 Good afternoon and welcome to all of you who are joining us for this final third Thursday conversation. Bertie Johnson I serve as alumni director, as well as director of campus ministries and as an admissions and development associate. Just a couple of housekeeping details before we get started. Both of the webinar including questions is being recorded. If you have a technical concern at any time during the webinar please send a chat message to the ambience host. If you have a comment or question for our speaker I asked that you please use the Q&A feature you can find by hovering over the bottom of your screen. I'll be watching for those questions and comments and I'll select the ones that I'll ask Jana. But all of you can can see who else has joined this webinar. Please use the chat function to give your name, location and what years you were at ambience. Make sure you have it set to go to all panelists and attendees not just panelists. Turning now to the reason we are all here. Jana Hunter Bowman has been assistant professor of peace studies and Christian social ethics at ambience since 2015. She also directs the peace studies program and oversees the weekly witness colloquium which some of you have joined in its online version this year. She was a graduate of Goshen College, a 2010 graduate of AMBS, and received her PhD from the University of Notre Dame's Croc Institute, where she was a student to combine the disciplines of theology and peace study into a single program. She is a professor of experience as a peace and justice worker with witness for peace and use to pause a peace organization in Columbia. She can find the emphasis of documentation, education organization and advocacy. I'm not answering several questions I have for her. After that will have time for your questions and comments and you can submit those at any time throughout the webinar by using the Q&A feature. Welcome Jana. Thank you for being with us today and I'll start by just asking you what you'd like to tell about yourself as an introduction to our attendees. Sure. Well, thank you for the invitation Janine to, to be here with you today and to be able to talk with our alumni a bit. Hi, my name is Jana Hunter Bowman as you well know, I am, I'm speaking to you from South Bend Indiana, which is of course, or perhaps not of course but you should also know this is part of this is land of the Pockegan band of Potawatomi. Let's see, I live here with I have two children, Amara and Addie together with my husband Jess. When I was talking when I was talking to the girls last night about this. I asked them what they thought would be pertinent for me to mention in the introduction, and they thought it was pertinent that you knew that they are wonderful kids. So, let me make sure that you all know that I have two wonderful kids. We're enjoying lots of soccer and track these days with those two wonderful kids. And it's also pertinent that you know that I bring to my, my time and my, my work and my teaching and my scholarship in the United States them experience in the formation of Columbia from Columbia South America. And I referenced this in, in her introduction, when she talked about working with who step as, which is a Mennonite peace and justice organization based in the city of Bogota. But anytime that I'm introducing myself, it's important that I honor my mentors, so my earliest mentors who so deeply shaped my theological and my political imagination. So, this is, this is my shout out to, to my community in Columbia is such an important part of my formation as well. So I'll be, I'll be very happy to hear if there's more that you'd like to know about me but that's some of what I bring to this conversation. Thank you. I'm wondering if you can tell us a story of a time that you experienced God in a powerful way. Yeah, thanks for that question. As I think back on these years of, or these months, I guess I would say these months and now it is more than a year of the pandemic, and all that we've been confronted with. During these times, I think a really important moment for me was the day after the day after I watched George Floyd being murdered dispassionately by the police. And I don't know what that was like for, for all of you. But even though I had lived in places where people had been unjustly killed, died unnatural deaths in brutal ways. This really, this really hit me. And I really felt at sea. I did not know, I did not know what to do. And I really felt like perhaps because, because of my life experience, I really should know what to do. I really felt like this was a time that I should have some answers. And I didn't. Again, I felt, I felt at sea, I felt, I felt really lost and confused. So the next morning in, in, in contemplative prayer, which is how I begin my mornings. I was just asking this question, I was asking this question, what should I do. What should I do. And I was just, I remember just being just crying. Really, not, not sure what they had having any idea what the answer to this would be. And as I sat there. The question changed. And the question became really clearly. What will we do. I always get choked up remembering that because it was the kind of. It was a reminder of what I have learned and who I am called to be that I feel like that that question changed in that time of prayer. And that new framing, or that new question, I feel like was, was an answer to prayer. And a significant amount of the work that I've done in ways that knit together. The work that I do in my home congregation of Kern Road Mennonite Church. The work that I do in the community here of South Bend and Elkhart with various social movements and different kinds of organizing work. The work that I do through classes like witness colloquium and some of my scholarship has has been a response to that to that question that I feel like was was given to me in prayer. So that was, that was an important, an important moment for me, as I think back on what have been just these extremely difficult times. And it doesn't make them less difficult, but I do think that for me, that that listening is is vitally important for understanding our purpose. For me, speaking for myself for understanding my purpose is listening, listening to what God is doing, God is saying, and that was, that's one, that's that was one, one moment that was important and then. That's such a powerful story. Thinking about the community. I'm curious, what attracted you to come back to AMBS to teach here to be part of the community a second time. Not not too many years after you graduated. And you're right, it wasn't too many years after I graduated. In fact, I was in the middle of my PhD program, which is not a time that most people accept jobs. And so that's actually a really good question of what in the world was I doing accepting a job when I was in my third year of a PhD program. And some people thought that that was not very wise. So why did I do that. I think everyone here knows and BS mission statement but I have it right here, and I'm going to read it to you. Anabaptist men at biblical seminary serves the church as a learning community with an Anabaptist vision, educating followers of Jesus Christ to be leaders for God's reconciling mission in the world. I came across that recently when I was pulling together some some some documents to try to think about in the course of pulling together documents for a review this year of my work. And it struck me because it, it reminded me of something that I had written years ago that I came across in the course of reviewing my field notes for a book that I've been working on. And the, so the short of the answer to the question of why come back to and BS is that it's such a deep alignment with my own sense of purpose in the world, where I've where I'm coming from, both in terms of my, it is my upbringing. But this is also a really, a really clear decision and a sense of vocational call. And what I came across was something that I wrote in Easter Sunday of 2006 so this is a journal entry and I'm just going to read it to you. I was in Columbia. Very much trying to figure out by this time in 2006, I had been in Columbia since for about five years. And I was trying to think about what might, what, what I was being called to from this, and I wrote this okay. I feel like I'm making headway and thinking about next steps for studying. I was thinking about further study. At least my questions are becoming clearer. How can I put the theological grounding I see at work with this lived Columbia experience with the United States context. Do I want to go the practitioner or the academic track. I feel frustrated that non governmental organizations, especially church affiliate affiliated organizations don't seem to be as serious or strategic as other organizations. So at least part of the reason that college university or seminary teaching is attractive. I talked to my dad about this. I talked to my dad about a lot of things. And I came back around to thinking, I need to acquire the skills that helped me to contribute to peace building organizations and church movements, so that I can help to improve what I'm right now too quick to criticize. I'm thinking about grounded academic work. How can I help to interpret what I observe and know about the contributions of these faith communities to institutions that are often called secular, and those who are often rightly skeptical of quote unquote religion. I don't want to put myself in a trap that carries me away from the issues and communities I care about, and demands exclusively theoretical work. That's some of what I'm learning needs to be pursued on a theoretical level. So that's what I wrote in 2006. Before I did my master's degree at a and BS and before I went on to do a PhD in peace studies and theology. I think that you can see from those early crystallizing moments of clarity on vocational call and what was being given to me to do out of that really privileged experience of working with communities on the ground in Columbia, that and BS teaching and peace studies and social ethics and working as an engaged scholar at a and BS is a really remarkable, a really remarkable fit. At a and BS what I can do is, there is work with a community of scholars and students a community of learning, where there's alignment between my own identity as a practitioner, as well as a scholar, and a teacher, and a member of the community, where also my family is welcome. It's really wonderful to be at a place where my kids aren't considered to be a nuisance. So those are, those are that that sense of alignment of purpose where various dimensions of myself are not intention with one another, but are received as as integrative of a part of the whole. So I don't know if that answers your question but for me that's, that's why a and BS has been such a wonderful place to be. Yeah that's awesome and I love that you could find your journal entry from that ago and see how well it fits everything together like that. You mentioned a book I just have to ask you before we go into your classes tell us about the book that you're working on. Sure. You know, before I do there's one of the thing that I want to mention that I think is really important to me about my experience at a and BS. Because everything I've said might be something that one would suspect from an external perspective in terms of fit. But I want to name also something that has been a part of my experience and being at a and BS in that a and BS gives an incredible amount of intellectual freedom and really trusts its faculty to be providing leadership. And so for me as someone who's in the field of peace studies and ethics. That's been really important and and perhaps as someone who's coming in as a woman. It's extremely important as someone who's coming in, and people ask, what's it like to be in a position where John Howard Yoder was once who would created that position in some ways what's that been like. I would say that the trust that the institution has in has placed in me in order to not just allow me to but expect me to revamp the curriculum expects me to find the problems with the kind of peace theology that many of us inherited as we move forward. That doesn't just invite me to but expects to challenge in order to build a tradition that we all love has been a vital part of what may has made the experience itself, life giving, and not just a good fit from an external perspective. So I just wanted to add that it occurred to me that that's an important part of the experience as well. Let's see here you asked about the book project. Yes. I laughing because this is something that's been a long time coming. So what the, and I could spend a lot of time talking about this but that's not the point, then the point here I think in this book project is that in my years in Columbia. I discovered that there was the communities that I was working with the war affected communities on the ground were transforming violence in the midst of war in ways that was imperceptible to those who were assumed to have the power to do the work of violence reduction and making. Let's say the US Embassy was a group that I also worked with in the course of doing human rights and peace building work with who stuff us. And these communities were completely flew under the radar let's say, of the human rights lens and tools that that were that were used that were the were predominant in such places as an embassy or through other governments. And what they were doing on the ground, and the kind of work they were doing, the really remarkable work they were doing was was imperceptible. And I realized that in to fast forward a little bit that the kind of problems that I identified on the ground didn't only exist on the ground in Columbia in the practical world of peace building, but these were also problems that existed in the world of peace and Christian social ethics that we're there some theoretical constraints and theological constraints that kept us from really appreciating what these communities, these war affected communities were doing on the ground, and how they were transforming them while they're living in the midst of it, and not just transforming direct violence, but then really working and partnering with other war affected communities in ways that were confronting and challenging some of the conditions for the possibility of that had been existing for the head. We're part of a colonial legacy. So we're clearly deep seated root causes of the conflict. And so what this book is trying to do is through telling stories of the experience in Eastern Columbia, identify some of the possibilities and the shortcomings and then put forth a constructive account of theological peace building that's again rooted in the experiences of these communities and reflecting with them on their experiences in order to make this more broadly accessible. And tell us about the classes you're teaching this year, both in the fall and the ones you just finished teaching in this semester. What what has engaged you the most in those. Well, maybe I'll start where I left off and that was in commenting on this question of what we're left off and talking about the work of knitting together personal engagement on the ground with community based movements with class work and with congregational work and denominational work and beyond. And that would be with in the context of what we're calling now witness colloquium. I think it was formerly mission colloquium and peace colloquium, and those have now merged to what we're calling witness colloquium and the discoveries along the way during the pandemic and one of the discoveries during the pandemic is that because everything was online anyway. We really could be carrying on a conversation, much more broadly than what we had in the past. Now of course we're not the only ones to have discovered this, but this is, but, but this was an important element of the shape of witness colloquium in this academic year. And so then what we did in for for witness colloquium in the fall was to organize what we called a series the beginning of this of the academic year in the fall simply called understanding and engaging movements for justice. And here, what we were attending to is the, the events of 2020 had really laid bare all kinds of inequalities that have plugged the United States and the global community for obviously a very long time. We were attending to the intersections of the pandemic, ongoing racialized violence as well as the kind of hate filled political rhetoric that was filling the air. And we were noting that these were exposing the costs of the status quo, and we're really urging us each to examine our roles in advocating for justice. And of course at AMBS, we are very much attentive to and focused on serving as living alternatives to violence, through offering protection, and seeking justice, or minimally this is the way that I'm understanding one of a critical expression of the nearly a 500 year tradition of anti-baptism. So this, this kind of communal non violence was something that I was working with, but we're also noting that an abaptist of course are not the only ones that were concerned about what was being exposed and thinking about what kind of responses, we might offer. So in the last fall, we partnered with the Crock Institute for International Peace for the series understanding and engaging movements for justice in 2020. We invited different voices from different streams of non violence, including communal liberationist and strategic non violence to speak to the power of non violence in action in, as we were thinking about responding to the challenges of the challenges of our times. So in this series, we, we spoke with Sarah Nahar, who is also an AMBS graduate, we spoke with Maria Stefan and David Portwright, who from the perspective of strategic non violence from USIP and the Crock Institute for International Peace respectively. We spoke with Liz Theo Harris, who is one of the coordinators and directors of the Poor People's Campaign. We also spoke with Patti from Movimiento Cosecha, which is an immigrant led movement for justice with a group here in South Bend. This is a group that I'm working with closely in this, in this, in this time. And others we heard also from international students who have lived through tumultuous election cycles. And we also had a really important conversation with Leroy Berry and his daughter Melinda Berry was of course also on faculty at AMBS. As we were thinking about understanding what was going on and thinking about engaging in movements for justice. And I was delighted to see the kind of broad based participation that I think really expressed a level of interest and enthusiasm and recognition for of the pertinence of these questions for thinking together for thinking together and responding together. And then last, that's an example of one class that was was exciting and important to me. And maybe I should just say that that was the fall. And then in this spring, we also continued with some of these themes because people asked for it. We had pastors, especially pastors and lay leaders who were involved in organizing that said, that was really exciting and really interesting but we need more. And because of their request reached out to Jonathan smoker, who's the author of hegemoni how to send a lot of work and organizing over the past 10 and 20 years. And we had a series of conversations with him, particularly with people who are doing movement building and organizing where they're located in their in their homes and that was again that was also really exciting. So we're going to be thinking together about what it means to have an an abaptist think about an abaptism and the way that an abaptism as a particular tradition contributes to these broader based movements, what does that mean and how do we think about our work in engaging in movements that are against violence and that are working to build peace. So that's, that's one that's one one credit our class, but that's not all we're doing. So I continue to talk about others to me and I recognize that I, I did carry on a bit on that one as you can see, I'm very excited about these things. Yes, please tell us about the other classes as well. Okay. All right. So the other classes that I teach each fall I teach an introduction to peace studies and non violence class. This course introduces students to the field of or an approach of transformative peace building. This is rooted in an an abaptist tradition, particularly thinking about the contributions of john Paul letter rock, and the way that john Paul pointed out to shift the thinking on peace building. Again, from predominantly focus on elite actors in top down theories of change to thinking about the work of grassroots and mid level actors in not just ending crisis, or putting a bandaid on crisis, but thinking about identifying and transforming the, the roots of conflict and the roots of violence, and a core tenant of a transformative approach to peace building is that conflict is normal. In fact, conflict will be really important sometimes as there are as we recognize the existence of injustice. So what does it mean to accept conflict as a potentially generative and transformative opportunity. And what does it mean to work with that from from the communities of where we're of power for us as churches as Christian communities in the world. So in that class that we, we begin in looking at the trajectory and particularly an abaptist inflected movement into this work of transformation, and then we consider the different ways in which we might understand different forms of violence and and how they come about, and what are the different possibilities for transforming them. So this is an introduction to peace studies and to non violence, which of course indicates to you that we're also tracing some of the trajectory of other thought leaders on on non violence including Martin Luther King, including Gandhi in including Deming in including some of the important thinkers out of Palestine, women out of Palestine. So that's that's introduction to peace studies. So this spring this so this semester, one of the classes that I taught was political theology and ethics. And here what we're thinking about is, well, a couple of things. I'll mention two of the major strands is how do we think about politics, theologically. What does it mean for us to think about politics, theologically, as, as Christians and as people who are located within a really long tradition of Christianity. And that that then leads to questions of ethics. Another strand of the class is to notice the way in which Western Christianity emergent out of Europe has shaped so many of the dominant Institute political institutions of Western civilization. And what are the traditions, and what are the assumptions that have so deeply again shaped these institutions in which we find ourselves. So, what does it mean for us as Anabaptist Christians, then to live in the world of politics that's deeply shaped by by this European tradition, particularly as those of us who identify ourselves as followers of Christ, and who then are particularly concerned with those who are marginalized and, and, and affected by violence multiple times over how to so providing tools to help us think through some of these, some of these opportunities and challenges today. So that's, that's political theology, a sip of water and then I'll continue. I also teach courses on religion violence and peace building. That course is in the in recent years has focused on the peace process in Columbia. And the final agreement for a piece was signed in late 2016 in Columbia. And so we trace the roles that different kinds of religions and religious actors have played in that complex conflict. And look at them, what what the opportunities that remain. As a way as a case study for thinking about secularisms for thinking about religion for thinking about theologies multiple kinds of lived theologies. As a way of thinking about all of the ways that talk of God has had multiple kinds of impacts. Another area of work is with student internships. The third semester peace studies students do an internship somewhere in the world. And with that internship students do two modules. One module is on spirituality, and the second module is on field notes that the starting point for both of these is an ignition perspective on paying attention and the question being specifically, what are you noticing. And then we draw deeply and learn very much from the Ignatian tradition of the examine as a way of structuring our noticing on a spiritual level as we develop some of the tools for self reflection and for nourishment through the challenging times of being human generally, but in particular in the work of peace building. And then the second module is on field notes, and there to we're beginning with the Ignatian question of what are we noticing as Christians, and then drawing deeply from the skills the strategies and the insights of ethnography, which is a practice of the field of anthropology. And the point of this is to be able to notice deeply our experience as practitioners in in the field so to speak in the world. And with these noticings with this this now this documentation of experiences in internships students alongside the spirituality module students are practicing skills that are vital to be reflective practitioners. And that is, that isn't itself a good. These are practices that work on the self, I think in really important ways. For my own experience you could, you can see how it's worked out for me. These are personal convictions, not just theoretical conclusions but they are that as well. And then in the final semester of the, the peace studies peace studies and theology master's program students write an integration paper, and what they're doing in this integration paper is they're bringing into conversation, the theologies and the theories that they were bringing into in the classroom, their first three, their first semesters as a student into conversation with their noticings as a practitioner in their internship. And then bringing that into conversation as they work to refine and think through their own constructive contributions to the area that is their chosen subfield. So those modules play a really important role, not just for helping this to the student, think deeply about what's going on in their internship, but also to again practice what we're training students to do, which is the work of a reflective practitioner. Some students go on to do important work as practitioners, and these skills also of course prepare students who continue on to do further graduate work. Thank you so much. I'm wondering if you can share with us a dream that you have for NBS. Yes. And I think that you're, you're seeing, you're already seeing some of the, some of the ways that I'm living into it, and that is, in terms of a dialogical process of thinking of doing careful theoretical work that is also in conversation with lived experience and movements for peace and justice around the world simultaneously. The, the, the witness colloquium modules, excuse me not the modules, the witness colloquium sessions provided that opportunity to be in, to be having conversations with people who have the time and luxury to think and do some more writing and reflecting and theologizing and theorizing about some of this, these questions in conversation with people who are on the ground, leading churches as pastors and doing the work of organizing or kingdom building, kingdom building, and then being able to come together to reflect together in order to go out and continue doing that work. And not just for the sake of having an exciting lunch hour once a week. These are Wednesdays at noon. This is why I'm referring to a power lunch. But precisely because we are working to nourish and to build, build those communities and to build those movements for justice. So that is, that is my dream. And it is one that I'm excited that we have the opportunity to pursue at AMBS as you, as you've seen. Great, thank you. We're going to shift now to questions coming in from the alumni who are participating. The first one comes from Weldon nicely and he would you share something about a significant mentor for you and how that has been formative for you personally, intellectually, professionally, practically. Thank you Weldon for that question. Yeah, thank you. If I mean if I don't mention all of the levels on which this is true, then please remind me. I have been fortunate to have a couple of significant mentors. I will say one who was instrumental in moving in helping me think through and making movements from the work in Columbia to graduate school was John Paul Lederach. He was also working in Columbia at the time. And I was really interested in being his mentee in learning more from him, particularly as I felt like I was coming into all of these theoretical ceilings in, in what we were doing, just noticing the some of the ceilings that we were continually bumping up against and feeling like it was very important to be able to step back and think about what was going on in order to, in order to address that. And, and one I'll just recount one thing. So I had, I had emailed him and I hadn't heard back from a time. And so I thought well, he doesn't have time, which is completely fine. Why should he have time. And sometime passed and he emailed back, and I apologized for for inconveniencing him with my emails. And what he said has stuck with me, and he said, never apologize for pursuing what you are called to do. And so that that idea of pursuing what one knows one is called to do has stuck with me. I hope that I've learned to be sensitive, more sensitive to others because also others are called to do other things than I probably wasn't my 20s. But that idea of of content and persisting in one's vocational call was very significant and I have John Paul to thank for that. And then I did have the opportunity to study with him at the Crock Institute. And that time of transition from working as a, as a, as an activist as a, as a service worker with men at Central Committee that was an absolutely profound and beautiful time. And that to graduate school was not an easy transition at all. It was not easy. I did not do that gracefully I don't think them. And having someone, John Paul among others but John Paul, who was able to help me think through and just create some pathways for thinking about working with experiences that have been so formative and that had propelled me to do this reflective and theoretical work into a world that was less concerned with that practical and theoretical work required that I create some new pathways of thinking. And John Paul, among others were were instrumental in helping me do that work and were patient with me as I, as I fumbled my way into the creation of those of those pathways. Jerry McKenney is a theology professor at Notre Dame, who has also demonstrated remarkable patients as I also work to find, find points of connection and ways of doing what I now call engaged engaged scholarship. Follow up if there if I didn't answer all of those levels. I think that's fine thank you. Another question comes from Laura funk. And she said as people around the world are drawn to the Anabaptist vision. They bring a diversity to our understanding of mission and witness. How do we have a meaningful conversation about witness and mission between the traditional quiet in the land, social justice oriented perspectives, and the internationally flavored congregations in our conferences who are more evangelical inclined. Thank you for that question. The way that I think about this. And is in terms of a need for multiple kinds, multiple ways of understanding ourselves as as people of faith in the world and the ability to operate on different kinds of political levels, and sometimes simultaneously. So, for example. So I think for me the clearest way to respond to this is by speaking very concretely in terms of some of the work of reflection on that I've done with Columbia, but Laura follow up with me afterwards if this isn't speaking more generally enough. And that was that the, the, the communities that I've worked with in Columbia and but also here actually. It's really important to be able to create a sense of a we, and that sense of a we is that identity as we is usually formed, I think, through worship through prayer through something. There are different rituals together that language is not so common in evangelical and then spaces but different kinds of rituals together that that creation of a we. And that that creation of a we often has a politics that has the possibility for providing protection, because even in my hands you can see this we provides a space in here. And I've certainly learned that a we cannot stay in inside of this space. Right. I think there's an important it's important to think about how that we that has that if it exists. It has power. What does it mean to for this we to join alongside other communities that are also concerned about whether we want some as the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. Some people understand this as the language of movements for justice has deeper resonance. So what does it mean for this we then to come alongside others that are that are similar that are similarly called even for very different reasons. And so this the second politics would be this movement this movements, a gradual in theological language we call this movement towards the kingdom of God. This is required structural change we might call this movements for justice, but these are two different kinds of politics. And there are two different kinds of ways of thinking about who the we's are, because the we here is that is primarily the church community, and the we over here are all those alongside whom we find ourselves on the journey. So for me that's been, it's been, it's been helpful and necessary to be thinking about different moments and different kinds of politics. Thank you. Richard Herscheler is asking a question about violence to the unborn. And I think that those topics are mostly dealt with by Mary in her classes, but does does that issue come up in your work or conversations with other students and if so how how do you address that. Yeah, thank you for that question. So it is not a question that regularly comes up in classes, frankly. But as people who want to think through, if it would, what we would talk about is, what does it mean to have a consistent stance that when working against violence. That are the ways as I was mentioning earlier, one of the differences between a transformative approach to peace building that emerges from some anabaptist voices is to think about what are the, what are the conditions for the possibility of violence. How do we understand what the, the, the, the, the foundations, or that which allows violence to occur. And what actually allows us to think about the transforming of the possibilities of violence. And so in various and so this is, this is stands in contrast with an idea or a more exclusive focus on just on ending on ending a crisis, and really looks at what allows for transformation of injustices. And what allows us to increase justice and increase peace. So anytime a student brings up a particular instance to bear, we would look at, we would look at the particular instance of particular crisis, and within that broader framework. And again, if this is if my questions aren't fully answering the question posed you're welcome to follow up. Just a reminder to all of you participating. We have a few minutes left if you'd like to ask a question please post it in the Q&A feature and pass that along to Jana. I have a question about, since you've come to ambias, the, you have had students from all over the world. Can you speak a little bit about the diversity of perspectives and the richness that that brings to the work of peacemaking when you have students coming from every continent and many different life experiences that they carry with them. Sure. What immediately comes to mind is in a class in which we were studying, we were studying this idea of examining situations in which various forms of violence and injustice intersect. In order to think about what it means to approach a situation and move towards a more peaceful situation in a holistic way. So how do we understand the various threads that converge in a particular violence affected community. And so we were, we were looking, I don't even recall the particular community we were looking with, and a student raised her hand, and she said, this is, I am far better than your case study, you really need to think about my experience. And I think that this is just sort of the, this is the, this is the fascinating point of, or something that we see that students from around the world bring. In this particular instance, this was a woman whose family fled from Central America because they fled war. She comes from a community of African descent. And so she she self identifies as black now she's lives in the United States. She's a woman. And she is working in a particular denomination that doesn't look fondly on women in leadership. And her family is current was currently her extended family was currently living in Central America. And so she was regularly sending the money that she was making to Central America in order to allow for for their, for their survival. And indeed, indeed, this is this her she said, what I would propose that we that we tease out all of the threads and the intersections in what, and what I am I in my in the women and in my church are experiencing and their demographic was very similar to hers. And we said this she said this and we did this exercise, but this is not merely to notice the ways in which people are affected by various forms of violence. But also what this allows us to do is then think together about all of the ways in which there's the possibilities for working for transformation and what does it mean to think about leadership in the midst of these spaces. What does it mean to think about theological education and becoming pastors in these places, and the incredible opportunities for leadership, and for nurturing thriving communities that come when, when we have this kind of subtle self reflection, alongside a theological reflection for pastoral ministry or for different kinds of ministries as amds prepares for. Thanks so much. We have another question from Ken quiring from Brandon Manitoba, and he starts with a thank you for this inspiring presentation. More about the intro to peace course emphasis on mid and low level actors in situations of conflict. I sense that this emphasis would better equip ordinary followers of Jesus to engage in peace building in local situations, or patients of conflict. The people in our congregation are not interested in public protesting but are curious about engaging in more relational ways can much for that question. Well, was that from someone named Ken, is that what I heard you say Janine. Okay, can what I want to do right now is to share my screen and to draw. Oh, I can. Jeanine, do you want me to do this. I'm really tempted to launch and okay I'm going to do this really quickly because I can. Let's see if I can do this. Oh dear. What have I done. Oh, here we go. And now we've done it. Now I don't know what happened to my screen. Okay, I need to stop sharing. Okay, I can see that it's not going to work for me to try to do anything but just look into the camera. So, in short, and can you and your friends should come take this class if you're interested, but in short, imagine a pyramid. This is a pyramid of society, and at the top we see are located elite level actors. And in the middle we have the level actors at the bottom are what we typically call grassroots and the state oriented way of thinking would assume that power is located at the pinnacle of the triangle. And here it's just where we see we wait for, let's say the government of Columbia to sign a peace agreement in this model we wait for there to be a new policy that is passed that resolves a particular problem that we're experiencing. That is, that is seeing and thinking like a state. And that's not what we do as an abacus right. And so what we're, what we're particularly interested in is thinking about the work at the mid level and the work at the grassroots. And to speak in terms of theories of change was might be a simple way to do this is that if we're relying on stakes were relying on a top down theory of change. Right. If we're thinking about work with the grassroots of community organizing of building power together, we might think about bottom up theory of change. Something that is a particular contribution of John Paul is John Paul letter rock. The first forerunner of thinking about transformative peace building and Baptist tradition is middle out. What is the work that those who are already organized in communities like churches, who have easier access to both policymakers or to those who are located at the elite level here. Decision makers in a city, or other and other decision places of policy decision making, as well as the work as well as have easier and more ready access people in the grassroots, who may or may not be organized. What are the possibilities for working middle out and leveraging that possibility and quite a few churches are located here because of their relationships with denominations, because of the relationship with other churches because of the relationship other civic groups. This is a way that that that we can. These are different theories of change that we think about, and this is particularly pertinent, because of course, and about ism thinks quite a bit about the upside down kingdom, right where we're thinking about overturning some of the dominant ideas about power. Yes, I think Ken was also trying to get at this sense of, what do people in the pews. What can they do besides protesting protesting isn't their thing. And so you're saying we need to be imaginative about way that we look at the grassroots. And then these processes is that correct. Sure. And I mean organizing organizing is a is a very different is a very different way of thinking about addressing problems than is protesting organizing in terms of thinking about organizing power and being engaged through through different cycles and not just in reaction to the latest horrible thing is a really different way of thinking about responding than protesting. So that would be one one in road that would be aligned with this pyramid that is distinct from simply going out and protesting. Thank you so much Jana for engaging all of these questions, and we are very grateful to you for all of the inspiration you have given us, and for giving us an insight into your work at AMBS. And thank you to our alumni for your ongoing support of AMBS for participating in this way for your prayers your financial support, your influence on other people both donors and prospective students. These are our most important influencers in the church. We have three more upcoming alumni virtual reunions for those who attended AMBS in the first two decades of this millennium, and a midday reunion on June 10 for alumni of any time period. If you go to the alumni part of the AMBS website you can sign up on the page for virtual reunions. So you should have received word about a new program that our church leadership center is starting. They would like your input as they develop leadership integrity circles for retired pastors, where they could where pastors could share their experiences of retirement and hear input and feedback from others going through similar experiences. If you'd like to be part of an exploratory meeting on Tuesday, June 15 at 10am Eastern time, they would love for you to join. Please contact the program administrator Julia Schmidt by email at J s ch m ID t at ambs.edu or email me if you didn't catch that. Thanks to all of you for joining us this afternoon and also to it director Brent Graber who has provided technical support. Our students are a third Thursday conversation for today and we will be sending you all of the participants a survey soon to see if you'd like to keep doing this next year, and if so in what format. Thank you and have a wonderful day.