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NH & the Global Church
New Hampshire Council of Churches Executive Director Sabbatical

The summer of 2008 David Lamarre-Vincent, Executive Director of the NHCC was on sabbatical.

The primary theme was how the diversity of the global church in New Hampshire with riches of ethnic/racial/language/religious diversity can be transformative of the whole church in NH.

Follow him from a delegation on trade, migration and workers rights in the US-Mexico border region, to a faithful health care reform consultation, to a Whole Communities Thinking retreat, to visits to NH ethnic, racial and global language churches. He will be building this website with blogs, photos, stories, videos and more.

The first leg of the sabbatical will be May 21 to 26, 2008. Lamarre-Vincent heads to Texas and northern Mexico next week with a delegation to look into trade, migration, and workers rights in the US-Mexico border region.

Contact him at David@NHchurches.org or David@BibleNH.org or call the New Hampshire Council of Churches / New Hampshire Bible Society office for reports on the trip or to book a speaking engagement for this fall.

Additional information about speaking topics from the sabbatical will be posted on this sabbatical website.

New Hampshire Council of Churches Executive Director returns from Interfaith Delegation to Israel and Palestine - Israelis and Palestinians share insight on the question of apartheid and hope for peace

Washington, DC — David Lamarre-Vincent, Executive Director of the New Hampshire Council of Churches, has returned from a unique delegation to Israel and Palestine. Mr. Lamarre-Vincent, along with thirteen other participants from around the US landed in Tel Aviv on July 28 for a two-week trip through the conflict zone. The delegates investigated the question of apartheid in the Israeli-Palestinian context while meeting with representatives of Israeli and Palestinian civil society, religious leaders, politicians, businesspeople, farmers, students, Human Rights workers, former combatants and more.

The delegation was co-sponsored by Interfaith Peace-Builders (IFPB) and the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (USC). This delegation is the 28^thsuch experience organized by IFPB since 2001, successfully educating more than 400 North American citizens about the Middle East and deepening their understanding of its conflicts through eye-witness experiences.

Participation in the Interfaith Peace Builders delegation was a cornerstone of Mr. Lamarre-Vincent’s summer sabbatical focused upon grassroots stories of interfaith understanding, whole community environmental thinking, and ethnic/racial/language diversity in the New Hampshire church community. “Middle East peace hinges upon settlement of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. This instability poses the greatest threat to world peace and support for the Israeli and Palestinian peace movements offers hope,” he explains. “Upon seeing and hearing the frustrations, fears and hopes of Israelis and Palestinians, New Hampshire religious leaders can support peace with justice based upon realities, not preconceptions.”