The weekend kicked off with worship, and a
short silent vigil for 9/11 and the war on terror,
before Greg Valerio spoke for us on holiness,
seeking Christ instead of merely pursuing
good ideas. His talk was followed by a Native
American story and song sharing session from
Larry Littlebird, encouraging us to ‘find our
voices’ before closing for the night with prophetic
prayer ministry. Saturday and Sunday were
spent enjoying music and exploring SPEAK’s
campaigns and what ‘peace’ could mean from
various perspectives; Alan Storkey spoke on his
vision for a demilitarised world, Louise Donkin
(SPEAK’s founder) on the Take A Stanza poetry for
fair banking campaign, and we had workshops
on permaculture hiphop, crafting for peace,
and disengaging from support for militarism in
everyday life.Many of the talks and workshops
can be viewed on our YouTube channel so please
check them out!
www.youtube.com/speaknetwork
Following the weekend festival, a group of us
travelled to the Excel Centre in the docklands,
London, where the DSEi arms fair was in full
swing. We got together to creatively demonstrate
against this arms fair through prayer, poetry,
peace songs (accompanied by the DSEi bells
scratch handbell choir!) and banners to try and
raise the awareness of this awful industry and
hopefully inspire some heart changes.
As a first-time ‘Speakie’, I wasn’t sure what to
expect but once I got talking to people, I felt
more comfortable. Everyone was so upbeat
and friendly. Meeting such an eclectic bunch of
folks united by a common faith and ‘alternative/
radical’ outlook was refreshing, inspiring and a
delight. Ray Gaston’s non-violence session on