Current report of FPU International Peace Education Development

Colleagues and Friends,
I am pleased to announce that Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), through its International Peace Office, has renewed funding for another two years for our (Center for Peacemaking and Conflict Studies) cooperative program with them in International Peace Education Development. The grant is for $20,000 for 2005-07. Adding this to the first two-year grant of $39,500, the total they have now committed to this cooperative program is $59,500.

The grant provides partial funding for graduate studies for selected persons who are preparing for leadership and teaching positions in their home countries in the field of peacemaking. As a rule, persons are nominated by their home institutions for this program, and persons nominated and their nominating institution make mutual commitments to teaching and leadership roles upon returning after completion of studies.

Ernst Janzen (Brazil) is the first to complete this cooperative program. Barely home, having completed his master's program and returned to Brazil only in December, 2004, he already reports that he has inaugurated the first of a four-course sequence in conflict and peacemaking that he developed while here. The college where he is teaching is cooperatively sponsored by the Mennonite and Evangelical Free churches of Brazil. He is also pastoring a church, and recently reported that he will soon be using materials that he prepared here in a pre-marital course with a couple, and another with leaders from the church on "How to make meetings work in church." He further reports that he has already preached in other churches on what it means to be a peacemaker, and observes that "people were very interested in this area." Those who know Ernst will quickly recognize that he doesn't waste any time in getting things done.

Girma Oda (Ethiopia) has also been in this cooperative program during the first two-year period. He is currently in his final year in the master's program in peacemaking and conflict studies, and is scheduled to complete his studies in December of this year, and then return to Ethiopia to again move into a leadership/teaching position there in the Meserete Kristos (Mennonite) Church of Ethiopia.

Hien Vu (Vietnam) is in her first year of graduate studies this academic year, and will come under the new grant for her second year. Hien previously worked for World Vision in Vietnam, and has their support for pursuing her studies here, and are open to her return.

Christina Asheervadam (India), faculty member at the Mennonite Brethren Bible College in India, has been nominated by the MB Conference of India/MB Bible College for this cooperative program under the new grant. She is scheduled to begin her studies here in 2006-07. Christina is one of two primary persons providing leadership for the developing India MB Church Centre for Peace Studies, located on the Bible college campus. The Centre was established in March, 2004. I had the privilege of participating in the opening workshop of the new Center last March, and it was exciting to see the commitment of the Indian church to this development. This past fall the Centre, together with MCC India and the Mennonite churches of India, sponsored a one-week workshop in conflict resolution and peacemaking for pastors, leaders and others. The workshop was held on the campus of the Bible College.

We at the Center for Peacemaking are grateful for MCC's support and cooperative involvement in this International Peace Education Development Program, and look forward to continuing this relationship for another two years.

Preceding this cooperative program with MCC, Pascal Kulungu (Congo) and Giedre Gadeikyte (Lithuania) completed FPU graduate studies in the leadership and peacemaking programs, under sole FPU sponsorship. The Center for Peacemaking's arrangement with them at the time established the model now being utilized in the cooperative program with MCC. Their continuing work provides validation for the model.

Pascal, who is developing a Center for Peacebuilding, Leadership and Good Governance in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, was with us at the Center here in Fresno for a brief renewal visit last fall. His prior study with us at Fresno Pacific (both BA and MA) resulted because the MB Church of Congo specifically sent him to Fresno Pacific to further his studies and then return to serve the church in Congo, and Fresno Pacific arranged for his support.

I had the opportunity to reconnect with Pascal again in January of this year in Congo, and to see first hand the growing work there. While there, I shared a small portion of a seminar he conducted for leaders in Kajiji, where he grew up and later worked as hospital administrator. In an earlier visit, I was impressed with how effectively he taught a group of young people in Kinshasa about peacemaking in a class that I was able to observe. This time in Kajiji with a room full of leaders, I was again impressed with how effective and with what authority he teaches, and the respect he has earned over the years as a leader in the MB church of Congo.

In a very recent report from Giedre, who is on the faculty at Lithuania Christian College, she indicates that they are undergoing a revision of their general education program, and it appears that a basic course in Conflict Transformation, beginning this next fall, will be required of all students at LCC. She further reports that they are establishing a minor in conflict studies and peacemaking. She is very busy, while also increasingly being drawn into significant leadership roles in the larger faculty, and beginning to expand her work in peacemaking into the community. It was good to see her at work this last summer while team-teaching a course with her at LCC. She did most of the work, and it was a joy to see her at work. LCC's president, Jim Mininger, is most pleased with her work and considers her to be a "natural" teacher.

It has been a real privilege for us in the Center for Peacemaking to work with these special people, and now to see those who already have graduated and returned to their home countries flourishing in sometimes very challenging environments. They are all pioneers in their own settings, but they are doing well.

Report by Dalton Reimer, Coordinator of International Programs FPU Center for Peacemaking and Conflict Studies.