The Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America has grown a lot since its founding in 1984. Its focus over the years has expanded from poverty and nuclear proliferation to racial justice, gun violence and immigration, among other issues. And a…
Head of Baptist peace group stepping down next year
LeDayne McLeese Polaski, a 20-year employee of the Baptist Peace Fellowship in North America, is stepping down as executive director at the end of May 2019. Polaski, who recently turned 50, said she has “had a growing sense” her departure…
Baptist peace group head receives heritage award
LeDayne McLeese Polaski, executive director of Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America ~ Bautistas por la Paz, was 2016 recipient of Furman University’s Richard Furman Baptist Heritage Award. Polaski, who has worked for BPFNA in various roles since 1998 and…
Thoughts on welcoming the stranger
By LeDayne McLeese Polaski I’ve been thinking a lot lately about strangers. I suppose we all have. Strangers — immigrants from Central America, refugees from Syria, Muslims crossing international borders, even people on the other side of town — are…
We can make it on the broken pieces
By LeDayne McLeese Polaski It was hot in the church that steamy New Orleans night, but the members of the congregation were far more focused on the fact that this was their first revival since Hurricane Katrina — a significant…
A fair Christmas
By LeDayne McLeese Polaski “It’s not fair!” If you are a parent, you likely hear this several times a day — everything from dessert sizes to bedtimes are occasions for children to spot real or imagined unfairness. The truth is,…
Taking it all in – the pain and the joy
Joseph Andrew Haynie’s eyes were blue. Reading his Army discharge papers fifty-eight years after his death, I learned this simple fact. Joe Haynie married Katie Louise Clyde in the tumultuous year of 1941 – and left not long afterwards for…