Uprisings

Elizabeth Newberry 11-01-2000

Interstate 77 winds around the mountains of Bland County like lifelines on the palm of my hand. I cross through the Big Walker Mountain tunnel and know I am home.

Julienne Gage 9-01-2000
A legacy of service: Krista Hunt Ausland
Amie Rose 7-01-2000

Josh and I made some important decisions on the day that we got engaged. First, we decided to retain our sanity amidst the barrage of impending wedding chaos.

Ariel, the son-in-law of the Guatemalan couple that hosted me when I traveled to Central America in 1997, spoke nostalgically of his days in the student movement—even though it had gotten him roughed up and shot at by security forces. He left such dangers behind when commitments to wife, children, and church became his highest priorities.

Though most U.S. activists risk far less than Ariel, often the same kinds of commitments push justice work to the back burner—or off the stove entirely. These commitments don't excuse "grown-ups" from doing activism, but awareness of them points out the importance of encouraging the radical impulses of those who often are without such pressing responsibilities—such as, for example, students.

Compared to Ariel's risks, getting arrested for protesting the U.S. Army's School of the Americas (SOA) in Georgia—the school that trains the soldiers who've caused so much suffering in Latin America—was the very least I could do. Last November, students from more than 232 colleges and universities made the same choice and did civil disobedience to protest the School of the Americas. Interrupting my "busy" academic schedule for such events was not only possible but, in the big picture, an even higher priority than classes.

SOA Watch and other emerging student movements are impressive for their "love thy neighbor" attitude. Many of the most popular causes—sweatshop labor, a living wage, and freeing Tibet—defend the rights of others. And though passions may wane after graduation, youthful idealism can grow into life-long commitment to justice.

Claudia Horwitz 3-01-2000
Developing a willingness to see and be seen is not easy work.
A school system cannot hope to solve school violence simply by increasing security.
Amanda Huron 11-01-1999

Notes for a new generation

Notes from a new generation
Rocky Kidd 7-01-1999

Little Calumet Christian Fellowship is the first Mennonite church in North America to intentionally form a Generation X congregation with pastoral leadership from within that generation.

Kelley E. Evans 5-01-1999
cup in a tiny, single-serving French press. Some mornings I rush out of the house and leave the coffee-making for someone at the office, but I usually regret this.
Pam Fickenscher 1-01-1999

It is often assumed that younger people have no respect for their elders and even less reverence for history.

Jeremy White 11-01-1998

For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish.

Julienne Gage 9-01-1998

At midnight on May 21, I fell to the floor screaming when I learned that Krista Hunt Ausland, my best friend for 24 years, had plunged to her death in a bus accident in Bolivia.

Young people are the keystones of any culture. Youthful energy is needed to get work done in society. We provide new ideas, physical labor, laughter, the human connection to the future and the world community, and the push for reform and change in society.

So, in the United States, why are teen-agers considered nuisances? Why do we have one of the highest youth suicide rates in the world? Why are we spending $267 billion on the military to train youth to kill, and $42 billion on all other education? How can our government claim to provide security when its priorities place young people near the bottom of an expendable pile?

This past January, 17 young adults of many faiths and nationalities came together at Kirkridge retreat center in Pennsylvania for Fellowship of Reconciliation’s Peacemaker Training Institute (PTI), a weeklong nonviolence training program to engage youth in exploring activism.

Our training provided us with the space to get to know other equally passionate young people. At Kirkridge, we met students who have started their own campus groups to address some of the root causes of violence and insecurity: poverty, homophobia, hunger, human rights abuses, and their college’s investments in the military. They have founded their own peer mediation programs, support groups for rape victims, magazines, and peace and justice radio shows.

Pam Fickenscher 5-01-1998

"What do you do?" It's taken me about nine months to come up with a short answer for that question.

A small group of twentysomethings can change the world. A generation of them can reclaim the cities of America for the kingdom of God. This is our calling.

"...and Ozias begat Joatham; and Joatham begat Achaz; and Achaz begat Ezekias; and Ezekias begat Manasses; and Manasses begat Amon; and Amon begat Josias...."