The picture is of Zoe Guasa and myself. We are both advocates and do workshops for leaders and communities on Love Your Enemy (LYE). The setting is a remote village that has some great LYE stories.
Did you every have an enemy who later became a good friend? Did you every have a very good friend who later became an enemy? Did you struggle to understand why?
I can think of a friend and colleague whom I worked with closely for 4 years. When I moved to a new and smaller city, I invited them to come. They felt the larger city they lived in a better choice for our work as it had access to money and larger organizations. I wanted the smaller city as it had strategic access to other countries and our target demographic. This friend became deeply upset at me for moving because my vision no longer aligned to their own. They were so upset that they took part in plots to send scores of people to jail. It shocked me. This person also deeply divided some ethnic church communities for years.
Not all problems with enemies get resolved, sometimes the divide seems an unresolvable mystery. Mystery or not, the posture of our hearts towards these people is still critical for our own journey. If you have an enemy you are dealing with, I encourage your to read my new book, Love Your Enemy: A 30-Day Guide to Compelling Expressions of Faith. @ https://amzn.to/358Iv62.
A new school building lies in the backdrop. This is a conflict prone and remote community in Mindanao.