Resources

Podcast: Why Violence Is a Virus

What if the very skills we’re all learning to stop the spread of COVID-19 could help us stop the spread of violence? In fact, what if what we’re experiencing now could lead us to end war?

The Defeat of ISIS Is Not a Victory for Peace

We have everything in us to be the ones who crush others underfoot. (That’s what “Daesh,” the Arabic name for ISIS, means.) We have everything in us to be the overtakers. To be those some might see as heroes—and who others might see as the most terrifying villains imaginable.

We Share the Blame

When we prioritize our own comfort and privilege over the basic needs of our neighbors; when we leave weaker neighbors to fend for themselves; when we make it easy for governments to abuse their own citizens because they know the world doesn’t care, we fail our neighbors.

Take Action

Attend a Love Anyway Workshop
Learn how to press into pain, become a better listener, and connect deeply with those who are different. Join one of our free online workshops.

Join our Peacemaking Community
Give monthly to join our community of peacemakers and support our work to heal all that is tearing us apart—in our own communities and around the world. Your gift will provide lifesaving relief to stop the spread of violence, jobs that reduce the risk of being recruited into war, and community to help change the ideas that lead to war.

Jeremy Courtney is the founder and CEO of Preemptive Love. He has lived and worked on the frontlines of conflict for over a decade, serving families who’ve been terrorized by violence, poverty, and disease. He’s the author of the book Love Anyway: An Invitation Beyond a World That’s Scary as Hell. Jeremy lives in Iraq with his wife Jessica and their two children.

RESOURCES

Attack on the Capitol: Why We Must Call It What It Is

The Seeds of War Have Already Been Planted. Now What?

US Election: Voices From the Other Side of War (Podcast)

TAKE ACTION

Attend a Love Anyway Workshop

Learn how to press into pain, become a better listener, and connect deeply with those who are different. Join one of our free online workshops.

Join our Peacemaking Community

Give monthly to join our community of peacemakers and support our work to heal all that is tearing us apart—in our own communities and around the world. Your gift will provide lifesaving relief to stop the spread of violence, jobs that reduce the risk of being recruited into war, and community to help change the ideas that lead to war.

EDITOR’S NOTE

The Love Anyway tour mentioned on this episode took place in late 2019.

As host Erin Wilson shares in this episode: Throughout the war with ISIS, Preemptive Love chose to stay in Iraq. We chose to travel to the frontlines and stand with the people being crushed by violence and oppression. We did it out of love...and for some, that mattered. It mattered that we chose to stay. It mattered that we put our bodies on the line with theirs.

And now we, all of us, need to show up on the frontlines in the US, too. 

In the midst of a wave of protests sweeping all 50 states, and on at least four continents, declaring the truth that Black Lives Matter, we have a chance to make our presence matter.

In this breaking episode, we hear from:

• Faitth Brooks, director of programs for Be The Bridge and co-host of Melantated Faith podcast. Faitth shares what it looks like to be a co-conspirator by stepping behind the marginalized and supporting the work without co-opting or centering.
• Nick Mahlstadt, friend of Preemptive Love and father of seven, shares what he's learned about stepping out in front — not to co-opt or take over— but to literally stand between the oppressed and their oppressor.

Both Faitth and Nick also share the idea that being anti-racist means showing up to do the everyday, unglamorous work of justice.

Visit show notes page.

Links from this episode:

• Melanated Faith podcast 
• Be The Bridge
• The Move Project

Faitth's Book Recommendations:

• How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
• I'm Still Here by Austin Channing Brown
• Be The Bridge 101
• White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson
• White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
• Recommendations from Be The Bridge

Faith's Podcast Recommendations:

• Melanated Faith podcast  
• '1619' podcast
• Code Switch
• Seeing White

This episode:

• Invites you into a behind-the-scenes look at emergency food distributions in Iraq and Syria. Ihsan Ibraheem, who does program documentation, gives an on-the-ground update.
• Takes you to Venezuela, where you'll hear — in their own words — from new friends who were able to make ends meet because of food deliveries.
• Welcomes you to peek behind the podcasting curtain, as Erin vulnerably shares about the photos that made her not only cry, but think about her global neighbors — and herself — in a new way, too.

Learn more.

This story is all too familiar—and all too common. Men and boys losing their lives, for no other reason than that they are Black. Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Philando Castille are a few names you might recognize...though there are countless more. And now there’s another. Ahmaud Arbery.

So we’re asking: What do we do in this moment? How do we respond? Can we possibly hope to end violence somewhere else in the world if we do not confront the violence in our own communities… and in our own hearts?

Learn more.

Could they really have meaningful conversations? Would others judge or stereotype her? Would it be... awkward?

In this episode, we find out.

Listening, doing conflict better, cultivating peace—these are all things we’ve been learning alongside our neighbors in Iraq for years.

And now, we’re excited to bring that to communities around the world. To heal all that’s tearing us apart through Love Anyway Gatherings.

Learn more.

War begins in our heads and hearts long before it reaches our hands. But that also means the solution can begin with us. And sometimes, healing all that’s tearing us apart starts with a meal.

If polarization is fueled by our isolation from anyone different, then what if interacting with people who are different is key to reducing prejudice and polarization?

Even as you listen to this episode while self-isolating, you can still prepare for the time when we get to come back together, face-to-face.

What starts as a simple meal around a shared table with strangers can lead to life-changing conversations. And those conversations can lead to a thirst for more.

Learn more.

Because the choices we make in this moment could mean life or death for someone else. And as you'll hear in this special bonus episode, for many of us, this threat is anything but hypothetical.

These are their stories.

Visit our show notes to enter to Win a signed copy or audiobook Version of Love Anyway by Jeremy Courtney.

In his book, Jeremy says that the way things are is not the way they have to be. There is a more beautiful world.

And as you'll hear in this episode, to find it, we have to we confront our fear—and end war where it starts: in our own heads and hearts.

Learn more.

Travel back in time to 2016 with host Erin Wilson, when she met two Iraqi doctors in a displacement camp she'd never forget. In raw audio from her time there, hear how Dr. Qudama and Dr. Mustafa decided to create a health clinic from scratch in one of the toughest places you can imagine, learning along the way that trust is essential to healing.

In this episode, Jeremy shares a three-step effort as we work together to stop the spread of violence and work to end war:

1. We listen and show up fast so we can address felt needs as quickly as possible.
2. We create jobs to protect the vulnerable.
3. We foster community where diverse people can truly hear each other, discover common joys and fears, and maybe even change our ideas that lead to war.

Learn more.

We were planning to share this immersive episode with you later this year to go along with a new Love Anyway tour across the US. But because of COVID-19, our spring tour is going online. So we bumped up our production schedule to share this with you now!

(Starting April 9, we’re hosting five online, interactive events with Preemptive Love founders Jeremy and Jessica Courtney. Free tickets are available now, but space is limited.)

Learn more.

In today’s special episode, we talk with people across the U.S. to explore what it looks like for all of us to not only look for the helpers — but to be the helpers — even in a global pandemic hitting very close to home.

Many of us are familiar with Mr. Roger’s admonition to “look for the helpers” in times of chaos. As life continues to change in the face of COVID-19, podcast producer Kayla Craig looks for the helpers in her own community, recording conversations along the way.

• Kayla talks with Preemptive Love grants officer Lindsey Pruett-Hornbaker about her online storytime for “little revolutionaries.”
• Dane Barnett, Preemptive Love’s student and university engagement manager, spends some self-isolation time interviewing his mom Kris, a nurse in a local hospital's pediatric emergency department.
• We also hear from Kayla’s four young children who are now figuring out what their days look like without school. She also receives a message from her brother Nathan, who is helping keep grocery store shelves stocked during the pandemic.

And Jeremy Courtney, founder and CEO of Preemptive Love, shares an important message about why he’s cutting his salary to $0 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Learn more.

We hear from Preemptive Love team members:

• Jessica Courtney, vice president of international programs
• Erin Wilson, senior field editor
• Ben Irwin, director of communications

The future is uncertain. No one knows how widely this disease will spread or how bad the effects will be. But we are committed to our friends.

We continue to listen to their most pressing needs. And we’re delivering the kinds of aid that reduce their vulnerability: food and warm clothes to help immunity, mobile health clinics in places where healthcare is absent, and jobs that bring stability.

We are committed to the work you’ve entrusted to us. We’re not going anywhere.

Learn more.

To say thanks, we’re offering the first 25 people to finish a survey a free pin from our Preemptive Love Shop, and you’ll also be entered to win a Love Anyway jute bag along with some beautiful refugee-made candles.

Just go to preemptivelove.org/podsurvey to fill out the survey now. Or text ‘surveyme’ to 72000. We can’t wait to hear from you. We’ll be back soon for Season 4 of the Love Anyway podcast.

As we hear in this episode, Ihsan has lived his whole life in Iraq. And he’s lived through what seems like countless wars.

Details to Know:

• Early in the morning of January 8 local time, Iran fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two Iraqi military bases housing US troops.
• At the time of this recording, there are no known casualties.
• The attack was in retaliation for the assassination of Iran’s top military commander Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike on January 3, near the Baghdad airport.
• In an address on January 8, US President Trump threatened to impose new sanctions on Iran, but also suggested the current crisis is winding down.

This episode features audio from a conversation several members of our team had with Ihsan Ibrahim, minutes before President Trump’s address. Ihsan has been part of the Preemptive Love team in Iraq for almost four years.

Ihsan  is an Iraqi, a father, a husband, a neighbor, a friend—and to many of us, an essential guide to making sense of the events of the last several days. In this epsiode, Ihsan shares what it was like to wake up to the news of Iranian missiles hitting his country.

Learn more.

US protocols have rapidly changed, forcing most asylum seekers to wait on the Mexico side of the border. So we’ve shifted our focus to the growing needs in Juarez, just across from El Paso, where many people are sheltering after they petition for asylum.

On Giving Tuesday, we’re excited to announce a new initiative we’re launching where you can help us provide jobs for the most marginalized asylum seekers on the US-Mexico border.  And you can be a part of it.

Text “border update” to 72000 to sign up so you can be the first to know about what we're launching on Giving Tuesday. You can play an important role in choosing to love anyway at the US-Mexico border.

Learn more.

What they told us is too important not to share. Some of the stories you’ll hear are quite literally life-and-death scenarios.

Our team reports that the Turkish ceasefire is not over. Violence is continuing. Families are hiding in gutters and sewers as Turkish bombs fall. 

Preemptive Love has a presence throughout the vulnerable region of northeastern Syria. Despite the danger, we’re not going anywhere. Our on-the-ground teams are continuing to receive people, including young children, who have experienced serious injuries as a direct result of this violence.

Learn more.

Some of our team members delivering emergency aid have been shot at. Upwards of 300,000 people are running for their lives, fleeing Turkish bombs. The situation is desperate. We need your help.

We breakdown terms like "safe zones" and "ceasefire." We examine President Trump's recent statement about the US troop withdrawal from Syria, Turkish bombings, and the  massive wave of displacement it triggered.

We can’t follow the news right now without seeing headlines about US pullout from northeastern Syria. So, what’s happening? What are the implications? Why is this withdrawal so important...and so potentially devastating, not just for our friends in Syria, but for all of us?

We speak with Preemptive Love founder Jeremy Courtney, who has lived in the Middle East, including Turkey and Iraq, for more than a decade.

We also hear from Erin Wilson, Preemptive Love's senior field editor in the Middle East, who describes the sense she is getting from her friends and neighbors in Iraq, many of whom have Kurdish friends and family in the line of fire in northern Syria.

Learn more.

At the time of recording, the numbers have grown to more than one hundred protesters killed in Baghdad and cities across Iraq. More than six thousand people are reported injured. Prominent religious leaders are calling for the government to step aside. And there’s a real fear that ISIS could exploit the situation to cause even more chaos.

But this crisis doesn’t just affect Iraq. It affects all of us.

In this breaking episode, Ben Irwin speaks with two members of our team in Iraq, Erin Wilson and Ihsan Ibraheem, to get the latest on the situation, why we should care, and what we can do about it.

Learn more.

And each year as this day arrives, we pause to remember. We remember when we heard the news, where we were, how we felt. We remember the fear that rose in our throats, the fear the began to change the way we walked in the world, the way we saw each other.

On this episode, we ask some of our colleagues from Iraq, the United States, and other parts of the world to reflect on their memories of 9/11. Some were just starting their adult life when 9/11 happened; others had to process it as children. Some watched from a distance as the Twin Towers fell; others were intimately connected to the loss felt on that day.

American or Iraqi, Muslim or Christian, adult or child, September 11 has shaped who we are and the world around us.

September 11 also set in motion a chain of events that led to the formation of Preemptive Love. As the United States launched into Iraq, to wage war against an enemy that had nothing to do with 9/11, we launched into Iraq to wage peace.

Learn more.

Saira and Shawn share personal stories exploring how, despite our differences, hope for our children and creating a different way to live in community is a thread that can unite us all.

We believe that getting people together helps us heal. That intentional time with people who are different than ourselves fosters empathy, pushes us through fear, and brings us to a better understanding of ourselves and others.

This episode explores friendships that cross cultures, healing stories of community in unexpected places, and the importance of slowing down and paying attention.

Learn more.

Rapper and Preemptive Love's artist-in-residence Propaganda (Jason Petty), and his wife, university professor Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty, both of the Red Couch Podcast, join us for a candid conversation about parenting and talking to kids about race.

In this episode, Propaganda and Alma share their experiences growing up as people of color, share ways they've talked about race and peacemaking with their children, and speak into what they want white parents to know about humility and allyship.

Learn more.

Diana Oestreich has been the key relationships officer with Preemptive Love for nearly four years. Before that, Diana was a combat medic in the Iraq War. Her experience as a veteran shapes her views on everything, including how she and her husband Jake raise their kids Zelalem and Bridger.

What does their commitment to showing up for their community look like? Recently, Diana and her sons joined their community at a local Lights for Liberty event, a vigil for children seeking asylum at the US-Mexico border, and they let us come along with them for this episode.

Learn more.

On our second episode of the season, we hear from José Chiquito, a college student who came to the US with his family as an undocumented child. We also talk with Luisa, whom our colleague Billy Price met at the US-Mexico border after she traveled with her grandchildren from Honduras to legally seek asylum. And Laura Pontius, an immigration attorney, shares why the language we use about immigration matters.

We also provide a field update about the aid and assistance you've made possible to families seeking asylum on the US-Mexico border.

Learn more.

Their kids, Emma (14) and Micah (11), dive into their perspectives on growing up in Iraq, sharing thoughts on violence, media, and what makes home to them. Kids are often shielded from bad things, but what happens when that’s not possible? This episode also includes a call with Molly Goen, a teacher who confides what students taught her after they survived a traumatic act of violence in an Iraqi classroom.

Young people absorb more than we might imagine, and they understand more than we may assume. When we examine what it looks like to love anyway, we often come up with complicated answers. But ask a kid in your life what it means to love anyway, and you might be surprised at the depth even simple responses bring to the conversation.

In season two, we’ll explore the fears and questions kids—and the adults in their lives—have about violence, racism, media, cultural differences, and war. Children are often left out of hard conversations. But what if we welcome future generations to the table, now?

Join us as peacemakers of all ages share true stories of hope, exploring how to broaden the picture of what it looks like to love anyway.

Learn more.

Hear Erin share her favorite episode and what she finds most challenging about hosting a podcast. (And experience her infectious laughter that those of us at Preemptive Love get a front row seat to every day.) Discover the episode Ben was most skeptical of—and how it turned out to be his favorite.

You'll also catch an exclusive sneak peek into Season Two of Love Anyway, which launches in July.

Learn more.

This special bonus episode of Love Anyway features behind-the-scenes staff calls with Preemptive Love’s programs manager Jennifer Meyerson and donor relations coordinator Matt Malcom, discussing Preemptive Love’s time-sensitive response to what’s happening at the border between Mexico and the US.

While others wage partisan wars, we can be the people who love anyway.

Learn more.

Preemptive Love co-founder Jessica Courtney shares stories of her Iraqi and Syrian friends who have been displaced and are now remaking their homes. We also hear never-before-heard stories from the field, as Jessica shares her experiences of visiting homes that are being built after being destroyed by war.

Learn more.

We categorize each other into neat and tidy labels because, well, it’s easy. It’s a way to organize cultural ideas. Our social constructs act a way to help us try to understand the world.

In this episode, we set those stereotypes aside for a minute and ask: What does life look like for the roughly 7 million millennials—women and men between the ages of 23 and 38—in Iraq?

On Episode 5: The Millenials of Iraq, we find out. And if your primary picture of Iraq is what you've seen on TV, you might be in for a surprise.

Learn more.

But what happens when our felt safety comes at a cost? What happens when our fear of “the other” contributes to others not being protected...or safe? Who is “the other," anyway?

How do we start deconstructing the walls around our hearts?

Learn more.

Kayla talks with Shahed, a leader from their local Islamic Center, about why the mosque decided to host an open house for their community. And Preemptive Love editor Kim Mireau visits a Friday prayer service in Indiana with other non-Muslim friends Shannan Martin and Laura Pontius. We also hear from artist Propaganda, who confides his past hesitations about visiting a mosque.

Learn more.

We might not all come face-to-face with a literal enemy who wants to kill us, but we all have chances to risk something on behalf of another, by stepping out in love, every single day.In this episode, we ask the questions: Is love worth the risk? And what does it really look like to love your enemy?

In episode 1, we told you about the night our friends Sadiq and Ihsan nearly died delivering aid in the Iraq desert—one at the hands of ISIS, and the other when he was targeted by coalition air strikes, mistaken for ISIS.

In this episode, "The Enemy," we share the story-behind-the-story: What happened just days before that longest night in the desert? It’s a true story almost too hard to imagine.

Because when Sadiq stayed with the delivery trucks, it wasn’t the first time his life was affected by a close encounter with ISIS.

Travel with us back to 2016 to experience a pivotal turning point in our organization’s history. Experience a night in Iraq that made us press into pain. A night we’ll never forget. A night that changed...well, everything.

Hear from members of our team who nearly lost their lives. Hear about us frantically tweeting coordinates to the US military, trying to get them to stop the bombing. But most of all, hear about how, even in the face of death, and in one case, even coming face-to-face with ISIS, we chose to love anyway.

Learn more here.

What can you expect when listening? Creating peace between communities at odds. Remaking what was broken. Ending war. Healing hearts across enemy lines, beginning with our own. And discovering that we really do belong to each other.

Love Anyway is a brand new podcast by Preemptive Love, premiering April 17.

Learn more here.

We’re here to share where we find hope. Where we find possibility and beauty. Because we believe that all of us could use a better story right about now.

Join us for the journey. Don’t miss an episode—subscribe now.

Learn more at preemptivelove.org/podcast.