Palwasha L. Kakar told the audience of about 100 that her religious faith underpins all her efforts to empower women across the Islamic world. “In the field, it’s really faith that allows us to overcome obstacles,” she said in her May 6 speech, facilitated in part by the at ˛ÝÝŽÉçÇř.

Tailoring her message to the professional peacebuilders in her audience, Kakar outlined two projects under her purview as senior program officer for Religion and Peacebuilding at the : (1) mapping the religious sector of Libya and (2) promoting women’s rights within the Islamic constitutional framework of Afghanistan.

For the pacifist Christians present, however, the glimpse she provided of her background may have been even more interesting. Kakar’s undergraduate degree came from a sister Mennonite institution, Bethel College in Kansas.

Kakar rushed through highlights of her personal story to focus on the situations in Libya and Afghanistan. The following fleshed-out version of her history was culled from three Bethel College news articles, all pertaining to her 2014 selection as Bethel College’s Young Alumnus. The extracts are republished courtesy of Bethel’s writer, Melanie Zuercher.  — Bonnie Price Lofton

Daughter of culturally mixed marriage

Kakar’s mother grew up Mennonite in the Midwest. “When she married my father, she agreed to raise the children Muslim,” Kakar said. “When she was pregnant with me, the first child, she went to study Islam with a Muslim women’s group, and she decided to convert to Islam.”

Kakar was born in Seattle and spent her first 11 years there.

“When I was growing up, my mother was in medical school and my father was working on a PhD, and my Mennonite grandparents came to take care of me. My grandmother would take me to Friday prayers [at the mosque] and stay to listen to the sermon. On Sunday, she would take me to church, so I grew up also hearing Mennonite hymns.”

In 1989, the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan after a 10-year occupation. “My parents were eager to go back to Afghanistan. However, because of the ongoing war and conflict, we only got as far as Peshawar, where I met my extended family in a refugee camp.

“I quickly noticed that of all the girl cousins, I was the only one going to school. Their families, especially my uncles, wouldn’t let them go. I would get into conversations with my uncles – which pushed me to understand their very traditional mentality.

Changing through faith-based conversations

“Through this kind of discussion, I found what could really convince them was that, in Islam, it is not only girls’ right, it’s their obligation, to be educated. Along with my parents, I was able to convince my uncles to allow their daughters to go to school.

“Now one of my cousins is a teacher, one is in medical school and others are continuing their education. I realized the importance of talking at the level people are at, and how important faith is in helping people think differently.

“We hear from the IMF and the World Bank how women’s education is connected to the economic strength and health of a country. In places like Afghanistan and Libya, it’s important to get this information out, but also to frame it in the context of religion.”

When Kakar came to Bethel, she was leaving a “very conservative” Muslim context and coming to the Mennonite one of her [maternal] grandparents, Ruth and Erwen Graber.

“In both, faith was very important,” Kakar said. “It was the lens through which to view the world.”

The lens of conflict resolution

She continued, “At Bethel, I took classes in conflict resolution and mediation with a goal of educating other societies, especially in Pakistan and Afghanistan, on women’s rights, and of understanding gender and Islam from a perspective that would help expand women’s rights in Muslim countries and societies.”

Kakar has always felt strongly that “it was important to work carefully from within the context, the framework – not push an ideology [such as ‘global human rights’] from outside.”

Many non-governmental organizations shied away from any kind of faith-based development work, she said, but her experience told her that in conservative Islamic societies, the only agenda that would work was a religious one.

At the Asia Foundation, with which she spent most of the last decade in a variety of roles, she found one NGO willing to say, “It’s OK to work in a religious framework, it’s good to work with religious leaders,” she said.

Among the many things she did was organize tours for religious leaders from Afghanistan to see how leaders in other Islamic societies – such as Turkey, Malaysia and India – worked on community issues, especially related to gender.

“Women and men went on separate tours,” she said, “but when they came back, we asked them to reflect on their experience together. It was an experiment” – one that became as important a lesson to the men about the gifts of educated, articulate women as the tours themselves.

“All these bearded men were nodding their heads, saying, ‘Yes, we agree with you, sister.’ There was suddenly no Us and Them. They all had the same cause. That was amazing to see.”

Community-based discussions

Another project Kakar worked on was organizing community discussion groups, which she based upon faith discussions she’s experienced at Bethel.

She took that idea about “safe space” into creating a place where men, in particular – the religious leaders and community elders – could experience “an internal process led by faith.”

The discussions in the community groups centered on women’s rights within Islam, Kakar said, “illustrated with personal experiences, stories and case studies. These became places where some things began to be resolved, where a woman’s rights were protected” – for example, land inheritance or the choice not to marry.

“Religious leaders told us that when we began the groups, they were hesitant to talk about domestic violence and other issues openly within the community. Hearing the experiences of leaders when they did speak out helped other leaders gain the courage to speak that they hadn’t had before.”

The community discussion groups would not have succeeded, Kakar said, “without the acceptance of it being all right to approach situations from a faith basis, [a value] I attribute to my Bethel education and to the Asia Foundation being open to this approach.”

New openness to faith-based work

As other NGOs observed the success of the groups, they began asking for the material to use in their own work.

“Now the tide is changing,” Kakar said. “There is much more openness to using a faith-based approach and to work with religious leaders to change attitudes toward women and their rights.”

Kakar did her undergraduate work in global studies, and Bible and religion, graduating from Bethel in 1999. Her first job was director of the Newton Area Peace Center, which is now Peace Connections.

After earning a certificate in intensive Arabic-language study at Zarka (Jordan) Private University, Kakar began graduate studies at Harvard University, completing a master’s degree in 2004 in theological studies, focused on gender, religion and politics.

Kakar is fluent in Pashto and English, proficient in Dari, and has basic knowledge of Urdu and Arabic. She has written extensively on women’s rights in Afghanistan and Iran.

That’s according to Dr. Lisa Schirch, an professor who has spent considerable time with Iraqis and Afghans—both in America and their countries—and with U.S. military leaders, whom she says are now telling Congress that it must rethink what security looks like.

Schirch returned to her hometown Jan. 25 to deliver ‘s annual Keeney Peace Lecture on “Building Security from the Ground Up: How a Mennonite works with the U.S. military and Iraqi and Afghan community leaders to rethink U.S. strategy.”

The professor of peacebuilding at EMU is also executive director of the 3D (Development, Diplomacy, Defense) Security Initiative at its graduate Center for Justice & Peacebuilding. For the last several years, she has been inviting military officials to campus to meet with Iraqi and Afghan students—who have also traveled to Washington, D.C., with her to suggest to lawmakers how the U.S. could better relate to their respective nations.

Suggesting that a map of the world’s worst violence corresponds with a map of its greatest poverty and inequality, Schirch cited a 2002 Bush Administration National Security Strategy: “Including all of the world’s poor in an expanding circle of development—and opportunity—is a moral imperative and one of the top priorities of U.S. international policy.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the Joint Chiefs of Staff have expressed support for more diplomacy and attention to causes of global instability, she said, noting that more people currently play in Army bands than serve as diplomats in the U.S. Foreign Service.

But funding is an ongoing issue, added Schirch, a former Fulbright Fellow in Africa who has worked in more than 20 nations and written several books on conflict prevention and peacebuilding. While 60 cents of every American tax dollar are allocated to the military, only half a penny goes toward development projects, such as, for example, schools that could give children a non-extremist education, she said. And the development budget, she pointed out, is in danger of being cut.

“Security doesn’t land in a helicopter,” Schirch said, quoting an Iraqi saying, “it grows from the ground up.” It requires the efforts of both government and civil society, she maintained, reminding her listeners that U.S. government policy in Iraq and Afghanistan has focused almost exclusively on building a state that, in each case, has been corrupt and disliked by its citizens.

In Afghanistan, where civil society is caught in the middle of two unpopular alternatives—the government and the Taliban—thousands of community leaders are working for peace, largely unbeknownst to Americans, according to Schirch. Many Afghans came to the U.S. about 20 years ago to study peacebuilding and, after earning their degrees, returned home to practice their skills at the community level. There, they continue talking to insurgents and Taliban supporters about entering into a peace process, she explained.

One leading Afghan activist, Suraya Sadeed, is pursuing a master’s degree at EMU, noted Schirch, who holds her master’s and Ph.D. in conflict analysis and resolution from George Mason University. She said Sadeed has been building girls’ schools in her native land for 30 years and, after the Taliban rose to power in the 1990s, she did so with their consent after negotiating with their leaders.

A Mennonite who said she considers herself a pacifist, Schirch started attending military conferences in 2007, about the same time she began inviting its representatives to meet Iraqi and Afghan students at EMU. How a pacifist can spend so much time with military officials is a recurring question, she acknowledged. But finding common ground with those you don’t agree with is a key principle of active Mennonite peacebuilding, or “practical pacifism,” she asserted, and that is why she can stand with the military and argue for a changed security strategy.

The Keeney Peace Lectureship was established in 1978 by the family of William Sr. and Kathryn Keeney to express appreciation for Bluffton’s influence and to strengthen the continuing peace witness among the community.

About 150 friends and family members turned out Saturday night, Aug. 14, to honor the memory of Glen Lapp, the aid worker from Lancaster who was killed Aug. 5 in Afghanistan.

Community Mennonite Church of Lancaster held a visitation for Lapp, who was killed along with nine other workers while returning from a trip to provide eye care to villagers in northern Afghanistan.

The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the killings.

Read more on .

When Lisa Schirch was in Afghanistan a few weeks ago, she turned to a friend and fellow Mennonite to show her around the war-torn capital, Kabul.

Glen Lapp in Afghanistan (photo courtesy of Lisa Schirch)

Glen Lapp, a nurse, was the only other Mennonite she knew in Kabul, but they had more in common than a faith. They both shared a desire to help Afghans make their country a better, more peaceful place.

What Schirch could not have known at the time was that it would be the last time she would see her friend, a 1991 ˛ÝÝŽÉçÇř graduate.

Lapp’s life was cut short on Friday, when he and nine other aid workers with a Christian charity were gunned down in northern Afghanistan, according to published reports and the Mennonite Central Committee, one of the nonprofit organizations for which Lapp worked.

“It’s devastating,” said Schirch, an EMU professor who teaches peacebuilding in the Valley and in Afghanistan. “He knew he was taking a risk and he was very willing to do that. I think he died doing what he believed in and he was willing to take that risk. He was helping a lot of people.”

Attack from Taliban?

Lapp, 40, of Lancaster, Penn., along with five other Americans, a German, a Briton and four Afghans, were found shot in Badakhshan province, known as a relatively peaceful area of Afghanistan.

Although the Taliban claimed responsibility, police say they are also looking into robbery as a possible motive. Schirch and others with MCC cast doubt as to whether the Taliban actually carried out the attack, one of the deadliest on civilian aid workers since the war began in 2001.

Lapp and his team were returning to Kabul from a trip to northern Afghanistan with International Assistance Mission, an MCC partner agency that provides eye care and other medical assistance. Lapp was an executive assistant with IAM and manager of its provincial ophthalmic program, according to a statement from MCC.

Luke Schrock-Hurst, a staff member at the committee’s Harrisonburg office, said Lapp had been in Afghanistan for nearly two years and was set to return to the U.S. in October. Lapp, whose family is from Lancaster, Penn., was not married and had no children, Schrock-Hurst said.

Attacks on aid workers in Afghanistan and other war zones are relatively rare. Lapp is just the third MCC worker to die due to hostile action in the organization’s 90-year history.

“There’s been thousands of us in war zones,” Schrock-Hurst said. “I’ve been [in such zones] myself.”

Being ‘A Presence’

Loren Swartzendruber, EMU president, said the university is grieving over Lapp’s death, along with his family and MCC.

Watch video:

“As with many of our alumni around the world, Glen was fulfilling EMU’s mission of serving and leading in a global context, which often involves great personal sacrifice,” Swartzendruber said in a statement.

Schirch, who plans to return to Afghanistan in October, described her friend as compassionate, humble and “devoted to using his life to serve others.”

Lapp’s perspective on his work was recorded in a report he recently filed.

“Where I was [Afghanistan], the main thing that expats can do is to be a presence in the country,” he wrote. “Treating people with respect and with love and trying to be a little bit of Christ in this part of the world.”

As of Sunday evening, information about funeral arrangements or local memorials was not available.

Updated August 12, 2010

Jump to memorial service information

An EMU graduate working for Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in Afghanistan, Glen D. Lapp of Lancaster, Pa., was murdered during a shooting incident in Afghanistan’s northeastern Badakhshan province.

According to an , Lapp, 40, was traveling with a medical team of four Afghans, six Americans, one Briton and one German. All, including Lapp, worked with MCC partner organization , a charity providing eye care and medical help in Afghanistan.

Local police found 10 bodies on Friday next to abandoned vehicles and said robbery might have been the motive. The Taliban has said it is behind the attack, according to the MCC release.

Lapp a 1991 EMU graduate

IAM, which has worked in the country since 1966, regularly dispatched “eye camp” medical teams in Afghanistan. Lapp, a 1991 mathematics graduate from EMU who went on to study nursing at Johns Hopkins, had been working as executive assistant at IAM and manager of IAM’s provincial ophthalmic care program.

Watch video:

“The EMU community joins the Lapp family and Mennonite Central Committee in grieving the deaths of Glen Lapp and his colleagues while serving the people of Afghanistan,” said Loren Swartzendruber, EMU president. “As with many of our alumni around the world, Glen was fulfilling EMU’s mission of serving and leading in a global context, which often involves great personal sacrifice.”

‘A little bit of Christ in this part of the world’

According to MCC, Lapp was to complete his term in October, and recently wrote about it in a report, “Where I was [Afghanistan], the main thing that expats can do is to be a presence in the country. Treating people with respect and with love and trying to be a little bit of Christ in this part of the world.”

Professor Lisa Schirch traveled with Lapp

Dr. Lisa Schirch, professor of peacebuilding at EMU’s graduate Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, worked and traveled with Lapp in Kabul. In an interview August 8, Schirch told that she and Lapp had many conversations about the risks involved with humanitarian work in Afghanistan, but he believed the needs of the people there outweighed personal risks. “There’s not a lot of medical assistance available to people in those remote areas [where Lapp was killed].”

Schirch said the killing of IAM workers in Afghanistan is not common.

“The Taliban is a very diverse group,” Schirch said Sunday. “[These killings] are not necessarily the official Taliban line. Normally they leave medical missions alone . . . IAM operated under Taliban rule in the 1990s. It’s unusual that he died in this way,” she said, suggesting that the killings may have been motivated by robbery, as opposed to strategic insurgent military operations.

Schirch hopes that Americans realize the scope of humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan, and the ongoing needs of the Afghan people, many of whom put themselves at risk alongside Americans like Lapp.

“Glen found the work that he did to be very meaningful. I hope that his life is an inspiration to people to continue the work that he was doing there.”

Lapp was the son of Marvin and Mary Lapp, and a member of Community Mennonite Church of Lancaster, Pa., a Mennonite Church USA congregation.

Memorial service

The memorial service for Glen will be held at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 15 at Bright Side Baptist Church (515 Hershey Avenue, Lancaster).

A visitation time with the Lapp family will be held from 6-9 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 14 at Community Mennonite Church of Lancaster (328 W. Orange St, Lancaster). People are encouraged to ride bikes to any of these services, and wear shorts in honor of Glen.

In the Sunday service where members became aware of Glen’s death, the hymn O Healing River was sung in his memory.

Read more of the to Glen’s death.

More info

• Watch video:

• Daily News-Record coverage: In Face Of Violence, Aid Workers Find ‘Something More Important’

• Daily News-Record coverage: EMU Grad Glen Lapp Murdered In Afghanistan: Among 10 Humanitarians Killed Friday