Peace Commission Stories

Brokenness into glory  Clay in God’s hands Brokenness into glory  Kintsukuroi, a traditional Japanese technique, involves repairing ceramics with lacquer and gold, embracing damage as part of an object’s history instead of concealing or discarding it.   This process entails identifying broken areas and delicately mending them with precious gold, resulting in unique pieces that blend…

2 Corinthians 4:7 describes the gospel as a “treasure” in “clay jars.” These humble vessels bring to mind the Japanese tradition of kintsukuroi that creates (or recreates) pottery from broken pieces. Damaged vessels are put back together, often with gold binding, to create a useful object once again. The new piece tells a story about…

Peace Sunday 2024 Teaching resource  Reading Scripture has always been at the heart of the church’s life, but from early on, different ways of reading and understanding have led to conflict and division.  What is Scripture?  Already in the early centuries several movements arose with differing claims about the meaning of the Gospel and how…

Peace (English) – Paix (French) – Amani (Swahili) – Mirembe (Luganda): children at a Uganda Mennonite church wrote “Peace” in multiple languages. (See photo below.) Each year, the Peace Commission prepares a worship resource for Peace Sunday. Organized around a new theme each year, the package includes a Scripture focus, prayers, an activity and a…

“There’s something in the water among Mennonite theologians and peace building scholars and practitioners…around the decolonial project that people are drinking from now that is interesting and quite good,” says Andrew Suderman. The Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) professor and secretary of Mennonite World Conference’s Peace Commission organized the third Global Mennonite Peacebuilding Conference and Festival…

“Indigenous solidarity hits the heart of what we do in the Philippines with Coffee for Peace,” says Joji Pantoja, chair of the Peace Commission (2015-2022). The Peace Commission drafted a Statement of Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples that was accepted by the Mennonite World Conference General Council in 2018. 

Reading: Matthew 5:3-20 In June 1981, our family moved to Cochabamba, Bolivia, where my parents were to teach in a Baptist seminary that wanted more Anabaptist input. We arrived at a particularly raucous point in Bolivian history. In July 1980, Luis García Meza, a commander of the Bolivian army, led a coup d’etat, initiating a…

Resilience in the face of the pandemic When we look back at what happened in the last two years all throughout the world, one could just offer a sigh. We were never prepared for this. Being locked down for several months in the Philippines forced us to reconfigure our social life. We tend to look…

The power of resilience A Peace Sunday 2022 testimony “The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him” (Jeremiah 18:4). This theme has been discussed a lot recently, especially since the pandemic, while some of us may be struggling with…

“As followers of Jesus, we follow his example and work to bring peace in the midst of chaos.” Member churches around the world celebrated Peace Sunday 2021 using Mennonite World Conference’s Peace Sunday worship resource: “Finding hope and healing in crisis.”   Amos Ganjboir and Rajendra Masih at Bethel Mennonite Church, Balodgahan, India, worked for three days to paint a backdrop and…