{"id":8900,"date":"2018-09-06T11:33:52","date_gmt":"2018-09-06T15:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/?p=8900"},"modified":"2021-10-05T07:26:54","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T11:26:54","slug":"from-the-executive-director-birthing-vision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/2018\/09\/from-the-executive-director-birthing-vision\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Executive Director: Birthing Vision"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I RECENTLY HEARD<\/strong> Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) student Maha Mehanna<\/strong> tell her family\u2019s moving story of being Palestinian refugees in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Maha was one of several panelists invited to a post-production discussion of the play \u201cThe Vagrant Trilogy,\u201d performed by the Mosaic Theater Company of [Washington] D.C. She described the limited choices \u2013 few of them good \u2013 she and her family have had living under military occupation. But despite the overwhelming odds, Maha holds onto hope. And she continues to build relationships with Israelis to work for a future of justice, peace and security for both peoples.<\/p>\n

Maha\u2019s experience reminds me of another Middle Easterner \u2013 the Apostle Paul \u2013 who wrote that suffering gives birth to resilience. Resilience gives birth to character. And character gives birth to hope (Romans 5:3-4). Hope, we know, is also vision.<\/p>\n

Many CJP students come to us from situations of suffering and trauma \u2013 political oppression, war, poverty and the legacy of enslavement. But theirs are not stories of defeat and despair. Rather, their stories are of resilience and hope. The hardships they have experienced have given birth to powerful visions for justice and healing. Indeed, the most compelling visions are birthed from the deepest, darkest struggles in life.<\/p>\n

In this issue of Peacebuilder<\/em>, you will read many stories of resilience and hope \u2013 as CJP alumni engage a broken world. Despite encountering racism in Anabaptist institutions, Iris de Le\u00f3n-Hartshorn<\/strong> has \u201cstuck it out\u201d with her brothers and sisters in Christ because of her vision to be part of God\u2019s reconciling mission in the world (pages 4-5).\u00a0And Tecla Namachanja Wanjala<\/strong>\u2019s \u201cnew-dawn\u201d dream of healing for Kenya grows from the country\u2019s massive trauma (p. 31).<\/p>\n

Still, getting students to Eastern Mennonite University is not without challenges. Visas are not the only issue. Graduate education is expensive and many of those who want to study at CJP do not have adequate financial resources to cover the costs. We are launching a major endowment campaign to boost our scholarship offerings. Our goal is to raise an additional $5 million by 2020. Will you help us offer more peacebuilders the tools necessary to birth visions of healing and hope in their communities?<\/p>\n

J. Daryl Byler<\/strong>
\nExecutive Director<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I RECENTLY HEARD Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) student Maha Mehanna tell her family\u2019s moving story of being Palestinian refugees in Gaza. Maha was… Read more about From the Executive Director: Birthing Vision<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1073],"tags":[1091,1559],"issues":[1508],"class_list":["post-8900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magazine","tag-daryl-byler","tag-maha-mehanna","issues-2018-19"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8900"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9894,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8900\/revisions\/9894"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8900"},{"taxonomy":"issues","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issues?post=8900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}