Tanks Into Tractors

"I wish that I could find the words to express my thanks." Nicaraguan Ambassador Antonio Jarquin spoke slowly to the crowd gathered in front of the Nicaraguan embassy. "But it is not only that I wish that I knew the English language better. Even in my own language it would be difficult to express what I am feeling. This is the greatest gesture of friendship that we have been given."

Jarquin cradled in his arms a huge bouquet of gladiolas as he continued. "Others shower our people with bombs, but you come offering flowers. We give you flowers in return." He handed over the bright bouquet to the crowd of North Americans gathered with the Nicaraguan embassy personnel to celebrate Central America's Independence Day, September 15.

The flowers we had brought—delicate hand-picked ones along with colorful store-bought arrangements—were a symbol of our friendship. There were other symbols that day. Bags of flour were given as a sign of opposition to our government's cutting off wheat sales and imposing other economic sanctions against Nicaragua. One nine-year-old girl and her dad offered a hundred-pound bag they had pulled to the embassy in a wagon.

But the major event was the giving of a "tractor for peace." Money had been raised to purchase a tractor, equip it for use in Nicaragua, and deliver it by Thanksgiving. The tractor stood in our midst, covered with flowers and surrounded with bags of flour.

The man who arranged the purchase climbed up on its seat and fumbled in his pockets for a moment. Ambassador Jarquin came to his aid, stepping forward with the keys. As the tractor was started up, a cheer went up from both North Americans and Nicaraguans.

As North Americans, we had come to the embassy as ambassadors of friendship to say that Ronald Reagan and Jeane Kirkpatrick and the CIA are not our representatives in Central America. We came to proclaim that our government is hypocritical in vehemently denouncing for weeks the Soviet Union's shooting down unarmed civilians in a Korean airliner, while funding and orchestrating the killing of unarmed civilians on the Nicaraguan frontier bordering Honduras.

But we came not primarily to denounce our government, but to repent and ask forgiveness for its actions, and to offer a vision for a different relationship between the nations. It's a very old vision, one that is recorded in Micah:

And they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war anymore.
(Micah 4:3)

We came literally with a plowshare to say that we do not approve of the U.S. swords being used against the people of Nicaragua. In return, we were invited—all 200 of us—into the Nicaraguan embassy for a celebration of wine and cheese. In our fellowship there, we discovered that we have better things to learn about from each other than war.

Joyce Hollyday was an associate editor of Sojourners magazine when this article appeared.