The Lombard Mennonite Peace Center focuses on training people across the country in biblical education regarding the principles of peace; conflict resolution training; and community building techniques. We also welcome opportunities to do this for a range of areas and stages in life. Many people who take our workshops are clergy or lay people, but we also have participants from the mediation, counseling, and legal professions and the not-for-profit sector. 

For the past two months, we have been happy to host an intern from the DePaul University program in Peace, Justice and Conflict Studies, John Lindley. Under the instruction of our Executive Director John has been preparing scholarly materials for presentations. He’s been able to sample two of our biggest workshops, the Mediation Skills Training Institute and Advanced Clergy Clinic, as well as our new one-day program, Restorative Conversations. Through the grace of a mediation client, he was able to see peace circles in action. He’s also gained a sense of the history of our 40-year-old organization by working in our archives. John is graduating this spring, and will be seeking some travel adventure before applying to graduate schools for a counseling degree. He wants to work with young people at the middle or high school level. Please join us in wishing this compassionate, richly experienced young man well on his life journey. We have been happy to mentor him in the art of peacebuilding.

Here is John Lindley, the LMPC intern from DePaul University program in Peace, Justice and Conflict Studies. He’s standing by a Chinese scroll that was made for our Executive Director, Jay Wittmeyer, when he was working in China for the Brethren. It reads, “The Lord is My Shepherd”, from John 15.

The backstory for the scroll is that in 1910, the Brethren started building hospitals in China that introduced Western medicine and concepts of caring for all. The hospitals and their principles were welcomed, marked with centenary celebrations in 2010. The hospitals were another form of peacemaking.

— Dorren Gertsen-Briand