The Words of the Cromwell Family
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The Words of the Cromwell Family |
On Friday March 27, 2009, seven students in the District of Columbia (DC) /Maryland/Virginia area joined together for a quest to the Turkish Embassy in order to broaden their experience of One Family Under God. This first Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP) DC Peace Quest was initiated by Yun-A Johnson, an International Studies freshman at American University, and supported by the local CARP district representative, B. Poland. Also participating were Emily Vail and Auria Asaria, two of Yun-A’s friends from American University with the same major as her, George Mason University student Sabat Mahmoud and CARP member Jongju Oh.
The idea behind this peace quest was that all college students in DC want to explore the city. It was open to everyone: any student could participate. The purpose was to teach about the tools needed to build One Family Under God. This was also a venue for CARP to reach out to students on campus.
The first stop on the students’ quest was the Turkish Embassy, where they got a small tour and a diplomat spoke to them about Turkish-American relations and Turkish cultural traditions, followed by a Q and A session. Next, the group went to a nearby Starbucks and took time to hear from Sabat, a Kurd who lived in Syria until she moved to America at age 13. She shared about the persecution of Kurds in Syria, as a result of which, Sabat had no opportunity to attend school until she came to America. According to Yun-A, Sabat’s talk helped her to see how much pain conflict in the world creates and how much is going on out there that she didn’t know about.
Sabat’s talk helped the students realize again how important peace is. After hearing from Sabat, the students talked about how they could start building peace, specifically in their own lives through relationships and through families.
The next CARP DC Peace Quest will likely be a service project or interfaith event. Before that, however, everyone who attended the DC Peace Quest will attend a campus Global Peace Festival (GPF) to be hosted by CARP at the University of Maryland on April 17. The purpose of attending the campus GPF will be to gain a greater understanding of the vision of One Family Under God.
Written by Tossa Cromwell, FFWPU national staff.