Born in Greenville, South Carolina, The Rev. LeDayne Polaski is the Program Coordinator for the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America (BPFNA). Rev. Polaski is part of a leadership team devoted to improving the world. During a recent interview with Polaski, she provided insight into a life of calling and conviction.
LeDayne McLeese Polaski and the Early Years
In a recent interview, Rev. Polaski said that her initial interests in a ministry of peace and justice stemmed from a professor at Furman University. “It was really because of his class,” said Polaski, “that I began to ask different questions. It was a course on Japanese history, and I realized that the Japanese asked different questions than we did. So I began to ask different questions.”
She also talked about first becoming aware, in high school, that real poverty existed in the United States. She went on mission trips and eventually began to realize that “I might be part of God’s answer to this.”
Seminary, Youth Ministry, and Beyond
Polaski graduated from Duke Divinity School in 1993 and was ordained at Watts Street Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina. She served for five and a half years as the Minister of Youth at Myers Park Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C. Her work at BPFNA began in 1998, and she took time away from her position as Managing Director in 2003 to be with her daughter. When Kate started school in 2006, Polaski became BPFNA’s Program Coordinator.
What has been especially meaningful about this position? She talks about the BPFNA’s Friendship Tours: the trips to Nicaragua, Burma, New Orleans, and others, and the upcoming trip to Chiapas, Mexico.
She speaks of the people she has encountered. “I have been fortunate to spend my time with those who have seen the worst the world has to offer. It has been a great gift to see that they are still faithful, hopeful and loving.” For Polaski, it puts things in perspective: “I’m like, well, it’s been a stressful week, but hardly a civil war.”
New Orleans, Sierra Leone, and the Baptist Peace Fellowship
Reflecting on the devastation from the horrific storms, Rev. Polaski says, “I can see their faces. They are the most incredible people.” She says that the BPFNA has long wanted to be multiracial. The African-American experience, she says, is very important to her. “I have seen progress, and I’ve seen the lack of it.”
She says that with respect to rebuilding, especially in New Orleans, there is a $75,000 gap in African-American home replacement. She fights against the injustice she has personally witnessed: “I have seen the bulldozing of homes in which the people still had belongings.”
She points out that the BPFNA is often criticized and portrayed inaccurately by the media. “People tend to see us as disaster relief only, which is incorrect.” She pauses and once again reflects theologically: “What does that call us to do?”
She cares for self by keeping fit. She has run the Nike Marathon in San Francisco, among others.
Rev. Polaski and her family provide a ministry of hospitality. She, her husband Tom (a professor of mathematics at Winthrop University), and their daughter Kate host a number of families and individuals from across the world.
Rev. Polaski’s impact is global and ongoing. She is an example of the notion that peace and justice begin at home. Literally.
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