fter Mayerly Sanchez's closest friend, 15-year-old Milton Piraguata, was stabbed to death in a gang fight, she vowed to find a way to stop street killings in Colombia. She had just turned 12.

In a country where the leading cause of death is by gunshot, the now 17-year-old Sanchez says Christ's presence helps her to lead 100,000 children in a campaign that has been nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize (a prize named after Alfred Nobel and given to persons who work for peace).

While still 12, Sanchez joined the leadership of the Colombia Children's Movement for Peace. The Colombia Children's Movement for Peace provides kids with the tools to promote nonviolence to their peers and to their elected officials.

It strikes at the root causes of violence-poverty, narcotics trade, and turf battles.

Through World Vision's Peacebuilders program, Sanchez and her preteen teams present neighborhood kids with alternatives to gangs-education, skills training, and recreation. Activities and games reinforce the message of nonviolence.

The teams go into schools with projects and drama that speak of peace as children to children, which Sanchez says is more effective than adults speaking to children. The message of peace also goes from child to adult, from the school drama that parents attend to a visit some of the children had with Colombian President Andr‚s Pastrana.

"God is the one taking care of us, because to work and speak of peace in Colombia is not very safe--He's always with us," Sanchez says.-From an article in Christianity Today by Jeff M. Sellers.

mitry Gladkov, age 16, won the grand prize at an international music competition held this spring in Athens, Greece. Competing in the piano category, Dmitry performed selections by Bach, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, and Shchedrin. He said his favorite piece was a fugue by Bach that reflected the boundlessness of God.

When contest officials scheduled Dmitry to perform on Saturday, his teacher explained that Dmitry didn't feel comfortable competing on his Sabbath. The organizers willingly agreed to arrange a different time. Dmitry has now returned to his home in Rostov-on-Don, southern Russia, where he attends a school for the arts.-News Update, Euro-Asia Division.

Adventist young people recently aired on television commercials in Hawaii. The 30-second commercials invited Hawaii's 1.2 million residents to the weeklongHe's Alive youth evangelistic meetings. At one point in the commercial the youth excitedly shouted, "Come join us!"

The commercials appeared during Jay Leno, David Letterman, the evening news, the morning show, during JAG, and even during the Academy Awards.

"It was thrilling to see Whoopi Goldberg say, 'Now, don't change that dial; we'll be right back,' and then have smiling Adventist youth appear on TV immediately after her," said Deloris Trujillo, Hawaii Conference superintendent of education.

teven Mueller, a fourth grader at Fredericksburg-Kerrville Adventist School in Kerrville, Texas, leads a group prayer during a National Prayer Day celebration program. Many other students from Steven's school also were there. The only group that the Kerrville Daily Times, the newspaper in Steven's town, decided to cover was the Seventh-day Adventist school students.

ourteen-year-old Tu-Anh Pham designed the Orlando, Florida, Vietnamese church's Web site. Tu-Anh's grandfather, Pastor Thien Pham, pastors the church in Orlando. "I thought my grandfather's church needed a Web site," says Tu-Anh. "I live in Georgia and can't often hear my grandfather's sermons. So I thought if we could create a Web site and tape my grandfather's sermons, they could be put onto the Internet and we could hear them-and the Word of God could go around the world to anyone who looks at this site."

Her grandfather's sermons are now being broadcast on the World Wide Web. Recently she heard from a woman in California. Writing in French, she said that she is starting to learn more about God through the Web site.