How can we choose peace for others when we’ve lost everything for ourselves?
Michael Laverty lost his parents as a child. He lost his community when he became a conscientious objector to the apartheid regime in South Africa. And he nearly lost his family in an act of violence that left him scarred for years.
Yet despite all of this, he committed his life to peace: to undoing systems of injustice, to standing beside the poorest and most broken of the world, and to giving himself away. Through the years, he has worked to help elect Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa and empower young Christians to make active commitments of peace in Australia. But he’s learned along the way that making peace with the world also requires making peace with ourselves.
His healing and peacemaking work is centered by his evangelical Christian faith, which he believes compels him to act on behalf of the most marginalized, as Jesus would. Michael’s life represents our Practice of peacemaking, “Own Our Agency and Responsibility.”
*CW: This episode has references to violence, including sexual assault and traumatic events*
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