Just days ago, after an Everyday Peacemaking event at her university, a student confessed this:
“I may not be a ruler of a country grasping for power, but I am a human being who wants to win. Because of tonight, I will confront my commitment to certainty and start seeking others’ perspectives. It’s a small step, but one that I think could lead to more peace.”
Let us share what led to this moment of impact for her and hundreds of others who were in the room that night.
Dr. Mindy Smith is the Director of the Office of Church Engagement (OCE) at Whitworth University. The OCE is a hub of resources and formation for hundreds of churches, ministries, and non-profit organizations in the Pacific Northwest. Mindy shares:
While listening to an episode of the Everyday Peacemaking Podcast describing Jer’s evacuation from Israel/Palestine in October, I was moved to tears. I was, of course, heartbroken by the suffering and pain of war, but I was also deeply moved by how his witness to that conflict both drew me into proximity with those suffering and modeled the enemy-loving kind of peacemaking we see in the life of Jesus.
I shared the episode with other leaders on campus, and together we agreed, “More people need to hear this.”
A month later, we sat in a full chapel at Whitworth with community members, pastors, professors, and hundreds of students. They came to learn about the conflict, but what Jer offered went much deeper. He invited us to see our own humanity more clearly…and that of our enemies. He urged us toward a costly solidarity that transforms all of us. We left challenged to confront any theology within and around us that endorses domination and to embrace a Christ-centered theology that fuels repair.
This is the very work of Global Immersion. Rather than offering tips, tricks, and scripts, we’re companioning American Christians in our journey from a religion that dominates to a faith that restores. We’re forming communities of Everyday Peacemakers, like at Whitworth, to mend divides.
And it’s working!
The student whose words we shared above concluded with this: “I’m walking away with Jer’s main point: ‘We have to become the kinds of people who stop reaching for power and start reaching for the hands of others.’”
Our community of funders was a part of this student’s transformation. When you invest in peace through Global Immersion, you enable our team to create inspirational resources that have exponential impact. In this case, a podcast episode impacted an institutional leader who shared it with a few others. The result? Hundreds of students, pastors, and professors formed a more pro-human understanding of the crises in the Holy Land and caught the contagion that is Jesus’ Way of Everyday Peacemaking. Will you join our funding team and help us move peace from a lofty ideal to an embodied reality in more communities?