The Meeting Place

During the latter half of the 1980s much of my work was concentrated on supporting the Conciliation team efforts for peace in Nicaragua. I worked closely with leaders from the Moravian and Baptist churches who had been appointed as mediators between the East Coast resistance and the Sandinista government. In an earlier chapter, I recounted some of the difficulties I faced. I also found that this period of work was a period of intense learning from brothers, sisters and experiences we shared. While I perhaps had more academic training in conflict resolution, my colleagues had waded for many years in the deeper waters of life, relationships, and building peace in war-torn Central America. I was given many gifts through the experiences, but the most important was a new set of lenses. For fleeting moments I was able to see things around me in new ways. Through their eyes I saw beyond conflict resolution to reconciliation.