Sharing light, hope and inspiration

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/02/2026 (245 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Epiphany season has been a busy one for Winnipeg’s Loraine MacKenzie Shepherd. For three consecutive Sundays she guest ministered at local United Churches, including at Westworth United, where she had served as its spiritual leader for 11 years until her retirement in the summer of 2023.

At each of these services, MacKenzie Shepherd was joined by a couple of new, non-United Church friends eager to help her relay her Epiphany-themed message about finding light and hope in a time of darkness.

Those friends, like MacKenzie Shepherd (and full disclosure this writer) are members of the Winnipeg affiliate of Women Wage Peace (WWP), the largest grassroots peace organization in Israel. WWP was co-created in 2014 by former Winnipegger Vivian Silver, who was murdered in Israel by Hamas in October 2023.

The Winnipeg affiliate, one of several international WWP groups, was co-founded by two of Silver’s local friends. Composed of Jewish, Muslim and Christian women, the group honours Silver’s legacy by promoting non-violent co-existence, equality and bridge building between Israelis and Palestinians and Muslims and Jews.

While MacKenzie Shepherd did not know Silver personally, she joined WWP Winnipeg as soon as she learned about its formation. As a human rights and interfaith activist and a recipient of the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for the Advancement of Interreligious Understanding, she was determined to find a local group that aligned with her concerns and convictions and that could, as she explains, “hold the truths and concerns of both Palestinians and Israelis, (and) of Muslims, Jews and Christians.”

“I despaired of the venom and hate that one side threw at the other,” she says, “and knew that, until we are all able to see the humanity of the other, we will never be able to achieve lasting, just peace for all.”

In the months since joining the group, MacKenzie Shepherd has assumed a leadership role within it, convened meetings between local Jews and Palestinians, visited synagogues and mosques, and promoted the Mother’s Call, a global peace petition jointly fashioned by WWP and the Palestinian group Women of the Sun. She also has taken advantage of every opportunity that arises to speak about WWP and its pursuit of security and reconciliation.

Those opportunities included the three Epiphany services that she led in January.

“I thought that the theme of Epiphany offered an appropriate context to hear about and be inspired by the stories and work of WWP,” she says. “We are all struggling with an insane amount of difficult news throughout the world. Hearing about stories of hope and light shining through the darkness inspires us not to give in to despair but to keep our little lights shining.”

“Personal stories,” she added, “are moving and impactful.”

Jane Enkin was one of the WWP members who shared her personal story at MacKenzie Shepherd’s invitation.

Like most of the women associated with WWP, Enkin was horrified by the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7 and also appalled by the brutality of the Israeli government’s retaliation in Gaza.

“It seemed to me that everyone I met was wearing blinders — either they defended Israel’s every action, no matter how callous, or they forgot about the vicious attacks and the kidnappings of Oct. 7 and spoke as if Israel alone had instigated this latest round of hostilities,” Enkin recalls. “I needed to find people who felt the way I did, with ambivalence and heartache, with confusion and a yearning for peace above all other values, all other outcomes.”

She found those people, she adds, in WWP.

While the Epiphany season continues until the start of Lent, MacKenzie Shepherd, along with other members of her group, are now moving on to a new initiative — organizing their first ever public event planned for April 26. That event, Women For a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel and At Home, will feature storytelling workshops, a conversation with original WWP member Rabbi Donna Kirshbaum, and a keynote address by Dr. Amal Elsana Alh’jooj from Montreal. Alh’jooj, a Bedouin Palestinian Nobel Peace Prize nominee, community organizer and founder of the Canadian interfaith project Solidarity Dialogues, was a close collaborator and dear friend of Vivian Silver.

Like the Epiphany services that MacKenzie Shepherd recently led, this upcoming event is designed to provide a glimmer of hope in a time of darkness and division, inspire action and understanding, and make a positive impact, however small, in our troubled world.

swchisvin@gmail.com

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