But peace and freedom is tied to the peace and freedom of other countries, he continued. "We cannot claim to be free while our neighbours in Zimbabwe have no freedom. Think of the people in western Sahara, and the violation that children suffer. They have been deprived of their right to be children. But we believe that through this campaign we are engaged in, we are under an obligation to bring about the end of that violence."
Akhtar said Christians are a tiny minority of the population in Pakistan. "Churches are not strong [enough] to cope with the terrorist attacks," she said. "It is really a challenge because [the future of] all of the minorities are at stake. We don't know when we are going [to] be shot dead or hit by the terrorist attacks. Everyone [is] looking out for their own."
"Where do you see hope for those people of faith who search for peace," asked Moukheiber, who said Christians compose 40 percent of Lebanon's population. "The way I see hope is for people in Lebanon to forgive each other, for everything we have done against each other."
In the streets of New Orleans
Within a matter of hours, the delegation found itself from the United Nations Plaza to the French Quarter of New Orleans, a historic city that was two-thirds flooded when high winds from Hurricane Katrina broke through levees two years ago. They were met by Rev Dr Bernice Powell Jackson of Beecher Memorial United Church of Christ, the North American WCC president.
"New Orleans is the ground zero of every racial, social and economic injustice in the US," Powell Jackson told them. During the final 24 hours of the delegation's visit, members met with clergy and local artists and worshipped with the congregation at Beecher Memorial, whose members faced evacuation during the hurricane, then returned to struggle in the rebuilding of their damaged church.
Amidst the street violence that has plagued New Orleans, they also heard stories of courageous Christian witness - weekly neighbourhood walks, teen meetings, services for the homeless, racial reconciliation and community development.
The delegation witnessed the outstanding work of church coalitions in providing relief and emergency aid, but they also heard calls for churches at the national level to increase their advocacy for more government action in order to help people to rehabilitate their homes.
"We travelled in a rented van to so many places and little by little the van was getting smaller," wrote Schneider, who kept a blog during the visit. "Our van did not have enough space to carry all the people who were with us by the end of the trip: the ten [Amish] girls and the violence perpetrator from Nickel Mines, Pasadena; the man murdered in the night we spent in Philadelphia; the victims of the man-made errors in New Orleans, and so on.
"We don't need a larger van though, we need bigger arms to express our solidarity and to make people feel that they are not alone."
