Planting Peace in Our Own Backyard
FFWPU-USA
“Here at the Taqwa Community Farm, I feel that I’m in a holy place,” said Rev. Miilhan Stephens, the national vice president of Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU). “I feel more in touch with the Creation; and amidst all of the things going on in this city—and even in the world—we’re here to really start with ourselves and the kind of peace that we can make by bridging our cultures… It starts with us in our own backyard.”
The Peace Road USA 2021 campaign, “Drawing Nations and People Together as Neighbors,” took off in two major cities Wednesday with groups of Unificationists biking for peace in Washington, D.C., and volunteering at a Bronx community garden in New York City.
Rev. Stephens led the service project where a number of people joined the effort to clean up and tend to Taqwa Community Farm, a half-acre park and garden in the Highbridge neighborhood of the Bronx. Taqwa, an Islamic term, means “piety” and “fear of God,” and those who practice taqwa are described in sacred texts as believers who work in obedience to God.
“Right now we’re thinking of all the families in Afghanistan,” said Rev. Stephens, referring to the recent government collapse and takeover of Kabul, the Afghan capital, by the Taliban. “We’re inviting the community to come together with our [Unificationist] community here to put our hands in the soil and work together picking fruit, weeding, and clearing all of the hedges… It takes a lot of creativity to make peace happen, but I believe our Peace Road projects are a great start.”
The group spent several hours clearing overgrowth and picking produce, such as apples and pears, before reconvening at nearby Joyce Kilmer Park the next day to share inspiring messages of hope and peace.
“I feel a breath of fresh air being here in nature,” said Jonte Crawford, a young volunteer and Unificationist from California who helped fill barrels of fruit. “It’s so refreshing and I’m grateful that we can offer this service project to the community; I feel a lot of fulfillment in that.”
“It’s been a very rich experience,” said organizer Maria Vargas of the Universal Peace Federation (UPF), New York chapter.
Peace Road is a project of UPF, a nonprofit founded by Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon and her late husband, the Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon. This year’s campaign—which began earlier this month in Chicago and Alaska, as well as online with a special webinar highlighting Peace Road’s flagship undersea tunnel project—includes biking, walking, and driving tours for peace that take place annually worldwide.
Now active in 125 countries, Peace Road has united hundreds of thousands of peace advocates from all backgrounds. “As soon as I stepped through the gates [of the community garden], I could feel the energy was different from outside of what you see around New York City,” said one young man, who joined the Peace Road volunteers after observing the group. “I’m from New Jersey and can say it’s few and far between to see people coming together like this… There’s so much we see around the world that gives us a reason to be sad and down, but this [service project] is how we heal the hurt around the world. God wants us to be selfless and care.”
Bishop Angelo Rosario, CEO of the Bronx Clergy Task Force and a member of the American Clergy Leadership Conference (ACLC), was among various leaders who shared encouraging remarks before a crowd at the park. “We all speak the same language in humanity, and that is the language of love,” he said. “It’s not an emotion; love is a relationship with our neighbors.”
In Washington, D.C., more peacemakers came together on the streets of the nation’s capital. Dozens of bicyclists, escorted by police, rode more than four miles to the US Capitol grounds after a special Peace Road presentation by UPF leaders. The 2021 campaign continues in Pine Bluff, Ark., next week and concludes in Canada on September 19.
You can learn more and follow Peace Road’s journey here.
