Nolan McBride
Bringing
Peace Education to Youth
They say third time is the charm. That proved true for me as my third time applying for the Youth Peace Travel Team I was finally accepted, abet on my own as the single Youth Peace Advocate. I have wanted to be on the Youth Peace Travel Team since grade school, when the team visited my home camp, Camp Alexander Mack in Milford, Indiana. The summers after my first and sophomore years at Manchester University I applied, but for various reasons it didn’t work out. I thoroughly enjoyed being in Ministry Summer Service those summers, but when I got the call saying I’d been accepted as the Youth Peace Advocate this year last spring I was ecstatic. Spending of the summer as the Youth Peace Advocate was hard work and thoroughly exhausting, but I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. I was privileged to travel to Brethren camps all across the country. The Youth Peace Travel Team is sponsored by five organizations affiliated with the Church of the Brethren. They are the Outdoor Ministries Association, On Earth Peace, Bethany Theological Seminary, the Office of Peacebuilding and Policy, and
the Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministries. Each was involved with orientation for the team and gave me a contact person if I needed them. After YPA orientation online and Ministry Summer Service orientation at the general offices in Elgin I spent a week at Camp Colorado in Colorado, Camp Blue Diamond in Pennsylvania, Camp Brethren Woods in Virginia, Camp Ithiel in Florida, Camp Mack in Indiana (my home camp), Brethren Heights in Michigan, Camp Emmaus in Illinois, and Camp Pine Lake in Iowa. I learned very quickly that I was in for a culture shock at each new camp. Each was run very differently and had different ideas of what they wanted me to do. At some camps I led sessions with the campers about peacemaking and how it is rooted in our faith every day. In others I witness to peace through my presence and informal interaction with the campers. Every camp has its own unique identity that made each week special and memorable in their own way. Conveniently for me, each camp I visited this year was using InsideOut’s curriculum for this summer entitled Peace Works. With the themes and scriptures for each day already being centered on peacemaking, I decided to use them as a foundation for my sessions and then tried to take the campers a step farther or in a different direction than the day’s intended lesson. I also used a session on interpersonal conflict and mediation developed by Camp Brethren Woods for their Shalom time. If you read the Youth Peace Travel Team blog posts I wrote every week for https://blog.brethren.org/category/youth-peace-travel-team/ you can find more about the specifics of each camp and the sessions I designed for each day. Very rarely did sessions go exactly as I designed them. I tweaked them for the situation, age range, and time available at each camp. While I worked with campers of all ages, from Elementary to Senior High, I most often ended up working with Junior High. When in the moment I wasn’t always sure how well what I was trying to teach was getting across to the campers, but it was worth it when campers came up to me at the end of the week and told me how much they appreciated my sessions as asked if I would be back again next year. At a few camps I worked with multiple age groups, and at one camp worked primarily with third graders to fifth graders. It did take a little trial and error and help to adjust the sessions I was leading to the age group I was working with that week. Getting to know and form bonds with the campers was one of my favorite parts of the job. Two of my favorite God moments of the summer happened at the first and last camps I attended respectively. Starting the summer, on the first night of camp at Camp Colorado I volunteered to as-
