January 18, 2008

by Darla Martin Tucker

International peace activists and scholars are uniting at La Sierra University the week of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday holiday, in a series of events aimed at furthering peace in the community and world.

The university’s first Peace Week, Jan. 22-25, will feature Cynthia Prime, founder and director of Seeds of Hope Outreach in Indianapolis, Ind. and Rev. Paula Cripps, lead organizer for Clergy & Laity United for Economic Justice of Los Angeles, Inland Empire chapter.

The university is closed Jan. 21 in observance of the birth of civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr. He was born Jan. 15, 1929 in Atlanta.

A day-long peace conference on Sat., Jan. 26 at La Sierra, will feature Norah Bagirinka, founder of Rwandan Women in Action and translator for Academy Award-nominated documentary, “God Sleeps in Rwanda.” Conference speakers will include Bernadine Irwin, director of “Operation Jessica” at Loma Linda University, Ryan Bell, pastor of the Hollywood Seventh-day Adventist Church and Florence Bellande-Robertson, founder of Fondation Espoir in Haiti.
La Sierra University Professors Christine Law, Lora Geriguis, Marilynn Loveless, Ginger Hanks-Harwood and Ronald Osborn will speak and lead various events on peacemaking. The lineup includes a panel discussion, poetry readings, a play titled “Mass Appeal, an art exhibit in La Sierra’s Brandstater Gallery and a peace vigil.

The exhibit, “Blue: I Dream a World,” runs through Feb. 8. It features mixed media canvases and videos created on the themes of justice and peace.

The exhibit is a collaborative effort with the University of California, Riverside “Arts Block,” UC Riverside’s Reggie Woolery, curator. It includes a three-screen video compilation by Woolery. The quasi artistic-political work, titled “Gulf in the War,” is created primarily with news reports from the 1991 Gulf War in Iraq following Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. It is interspersed with film clips from Hollywood military classics “Patton” and “The Longest Day,” and the video game, Counter-Strike. “Gulf in the War” appears simultaneously in the Brandstater Gallery and in the UC Riverside/California Museum of Photography’s Digital Studio Gallery.

The University’s Office of the Provost is Peace Week’s sponsor. La Sierra entities organizing Peace Week include: departments of World Languages, Art, History, Politics and Society, English and Communications; School of Religion; Campus Ministries; and Women’s Resource Center.

Adventist Women for Peace, a group affiliated with La Sierra, is sponsoring the Jan. 26 conference titled “Making Peace in Times of War.” The conference will be from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Hole Memorial Auditorium. It will include talks on peace in the community, nation and world. Hanks-Harwood, associate professor of religious and theological studies at La Sierra, will deliver a keynote address at 10 a.m. titled “The Present as History: SDA Peacemaking in Times of Violence.”

A 7 p.m. showing of the documentary, “God Sleeps in Rwanda,” and appearance by Bagirinka, the film’s translator, will cap the conference. The documentary won a 2005 Academy Award nomination for best documentary short. The production, translated by Bagirinka, follows five Rwandan women as they rebuild their lives after the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Admission to Peace Week events is free. Conference luncheon costs are $25 with meal reservations preferred by Jan. 22. There is no cost for La Sierra University students.

Adventist Women for Peace, a group affiliated with La Sierra University, is promoting a foundational doctrine some believe the denomination has overlooked, that of making peace.

“In the face of violence in our communities and nations, Adventists have a unique message of peace and justice to communicate, quite apart from the traditional doctrines relating to the Second Coming [of Christ], the Sabbath and health reform,” said Lourdes Morales-Gudmundsson, chair of La Sierra’s World Languages department. She is also among six women who founded Adventist Women for Peace in 2005.

“Adventist peacemaking is a sorely neglected doctrine, one we have neglected to our detriment,” Morales-Gudmundsson said.

The group functions as an educational vehicle on matters of peacemaking and peacekeeping. It is striving to resurrect an Adventist peace message that includes a mandate of serving as non-combatants during war. “We’re asking, how do we as Adventist Christians address violence in any of its forms? …We feel the time has come to rescue our pacifist roots … and speak for the strategies of peace over those of war, in any of its forms,” she said.

Additional founding members of Adventist Women for Peace are Hanks-Harwood, Gillian Geraty, Iris Landa, Marta Teel and Victoria Bresee. The founders have studied, taught or participated in peace programs and events. For 25 years Morales-Gudmundsson has presented a seminar called “I Forgive You, But …,” also the title of her recently published book.

The group held its first peace conference in January 2006 at La Sierra’s Matheson Chapel. About 170 people attended the event.

Peace Week 2008 events schedule:

• "Blue: I Dream a World" art exhibit begins January 14 and runs through February 7, 2008, Brandstater Gallery.
  
• Special assembly Tues., Jan. 22, 11 a.m., at La Sierra University Church. Prime, with Seeds of Hope Outreach, is the featured speaker. Her presentation, titled “Wanted! Peace Speakers,” will focus on the God-given responsibility of ordinary men and women to become peacemakers. Prime’s organization, Seeds of Hope Outreach, helps orphans, vulnerable children and their elderly caretakers in African communities impacted by HIV/AIDS. The organization plants gardens and provides food for orphans. It sends doctors and nurses on mission trips twice a year. Volunteers send clothing, toys, school supplies and other items to thousands of suffering youngsters and elderly.
  
• Tues., Jan. 22, “Race and Peacemaking” panel discussion, Prof. Christine Law, Cactus Room, 5 p.m. Student panelists are: Amandeep Jhawar, Heather Corona, Michelle Lumban-Gaol, and Jonathan Finau.
  
• Wed., Jan. 23, “Words of War and Poetry of Peace,” poetry readings from around the world, Prof. Lora Geriguis, Brandstater Gallery, 7 p.m.
  
• Wed., Jan. 23, “God¹s Heart for Transformation: Economic
  Justice,” Rev. Paula Cripps, Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice in Los Angeles, guest speaker for Rendezvous worship, Hole Memorial
  Auditorium, 10 p.m.
  
• Thurs., Jan. 24, “Faith, Immigration, and Our Lives,” Rev. Paula Cripps, Worship, La Sierra University Church, 11 a.m. Cripps holds a Master’s of Divinity in Urban Ministries from Claremont School of Theology. She advocates for low-wage workers and undocumented immigrants, and teaches about public policy change and immigrants’ rights.
  
• Thurs., Jan. 24, “Mass Appeal,” play by Bill C. Davis, Prof. Marilynn
  Loveless, pits a young priest against the church establishment, Matheson Chapel, 8 p.m.
  
• Fri., Jan. 25, special “First Service” peace vigil, La Sierra University Church and “Glory of God’s Grace” statue, 7 p.m.
  
• Sat., Jan. 26, “Making Peace in Times of War: Adventist Responses to
  Violence,” sponsored by Adventist Women for Peace, Hole Memorial Auditorium, 9 .m. to 5 p.m. (Registration fee: $25; students: free)
  
• Sat., Jan. 26, film, “God Sleeps in Rwanda,” featured guest, Norah
  Bagirinka, translator for this award-winning documentary, Alumni Pavilion (gymnasium), 7 p.m., free.
  
• Sun., Jan 27, “Mass Appeal,” Matheson Chapel, 8 p.m.
  

For information contact Lourdes Morales-Gudmundsson at
(951)785-2120 or at lmorales@lasierra.edu.

PR Contact: Larry Becker
Executive Director of University Relations
La Sierra University
Riverside, California
951.785.2460 (voice)