a time of opportunity...for peace, or for more war. We hope to play a part in shifting the balance toward peace."

Two members of CPT's Hebron project suffered broken bones and a punctured lung in a Sept. 29 attack by armed Israeli settlers in the South Hebron Hills. The two were offering protective accompaniment to Palestinian schoolchildren as they walked between their school and homes.

"Attacks on internationals are not very common, but we go into this work recognizing that you accept certain risks when you set out to reduce violence in conflict zones," Rose says.

In addition to having served on CPT's Colombia project, Rose has worked for more than a decade in church projects in Latin America, Asia and North America. An ordained Mennonite minister, she was pastor of Mennonite Church of the Servant, Wichita, Kansas, from 1998 until February 2004.

Since 1993 Christian Peacemaker Teams has placed violence-reduction teams in the Middle East, Haiti, Latin America, Europe and North America. Supported by Mennonites, Brethren, Quakers and other Christian bodies, CPT currently maintains projects in Hebron, Colombia, Iraq and Canada.