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<\/a>Pat Hostetter Martin arrived at CTP at age 50, after serving for 16 years with her husband Earl in Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) programs in Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines) and at MCC headquarters in Akron, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n\u201cWe knew we wanted to be peacemakers, but asking \u2018How?\u2019 and studying to find answers to that question was a novel idea at the time [1995-1997].\u201d<\/p>\n
Like many of her classmates, Pat also hungered for time to read, reflect, and take stock of who she was and what she was doing. She and Earl planned to return to Southeast Asia to work another five years as MCC\u2019s regional peace coordinators. But the illness of a family member changed those plans. Pat accepted a leadership role with the Summer Peacebuilding Institute, and Earl went to work as a carpenter.<\/p>\n
Reflecting on the 13 years from her CTP student days until her retirement from CJP in 2008, Pat observed, \u201cPeacebuilding is a tough field\u2026 [For instance] we didn\u2019t succeed in stopping the Gulf War, or any of the others that followed. It is easy to get burned out.\u201d<\/p>\n
The answer to the threat of burn-out, she feels, is tapping into \u201cour spiritual energies, or what John Paul [Lederach] calls, \u2018the moral imagination.\u2019 We can\u2019t survive on theories. We need faith that opening ourselves up and being led by the Spirit will eventually result in finding ways to live together peacefully \u2013 if not in our lifetimes, then in our children\u2019s, grandchildren\u2019s or great-grandchildren\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pat applauds the \u201cmaturing of the peacebuilding field,\u201d whereby people who view themselves as peacemakers are working with, and in, the military, diplomatic corps, business, and religious institutions. She points to the 2009 founding of the Northeast Asia Regional Peacebuilding Institute by CJP alumni as an example of \u201cgood and exciting things that are happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pat\u2019s current career is in pastoral chaplaincy, which provides spiritual care for people in hospitals, prisons and nursing homes. She is enrolled in her second unit of clinical pastoral education at Eastern Mennonite Seminary.\u00a0She is also training to be a hospice volunteer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"