Aim4Peace reaches out through community recreational events.

Bringing Peace to the "Least of These"

On November 20, 2008, Michael Gant was murdered in the inner core of Kansas City, Missouri. Aim4Peace staff members from the Community Mediation Center (CMC) quickly told the neighborhood of a vigil scheduled the following evening for the young man.

As a group of about twenty gathered that cold November night, a young woman came without shoes or sweater and asked to join our circle of prayer. Afterward she told us, “I miss Michael. He was my friend. He died in my arms.”

We asked if she would like us to pray for her, as well. Don Ivans, Kris Judd, and Marti Resch surrounded her, and Kris said a special prayer of comfort. The woman returned to her home less broken. She touched our hearts.

Kansas City owns one of the highest homicide rates in the US. Aim4Peace wants to reduce violence and create safer neighborhoods. The group works to support people active in their community and to connect residents to basic services.

CMC was selected to join Neighborhood Action Teams and was paired with another agency, the Somali Foundation. The group was assigned to a 120-square-block neighborhood that includes Community of Christ’s Norton Heights congregation.

We work to build an anti-violence culture, decrease social problems that lead to violence, reduce community risk, and create healthier ways for the community to resolve conflicts. The primary causes of homicides are arguments, and a gap exists in skills to settle conflicts by means other than a gun.

So we meet with drug dealers, prostitutes, gang members, the homeless. We meet neighbors, families, teens without parents, tenants of rundown housing. We meet the business owners to learn of their fears and hopes.

We quickly realized that our team needed to be larger. CMC went to the Tangible Love Fund for a grant to help employ two young adults to work with teens. Scott Blair and Nikki Anderson are reaching the lives of young people, They tutor at-risk teens, help with the Norton Heights youth group, hold neighborhood cleanups, and aid community recreational events.

CMC’s program leaders are Ivans and Resch, incredible ministers with years of experience. Resch sees Aim4Peace as an extension of caring for people right where they are, giving voice to those who have no voice. Ivans learned from exposure to gang members that “We all just want to be loved.”
Those in this ministry have felt God’s Spirit and love as they take food, coats, gloves, toiletry bags, a listening ear, and compassion to people who are among the “least of these.”

—Diane Kyser reporting