Peace and the World Cup

This past summer was the busiest summer I have ever had because I was privileged to have spent my time as a DPF (Disciples Peace Fellowship) Peace Intern. This experience was amazing and I feel extremely grateful for the opportunity. I spent each week at a different youth church camp, typically in a different state. My roles while at each camp included serving as a counselor, speaker, and interest group leader.

During this internship, I discovered that when people hear the word peace they think of many different things. For example, some people hear the word peace and automatically think of world peace, while others think of inner peace, mediation, or conflict resolution. For me, when I hear the word peace, I first think of "peace and justice". Because of this, I focused on peace with a justice emphasis at the different camps (the connection between faith and action). I focused on a global perspective (including poverty, hunger, water concerns and more). For instance, one-fifth of the world is severely undernourished, only eating 2 ounces of food a day.

In the middle of the summer, I took a two-week family vacation. My family and I traveled to Germany for the World Cup, where we traveled to a different city every couple of days. Similar to the internship, I also feel extremely grateful for the opportunity to go to the World Cup. It was incredible; fans from around the world filled the streets to celebrate. I have been to my share of sporting events in the United States, but I wouldn't compare this experience to anything like that. There was a considerable difference that separated sporting events in the U.S. to that of the World Cup. The competition didn't divide people with tension, but instead united people together through celebration. Every fan celebrated whether at the end of the night their team/country won or loss.

On top of this united celebration that brought people from all over the world together, I was surprised to find something else. At the U.S.A. vs. Ghana game I attended in Nuremberg, Germany I saw first-hand how soccer's international organizing group, FIFA, and UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, joined forces to spread the message "Unite for Chidren, Unite for Peace." This campaign has been launched to directly address the issue of over 2 million children been killed as a direct result of armed conflict in the past decade. The objective of their campaign was to ensure that every child has the right to a peaceful world by bringing it to hundreds of millions of viewers.

From the World Cup festivities I learned a worthwhile lesson. Peace isn't only for the times we block away for peace, like the "pass the peace" in a church service, a peer mediation at a school, or a summer peace internship, all of which are important and valuable). However, Peace can be extended to every aspect of life, just like the World Cup. I would even venture to say, we won't be able to achieve any milestones for the sake of peace until we recognize that every aspect of life is about peace.