Feb. 22, 2010 issue
Every day, three acts of peace
By Dan Dyck Mennonite Church CanadaPage:
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CALGARY, Alta. — Students at Menno Simons Christian School are taking on a challenge: recording three acts of peace each day for the entire school year.
Menno Simons Christian School held a Peace Festival for students to hear stories of peace by guest speakers from Mennonite Central Committee Alberta. — Photo by Byron Thiessen/MC Canada
Kari Enns of Mennonite Central Committee Alberta got inspiration from One Thousand Acts of Peace. She and her colleagues devel-oped a 1,000 acts of peace proj-ect with added Anabaptist values and invited leaders at Menno Simons Christian School to work together to get students thinking about creating conditions for peace.
It proved to be a good fit, said Byron Thiessen, principal school, which includes kindergarten through ninth grade.
“Peace needs to become a discipline and a way of life,” he said.
Participants record peace acts in journals crafted from recycled floppy disks and recycled paper.
“We believe that this is a practical way of becoming peacemakers with the environment, as well as in our own lives and in the lives of those around us,” Thiessen said.
The student journal entries remind students of their commitment to live as Jesus did.
“We are spurred on to become more creative and intentional in our peacemaking lifestyle,” Thiessen said.
Hanna Braun, a fourth-grade student, said the writing “challenges me to think, say and do things peacefully.”
Throughout the school year, each grade takes turns planning, organizing and sharing ideas of peace during chapel times, and each class participates in service projects in the community.
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