Marsha Nelson, Ph.D., led a group of national and international Rotary exchange students in a Peace Pie Mandala Project December 2006.

    “The greatest gift of the season was working with the Rotary Youth Exchange Program participants at El Rocio Retreat on Dec. 22 -23, 2006. We had 7 teens and their director, Tamara Sanchez as well as the two assistants, Jim Deuser, and Cindy Ellis in attendance. This was a weekend set up for the participants from the South Texas clubs of Laredo, Corpus Christi, and the Rio Grande Valley to get together to socialize and for the directors to check in with the teens in regards to their concerns and needs while being placed in the host family homes as well as their local Texas high schools. There were 5 teen girls from: Taiwan, Germany, Argentina, France, and USA. Two boys from: Brazil and Belgium.

     There were a variety of activities included in this weekend. I was scheduled to introduce journaling and some get acquainted activities.

     I first had the group do the Dancing on Paper activity for a warm up. I then had them journal in their native language using their NDH about their most memorable holiday experience. This was a powerful activity due to the fact that most of these students are away from home for the first time in their lives during the holidays. At this point the leaders were very impressed with the "magic" of the journaling and how the teens were so emotionally moved by their journaling experience.

     The next activity was to create a Peace Mandala. I had 8 pieces of the paper and each of the teens and the director used the collage process to express what Peace means to them. This is a beautiful experience to see how teens from all parts of the world view peace. Each teen came up to the completed Peace Mandala where I had taped the individual pieces together on the backside and had hanging on the sliding glass door. The teens spoke in their own words what Peace meant to them from the journaling that I had asked them do once they completed their single piece.

     Following the 4 hours of activities we ate dinner a chili dinner prepared over the campfire out in our corral next to the chuck wagon. Then off we drove to the Comfort House to present our Mandala and sing two Christmas carols. When we arrived at the Comfort House, Tamara went into the office to speak to Mary, the director. She invited us in and said that one female patient had just passed away. The family and staff said it would be all right for us to come in for a visit. We greeted the families and presented our Mandala to be displayed during the holidays representing Peace from teens all over the world.

     Following many meaningful experiences we returned to El Rocio Retreat for more activities. The teens stayed at El Rocio overnight.

     After breakfast I had them sit at our large dining room table in the house to journal in their new blank journals that I had given them. I asked them to again write about their Mandala piece in their native language and then translate the message in English. Following that activity I had them write about their weekend Rotary experiences using photos of the weekend activities. On a sheet I asked them to look at the page and journal with one photo that represented the activity that they enjoyed the most during the weekend. Two of the 7 wrote about the Mandala and 5 wrote about the photo of the group standing in front of the chuck wagon. The photo of the chuck wagon represented how great it was for them to share the weekend with others from all over the world and feel so comfortable with them so quickly.

     After the weekend workshop I received a call from Tamara saying that she was hiring me to lead the workshops for the next class of Rotary Exchange students. This will be in New Braunsfels, Texas on Sept. 7-8 just after the next year of students arrive into Texas. I again will be teaching the teen students to journal. I am positive that next Christmas we will present the same program as we did this year, including the Peace Mandala, it was fabulous.”