Mennonite Mission Network—Children sat in rapt attention as the team of peacemakers acted out the final tender scene of Oscar Wilde’s short story “The Selfish Giant” through a cardboard box, fashioned into a big-screen television.
The Giant’s garden, once flourishing with apple blossoms and flowers, suffered a perpetual winter after he banished the children from it. One morning, he saw the blossoms of spring returning to one corner of the garden. Upon venturing out of his house, he encountered a sobbing child who had wandered into the garden. The Giant realized that the winter was the result of his selfishness.
Perching the small boy in a sturdy tree branch as the snow retreated and the flowers returned he turned to the children and said: “I have been so selfish. From now on, children, this is our garden.”
The mock television special, meant to teach the importance of sharing, was a key portion of the November Peace Education Workshops sponsored by Quito (Ecuador) Mennonite Church in the El Inca sector in the northeastern part of the city. The monthly workshops attract nearly 50 children ages 3 through 11 and feature songs, games, theater, crafts, and discussions to subtly teach the children how to be peacemakers.
The church began the program, called the El Inca Neighborhood Peace Project, about seven years ago to confront the violence, poverty and social challenges that plague the area.
The project is an outgrowth of the ministry of César Moya and Patricia Urueña, the original pastors who planted the church, and the Ecuador Partnership for Mission, a collaboration of Central Plains Mennonite Conference, Mennonite Mission Network and the Mennonite Church of Colombia.
After the play, Erica Hartman and Kelsey Hartman, two Mennonite Mission Network workers who plan and carry out the workshops, asked the children to answer the questions: “What is peace?” and “Why is peace important?”
Their answers were candid and personal.
“Peace is sharing with each other so there are no hard feelings or violence,” said 11-year-old Daniela Chicaiza.
“Peace is important because when there is peace it is beautiful,” said 7-year-old Steven Silva. “I can be calm. I can play.”
Silva’s answer speaks to the gang violence that keeps residents of his neighborhood living in fear. Urueña said the church initiated the project after a shoot-out in 2001 between rival gangs left a teenage boy dead a few blocks from the church.
“This situation deeply impacted us as a church, and we questioned what should our mission be as a church in this sector,” she said. “Then we made a diagnosis of the sector to identify other problems affecting the neighborhood and how the church could respond to them.”
With high rates of teenage alcoholism, domestic violence, and soaring unemployment, many young people see joining a gang as their only option. The project is meant to confront these social problems head on and create a safer neighborhood. Urueña said that since the beginning of the workshops none of the participants have joined a gang—a testimony to the church’s powerful peace witness.
“The workshops have helped unite the community in its responsibility to prevent children from joining gangs,” she said. “It is important because children learn Christian values and have changed their aggressive attitudes at home and at school.”
Though the workshops are geared towards children, the lessons filter through to the parents. Urueña recalled one afternoon in which the mother of a nine-year-old boy who had attended the workshops for five years came to the church in tears.
“He told his mother that he learned that children have the right to be loved and respected and he asked her stop hitting him and to punish him in a non-violent way when he does something improper,” Urueña said. “This woman came to us with tears in her eyes and promised us that she would never hit her son again.”
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Mennonite Mission Network, the mission agency of Mennonite Church USA, leads, mobilizes and equips the church to participate in holistic witness to Jesus Christ in a broken world. Media may contact Andrew Clouse at andrewc@mmnworld.net, (574) 523-3024 or (866) 866-2872 ext. 23024.
