On Thursday, we had a follow-up meeting with a few people from last month's youth peacebuilding training. One of our hopes was that the participants would put their recent education on biblical forgiveness, peer mediation, human rights, and the like to practical use. To this end, we encouraged the idea of a peace network among participants.
Although not technically in our grant application, I at least entertained visions of a peaceful army of young people tackling the big issues in Juba and beyond--land rights disputes that see villages of squatters displaced when they come home from work; tribal favoritism in the government; a low-level but dangerous anti-foreign sentiment.
Hasn't happened. But something just as good if not better has. A few of the participants did report having "networked" for peace, but not many. Everyone we heard from, though, reported using conflict resolution skills in their own hearts, in their families, or both. One man has made significant progress on forgiving the man who murdered his brother. Another has talked his nephew out of suicide and is currently organizing a family prayer time for the kid to stop drinking, stop threatening to burn his family's house and be reconciled. The lady who was elected network coordinator helped negotiate an AIDS widow's re-acceptance by her family, and was able to convince her to accept both counseling and drugs in the process.
These aren't the big issues of the day, and with God's help they never will be. But how many clan rivalries have started by one reckless teenager, and is that one lady the only person in the neighborhood with AIDS? It's not like we can claim full credit for these people's accomplishments, but we do at least get to celebrate and/or pray together. And while there are real solutions to big problems--for instance, the North could decide to stop killing people in the three areas--the fact that there are now fewer small ones gives real hope.
As an aside, one interesting thing was that the network coordinator, a state government bureaucrat who had been assigned by her boss to attend the training, thanked us for reaching out to the Education Ministry--if we hadn't done that, the message wouldn't have gotten into small parish churches like hers. I'm not sure if that's true, and if it is, it doesn't say good things about church hierarchies, but it does go to show that church and government aren't easily separable because there are people in both.
Although not technically in our grant application, I at least entertained visions of a peaceful army of young people tackling the big issues in Juba and beyond--land rights disputes that see villages of squatters displaced when they come home from work; tribal favoritism in the government; a low-level but dangerous anti-foreign sentiment.
Hasn't happened. But something just as good if not better has. A few of the participants did report having "networked" for peace, but not many. Everyone we heard from, though, reported using conflict resolution skills in their own hearts, in their families, or both. One man has made significant progress on forgiving the man who murdered his brother. Another has talked his nephew out of suicide and is currently organizing a family prayer time for the kid to stop drinking, stop threatening to burn his family's house and be reconciled. The lady who was elected network coordinator helped negotiate an AIDS widow's re-acceptance by her family, and was able to convince her to accept both counseling and drugs in the process.
These aren't the big issues of the day, and with God's help they never will be. But how many clan rivalries have started by one reckless teenager, and is that one lady the only person in the neighborhood with AIDS? It's not like we can claim full credit for these people's accomplishments, but we do at least get to celebrate and/or pray together. And while there are real solutions to big problems--for instance, the North could decide to stop killing people in the three areas--the fact that there are now fewer small ones gives real hope.
As an aside, one interesting thing was that the network coordinator, a state government bureaucrat who had been assigned by her boss to attend the training, thanked us for reaching out to the Education Ministry--if we hadn't done that, the message wouldn't have gotten into small parish churches like hers. I'm not sure if that's true, and if it is, it doesn't say good things about church hierarchies, but it does go to show that church and government aren't easily separable because there are people in both.
So, so, so true. All big conflicts start as small hurts and there is no better place to start peace-building than in our own hearts.
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