Andrew Claassen is the Connecting Peoples Coordinator for MCC Nicaragua.
As I work with young people from around the world while they navigate life here in Nicaragua, I am primarily focused on things running smoothly. How do I support a young man from Cambodia who misses his family on Cambodian New Year? Or, a girl from the US who is frustrated with the conditions in the orphanage where she works? Will a Canadian be able to withstand the heat? When does something cross the line from being hard-but-part-of-the-experience to being too much? These kinds of questions are often foremost in my mind and they should be—they’re immediate and important.
MCC’s Connecting Peoples program is budgeted as a peacemaking program, however. When I became the coordinator of this program for Nicaragua and Costa Rica three years ago I wasn’t clear on how or why it was considered peacemaking. There is obvious worth in serving, in learning a new language, in seeing the world—many families and communities encourage their young people to do just these things. At face value, this service is what the SALT, IVEP, and YAMEN programs are all about.
But how does peacemaking come into the picture? Most of these young people won’t be organizing truces, working for disarmament, or reconciling foes. Instead they’re going to dealing with frustrations and humiliations. They’re going to embarrass themselves. They’re going to get sick and feel alone. Not exactly Nobel prize winning work.
It has taken me some time to feel comfortable enough in this position to begin to think about the broader impacts these programs are having. As I’ve been able to pan out from the day to day work and look at the larger picture and the more abstract, intangible aspects of the work I’ve been engaging in, I’m slowly beginning to put the pieces together and understand how peacemaking is part of everything that we (myself, SALT/YAMEN/IVEP participants, host families) are doing.
David Dávila at work in El Salvador.
David Dávila, a 26 year old primary school teacher from the Nicaraguan Brethren in Christ church, spent a year in El Salvador with the YAMEN program. He went to serve with a Catholic partner and live with a Seventh Day Adventist family. These were real challenges for David. He comes from a context where denominational doctrines are very important and ecumenical interactions are not encouraged. Evangélica churches don’t mingle amongst themselves too much in Nicaragua and many evangélicos would not even enter a Catholic church. The conversation between Catholics and Evangélicos here, as in many places, is often reactionary and negative.
Upon returning to Nicaragua, I asked David to share about his experiences with young people who are interested in serving with MCC next year. One of his comments that stuck with me was that his YAMEN experience had helped him:
…be able to share with religious groups that I maybe hadn’t participated with in my own country, because of religious prejudices that sometimes you don’t even realize you have.
A few years ago in Sunday school we were talking about martyrs and the teacher asked how many of us would be willing to die for our beliefs. While this is worth talking about, I think it’s an example that can be hard to relate to for us who live in countries where being a Christian doesn’t put us in such situations. When following Christ instead turns into an existential mental exercise, we overlook the daily ways we show our commitment to Christ—the nitty-gritty of getting up and loving our neighbors.
David Dávila at work in El Salvador.
The same can happen with peacemaking. Sometimes I think about obvious examples of peacemaking—Ghandi, MLK, the Dalai Lama, and I miss much of the ¨mundane¨ but powerful peacemaking that is happening all the time. When David says that sharing in ¨… a Bible circle with Catholics and being involved with an Adventist family really helped me to change negative stereotype,¨ that is the making of peace. When he avoided washing his clothes on Saturday out of respect for his host family’s beliefs about the Sabbath, that is peacemaking.
Every August scores of young people from around the world pack their bags and head off to another country. They’re ambassadors. They’re in a powerful position. They have the power to affect the way that Nicaraguans think about Colombians, how Cambodians think about Nicaraguans, how Colombians think about Canadians. So many conflicts arise from ignorance and the assumptions we make about “the other.” When a young person leaves his or her community, travels across borders, and lives with strangers, the concept of “other” is fundamentally challenged. Different becomes similar; strange becomes comfortable. This is peacemaking. When David hears someone say that El Salvadorians are one way or another he’ll be able to challenge that “other.” Or, when he hears some disparaging remark about Adventists or Catholics, he’ll be able to speak of the humanity and love that he personally experienced.
MCC’s Connecting Peoples program is budgeted as a peacemaking program. It’s a long game for peacemaking. As each of the participants stumble and are helped up by people they meet, as they are challenged by economic realities and their place in the world, as they worship God in new ways with brothers and sisters from around the world they’re being molded into instruments of peace. They join followers of Jesus from all around the world who are slowly chipping away at the foundations of these walls that keep us from living in peace with one another.