Speaker gives her take on Iraq as volunteer with peacekeeping group

Published: 2004-10-29

UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, Ohio (CNS) -- Participants in the National Young Adult Conference got a personal look at one young American's take on the war in Iraq Oct. 16. Sheila Provencher, who spent the last eight months in Iraq as a member of Christian Peacemaker Teams, spoke about her experiences in Iraq during the Oct. 15-17 conference at Jesuit-run John Carroll University in University Heights. In her talk, Provencher recalled standing in the middle of a busy intersection in Baghdad, Iraq, not long ago with a group of human rights protesters, holding pictures of Iraqi detainees and asking for policy changes and understanding. An angry Iraqi man approached the protesters and asked them why they were helping terrorists, she said. He shouted at them, asking them why they were not there when Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was in power or when he killed the man's family and thousands of other innocent Iraqi people. Provencher said she was tired and overwhelmed, and though she normally does not let her emotions get in the way, she couldn't hold back tears. She said she told the man she was just one person and there was only so much she could do. She apologized for the atrocities the man had faced and told him she would pray for him. In response to her compassion, the man also began to cry. They stood there in the middle of that busy intersection and wept and said they would pray for each other.

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