Jambo Youth Issue 52

Peaceful Prayers Let there be peace in the world. Let us all see peace and not war. Let us all have peace in the world. Let all our statesmen know no violence, Let all love peace with warm vehemence, Let all be clothed with passionate patience, Let all respect peace with real reverence. Let peace pervade every political terrain, Let peace calm the spirits of every domain, Let peace be at peace with every reign, Let each achieve peace with poor pain. Peace, to you we plead: come to us. Peace, we entreat you: deign on us. Peace, we want you: envelope us. Let our homes be adorned with peace, Let our streets be paved with peace, Let our cities be set on a hilltop of peace. Let peace taint our every thought. Let there be peace, let peace never cease Let there be peace, let war forever cease.

Don Bosco Utume • •

Jambo You(th) is a weekly news letter aimed at helping the Youth in moulding their daily lives in Christ. Our vision is expressed in just two phrases: GOOD CHRISTIANS and RESPONSIBLE CITIZENS.

Features

Pep-up To the Young Peace Saint of the Week Poem Last Drop

: Stories for Reflection : Love for Enemies : In Many Languages : St. John Bosco : Peaceful Prayer : Peace

Unnecessary Battle Jude Ogunade

Last Drop We will not build a peaceful world by following a negative path. It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but on the positive affirmation of peace. We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody, that is far superior to the discords of war. Somehow, we must transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race, which no one can win, to a positive contest to harness humanity's creative genius for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all the nations of the world. In short, we must shift the arms race into a peace race. If we have a will - and determination - to mount such a peace offensive, we will unlock hitherto tightly sealed doors of hope and transform our imminent cosmic elegy into a psalm of creative fulfillment. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) NB: Send your questions, comments or feedback to [email protected] For further information and back issues of Jambo You(th) please check on our website: www.jamboyouth.multiply.com For Jambo You(th) in PDF log on to www.esnips.com/web/JamboYouth

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January 27, Sunday: Issue 52

Jambo You(th) 2008

On March 10, 1974, Lt. Hiroo Onada was the last World War II Japanese soldier to surrender. Onada had been left on the island Lubang in the Philippines on December 25, 1944, with the command to "carry on the mission even if Japan surrenders." Four other Japanese soldiers were left on the island as Japan evacuated Lubang. One soldier surrendered in 1950. Another was killed in a skirmish with local police in 1954. Another was killed in 1972. Onada continued his war alone. All efforts to convince him to surrender or to capture him failed. He ignored messages from loudspeakers announcing Japan's surrender and that Japan was now an ally of the United States. Leaflets were dropped over the jungle begging him to surrender so he could return to Japan. He refused to believe or surrender. Over the years he lived off the land and raided the fields and gardens of local citizens. He was responsible for killing at least 30 nationals during his 29-year personal war. Almost a half million dollars was spent trying to locate and convince him to surrender. Thirteen thousand men were used to try to locate him. Finally, on March 10, 1974, almost 30 years after World War II ended, Onada surrendered his rusty sword after receiving a personal command from his former superior officer, who read the terms of the cease-fire order. Onada handed his sword to President Marcos, who pardoned him. The war was over. Onada was 22 years old when left on the island. He returned a prematurely aged man of 52. Onada stated, "Nothing pleasant happened in the 29 years in the jungle." Like Onada, many people are fighting a lonely battle against the God who is offering reconciliation and peace.

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Jambo You(th) 2008 Editors: Anastasio Sdb & Shyjan Sdb

‘Peace’ in Many Languages

Love for Enemies World War II was drawing to a close. The German army was sending children to man the lines in a futile effort to stop the Allied invasion into their homeland. It was March 1945. Dr. Karl H. Schlesier, a German soldier, remembers this time: I was . . . in a battalion of teenage grenadiers fresh out of training [and] was sent into the front line east of the Rhine River after American forces had established a foothold on the east bank. Fresh American units were pushed across, and our battalion was ordered to plug a hole in the front line. We dug in three companies abreast on a slight rise in front of the little town of Kirchhellen. I was with the 1st Company in the center of the position. My company . . . numbered about 80 teenagers. In bitter fighting American troops pushed through on both sides but got stuck in front of my company. About 17 or 18 of us were left. . . . We huddled in two-man foxholes. On the morning of March 28, amid smoldering tanks and twisted bodies, there suddenly came an eerie silence. "I looked over the hole I shared with a buddy and saw no life but a movement in the busted roof of a farmhouse about 200 yards away," Schlesier said. Feeling sudden panic, Schlesier stood up in his foxhole and fired four rapid shots at nothing in particular. The eerie silence was broken by a single voice. A lone American soldier had walked . . . calmly toward the entrenched Germans, saying in a calm and low voice, "Come on out. Come on out." [Schlesier remembers:] . . . The American soldier had two machine guns trained on him, and we were sure he knew this, but he just kept on coming. To have shot him would have seemed like murder because he was not a threat. He just wanted us to give up. [Schlesier's] foxhole happened to be directly in the path of the approaching American soldier, so Schlesier and his buddy were the first to confront him. He was startled to see that the soldier was an American Indian. He had the classic face of an Indian, and it was not threatening to the German soldiers. The German soldiers did as he said. They dropped their weapons and took off their helmets, tossing them back into the foxhole. The Indian soldier . . . told them to put their hands over their heads. Then he turned and walked toward the American lines without looking back as the German soldiers followed. Schlesier was overwhelmed. "He must have been the most reasonable man, the most perceptive, the most understanding, and by far the most brave. We had not expected to live, and he must have seen how idiotic this wall was, and he acted on his own to save us, risking his life in the process." Later in the prisoner-of-war camp we talked about him. If he had not come to get us, we would have died in our foxholes. His action was a personal one. He was not ordered to do what he did. . . . I owe him my life and have lived it.

Tim Giago

There is no way to peace; peace is the way. A.J. Muste www.jamboyouth.multiply.com

Jambo You(th) 2008

Language

Text

Language

Text

Afrikaans

Vrede

Italian

Pace

Arabic

‫ﺳﻼم‬salām

Kikuyu

Thayu

Latin

Pax

Aramaic

‫ܐ‬

shlamaa

Chechen

Машар (mashar)

Lingala

Kímía

Corsican

Pace

Polish

Pokój

Coptic

Ϩιρηνη (hirīnī)

Portuguese

Paz

Luo

Kwe

Russian

Мир (mir)

Danish

Fred

Slovak

Mier

German

Friede, Frieden

Swahili

Amani, Salama

Greek

Ειρήνη (iríni)

Zulu

Ukuthula

Spanish

Paz

Hòa Bình, 和平

Persian

‫ﺻﻠﺢ‬solh

Vietnamese

Finnish

Rauha

French

Paix

Somali Oromo Hebrew

Nabáda Nagaya ‫(שלום‬shalom)

Hindi

शांित (śānti)

Malagasy

Fandriampahalemana

SAINT for the WEEK

January 31 St. John Bosco He was born in Northern Italy in 1815. He lost his father when he was two. He was ordained a priest of the Turin diocese in 1841 and found his true vocation among young boys in the city. In the poor district of Valdocco he founded an institute, a kind of pseudo-orphanage, which at first housed forty young men. Here he opened workshops to give training in trades: shoemaking and tailoring. By 1856 the number of inmates had grown to 150, with 500 others attached to dependencies served by ten priests. St .John Bosco's methods were somewhat similar to those of St Philip Neri in Rome some 300 years earlier: a deep spirituality, a charismatic personality, an appreciation of the need to provide recreation and fun to go alongside serious work and spiritual exercises. He also had the enviable ability to rein in rebellious teenagers by charitable persuasion rather than by ranting. In 1859 he formed what was to be the Salesian Order (named after St Francis de Sales) approved in 1874. He also founded the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians to care for the young girls. His motto was “Give me souls, take away the rest.” There are now thousands of Salesians world-wide, concentrating on the same pastoral and educational work as their founder. He was canonised in 1934.

Peace is the only battle worth waging. Albert Camus www.esnips.com/web/JamboYouth

Jambo You(th) 2008