As peacebuilders, we can often feel like we’re all alone. Christians discovering God’s shalom-building mission can especially feel very isolated as they begin to catch glimpses of a re-imagined faith. But we are NOT alone. There are more of us than you know.

Every September, tens of thousands of people in and around Louisville unite in a community-wide day of philanthropy to show their support for local charities working for positive change and the common good, and this year we get to be one of those local organizations. Save the date for Give For Good Louisville on September 15th!

Join us for this special and timely conversation with our Rick Love Peacemaker Award winners, Professor Miroslav Volf and Muslim faith leader and peacemaker Hurunnessa Fariad. Hosted by our President, Martin Brooks, this conversation will delve into the "why" and the "how" of embracing 'the other.' The discussion will be based around Dr. Volf’s book, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation.

Uyghur, Kazakh, Tibetan, and other minority families are being traumatized through the assimilationist policies of the Chinese government. These policies include children being forcibly separated from their parents and put in boarding school where they are systematically stripped of their language, culture, and religion.

Pope Francis is currently in Canada and has delivered a historic apology for the suffering and abuse in the Catholic boarding schools for Canada's indigenous peoples. This apology comes on the heels of the Pope's apology from the Vatican in April of this year. Schools of this type are not just things of the past, though. Similar boarding schools are currently in operation in China for Uyghur and Tibetan peoples. Watch the video from this joint event with Peace Catalyst as well as representatives from several Uyghur and Tibetan human rights advocacy organizations to learn more about what's happening.

I applied to Notre Dame’s faculty-led trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina this summer because I wanted to learn more about a part of Europe that is often left out of history books and course syllabi. I wanted to educate myself on the rich history of the country, and the current situation in regards to peacebuilding. This trip did help me accomplish those goals, but the most impactful part of the journey was actually a conversation about my own country.

During our May student trip to Sarajevo, Amra, one of our discussion facilitators, laughed, cigarette dangling from her lips, as she likened the city to a femme fatale—alluring, but with a dark side. It was, we soon learned, an apt description for a lovely and complicated city, one that has been simultaneously strengthened and scarred by its history.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is not a place I had ever pictured myself visiting. But thanks to a student trip made possible by the University of Notre Dame and Peace Catalyst International, I recently visited the country—not as a tourist, but as a student of peacebuilding who gained a new appreciation for the role of religion in peace processes and reconciliation.

Although it’s best to train for peacebuilding before conflict arrives, conflicts are already present in our personal lives, churches, and society. The time to begin training for peacebuilding is now. It’s time to get started centering peace-oriented theology and peacebuilding skills training in our churches and Christian formation so that we can learn to partner as peacebuilders to bless and heal our communities.