Make Me A Channel Of Your Peace

Dr. Francis Alvarez’s hands—steady, scarred, always faintly scented of iodine—were legendary in the battered Kowloonya camp, symbols of hope whispered among shaking children: “Saint Francis knows every bird, listens for every broken heart.” Adults clung to his evening promise, “Every heartbeat is a note in our song; the world keeps playing it because you’re in it.” When darkness crowded out courage, Francis softly sang, “Make me a channel of your peace, where there is hatred, let me bring your love…” The simple melody, trembling on his lips, let the children drift toward sleep, and sometimes, a shy hand would reach for his, holding tight against the night.

Gunfire rattled through jade-veined ridges. Blood jade—field rock laced with red and green—drew warlords like moths to the embers of dying hope. Unichef ladled thin stew, miners grumbled, “Where jade runs red, suffering’s dirt cheap.” Francis’s clinic—only a tent and a prayer—never closed. Sister Angeline murmured, "God help our saint tonight," as his hands stitched wounds and his humming threaded the humid air. “Where there’s injury, your pardon, Lord…”

One dawn, Isabella Morelli strode into camp like sunlight—an artist once lauded in Venice, whose wild curls caught every stray breeze. She carried battered brushes and laughter. “You are the bravest thing I’ve ever painted. Hold still—let me work my magic!” she declared, tracing streaks of blue across tear-streaked faces. The children smiled for the first time in months, running painted fingers along each other's cheeks, still singing, “Where there is doubt, true faith in you.” Sometimes her eyes met Francis’s over soup and starlight; their smiles lingered in the hush of a world torn open. At dusk, paint on her hands and hope in her smile, Isabella would find Francis by the stove. Her words, soft as moth-wings: “Your song finds my heart, even in rubble.” She’d brush blue across his knuckles, whispering, “Let me paint you holy, Francis.”

He’d lift her hand, gently teasing, “Only if you give me wings tonight.” Her blush bloomed bright and quick, love threading through her laugh, while the old hymn softly rose, “O Master, grant that I may never seek... so much to be consoled, as to console.”

One lamplit evening, Isabella’s voice trembled with confession. “My mother sang that hymn before she died,” she breathed. Francis tucked a curl behind her ear, pressing his brow to hers, saying, “She told me—‘Promise, Francis, make your life that prayer.’”

His thumb circled her palm, longing weighing in his chest. “I do. Every day. Sometimes, Isabella, you are the answer.”

Francis’s legend, built of mercy and miracle, swelled in the camp’s songs. He rescued mynas, shielded children from rage and rifles, blessed wounds with gentle fingers and starlit prayers. Soldiers tossed coins outside his tent. “Saint Francis, bless our luck!” But the desperate only whispered, “Protect us, Saint of Assisi.” Grace before sleeping always ended, “Make me a channel of your peace.”

But horror stamped the ground in jackboots. General Than Zin, shadowed and pitiless, invaded the camp. Sorrow thickened the air. Francis and Isabella huddled the children under ragged blankets, Isabella’s hand clutching his, warm, trembling. Francis’s voice, barely a breath: “Where there’s despair in life, let me bring hope...”

A wicked storm broke. Shells ripped the sky. Sister Angeline dragged Francis to triage, arms cradling a limp child. “The shelling’s too close. This night may be our last!” she cried. Francis pressed trembling fingers to the child’s pulse, locking his jaw with stubborn gentleness. “We fight for every breath, every heartbeat. I will not give up,” he pledged. Amid the chaos, Isabella’s voice shrieked, ragged with fear, “Don’t leave me—please, Francis!”

Then the world shattered. Thunder crashed as a shell burst just overhead. Everything slowed—Francis hurled himself over the child, shielding with everything he was as shrapnel tore the night. Agony sliced through him. He found Isabella’s eyes, shining and streaming, and forced a crooked, broken smile. “Looks like you’ll have to paint me a hero, Isa…” The hymn clung to his lips, shaking: “O Master, grant that I may never seek, so much to be consoled as to console…”

With the last of his sainted strength, he pressed the child into Isabella’s arms, thumb circling her wrist, his touch burning with all he could not say. He crumpled against her as blood soaked them both, tears streaming freely down her cheeks, pooling on his chest. She kissed his forehead, her lips trembling with grief, whispering, “Stay with me. I need you.” Around them, children wailed for their saint and Sister Angeline’s prayers fractured the night: “It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, in giving of ourselves that we receive…” Francis’s eyes fluttered closed. “She needs you. Always…” he murmured. With a last, longing sigh—full of peace—he was gone.

A heavy hush settled over the camp. Blue cloth from Francis’s shirt became talismans. Isabella, shattered, read his letters by candlelight, each word broken by sobs and the old melody: “To be loved, as to love with all my soul…” Children pressed close, clutching her for comfort, whispering, “Pray for us, Saint Francis.” In the legend he left, fellowship blossomed.

Isabella painted Francis in sweeping murals—among lilies and birds, blessing the broken. Underneath, the words, “Lord, make me a channel of your peace…” Little Bo Bo sniffled, tugging her sleeve, “Can he hear us from the sky?” Isabella’s tears glimmered as she gathered him in her arms. “He’s with us, Bo Bo. Every time we choose love and mercy, Saint Francis lives in us.”

Miracles lingered: shadows crossing empty tents, Unichef’s soup never burning when the children sang the hymn. The battered camp held tightly to each other, forging kin from ruin.

Then, the apocalypse struck. Bombs erased 90% of Kowloonya; not a single clinic survived—hope itself reduced to smoldering dust. Toxic “notorious orange juice” poisoned river and soil. US President Trump, voice urgent through the static, took Unichef’s call. “Unichef, the world is watching. We can’t leave these children. It’s time to move.”

Unichef’s reply broke but was resolute. “Half a million—nearly all women, babies, children, teens. I’ll get them fed, I’ll get them out.”

The exodus began—refugees surging for the river, clutching scraps of blue cloth. Isabella, arms tight around Bo Bo, followed Anderson with battered radios and Unichef, ladling out broth. The soldiers saluted the legend of Saint Francis; the last saints clasped hands, singing, “Make me a channel of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me bring your love…”

But on the eve of escape, a hush crept in—dread and homesick sorrow tangled in the air. Huddled in the starlight and the smoke of burning memories, the children whispered:

“I—I never thought we’d leave forever,” little Bo Bo said, voice drowsy with tears. “What will happen to Kowloonya? It’s all gone.”

An older girl, May, pressed her palm to the dirt. “My baba and uncles and their fathers—they built every house here. Now the buildings are dust…it’s like my home is a dream. Will the new babies ever even know this name?”

Mr. Lin, eyes brimming, remembered aloud to no one, “They say every motherland is sacred, even when it’s ashes. Our Kowloonya…will disappear. The children will carry only stories.”

Isabella gently rocked Bo Bo, the chorus trembling in her throat. “It’s true, my darlings. Kowloonya will vanish on the map, and a new nation will rise from hope. Your generation will have peace—a home without war. It’s a hard choice, but so much better than the sorrow we leave behind.” The old, trembling voices joined hers, sadness braided into each word:

“Where there is injury, your pardon, Lord; and where there’s doubt, true faith in you...”

The morning after, the United International Troop for the Kowloonya Mission advanced—ten days of thunder and banners, bombs and lightning. “Their orders: destroy the dictator, end the evil. For the children,” said the radio. When the dictator fled, his troops surrendered, and the regime collapsed in dust. The hearts of the people beat on, even in grief.

President Trump’s voice broke through the weary, crackling static. “We move the refugees to Causeway—a green jewel between Indonesia and Singapore. America, the UK royal family, every free nation–we stand with you. We’ll help clean Kowloonya for three years, and when it’s safe, you’ll choose a new name for this place reborn, to appear on the world map, again and forever.”.

Crossing emerald waters, Isabella led them onto foreign sands, as bonfires flickered into the sky. Children started their song anew:

“Make me a channel of your peace; Where there is hatred, let me bring your love...”

Bo Bo nestled in Isabella’s arms, weeping and clinging. “Does Saint Francis still guide us here?”

Isabella kissed his brow, breathing through a broken heart. “He never leaves us, Bo Bo. He’s the song in the waves, blessing our soup, our journey.” Unichef, grinning sadly, lifted a pot. “Francis would say—every meal, every midnight, every home…always.”

Five years blurred on a new green island. Once-orphaned children voted, voices and laughter returning. Anderson raised the first flag: “The New Francis Republic!” Unichef winked, “Or Lilyland, for our artists and saints!”

But the home longing never faded. On the beach, Isabella knelt beside Bo Bo. Her hand brushed the sand, sadness and hope brimming together. “Let’s always remember where we came from—even if the name Kowloonya is gone on the map, its heart beats in you. Saint Francis would want us to carry love forward, wherever we go.”

The people’s song soared skyward—grieving but grateful, sorrow running down to the sea:

“Make me a channel of your peace; Where there is hatred, let me bring your love; Where there is injury, your pardon, Lord; And where there’s doubt, true faith in you…"