Blessed are all the Peacemakers!

After reading my column in our daily paper on helping soldiers to find Peace in our communities, a friend reminded me, “no one ever writes about the Peace Corps.” Of the many Peacemaker’s Ponderings columns I’ve written, I realized that was certainly true for me — despite knowing quite a few people who have served. This includes people in my life and people I’ve met in the course of performing weddings and other ceremonies. Peace Corps couples’ weddings are often filled with other Peace Corps folks. By the time I was doing weddings, the Peace Corps had been around long enough for me to celebrate couples whose parents had also been Peace Corps volunteers. Those were some story-telling weddings! That ability to tell stories, learned in the course of living in other lands and cultures, not only enabled the volunteers to understand other cultures, but also helped them make sense of the work they had done or were doing, allowing them to extend that way of working and teaching into the rest of their personal and professional lives.

When John F. Kennedy suggested forming a Peace Corps, I was only eight years old. You may well know more about this than I did before I started doing my research, but just in case, I’m quoting some information from the Peace Corps site: “Our history is based on a shared vision of working with, living alongside, and celebrating cultures around the world. The Peace Corps continues in its bold mission by collaborating with host communities on locally prioritized projects.”

These volunteers help solve local problems and build coalitions in community groups and between countries. People of varying ages travel to places half-way around the world and put their values and talents to work. They learn so much about themselves and their gifts as they acquire new skills and friends. Rather than setting themselves above or apart from the villagers, they work alongside the people in their villages. Together they find solutions to the problems the residents identified.

There are so many reasons that these volunteers — alongside those people in whose villages they volunteer, became people of Peace. They understand that we all have similar desires. They learn that we all bring different talents and resources to the table. They all learn how important it is to share food and laughter and how those lead to shared understanding. All of these things change life for Peace in ways the volunteers will be discovering throughout their lives. And, so, I say to you Peace Corps volunteers what we have learned to say to Military folk: Thank you for your service.

I was too timid and a bit too prissy to ever become a Peace Corps volunteer. But because efforts like the Peace Corps were flourishing, so were things like Rotary International Youth Exchange. From their website it states: Rotary Youth Exchange builds Peace one young person at a time. Students learn a new language, discover another culture, and truly become global citizens.

As a participant in the Rotary Exchange, I had the opportunity to spend a year in Sweden. I have friends and family with whom I’ve stayed in contact since 1969. Learning to speak Swedish fluently helped me realize that one of my greatest skills was language learning and talking to people. In my job as chaplain, I utilize those skills today — not because I speak so many languages, but before I spoke Swedish, I needed to learn to communicate. Despite sometimes inadequate language skills, I learned that watching and listening makes me open to support those to whom I can only extend my hands. It also makes me someone people reach for. This experience taught me how huge a component Presence is of Peacemaking.

I cannot offer enough encouragement to participate in programs that take you out of the comfortable and the familiar to help you become the Peacemaker you are born to be. Will you be uncomfortable, lonely, and homesick? Yes! Will the friendships you make slowly help you realize what a special treasure you have been offered and that you will be part of something very few people experience? Again, Yes! You must be 18 years old to apply to the Peace Corps — but there’s no upper age limit! You could be the next Peace Corps volunteer! And how might you then use your newly gained skills? Why, come home and take up your work as a community Peacemaker. What a glorious idea!

Salaam, Shalom, Peace, and Blessed Be!