Release Date: September 16th, 2026Peace Be With You
- by Jean Claude Nkundwa
A Small Lake, A Large Peace
One of my favourite summer experiences is leaving town with family and friends for a day at a small lake among the Gatineau hills. We gather around tables full of food, tell stories, and play in the water while a breeze moves across the lake and through the green forest. Sometimes elders, nearly one hundred years old, sit surrounded by children and grandchildren, sharing heroic stories that I never tire of hearing. My young daughter moves happily from person to person, receiving attention and offering her wide smile in return. In moments like these, I wish life could remain just as it is.
With the sky above and water moving gently around me, I feel both very small and deeply connected to something great.
Before we leave, my family often joins me for one last swim. Yet a few minutes before it is time to go, I sometimes stay in the water alone.
That habit comes from my life near Lake Tanganyika and, especially, Lake Kivu. When I swim far enough out that I cannot easily see the other side, I turn my face to the sky and become still. With the sky above and water moving gently around me, I feel both very small and deeply connected to something great. I feel joined to earth and sky at the same time. And somehow, in that vastness, I feel at home.
The first time I did this at Lake Bois Franc in Gatineau, my team members wondered whether I was all right because I had been still for so long. But I was. I was experiencing a connection with creation and with the Creator. My family and friends nearby seemed to represent the human family. The small lake felt like an ocean; the green hills helped me imagine the Amazon and the equatorial forest together. For a moment, this is moment when there is no room in my mind for danger, worry, or threat. That is a moment of peace.
Amahoro: A Blessing of Wholeness
“Peace be with you” is a familiar greeting in parts of East Africa and the Middle East. We hear Amahoro, Salaam, and Shalom. Sometimes peace is asked about as a question: How are things with you? Is your life well? The question makes room for an answer that may not be fully honest. We may say that all is well even when it is not.
Peace is never a simple word.
Because these words are so common, we can say them without considering their depth. Yet peace is never a simple word.
During school vacations, my aunt used to greet me with a long hug and wish me the good things valued in her context: many cows, many children, a respected family name, parents and friends, a stable home, and places to visit. Then she would conclude: Amahoro! Peace.
Her blessing meant for more than the absence of problems. It held belonging, security, family, friendship, provision, dignity, and hope. It was her prayer that my life would be sustained by good relationships in every dimension of life. At times, my aunt’s wishes can seem unattainable. Yet they reveal what peace truly is: not simply quietness, but wholeness; a life held together in right relationship with other people and with all needs satisfied.
Why Is Peace Resisted?
When I look at our world, I often wonder: Why is peace resisted?
Perhaps what we resist is not peace itself. What we resist is what peace requires.
For much of my life, I have worked in peacebuilding at community and policy levels in my place of origin and elsewhere in Africa, including with people involved in national and regional negotiations. I have seen that peace can be resisted even when its goodness appears obvious. Who would not want the calm I experience at Bois Franc in Gatineau? Who would not want fellowship with friends and family, with material and spiritual needs met? Who would not want the blessings my aunt named? Who would truly reject a web of harmonious relationships among people, the rest of creation, and the Creator?
Perhaps what we resist is not peace itself. What we resist is what peace requires.
The Cost of Peace
The tranquility we enjoy at Bois Franc did not appear by accident. Friends planned. They saved money over years. They found engineers, engaged stakeholders, prepared food, and offered emotional care so that people could gather and enjoy the place together. They gave much of themselves to make room for others. What looks, from the water, like effortless peace rests on commitment, sacrifice, cooperation, and patient work.
Peace is more than a beautiful feeling shared by people of goodwill.
That small example helps me think that Peace is more than a beautiful feeling shared by people of goodwill. It also requires the patient building and repairing of the conditions that allow people to live with dignity and security. It asks us to examine the relationships, decisions, and systems that distribute opportunity to some while withholding it from others. It requires us to make space at the table, to share responsibility, and to address the harms that keep people from flourishing.
This can fell like a threat because harmonious relationships can threaten those who benefit from harm, domination, division, or unfair power. Peace can also feel unfamiliar. Fear may convince us that there will not be enough resources, safety, respect, or opportunity for everyone. Differences of opinion and identity can harden into stereotypes and prejudice, especially when one group has the power to label another. The results are exclusion, poverty, and violence.
Peace calls for change within ourselves, in our relationships, and in the structures that create imbalance.
In this sense, peace is desired and resisted at the same time. We long for its fruit, but we fear the unknown path toward it. We may cling to what we know; even when it is unjust; because change asks something of us. Peace calls for change within ourselves, in our relationships, and in the structures that create imbalance. It calls us to listen carefully, speak honestly, repent where necessary, repair what has been damaged, and grow in mutual solidarity.
Still, peace is God’s ultimate promise. In Jesus, it is not only a wish; it is a gift declared during a broken world.
"Peace Be With You"
In John 20, the disciples are gathered behind locked doors. They are afraid. They are grieving, uncertain, and restricted by fear. Jesus does not wait for the danger to disappear before coming to them. He stands among them bearing the wounds of violence in his own body and says, “Peace be with you”.
It is the courage to receive peace as a gift, and then to become people who help make room for it in the lives of others.
When I share fellowship with church friends at Bois Franc, I glimpse more fully the peace my aunt wished for me. It is not simply the stillness of a lake, though I am grateful for that stillness. It is the assurance that God holds us together in a world of hardship and frightening events. It is the courage to receive peace as a gift, and then to become people who help make room for it in the lives of others.
Becoming People of Peace
May we receive this peace anew. May we resist the habits and powers that divide. May we become people who listen, repair, welcome, and seek our neighbours’ flourishing. And when fear closes the doors around us, may we hear Jesus standing among us, saying, “Peace be with you,” and find courage to accept the unknown but promised peace.
Peace be with you.
- Jean Claude Nkundwa is an MCEC Regional Minister