2025 Peace Interns

16 Carriages

~To the summer sunset on a holy night, On a long black road, all the tears I fight. ~

I spent the Fourth of July thinking of death. Not of the death of the millions of slaves during just the transportation of the Trans Atlantic slave trade, not of the blood soaked into the ground from our indigenous siblings, but of a more personal death. the death of a friend.

When I visit my grandmother, there’s always a list of people I have to show my face to, whom I have to sit with before I can have peace in her house. As the years have grown, that list has shrunk. Death came before I could ring the doorbell, before the phone rings for happy birthdays, Merry Christmases. While I have been on this life-changing experience, that list grew shorter by another name. 

So I spent my Fourth of July in Texas surrounded by white people in American flag clothing variations, blasting country music that never even darkened the door of Cowboy Carter or any artist of color. However, every song sung American pride, the struggles of trucks, beers, and exes. After teaching workshops on reconciliation. And I anticipated that fact, making me feel angrier, making my tongue sharper in response to the national anthem being played before meals, with shirts that read “home of the free, because of the brave.” But I wasn’t angry, at least not fully. 

After one of my sessions, a youth came to me to say, "Thank you, because reconciliation to them was knowing the history we all bring to the table, how we are connected, good and bad." So, no, I wasn’t angry. Even being on a mostly white campground in Texas, hearing Cotton Eye Joe for the 5th time, as fireworks went off over a lake to celebrate America’s “freedom”. Because I closed my eyes to take a breath. For those who built America, who died for America unwillingly, and for those who were forcibly removed for America to be made. Then I remembered  Juneteenth and how it took that and a million good and bad interactions  Of those before me that led to a young queer black woman from Alabama to spend 8 weeks traveling the US talking about black history, liberation, joy taught to us by Jesus with all the good and bad. Then I opened my eyes and watched the fireworks. 

I used to hate getting that list from my grandmother. Grumbling as I sat down to make my calls or laced up my shoes to walk down the street. Greeting everyone, I was instructed to greet. It took 26 years and watching a few names be removed from that list to realize she was teaching me the practice of reconciliation. With every knock, every call, every visit, we listened to those who came before us. Remembering what they said, what they did, showing them your face was not just saying “I know where we came from and what we bring,” But living into it. I shed a tear on the fourth of July, but not because of America, but because of the history that being American brings to the table, good and bad. 

For those who have been removed from that list, and for those who are still on the list. May the lord bless you and keep you, may peace be with you. And thank you.

Coming Home

This past week, I had the incredible opportunity to return home. I spent the week at La Foret Camp and Conference Center in the Central Rocky Mountain Region. I spent the week at the camp I grew up at. It was such a blessing to be home.

I could tell the moment I drove onto those camp grounds that it was going to be a good week, a different week, a life changing week. And boy was I correct. When I first saw the camp director Rachel, who was also my youth group leader and camp director when I was in CYF, one of the first words out of her mouth were “Welcome Home.” It’s rare to exist in a moment and know all the way in your bones that you are exactly where you are meant to be, where you need to be. Driving onto La Foret’s grounds I had that kind of moment. I knew God was walking hand and hand with me, leading me to the place where I was called. God was with me and in me during my return home.

Throughout the week it was proven time and time again why I was exactly where I needed to be. I was able to have incredibly vulnerable and life changing small group conversations with the family group I facilitated, giving them space to share what was on their heart, and creating the trusted space to share my perspective as well. Creating this beautiful community with my family group was even more a blessing for me than it may have been for them. I was given a space where I felt seen and heard. My own confidence and ability to lead and mentor in a small group context was reinvigorated. I was once again personally connected to my call and to the community of future change-makers in a way I didn’t know I needed. My family group showed so clearly why I was meant to be at camp this week. I had extremely difficult conversations that took me out of my comfort zone, took me out of my realm of feeling safe and comfortable, that once again instilled in me the knowledge that I was exactly where I needed to be. I have always had a difficult time with confrontation, with conflict, with existing in places of contention and disagreement. But it is in these spaces where growth, where change, where peace and justice truly happen. It was in those conversations where I could feel the justice work Jesus so clearly modeled for me happening. It was in those hard conversations at La Foret that the change my identity as a Christian calls me to create was happening. I was challenged to be brave, to get comfortable in the uncomfortable, and through that work I was given the conviction and confidence to not only create inclusion, peace, and justice in that community, but in the world outside camp as well. It was such a blessing to be home.

It was a great week, a hard week, and a week where I felt the Spirit of God undoubtedly moving all around me. Something about camp worship just hits different. I don’t think there will ever be a physical worship or church space outside of camp where I feel God’s presence as directly. We worshipped as a community at the labyrinth at sunset; walking as one trail of footsteps, singing as once voice, praying as one spirit in that labyrinth, it was almost impossible not to see, feel, and hear God in the campers around me. We worshipped in Inglis Hall when it was storming outside; seeing our communion table draped in rainbow scarves, having our Jesus figure one night draped in a pride flag, hearing Crowded Table sung as a bold welcome to all to God’s table showed how God’s inclusive and loving heart was on display so clearly in the ways we worshipped together. We worshipped together at the campfire; my small group came together and modeled community and reparation during our worship on the last night and brought the spirit of the Table to life for me. God was moving in so many different ways through so many different voices and people this week at camp, and it was so remarkable to see and feel that all around me. It was such a blessing to be home. 

I laughed harder than I had in a while this week. I saw genuine joy on the faces of so many youth. I saw the campers creating spaces of love and acceptance for each other, wanting to bring the spirit of the table into camp, into their space, into their lives. It was such a beautiful week that embodied what it means to be the different parts of the whole body of Christ. We were and are one community, united in our identity as beloved children of God. It was such a blessing to be home.

One idea that keeps coming to me over and over again this summer is that God truly knows me by name. God’s spirit of inclusion and belonging has always called to me, has always been a dimension of God that I relate to, live through, most. The realization time and time again while at La Foret that God sees me, God knows me, God loves me intimately and vulnerably, enough so to know me individually by name, was such a special moment of the week. The campers made me feel like a missing puzzle piece to their community, like someone who was meant to be there and truly belonged. From the moment I stepped out of the car I knew I was unapologetically welcomed into that community, and there was rarely a moment where that welcome, where that inclusion, where that belonging was questioned. It felt so good, so cup filling, to be welcomed exactly as I was. It was such a blessing to be home.

It was a week I wouldn’t trade for any other. Thank you La Foret. It was such a blessing to be home.

The Retreat at Silver Springs

Hello again DPF party people! Week one of camp is in the books and oh my goodness let me tell you all it was an unbelievably incredible first week. I truly don’t think I could have asked for a more welcoming, fun, and spirit-filled camp for my first week than the CYF crew at the Retreat at Silver Springs in the Florida region. 

From the moment I stepped on the camp grounds, I knew I was entering sacred space. Walking around the camp, trying to get myself oriented and moved in, I could immediately sense God’s presence. It had been 5 years since I had been at a weeklong camp, and even after all that time away, the power of God's presence caught right back up with me. Every night, I wrote down one way I experienced God’s presence during that day: my daily God moment. It became a way to anchor my bursting connection with God throughout the week, and to remind me of all the ways God not only works in and through me, but those around me as well. I could feel the Holy Spirit wash over me as I was pounded by rain in my canoe, hear God’s voice through the laughter of the youth playing 500 in the pool, hear Jesus’s voice through the youth wanting to continue conversations about Christian queer inclusion, and realize that God really does know me by name while singing during worship. Getting to help the youth in my small group craft thoughtful prayers for our worship, or create skits to help make the daily scripture more accessible and relatable showed me the power I have to be a faith mentor. Hearing the undeniable wisdom these youth have about their faith, about the open nature of the table, about the ways they connect with God showed me how they can be my faith mentors too. God was moving, breathing, and living through that holy ground!

Not being at camp for so long, I think I forgot about what makes camp such an important, life giving, and sacred space. My week at the Retreat was the reminder I needed of exactly why camp defined my younger years and guided my early relationship with God. I could see the kids literally coming more alive and more into themselves as the week progressed. Camp was always the place where I felt most comfortable, most safe, most welcomed to be my true self and to show a more vulnerable side of myself. Seeing the youth at the Retreat open up over the course of the week reminded me of the importance of having my own space in my young life to truly explore who I was and show sides of myself I usually kept hidden. This week was a necessary reminder for me of the quintessential magic of camp. I think I needed camp just as much as camp needed me this week, and thank God for that!

The week was also filled with so much fun! I had so much fun becoming a part of their camp community, and oh boy did the Retreat welcome me with unapologetic and open arms. I cannot even count the amount of times I almost collapsed from laughing so hard with my campers and fellow counselors. I got to participate in the last night talent show, play some pickup basketball and get humbled by high school boys, cotton-eye-joe my little heart out at the all camp dance, canoe down the silver spring river in the pouring rain, remix the daily scripture to the tune of Baby by Justin Bieber, embrace my inner mermaid with the girls in the pool, and get absolutely SOAKED during the all camp water balloon fight. It was rare over my time at the Retreat for anyone to see me without a radiant and genuine smile stretched all across my face. My week at camp was an embodiment of endless joy!

While all of these other incredible elements of camp made my week so amazing, having the chance to lead my workshops with the youth was the undeniable highlight. The youth were so open and excited to participate in my workshops. I had the pleasure of sharing 3 workshops with this camp; one centered around Queer justice and Christianity, one centered around Christian Nationalism, and one centered around finding our safe places. They were all amazing experiences for me to try out the justice work the Peace Internship challenges me to engage in, but my queer justice and Christianity workshop was where I felt the most impact and change working through my time with the campers. I got to do that particular workshop with each and every camper at the Retreat at Silver Springs. Having conversations about what it means to be queer and what LGBTQIA+ identity means opened up the minds of some campers to new perspectives. Hearing how Christian motivated anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation had impacted the lives of campers in Florida made the topic of my workshop all the more real. Getting to go through the first Genesis creation story and explore a new interpretation that lends to a Christian call to radical inclusion of our genderqueer siblings was so incredible to witness. Campers wanted to talk more about it with me after our workshop time finished. They wanted to tell me how they were going to share this inclusive scriptural lens with their queer friends and family members because they were simply so excited to have a new way of looking at the Bible that was affirming and radically inclusive. They wanted to share this different interpretation with their family and have conversations about queer identity through a Christian lens outside of camp. I could see them getting excited about the realization that their call to queer inclusion could be something God was calling them to as well. It was such a beautiful and wonderful experience to walk that path of justice and inclusion with these campers and to show them how we as Christians are called to include and love our queer siblings through my workshop.

I feel like before this week, I only knew the tip of the iceberg regarding the transformative nature of the Peace Intern program, but the experiences and conversations I had with the youth through my workshop truly showed me how critical this program is to empower youth to be change makers. 

While I can’t share my entire workshop with you over a blog post, I invite you all to listen to the song I use to close my groups in prayer each session so you too can feel a fraction of the way the spirit is moving in and through the youth at the Retreat. The song is called Plowshare Prayer, and it is by a non-binary artist named Spencer LaJoye. 


Thank you all for your continued prayers, and for being willing to come on this journey with me and read about the ways I am being called to bring God’s Kindom of justice, peace, and inclusion to the holy grounds of camp.

Blessings and see you next week,
Ella Johnson

How is faith like boxing?

“How is faith like boxing?”

It’s not a trick question, there is an answer.

When I started leading this workshop with the youth at my first camp of the summer they said, "Because of the fighting. Because you have to fight for the Lord."

I asked if that was the only way.

They paused before shrugging.

So I wondered what another name for God was. Someone said "breath" and then I asked again "How is faith like boxing?"

They stared and I chuckled. Then I placed them them in the proper stances for boxing (Did I mention that I study kickboxing?). The proper stance is the opposite leg of your dominant hand in front, with that same arm raised to your face for protection. The other hand is by your chin with the fingers balled slowly and sealed with your thumb over the fist. (Always put your thumb on the outside) The back leg pivots on the balls of your feet. That's where the power comes from, the technique.

Once they were all set I took my place in front of them. Asking "When you throw a punch what do you do?" There are pauses as they worked through a few air punches. I answer "You breathe.” And then I ask the originial question again, so how is faith like boxing?"

"Breathing?" They question.

“Yes!” I respond. Your faith is like boxing in the way that it relies on you. Expanding and decompressing as you will it. Faith is like boxing in the way that it can be carried with you and wielded by you to harm, protect, heal, and empower. With every throw you release an intention. Faith is like boxing in that way — what you put out is the intention. It's where the power comes from the technique. 

I promised my group of youth that I would shout them out for helping me work out this mini worksop. So thank you to the small groups at Camp Walter Scott. If the revolution is not communal we did or are doing something wrong.

What's going on

2025 Peace Intern Chrys, Ella, and Ruthie having lunch with DHM President Chris Dorsey and Children’s Worship, Wonder, and Welcome Director (and former Peace Intern!) Laura Phillips

~Picket lines and picket signs,
Don't punish me with brutality
Talk to me~

Hi. My name is Chrys. I’m a Peace and justice intern for 2025, and I have written and rewritten that line for several days. I’m a writer at heart, a poet originally, so you would think catchy open lines were natural to me, but they aren’t. I tend to write the body of poems first, the punches, as one of my poetry slam friends calls them, “I’m not the descendant of the witches you couldn't burn, I'm the answered prayers of the ones you did.” or “what is black in America if not the constant fight to be seen, to laugh, to dance”. To write for me is to explain the beautiful tension of being black in America. And that often needs more words to encompass the epic that is tragic, beautiful, sorrowful, hopeful, joyous, and so on and so on. But during training week we learned spiritual practices to take with us as we embark on this long journey. One of them was writing haikus. It was introduced to us as, “The beautiful thing about haikus is that you have to strip back everything to just the core of what you have to say. And sometimes that means people won’t get it all” So that was a long introduction to say this. 

Hi, my name is Chrys. I’m a peace and justice intern for 2025. My workshop is about reconciliation. It's called “How to plan a block party.”  Reconciliation ministry to me is just a double score word for inviting the people we have excluded back to the table. Here are some Haiku prayers I wrote for and from the block.

Peace be still go far 
Through night,restless storm 
Peace be still go far 

~~~

I’m sorry your first swim 
Was with death,and freedom floats 
Swim in still waters 

~~~

Divine lives outside 
Where breathe is green, bodies morph 
Divinity Shines 

~~~~

Live gently on the earth
With loving mother,father
Love their earth gently 

~~~~

From fallen bodies 
Grounds be sanctified for peace 
Walk humbly through 

~~~~

More than human world 
Mother tree breathe on us for
those more  than human

Introductions and Training Week Reflections from Ella Johnson

2025 DPF Peace Interns (Ella, Chrys, and Ruthie) with Peace Intern Chaplain Rev. Sarah Zuniga and DPF Mission Director Rev. Brian Frederick-Gray

Hello beloved Disciples Peace Fellowship community! What an amazing and incredible week it has been doing all things Peace Intern training in Indianapolis. Throughout all of my waiting, dreaming, and preparing to be a Peace Intern, I still was not fully ready for the truly transformative nature of this program.

I cannot begin to tell you all what a blessing and honor it is to participate in this program, and how thankful I am to be entrusted to carry out the 50 year legacy of DPF. I was so excited when I got the phone call from Brian congratulating me on being accepted as one of the 2025 Peace Interns. I knew that this was a ministry God was waiting and ready for me to be a part of. Before I get into the amazing-ness that was training week, I want to tell you all about my journey to becoming a Peace Intern.

I went to camp every summer I could growing up. My family joined Heart of the Rockies Christian Church in Fort Collins and the larger Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) denomination when I was in elementary school, and I built up the courage to start attending camp in 7th grade. From that first summer camp onwards, I would count down the days until I could be at camp again. Camp was the place in my life where I felt most deeply connected to my faith. It was the place where I felt safest to be myself and show my full self to the world. It was the space where I was challenged to dig deeper in my faith and truly explore my relationship with God. It was my favorite week of the summer. It was sacred community; holy ground.

When I was in high school, Daniel Lyvers, a former Peace Intern and overall AMAZING human being, was my youth minister. Before meeting Daniel, I had no idea what the Peace Intern program was. I had an irreplaceable relationship with camp, but didn’t know about the ways DPF was creating opportunities to explore and create peace and justice in camps through the Peace Interns. Daniel introduced me to the Peace Intern program by sharing his own story and experiences, and from that moment forward, I quite literally counted down the summers until I was old enough to apply and participate in the program. This is an opportunity I have been called to for a long time, and one I knew God had in store for me.

My junior year of high school, my summer camp had our first Peace Intern, Courtney Sells. Interacting and building relationships with Courtney over the course of the week once again reminded me of the beautiful ways we work to bring God’s Kindom to the here and now through lives of peace and justice. I remember so vividly the workshop Courtney led with my camp that summer. She was educating us about the LGBTQIA+ community by leading an LGBTQ 101 workshop. That workshop was the first concrete time I had heard queerness and queer identity discussed in such an open and positive way in a church setting, and was foundational and life-giving for me as a young queer Christian trying to figure out the relationship between my faith and queerness. Seeing Courtney so fearlessly talk about inclusion and love of the LGBTQIA+ community, and how we are called to frame this inclusion and love through our Christian faith and following of Christ exemplified for the first time that my Christian and queer identities could not only co-exist, but also grow in and through each other. I have been a passionate advocate for LGBTQIA+ inclusion  for a long time and I frame this advocacy through my faith, and Courtney’s workshop was a much needed personal introduction into the peace and justice work of queer inclusion.

My experiences at camp growing up, with Courtney, with Daniel, and with so many other mentors and faith, peace, and justice in my young adult life led me to this summer, this moment, being able to do THE work as a Peace Intern!

I found the spirit working in and around me in so many ways this past week through our training. During training week, I built foundations for deep, vulnerable, goofy, loving relationships with my fellow Peace Interns Chrys and Ruthie. We shared sacred time laughing until there was literally no more breath left in our lungs, challenging each other to ask hard questions of ourselves and our presenters, sitting around the kitchen table sharing meals, singing together while cleaning up our dinners, and every other moment in between. I know that the camps, groups, and churches Ruthie and Chrys serve are incredibly lucky to have the 2 of them, and I am blessed to have 2 more partners in ministry with whom I can be my full self, ask my hard questions, and grow in my faith.

I did not realize how disconnected I felt from the national church before training week, and am so grateful for the chance to be reconnected with the larger bodies of my denomination through this work.  All of the partners we had the privilege of sharing time with gave me so much hope and excitement for the future of our denomination and gave me a sense of connection to the larger church I didn’t fully realize I was missing. So thank you to each and every one of our presenters and partners for making this summer so incredible after only 1 week in!

Training reminded me of my need to be immersed so deeply again in the deep rooted justice work my faith and following of Jesus calls me to. Hearing from all our presenters, engaging in deep conversations with Brian and my fellow Peace Interns, and just being challenged to explore my own faith identity and convictions on a deeper level help me once again see that the social justice work Jesus fought for in his ministry and the Kindom of peace and justice God seeks to bring to this world is an integral part of my work on this earth. I cannot be a Christian in the way God calls me to be without engaging in this life giving work, and I am so thankful to the training week experience for reminding me of the pertinence of that conviction.

I cannot WAIT to check in with you all again as I begin my summer ministry of sharing this good news with camps, groups, and congregations! My first stop is the Retreat at Silver Springs, a DOC camp in the Florida Region, where I will be doing my Peace Intern thing at their CYF camp and conference.

Blessings,
Ella Johnson