Joe Roos and Ciela Acosta have been awarded MC USA’s 2025 Bring the Peace award for their work in the realm of peace and justice throughout the world.
By Jessica Griggs for Mennonite Church USA
ELKHART, Ind. (Mennonite Church USA) — Mennonite Church USA has awarded the 2025 Bring the Peace award to Joe Roos and Ciela Acosta.
Earlier this year, MC USA requested people from across the denomination to nominate individuals from their church communities to be considered for the award. A committee of previous Bring the Peace award winners, then, choose a Legacy Peacemaker and a Young Peacemaker. A Legacy Peacemaker is someone who has dedicated themselves to life-long peacemaking in their communities and across the world, and a Young Peacemaker is a young adult or teenager who has already demonstrated a clear devotion to peace and justice work.
The award is designed to draw attention to the peace and justice work that people within MC USA are doing, to encourage and inspire more people across the country to engage in similar endeavors. The award is sponsored by MC USA’s Church Peace Tax Fund.
“It is a joy to honor the vision and wisdom of Ciela and Joe in their peace and justice work,” said Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz, MC USA’s denominational minister for peace and justice. “Our denomination is strengthened for the work ahead by their actions and commitment. May we all continue to learn together what it means to follow Jesus in faithfulness and hope and live out who Jesus calls us to be in this world.”
Joe Roos: Legacy Peacemaker
Photo provided by Joe Roos.
In 1970, Joe Roos began to look deeper into how his faith interacted with issues of global injustice, like the Vietnam War, racism and global poverty. This newly found passion led him to change the trajectory of his career and life from continuing toward a Ph.D. in physics to beginning a seminary degree focused on theology, peace and justice. He said his peace and justice work really began the following year, when he, and some of his classmates, founded Sojourners magazine, an ecumenical publication dedicated to promoting peace and justice throughout the world.
“Central to the beginning of Sojourners,” said Roos, “was bringing together two things we thought were crucial to following Jesus: taking seriously his life and teachings and applying them to the critical issues of our day — war, poverty and racism.”
Since leaving his position as the publisher at Sojourners, Roos has pastored three Mennonite congregations, participated in international mission as a Mennonite Mission Network associate at an international school in India, and served on the boards of MennoPIN, Peaceful Options for Training and Careers, ReconciliAsian, Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries and The Mennonite magazine. In retirement, Roos has continued his work toward peace and justice, especially through advocacy for the people of Palestine, to end the occupation in the West Bank and genocide in Gaza.
Ciela Acosta: Young Peacemaker
Ciela Acosta
Photo by Isaac Andreas.
Ciela Acosta is a third year peacebuilding and development major at Eastern Mennonite University. Her peace and justice work has primarily been through her involvement with Mennonite Action, EMU Peace Fellowship and EMU Chamber Singers.
Acosta said that in Jan. 2024 she experienced a pivotal moment in her vocational call, while participating in a nonviolent civil disobedience action on Capitol Hill with Mennonite Action. During this event, she and 135 other Mennonites called for a ceasefire in Gaza, largely through singing hymns of peace. Acosta and many other protesters were arrested — and released later in the day — for their participation. Her experience with peaceful protest and arrest led her to change her major at EMU to peacebuilding and development.
Through her involvement in Mennonite Action, she has participated in civil disobedience, song leading, marches, protests, and gatherings that help organize people against Christian nationalism and the genocide in Palestine. With EMU Peace Fellowship, Acosta has helped organize the annual Intercollegiate Peace Fellowship Conference and led workshops about organizing on college campuses for students from Anabaptist universities across the U.S. Additionally, she toured internationally with the EMU Chamber Singers, performing a repertoire of songs centered around the theme of hope and unity.
“To those who are not actively engaged in peace work, I say celebrate small wins,” said Acosta. “Trying to change the world as an individual is too much weight to carry. Find a way to join a collective, as hope is often found in the community that is formed while doing peace work. I recommend jumping on a Mennonite Action mass call or trying to find mentorship in an organization that is meaningful to you. You are not walking alone!”
Donating to MC USA’s Church Peace Tax Fund is one way to join with MC USA in peacebuilding. The Church Peace Tax Fund:
- Provides funding for educational programs that address militarism and promote living out ways of peace.
- Allocates a $300 annual grant for the Bring the Peace award, which honors Mennonite young adult and legacy peacemakers who are actively engaged in resisting war and promoting peace in their congregations and communities.
- Annually recognizes faith leaders in MC USA who are committed to resisting war and promoting peace.
- Provides grant opportunities to support war tax resisters, through already established alternative funds.
- Supports the work of Peaceful Options for Training & Careers (POTC).
To donate to the Church Peace Tax Fund, visit the MC USA Bring the Peace giving page and write “Church Peace Tax Fund” in the Note field. Alternatively, donors may write a check, payable to Mennonite Church USA, and send it to 718 N. Main St., Newton, KS 67114. Please designate “Church Peace Tax Fund” on the memo line.
MC USA’s Bring the Peace initiative calls individuals and congregations to extend peace in their communities. It is also a prayer, inviting God to bring the peace that expands our capacity for empathy, compassion and love, while actively seeking to dismantle oppression and violence.
For more information on MC USA’s peacebuilding efforts, click here.
Mennonite Church USA is an Anabaptist Christian denomination, founded in 2002 by the merger of the Mennonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church. Members of this historic peace church seek to follow Jesus by rejecting violence and resisting injustice. MC USA’s Renewed Commitments state the following shared commitments among its diverse body of believers: to follow Jesus, witness to God’s peace and experience the transformation of the Holy Spirit. Mennoniteusa.org