Becca Armstrong

Last August, we wrote about a new direction for New Way — our conflict reconciliation training program.  We wrote about how Ronald Smith and his team are ready to go to the hard places, the uncomfortable places, and places with conflict, to teach healing and reconciliation. 

We really need a new way.  

Our hearts are broken and our anger real.  We have to keep becoming something new so that there are NO MORE senseless deaths of innocent people like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

We are here to talk and to listen.  Please reach out and we will do the same in the days ahead.

Here is the blog that we wrote last August about New Way.  It’s worth a read again — a reminder that we can overcome evil by doing good.

It’s Time for rEVOLution

August 13, 2019

One of the guiding principles of Something New is that we consider and respond to the needs in front of us. In just the last 15 days, we have:

• Mourned the loss of 37 people who were killed and 79 wounded in El Paso, Dayton, San Francisco, Southaven and Brooklyn due to an uprising of racially motivated violence 
• Cried with the children of immigrants begging to see their parents after ICE raided poultry plants in Mississippi
• Remembered the life and death of Michael Brown and the protests that followed his shooting in Ferguson five years ago
• Marked the 2-year anniversary of Heather Heyer’s death at the hands of a white supremacist in Charlottesville

What we’ve done so far

Seven years ago we started New Way with one goal in mind: to train people to effectively and peacefully handle conflict. Since it started, New Way has grown from two trainers who trained our volunteers to a team of diverse peacemakers with over eighty years of combined experience. Our team includes lawyers, corporate executives, a former trainer from the Southern Poverty Law Center, life coaches and educators. In the last few years, we have led workshops across the country to train:   

• men and women released from prison transitioning back to life
• teams struggling to work through cultural boundaries
• students reconciling after instances of physical altercations
• youth seeking healthy alternatives to juvenile detention  
• groups divided from a “romantic” relationship gone bad 
• educators teaching in diverse schools and classrooms 
• and everything in between

What do we do now?

As we have considered the best ways to respond to our country’s current situation, we believe that love and reconciliation are the best answers. We also believe that, especially in the face of what seem to be HUGE, systemic issues, we cannot turn a blind eye. Even though we can’t change everything, that doesn’t excuse us from doing something. We see  a pressing need for New Way–the training branch of our organization–to expand and reach more people and places. Throughout the years, we have seen New Way workshops transform communities, schools, teams, and lives. And we strongly believe New Way will play a role in helping our country heal and move forward.

What we do best is: 

• Equip communities traumatized by violence with tools for healing and reconciliation
• Facilitate dialogue with people of opposing mindsets
• Train leaders who want to organize and educate others

Be a part of the rEVOLution

There is much more work ahead for us. That’s why as of Fall 2019, New Way will officially serve in its own capacity. While Ronald Smith (New Way’s founder) will remain on Something New’s staff, New Way will now have its own website focused on providing workshops, keynote speeches and trainings across the country.

Ronald and his team are mobilizing. They are ready to go to the hard places, the uncomfortable places, and places with conflict, to teach healing and reconciliation. Like Ronald and the New Way team, we believe  that the principles of love will change the world.   

Be a part of the rEVOLution: check out New Way’s website and follow on social media to bring the rEVOLution  to your organization and community.

When I look at my car that’s been parked for a week, I feel like I am winning because I have not filled up my gas tank in two weeks. And then I remember the bike ride I took with my 16-year old a few days ago and I know I am winning.

He showed me his favorite loop that he normally does with his 13-year old brother. I felt the sun on my face and breathed in the smell of blooming flowers. I was determined to take each turn as fast as he did and not let him beat me! I thought about all the other things I “should” be doing and I knew he was showing me a lot more.

I thought about all the other things I “should” be doing

I made a choice to be in that moment. To see the ride as he sees it — he is a thrill-seeker and a nature-lover too. He can spot a lizard from 20 feet away, smell a deer from even farther and always stops to check them out. Ever since he could toddle this has been his way.

On that day I stopped with him for each lizard and each deer. And I made sure I didn’t stop as we bounced over rocks and took the curves fast enough to make me squeal. That bike ride with my eldest felt like a win on many levels. A win to enjoy the moment and a win against all the things that have kept me from those moments in the past.

I see a lot more room for some wins

And then when I look at the news, I see a lot more room for some wins. Seeing Georgia race to re-open its economy even with reports that hospitals are underprepared for a COVID-19 surge. Hearing the terribly sad news of Ahmaud Arbery’s death, yet another senseless and unjust death in a list of too many. Plus so much suffering in poor communities in the U.S. and beyond as COVID-19 wreaks even more havoc on shaky economies and weak infrastructures. I have to believe that we can start winning in these areas too.

Poverty and refugee status do not stand up very well to the impacts of COVID-19

For our small community in Lima, they are winning in some ways and we are celebrating that too. Refugees from Venezuela and single moms from Cusco are safe, healthy and happy — thanks to your generous donations. They all know that without this cross-continent community they would be facing a very different reality. Poverty and refugee status do not stand up very well to the impacts of COVID-19.

I hope you are following us on social media (check out the links at the bottom!) and seeing the wins happening in our building in Lima. They have created their own preschool co-op for their youngest residents and everyone is studying English every day. They spend their nights sharing stories and are finding healing through laughter and tears. They run up and down the 5 flights of stairs every day for exercise. On Sundays, the kids have “pool time” on the roof which entails filling up wash basins with water — and to them this is a major treat!

You have to play offense and start scoring at some point

My good friend (an avid athlete and sports fan) recently told me that at some point you get tired playing defense all the time. You have to play some offense and start scoring some points to get re-energized. I haven’t played a lot of sports but I have played enough life to know that what he is saying is true.

Thank you to all of you who have helped us play some offense for the people in Peru. I believe that your acts of generosity have put some points on your scoreboard too.

We will continue to share the good things and the hard things in the days ahead. We want to hear from you too. Let us know if you need a friend to talk to. Let us know if you are inspired about other ways to help the people in Peru or the people in your neighborhood. We are in this together. We win and we lose together.

Becca Armstrong

Executive Director

Four months ago, I couldn’t have imagined my daughter would be ripping elastic out of past-their-prime sheets to repurpose for saving lives. Naomi and her friends–of Kids Helping Kids International–have shifted their energy away from ornament-crafting and toward making face masks for frontline workers (plus Costco shoppers like me)! Like my grandparents’ generation who we’ve long admired for their resourcefulness–Naomi and her friends are learning to “use what you have to make what you need.”  

It’s something new!
Just like Kids Helping Kids is adapting to the current times, so is #GivingTuesdayNow. The organization has added a global day of giving and unity that will take place on May 5, 2020. It is a day to unite around acts of generosity in our global fight against COVID-19. That’s right up our alley!

Will you do something new with us? 
We’re inviting our loyal donors to do something new with us by starting their own fundraisers and we’re leveraging all the positivity of Giving Tuesday, a generous matching donor offer, and Kids Helping Kids to get it done. 

Reply to this email and I’ll give you all the tools and language you need to start your own fundraiser. As a super special bonus, we’ll send one of these handmade face masks to every donor that gives $25 or more. Or we can donate your mask to a frontline worker in your honor!

Every donation goes twice as far  
A generous donor has offered to match every donation up to $20,000 so that Venezuelan refugees and our volunteers have food and safety. 

Because of your generosity during the ongoing countrywide quarantine in Peru, 100 people have had:

• 252 dozen eggs
• 200 loaves of bread
• 116 gallons of milk
• 1400 diapers

Help us to go further. Together we can ensure that:

• No one goes hungry
• Everyone has a warm bed and safe housing
• We are more connected than disconnected during this time.

You have been incredibly supportive during this time. Please join us on #GivingTuesdayNow by starting a fundraiser today. Email Sam Lee at sam@somethingnew.org.

We are in this together —

Becca Armstrong
Executive Director

This morning, Robert, one of our volunteers on the ground, sent us this video. It’s 2 minutes and 17 seconds of his walk from the front of the supermarket to the end of the line where he needed to go to wait to enter the store. (We sped up the video to 11 seconds so you can watch it and get the gist!)

This video shows some of the reality of what they are facing there when it comes to food. One trip to the supermarket easily takes 5-6 hours. There is no Instacart or curbside pick-up for groceries in Lima.  

Thanks to your generosity the people are eating. With two more weeks of the quarantine and the increasing challenges they are facing, we want to send enough money so that they can buy larger quantities of food and not have to spend as much time standing in those long lines exposed to all the elements of life in Lima during COVID-19.

We can do more good

We want to raise $20,000 in the next two weeks. We have another generous donor who has agreed to match all donations!  So $20,000 will become $40,000 — and that will help a ton. If you can donate again, please do. If you can’t, please pass on our story to your friends who can donate.  

Thank you for being with us. We are with you too. Do let us know if you need someone to talk to, we want to be here for you just as you have been there for our friends in Peru.

After his 2-week trip got extended by a 6-week quarantine, Jason is home! It took one dizzying bus ride to a Peruvian air force base flanked by police cars and military helicopters, a jam-packed flight to Miami, and a total of 25 hours door to door. 

Jason and the 3 other volunteers who returned on the same flight were surrounded by coughing passengers and many pets (including an aisle-roaming Basset Hound). Despite the fact that it’s been 2 months since he’s seen our kids, Jason is patiently waiting 2 more weeks while the four returning volunteers quarantine together in Gwen and Ronald’s home. 

The crew has been home for a week and they are decompressing more and more each day. Jason and I have been enjoying the pleasant Atlanta spring days “together.”  But all of our thoughts and hearts are with the ones in Lima. Even though the group is home, the work continues.

Earlier today, four of our volunteers boarded a flight to Miami. They are scheduled to land at 10:30 pm tonight and arrive back in Atlanta tomorrow morning. It was a tough and quick decision – both for the ones who left and the ones who stayed behind. Most of our volunteers were never offered a repatriation flight and yesterday it was announced that today’s charter flight — costing $2,100 one way to Miami per person — would be the last flight out until the Lima airport re-opens and no one knows when that will be.

Jason, Gwen, Ronald and a young college student volunteer, Malachi, all made it on the flight today. They sent me reports from the U.S. Embassy and if you follow us on social media you got to see them today too. They passed on many, many stories of people who were waiting for a repatriation flight sponsored by the U.S. Embassy because the cost of the charter flights was just too much. But with today’s announcement of this being the last flight out, people had to do whatever they could to get out. Today’s charter flight by Eastern Airlines was very full and we are not sure if everyone who was there was able to get out. We hope that the U.S. Embassy will continue to do what is needed to help people get home.  

Here’s what Gwen said earlier today, “Of course part of us would rather stay, just as part of each of the ones we leave behind would like to go home. Uncertain times try us all and our human nature loves any little comfort we can find. I have learned more than ever that comfort is an internal work.  It feels like a sacrifice to leave, but understand the ones staying are making the real sacrifice. We will have a lot to share in the coming days now that we’ll have some down time. We are excited to see and hug our kids. It’s time. They are the real champs and our supporting friends back home should be sainted.”

Nineteen other volunteers are still planning to stay with our community in Lima for the duration of the quarantine there. While the timing is uncertain on when they will be able to return home, they are all choosing to stay in order to continue serving the people they came to serve over a month ago. The truth is that times are always uncertain. I think we are all just more aware of it as we are having to face it more right now. 

I am looking forward to welcoming Jason and the others home. I believe they are coming home changed for the better and will have much to add to our ongoing efforts to raise funds and support for the people in Peru.  

Please consider donating to help cover the costs of the charter flights today. We are certain it was the right time for these four to come home. We are also certain that this time is uncertain so we will continue to take it day by day. Thank you all for being on the journey with us.

If you have already donated please spread the word and ask your friends to help us.  We are so thankful for ALL of the support during this time.  It is changing lives no doubt — and I believe that is true for both the recipient and the giver. Let’s keep going.