The Emerging Peacemakers Program was a trip I will never forget. It changed the way I perceive the world and opened my mind to new ways of holding conversations with others and understanding other peoples’ point of views. During the trip they taught us about the 12 Habits such as vulnerability, curiosity, hospitality, etc. The main one that stuck with me was vulnerability. Before the trip I have never been able to open up and have deep conversations about religion - I was always afraid of it because I never knew what to expect. However, during the trip we had these conversations every single day. I always looked forward to Scriptural Reasoning which was a great way to find out a bit about other people's faith and a lot about my own. Now I look forward to having conversations about faith: I enjoy them, and I realize that learning about other people's religions makes my own faith stronger.
The people on the trip were some of the kindest people I have ever met and are the main reason I would love to go again. The way they tried their hardest to implement lessons from The Rose Way during the trip was really smart. Without realizing it, I have started to implement them in my everyday life! I came back from this trip feeling more confident in myself and my new social skills. RCF helped us get out of our comfort zone and talk about things we wouldn’t normally talk about, and I think that’s one of the main reasons we all got really close to one another. The friends I made on this are friends I hope to keep for the rest of my life.
In order to bring these practices back to my community and keep developing the habits of a reconciler, I would love to start an all girls halaqa in my school to talk about religion and topics that are not normally taboo. I feel like this would be a great way to make people fall in love with their religion instead of going through the motions without and not practising it out of love. After this trip I began to love my religion even more and that is the reason I began to practice more deeply; I would love to help other girls do the same. I hope one day I can attend another RCF programme, because it made me a better person and I will be forever thankful for the memories I made.
If you know a young emerging leader who might be interested in EPP 2023, please send them this link! https://www.rosecastlefoundation.org/epp3