Support for Palestine with goal of turning tanks into combines

Marvin Wiens of Wymark proudly flies a Palestinian flag on his combine as he harvests durum wheat on his and his neighbours farms.
Asked why he has the flag on his combine, Wiens said: "I fly this flag in recognition of a people who have lost their freedom and lost their farming livelihood, two things I cherish very much and have the privilege to continue to enjoy in Canada."
Marvin says he was like most Canadians, his views shaped by the media and the wonderful story of the birth of Israel. Then, in fall, 2007, he began reading the stories sent home by Rachelle Friesen, a young adult from his home congregation, Emmaus Mennonite Church, who was living in Bethlehem and working with Wi'am: The Palestinian Conflict Resolution Center. The stories told about the Palestinian experience of living under army (Israeli Defense Force) occupation in the West Bank.
In November he heard Alex Awad, a Palestinian Baptist pastor and professor at Bethlehem Bible College, speaking at the MCC Saskatchewan meetings, give the background to the current Israeli/Palestine situation. Wiens supplemented this with the reading of Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour, Archbishop of Galilee in the Melkite Greek Catholic Church. The book tells the story of Chacour's family and other Christian Arabs who lost everything when the Israeli army arrived at their village in 1948. Wiens took particular note of the story of Chacour's father who originally welcomed the forming of the state of Israel as a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. But then, Chacour Sr. lost his land and its well-kept olive orchard when the Israeli army tricked him to leave and would not allow him to return. The family was left with nothing. To support his family, Chacour Sr. ended up working as a hired man for the man who was given the orchard, tending his own trees for someone else, being paid a hired hand's wages.
As a farmer and land owner himself, Wiens has a sense of what that must have been like.
"That story is just absolutely heart-rending. He trusted the Israeli people and lost the farm he loved. To think that 800,000 people lost their homes and land in this way! And still," Wiens emphasized, "after all the people experienced, Elias Chacour has become a peace advocate."
Wiens feels strongly that we have to tell the Palestinian story so that people hear both sides of what has happened and is happening in Israel/Palestine.
The Mennonite Church believes peace is at the heart of the Gospel and peace can only come as we in the West take a stand for peace, justice, and non-violence. Therefore Marvin believes that we should insist that our Canadian government speak out against all injustice, human rights abuses, and violence against civilians, whether Israeli or Arab.
For Marvin Wiens, flying the Palestinian flag is one small way of helping bring to reality the Biblical dream of the time when swords will be turned into plowshares and tanks into combines.