Forty-one-year-old Jason Thiessen was a recently unemployed husband and father of two young boys. During a time when he should have been acting responsibly and being realistic, he did what many thought was reckless and foolhardy. He traveled to Central America and made his way overland from Mexico City to Panama City, with virtually no plan.Rather than succumb to the fears of others, he followed his heart and the wise guidance of his ever-supportive wife and took off on an adventur...

In life we are occasionally faced with detours. Some of them are thrust upon us just when we think we have life all figured out. Sometimes, however, they are self-created. We choose to take them, driven by some inner desire or passion. Author Jason Thiessens extraordinary adventure was just such a detourborne of the dreams of a young boy with only an atlas as his guide to an unseen world.Nearly thirty years after those dreams began, they became a reality. Thiessen, a man with a wif...

Peace and Conflict Studies (PCS) includes scholars and practitioners throughout the world working in peace studies, conflict analysis and resolution, conflict management, appropriate dispute resolution, and peace and justice studies. They come to the PCS field with a diversity of ideas, approaches, disciplinary roots, and topic areas, which speaks to the complexity, breadth, and depth needed to apply and take account of conflict dynamics and the goal of peace. Yet, a number of key concerns...

***I was numb. I was a cloud.***I wanted to feel like this forever.At thirty years old, Jason Hardung is concussed from a bar fight and addicted to heroin, slumming in a house without electricity or running water. After witnessing the near suicide of a stranger, he makes a desperate call for help, hoping the forces that pushed him under can pull him back up.This is Wyoming, where manhood is a pressure test described by the elements, and where tende...