Last June, while traveling with the 2025 Leadership Cohort in Northern Ireland, we were invited to observe with intention — to notice what stirred something deep within us. In a neighborhood in Belfast called “The Shankill,” near the site of a bombing in 1993 that took ten lives and wounded more than fifty, a sculpture stopped me in my tracks. There, in a corner defined by grief, stood an image of welcome, joy, and hope.

Questions swirled inside me: How can beauty exist here? How can life grow in soil so seasoned by violence? In that stillness, I sensed God’s whisper: We are resurrection people. Dry bones can rise. Gardens can grow in Golgotha.

That moment has shaped my leadership since returning home. You see, this immersion wasn’t merely an opportunity to observe a foreign conflict. Global Immersion curated it to form us – to train us for building peace within our own places. From within the shadow of that sculpture, I heard our facilitators ask: What is being cultivated in you for the sake of your community’s shalom?

In my role as the Director of the Office of Church Engagement at Whitworth University, it is my privilege to walk alongside pastors, congregations, and students in the Pacific Northwest who are pursuing God’s call in their neighborhoods. Through my own formation in the Cohort, and now as a Peace Fellow, I am beginning to imagine our office as a hub where local congregations are being formed in Jesus’ Way of peace. I imagine growing communities of trained peacemakers in cities across our region, clergy coalitions prepared to respond to crisis and injustice, and faith leaders and teams trained in conflict competence, creative nonviolence, contagious preaching, and courageous love.

This vision is taking root! A discernment team of university leaders and Global Immersion partners is currently meeting to discern how the seeds planted in Belfast might spring to life at Whitworth, in Spokane, and throughout the Pacific Northwest.

I offer this story with humility and hope — not knowing exactly what will grow, but believing that God will continue to make all things new through congregations of resurrection people.

If this strengthens your own conviction, I invite you to join me in supporting this work. Your generosity forms leaders who are carrying practical tools for building peace into the places that need it most. And the impact multiplies through their congregations, classrooms, neighborhoods, and everyday encounters.

Your gift today provides:

• Scholarships for leaders who otherwise could not participate in the Cohort
• Monthly audio and written resources for all of us who are searching for tools to mend divides
• Training, mentoring, and ongoing formation for faith leaders and their teams
• Spaces of rest, reflection, and renewal where transformation takes root, learning continues, and collaborations like the one I described are born

Would you consider giving today to help form the next generation of grounded, courageous peacemakers?