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Primarily, Sainte Mère Église is linked with 6 June 1944 (D-Day),
because Sainte Mère Église was the first French Village liberated by the Allies.
Around 6 June Sainte Mère Église changes completely.
The village is swarmed by real paratroopers - American, British, Dutch and German -
and by civilians dressed up as soldiers who either glorify the war
or who want to commemorate the war or the end of the war
or who just feel good as soldiers in jeeps and tanks.
I'm not quite sure.
The building of the church plays a most important role in this,
because in the night from 5 to 6 June 1944
two paratroopers got stuck on the church spire.
John Steele, the American para, who got stuck at the top of the spire,
couldn't free himself.
And in commemoration of that night there is a figur of paratrooper John Steele
complete with parachute hanging from the church spire.
And that is the main attraction of Sainte Mère Église.
That's why a lot of people come here, take pictures of the paratrooper on the spire and go into the church.
The bishop of Coutances/Avranches, the parishers of our village, and
the community of the religious of the diocese
decided to turn this historical place, the place of commemoration,
into a missionary, a spiritual place,
and founded a little community - international and intercongregational -
that lives, prays, and works here
and that invites people to reflect on peace.
At the moment, we are three nuns from three different communities
and two countries - France and Germany -
and we are expecting another nun from the US, as that would boost the symbolic value of our community.
As a German nun, I'm the only one
wearing the traditional attire.
In France this is no longer common, most nuns wear plain clothes.
That, of course, makes me stand out a little in this village.
These days, when the place is crowded by fake soldiers
and women dressed up in the fashion of the 1940s
it was a bit difficult for some people to say if I was a real nun or not
and I frequently got the question: Are you real?
We've already started some things in the church.
Each of us is present at the church for an hour and a half per day,
wearing a name tag that identifies us as nuns
and that shows the languages we speak.
We pray for the peace, we pray the vespers each day a 5 o'clock
and we've developed some material for visitors to pick up.
We started with a leaflet with statements of the Bible on peace,
we made two postcard with the invitation to write a peace-alphabet
or to write down where the dove of Peace should fly to,
and we made a leaflet with everyday prayers
- the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the creed and three other prayers -
because there are many people who say: Sister, I would like to pray an Our Father,
but I forgot the words.
We do everything in four languages - French, English, German, and Dutch -
because there are also many visitors from Belgium and the Netherlands.
We put a notebook there and many people write in their thoughts on peace.
We simply want to invite people to reflect on peace.
And, of course, all these things
frequently inspire discussions.
One woman said to me: "But, that's impossible
there can't be peace everywhere in the world."
And she is right.
It is not our mission to establish peace everywhere in the world.
Our mission, as I understand it, is
to pray for peace, to live peace,
but also to stimulate thought on how peace start inside me
and that everybody to make the world around him or her a little more peaceful.
We are planning to develop our barn.
I hope, we can start in autumn to set up various rooms there
- a big room to accommodate a busload of tourists,
a studio for writing and painting about peace,
a big room with games and musical instruments.
My dream is also to open a Peace Cafe.
We have many ideas, but
currently we just lack the funding.
That's why we are looking for sponsors
who would like to support our mission with money.
My dream is to develop games together with others - like
Pax Christi or the big game and book publishers -
to develop games that encourage peacefulness, that play peace,
which is far more difficult than playing war.
Games without winners and loosers,
games which let every player be a winner.
I've got some idea, there are some more ideas coming from experiential education,
but there is not yet much. That's one of my dreams.
And I'd like to build games in our large garden
to attract tourists as well as people from our village and our region.
I'm convinced that Sainte Mère Église is one of those places
where our peace project can be realized,
because people from all over the world come here.
Our visitors' book at the church has every day entries
form people of all nationalities
- from the US, Latin America, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Japan.
And to offer these people not only a visit to the museum and the church,
but also some food for thought about peace
is, I think, an indispensable task in our time.