Crossroads Spring 2010 - Alumni Magazine of Eastern Mennonite University

spring 2010 emu... preparing students to serve and lead globally vol. 90, No. 3

Wide World of ministry

sHArinG tHe Holy sPirit

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Wide World of ministry

KEY TO ABBREVIATIONSIN THIS MAGAZINE:

CMS: Certificate of Ministry Studies

EMM: Eastern Mennonite Missions

MACT: Master of Arts in Conflict Transformation

MAL: Master of Arts in Church Leadership

MAM: Master of Arts in Church Ministries

MAR: Master of Arts in Religion

MCC: Mennonite Central Committee

MDiv: Master of Divinity

MMN: Mennonite Mission Network

SEM: Non-degree Seminary study

SPI: Summer Peacebuilding Institute

ThB: Bachelor of Theology

VMM: Virginia Mennonite Missions

Of the 17,500 living alumni of Eastern Mennonite University, plus thousands trained at its Summer Peacebuilding Institute and not-for-credit programs, we estimate that 1,500 (almost 9%) currently do church-sponsored work or other full-time service inspired by their Christian faith. But thousands of others have served and ventured far and wide for a period of their lives. They have translated the Bible into obscure languages, planted churches, been agents of reconciliation in conflict zones, tended to the sick, and much more. This map represents a sampling of the faith-based work now being done by EMU-linked people in 59 locations. Some alumni requested that their names and locations not be publicized, due to repressive conditions under which they must function in certain countries.

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tion and retreat leadership through Deep Well Ministry, which she founded in 2005.

Teresa Moser ’90, MDiv ’93Director of chaplaincy services at Men-nonite Village in Albany.

Colin B. saxTon, Mar ’91Denominational superintendent, North-west Yearly Meeting of Friends; ex officio trustee of George Fox University.

6. CaliforniaMiTsunari nakashiMa, MDiv ’06 & MaCT ’05Pastor at North County Japanese Christian Church in Vista, where his wife, Yumiko, MDiv ’07, is also active.

7. MontanaJeryl l. hollinger ’79Pastor of Mountain View Mennonite Church in Kalispell.

8. ColoradoJohn M. sTolTzfus, Mal ’08Pastor of East Holbrook Mennonite Church in Cheraw.

herM Weaver ’87Conference minister for Mountain States Mennonite Conference.

9. KansasBill eiChelBerger ’83Chaplain of Hospice Care of Kansas.

luann yuTzy, Mal ’06Chaplain, Wesley Medical Center in Wichita.

roBerT yuTzy, MaCT ’07Advisor to congregations facing conflict, based at Kansas Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Bethel College.

10. TexasriCharD D. Davis, Mal ’95Pastoral counselor and spiritual director in Dallas area; therapist at First United Methodist Church in The Colony.

rigoBerTo negron, MDiv ’95Pastor of Iglesia Menonita del Cordero in Brownsville.

11. OklahomaMiriaM MasT, CerT. Min. ’07Lay leader of Pleasant View Mennonite Church in Hydro.

12. IowaDave BosharT ’86, Mar ’87 Pastor of West Union Mennonite Church in Parnell; active with wife Shana in Cen-tral Plains Conference and MCUSA.

13. IllinoisJohn MiChael sTolTzfus ’94, MDiv ’00Associate pastor, Lombard Mennonite Church; former worker with China Educa-tional Exchange.

14. Indiana Jeffrey a. MuMaW ’86, MDiv ’06Associate pastor, Clinton Frame Menno-nite Church in Goshen.

Joseph koTva Jr. ’85Executive director of the Anabaptist Cen-ter for Healthcare Ethics; adjunct faculty at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary.

1. Ontario, CanadaaMy (Mal ’94)& ClayTon ’71 (Mal ’94) kuepferCo-pastors of Jane Finch Chaplaincy in Toronto.

2. Manitoba Melissa a. Miller ’76Church leader, pastoral counselor, author and teacher in Winnipeg.

3. Alaska, United Stateshelen BuCkWalTer ’69Co-founder with husband Dan of Northern Harvest, a non-profit organization which proclaims the gospel in areas of Alaska that they reach in a plane piloted by Dan.

4. WashingtonaDaM s. yoDer ’99Leads and speaks at youth ministry retreats and events; writes materials targeted at youth for Brethren Press and Mennonite Publishing Network.

5. OregonroBerTa JanTzi eli ’80Reverend of Englewood United Methodist Church in Salem. Provides spiritual direc-

www.emu.edu | crossroads | 1

15. MichiganWayne J. Keim ’73Pastor of Fair Haven Community Menno-nite Church and social worker in Bay Port.

16. OhioGlenn m. Steiner ’66Pastor of North Clinton Mennonite Church in Wauseon.

17. Pennsylvaniarobert KanaGy ’92Pastor of Masonville Mennonite Church; previously program director Laurelville Mennonite Church Center. MDiv candi-date through Lancaster site of EMU.

Conrad (mdiv ’97) & donna (mal ’97) maStCo-pastors of Scottdale Mennonite Church near Pittsburgh.

donna loiS ShenK ’77Hospice chaplain in Lancaster County.

18. New Yorkruth yoder WenGer ’69Pastor of North Bronx Mennonite Church and interfaith disaster chaplain.

19. Marylanddavid b. (dave) GreiSer ’77Pastor of North Baltimore Mennonite Church; previously directed pastoral min-istry program at Hesston College.

harold a. (ma ’88)& mary GraCe ’62 (ma ’88) ShenKServe often as interim co-pastors for churches in transition.

20. New JerseyChriStine a. SCheller ’86Blogger/writer for Christianity Today.

21. North Carolinan. leroy Kauffman ’77 Many years of service on denominational level with Mennonite Board of Missions and MMN. Chair of Church Extension Services board for Mennonite Church USA. Elder with local Mennonite churches in N.C. At-large director of Choice Books.

22. West Virginiadaryl douGlaS ritChie, mdiv ’06Pastor of two Church of the Brethren churches, while serving as emergency medical person and chaplin at the Frank-lin Volunteer Fire Department.

CharleS d. (mdiv ’95)& Sharon J. (bib. Cert. ’94) miller Pastors in the United Methodist Church of Oak Hill.

23. Kentuckyarthur G. mCPhee ’70, mdiv ’76Professor of Evangelism at Asbury Theo-logical Seminary near Lexington.

24. AlabamaCan nGoC le, mam ’89Pastor of Vietnamese McElwain Baptist Church in Birmingham.

25. GeorgiaJohnny d. CriSt ’76Senior pastor of the Atlanta Vineyard as well as regional overseer for the Vineyard churches in the Southeast region.

26. FloridadenniS ’76 (mdiv ’79) & linda ’77 GinG-eriChFounders with two other couples of Cape Coral Christian Fellowship in 1987. This church draws more than 1,000 attendees.

John Kivuva, maCl ’99Kenya-born priest in the Evangelical Epis-copal Church in St. Petersburg.

27.GuatemalaGalen Groff ’71Serves with wife Phyllis through EMM.

Willi huGo Perez, mar ’05Dean of SEMILLA, the Latin American Anabaptist Seminary in Guatemala.

28. JamaicalindSey yanCey niCe ’04Serving with her family with VMM.

29. NicaraguatraCey KinG-orteGa, maCt ’05Liaison for Central America for the Presby-terian Church USA.

30. Trinidad & TobagoGaneSh Kalloo, mar ’07Pastor of two Mennonite churches in Trinidad. Also full-time theology lecturer at West Indies Theological College.

riChard Keeler ’60Medical missionary responsible for conquering Hansen’s Disease (leprosy) in Trinidad; now doing full-time VMM work with wife Margaret.

david ’62 & Shirley ’62 yoderServing with VMM.

31. Colombiaubaldo rodriGuez, mdiv ’10Pastored Iglesia Mennonita de Riohacha before entering our seminary; hopes to plant a church after graduation.

32. PeruderiCK brubaKer ’95Doing medical service in Cusco with wife Jen under EMM.

Cindy ’86 & John ’86 (mdiv ’98) KreiderServing with EMM in Cusco.

33. Chileelena hueGel, maCt ’07Serves with Pentecostal Church of Chile, but also linked to the Global Ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ.

34. Bolivialaureen (laurie) ’94 & lynn lonGe-neCKerServing with MCC.

35. BrazilJimmy & Claudia Winter Both are enrolled in our seminary with intention of returning to Brazil to serve.

helmuth boSChmann ’98Brethren-Mennonite assistant pastor and community counselor in Acegua, Rio Grande do Sul (the southernmost state).

36. EnglandSara beth ulriCh WeSton ’01Serving with MMN.

aliStair mCKay, maCt ’99 Under London Mennonite Centre, director of Bridge Builders, helping to transform conflict for all denominations in Britain.

37. LithuaniaGreGGory lynn brubaKer ’88Serving with EMM and teaching business at LCC International University.

38. GermanymeGan rutt roSenWinK ’02Involved with Christliche Dienste, the German equivalent of MCC, and with the Mennonite congregation at Bammental, where husband Andy is the pastor.

39. ItalyWillard eberly ’65, mal ’92Serving with wife Eva for the Mediterra-nean region through VMM.

ChriS (mdiv ’06) & melody ’94 riddleServing with VMM.

40. Albaniaallen umble ’95Serving with VMM.

41. SenegalJameS haneS ’98Serving with MMN.

42. Guinea Bissauberyl forreSter ’66Doing community development and church planting under EMM at age 70.

43. Nigeriabrenda ’84 & marK ’83 hartman-SouderCountry representatives for MCC.

toma h. raGnJiya, maCt ’04Director of the Nigerian Office for Peace and Reconciliation, supported by his Church of the Brethren.

44. RwandaJohn rutSindintWarane, maCt ’02General secretary of the Lutheran Church of Rwanda and a pastor.

45. TanzaniaJoSePh S. nyaKyema, mal ’96Mennonite bishop in Tanzania.

46. KenyaPriSCilla adoyo, maCt ’03Director of the Peace Programme for the Institute for the Study of African Realities under the Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology.

harry l. KrauS, Jr. ’82Surgeon at Africa Inland Mission’s Kijabe Hospital in Kenya; author of six published novels. (On furlough in 2010 in Virginia.)

47. EthiopiaKenna dula, maCl ’02Executive secretary of the Meserete Kristos Church.

48. IsraelShirley roth ’71At Nazareth Village for VMM and MMN.

david e. SWarr ’78, ma ’84President & CEO of DAVAR, which works with partners to “bring the audible Word of God to the 60% who cannot read.”

49. JordanJ. daryl byler ’79, ma ’85Serves with wife Cindy as MCC represen-tative in Middle East.

50. Indiaearl ’86 (mar ’87) & ruth ’94 (maCt ’02) zimmermanMCC representatives for India, Nepal and Afghanistan.

51. NepalJoe CamPbell, maCt ’02Presbyterian serving with United Mission to Nepal, an umbrella organization of 30 international mission agencies.

52. ThailandCandiCe rhodeS ’00 & tom ’99 maStServing with Rosedale Mennonite Missions.

marK’00 (mdiv ’08)& Sarah ’02 (mdiv ’08) SChoenhalSServing with VMM and EMM.

53. Cambodiaandy (mdiv ’08) & lana (mdiv ’07) millerSoutheast Asia representatives for MCC.

54. ChinaJuliana (Julie) bontraGer bender ’72Serving with MMN.

Wu Wei, mdiv ’06Pastor of Chong Wenmen Church in Beijing.

55. South Koreahyun-ah KanG ’10Was active in Baptist church in home country; now at our seminary.

56. JapanmarK lee (mdiv ’02) & StePhanie (mdiv ’03) bartSCh ’90Serving with MMN.

anGela WenGer yamanaKa ’94 (mal ’06)Pastoring with husband Tomoki atAsahikawa Gospel Church.

57. Philippinesroberto de la Cruz laySon, SPi ’01Parish priest under Archdiocese of Manila; author of a book, In War, the Real Enemy is War Itself. Was awarded the Pax Christi International Peace Prize in 2002.

58. Solomon IslandsdenniS G. mCadamS, mar ’81Mission worker with wife Effie among 250 villagers in 53 houses on Rendova Island.

59. AustraliamarK S. hurSt ’81Works with wife Mary with the Anabaptist Association of Australia and New Zealand.

alan marr, maCt ’08Director of Ministries for the Baptist Union of Victoria and chairperson of the Asia Pacific Baptist Peace Network.

crossroads spring 2010, Vol. 90, No. 3

Crossroads (USPS 174-860) is published three times a year by Eastern Mennonite University for distribution to 16,000 alumni, students, parents and friends.

A leader among faith-based universities, Eastern Mennonite University emphasizes peacebuilding, creation care, experiential learning, and cross-cultural engagement. Founded in 1917 in Harrisonburg, Virginia, EMU offers undergraduate, graduate, and seminary degrees that prepare students to serve and lead in a global context.

EMU's mission statement is posted in its entirety at www.emu.edu/president/mission.

Board of Trustees: Susan Godshall, chair, Mount Joy, Pa.; Wilma Bailey, Indianapolis, Ind.; Myron Blosser, Harrisonburg, Va.; John Bomberger, Harrisonburg, Va.; Andrew Dula, Lancaster, Pa.; Gilberto Flores, Newton, Kan.; Curtis D. Hartman, Harrisonburg, Va.; Shirley Hochstetler, Kidron, Ohio; Gerald R. Horst, New Holland, Pa.; Charlotte Hunsberger, Souderton, Pa.; Joan King, Telford, Pa.; Clyde Kratz, Harrisonburg, Va.; Kathleen (Kay) Nussbaum, Grant, Minn.; Kathy Keener Shantz, Lancaster, Pa.; Lillis Troyer, Walnut Creek, Ohio; Diane Zimmerman Umble, Lancaster, Pa.; Paul R. Yoder, Jr., Harrisonburg, Va. Associate trustees: Jonathan Bowman, Manheim, Pa.; Steve Brenneman, Nappanee, Ind.; David Hersh, Line Lexington, Pa.; Robert P. Hostetler, Erie, Pa.; E. ThomasMurphy, Jr., Harrisonburg, Va.; Amy L. Rush, Harrison-burg, Va.; Judith Trumbo, Broadway, Va.

Loren Swartzendruber, president; Fred Kniss, provost; Kirk Shisler, vice president for advancement; Andrea Wenger, marketing and communications director.

Bonnie Price Lofton Jon StyerEditor/writer Designer/[email protected] [email protected]

Paul T. Yoder Jim BishopMileposts editor Public information [email protected] [email protected]

Marcy Gineris Jason GarberWeb content manager Web/new media [email protected] [email protected]

Lindsey Kolb Carol LownProject coord./videographer Mailing list [email protected] [email protected]

All EMU personnel can be reached during regular work hours by calling (540) 432-4000, or via contact details posted on the university website, www.emu.edu.

Cover: Leonard Dow on the roof of his Philadelphia church, Oxford Circle. Story on page 36. Photo by Jon Styer. Concerning the cover photo of last issue (fall/winter 2009-10), several readers were able to identify the "mys-tery women" in our volleyball photo. On the left was Becky Miller Lyda '92 and on the right was Gwen Sensenig '91.

POSTMASTER: Submit address changes to:CrossroadsEastern Mennonite University1200 Park RoadHarrisonburg, VA 22802

God's Hands and FeetThe biblical and Anabaptist concept of the “priesthood of believers” has occasionally been interpreted to suggest that the church does not need leaders. Since all members of the church should be “in ministry,” the argument goes, perhaps leaders are superfluous. We can surely agree that each member is gifted by God for service to the community and in the body of Christ, but it seems evident that some are called out for specific leadership ministries.

This issue of Crossroads tells the amazing stories of EMU alumni who are serving as pastors, chaplains, peacebuilders, missionaries, district conference executives, and in other leadership roles. It touches on the work of 282 alumni in the field of ministry, which amounts to perhaps a tenth of those who deserve to be highlighted in these pages. I wish we had the resources to produce an encyclopedia on this subject, but in the absence of such a tome, I hope you enjoy this glimpse into the ways our alumni are serving as God’s hands and feet.

Following the most successful men’s basketball season in EMU history, it is particularly appropriate that we include the story of Leonard Dow, pastor of Oxford Circle Mennonite Church in Philadelphia, and a former basketball star for the Royals. By Pastor Dow’s own admission, a future in pastoral ministry was very far from his mind as a student. As the saying goes, and as is true for many of us, God works in mysterious ways!

During the summer prior to assuming the presidency at EMU, Pat and I spent ten days in Ethiopia. We heard the stories of early witness and medical service by numerous EMU alumni, listened to the history of persecution, and worshiped in lively congregations. One wonders how that amazing story of the Holy Spirit’s movement over the past six decades might have unfolded without EMU-educated missional pastors, teachers, and medical personnel, both North American and Ethiopian. In 1994, some of them helped found, and now lead and teach at, Ethiopia’s version of a Mennonite college, Meserete Kristos College.

Having served as a pastor many years ago, and with the opportunity to visit more than 300 congregations in the 35 years since my ordination, I am profoundly grateful for the pastoral leaders of the church. It is a fulfilling vocation, rewarding in many ways. It is also a demanding calling worthy of our support as members. I have frequently said that church schools do our best work with young adults whose family and congregational experiences have been positive and nourishing. It is, indeed, a three-way partnership. To all the EMU and other church school alumni serving in church leadership roles—thank you for being servant leaders!

Loren Swartzendruber President

President Loren Swartzendruber '76, MDiv '79, DMin

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printed on recycled paper

photograph by Steven Stauffer

In this Issue2 Ministers Do What?Advocacy, church planting, pastoral ministries, missions and service, relief and development, peacebuilding, and many of the helping professions. . . ministers are in all these fields.

30 Ethiopians Prove FaithfulAfter a decade underground, persecutedEthiopian Christians were able to worship openly beginning in 1991. To the amazement of all, the number of church followers had increased ten-fold during the period of secret worship in house fellowships.

36 Playing to PreachingLeonard Dow speaks of the “three-point stance” in basketball, where a player is positioned to either pass, shoot or dribble around someone. Similarly, Dow believes in having a three-point stance in life – "mind, body and spirit.”

40 New Demilitarized ZoneThe Anabaptists behind the Northeast Asia Regional Peacebuilding Institute aim to prepare people from six countries to move their region beyond a legacy of violence and the Cold War.

42 Walking Where Jesus DidThe Jesus Trail – often hot, steep and rocky – allows hikers to experience the land and the people of the region much as Jesus did.

45 MilepostsNews pertaining to education, jobs, marital status, children, major anniversaries, and deaths gets collected here for sharing with friends and former classmates.

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The sTudenTs of Wilson High School in Fishersville, Virginia, didn’t know what to think. Amid the “career day” tables set up by Intelos wireless, members of the Chamber of Commerce, and a large contingent of military recruiters was a table announcing a line of work not often seen at career fairs – “clergy careers.”

The table was staffed by three Mennonite pastors – Howard I. Miller ’80, MAL ’97, pastor of Waynesboro Mennonite Church; Mark Schloneger, MDiv ’05, pastor of Springdale Mennonite Church; and Kevin Gasser, MDiv ’08, pastor of Staunton Men-nonite Church.

To the pastors’ pleasure, a steady stream of students – maybe 75 over a three-hour period – wanted to know: What is a clergy person? How do you know if it is the right job for you? How much are clergy people paid? Exactly how do you get into this line of work? Many of the students were filling out checklists required by their classroom teachers, but some were really curious.

The pay-range part was easier to answer than the “what ministers do” part, because they fill dozens of roles, from hospice chap-lains to public policy advocates.

The three ministers at the high school career day themselves had not taken direct paths to the ministry – Miller had been a high school teacher for seven years. Schlo-neger was an attorney in Cincinnati, Ohio, and then served three years with Menno-nite Central Committee in Mozambique, before feeling called to be a pastor. Gasser, raised on a dairy farm, completed a BS at Ohio State University, where he majored in animal science, before deciding to go to Eastern Mennonite Seminary.

“I think a good liberal arts education is a great foundation for being a clergy person later in life,” said Miller. “I hope we are able to be present at the career fair next year, too. It is important for students to know that clergy careers are an option, with a solid employment forecast. Even if they aren’t interested as high school students or as un-

dergraduates, they might get interested later.”The following photos, along with other

pages in this issue of Crossroads, offer a glimpse into the range of people attracted to work in the ministry and the breadth of the work they do. There were no particular selection criteria for those highlighted in this issue. It was mostly a matter of trying to show a diversity of people from various class years and a matter of who was available at a place and time where the Crossroads photographer might easily capture them.

Ervin Stutzman, MAR '99, former dean of Eastern Mennonite Seminary and now executive director of Mennonite Church USA, notes that a biblically grounded education becomes a springboard to many possibilities, including “advocacy, church planting, pastoral ministries, missions and service, relief and development, peacebuild-ing, and many of the helping professions."

— Bonnie Price Lofton, MA ’04 Editor/writer

ministers do what?

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True Evangelical faith cannot lie dormant. It clothes the naked, it feeds the hungry, it comforts the sorrowful, it shelters the destitute and it serves those who harm it. It seeks those who are lost. It binds up what is wounded. It becomes all things to all people.

– Seven of 17 injunctions written by Menno Simons in 1539


ministry

MiChAEL KUrTz ’77 (MDiv, DUKE; DMin, EASTErn BAPTiST ThEoLoGiCAL) // Lead pastor, Oak Ridge United Methodist Church // Oak Ridge, N.C.



ministry

LoriE hErShEY, MDiv ’05 // Pastor, West Philadelphia (Pa.) Mennonite Church // Shares building with other congregations and community organizations

“I came from where people weren’t sure about women in ministry. Women, including my mother, did a lot of lay ministry. And I was given leadership opportunities as a young person, too. But formalizing that into a pastoral role was not in our paradigm… At seminary you learn about how your background shaped you, how God is shaping you now, where God is calling you in the future. This is important for your pastorate. There are so many different people at so many different junctures in their walk with God, and knowing your own story helps them to know theirs, too.”

–Lorie hershey, as quoted in The Mennonite (01/20/09)


ADAM WhiTE ’95, MAr ’04 // Campus minister, Sweet Briar College // Sweet Briar, Va.

DEL GLiCK ’68 // Lead pastor, Washington (D.C.) Community Fellowship // Former EMU president Myron Augsburger was its first pastor in 1981.


ministry

KEvin KAnAGY, MDiv ’07 // Splits full-time pastoral position with wife Nan Kanagy, MAL '07, at Friendship Mennonite Church // Bedford Heights, Ohio

STEPhEn "TiG" inTAGLiATA // Campus minister, Bluffton (Ohio) University // Participant, EMU's Summer Institute for Spiritual Formation

GAiL & PhiL (MDiv ’82) EBErSoLE // Co-leaders of church start, The Bridge, // Denver, Colo. // Participants, EMU's School for Leadership Training


rAChELLE LYnDAKEr SChLABACh, MDiv ’07 // Director of Washington (D.C.) office of Mennonite Central Committee // Offers Christian witness on U.S. public policy


ministry

ChArPiA vAnG, KAo LEE, ChAiYA hADTASUnSErn (PASTor), nAoToU LEE, & ChErPAo MoUA // Hmong Mennonite Church // Hickory, N.C. // These men, plus Malachi Vang, have been through EMU's Preaching Institute. Church members, all refugees from Laos, face new hardships due to disappearance of local furniture industry jobs.


hoWArD i. MiLLEr ’80, MAL ’96 // Pastor, Waynesboro (Va.) Mennonite Church // Particular efforts to address substance abuse

CinDY LAPP ’86 // Pastor, Hyattsville (Md.) Mennonite Church // Diverse urban ministry in Washington D.C. metropolitan area

hArvEY YoDEr ’64, MAL ’94 // Counselor, pastor, social-justice advocate in Family of Hope (house church) & Family Life Resource Ctr. // Harrisonburg, Va.


ministry

ChUCK hoSTETTEr, CLASS oF ’80 // Pastor, Mount View Mennonite Church // Hickory, N.C. // This was a plant 50-plus years ago for unchurched rural residents.

roY ’82 & MArEn TYEDMErS hAnGE // Co-pastors, Charlottesville Mennonite Church // Charlottesville, Va. // Frequented by University of Virginia folks


nED WYSE ’76 // Farmer and pastoral leader, Salem Mennonite Church // Waldron, Mich. // As told in the book Hope Indeed! by N. Gerald Shenk, Wyse experienced a random violent attack by local young men. He eventually found ways to reach out to his attackers, establishing trust and reconciliation through relationships.

JiM ’75 (SEM ’83) & ALDinE MUSSEr WiTh JAMES rhEE, MDiv ’05// The Mussers give pastoral leadership to the Stephens City (Va.) Mennonite Church while Rhee is the founding pastor of Stephens City Korean Community Church. // The two congregations share a small church facility in the upper Shenandoah Valley.


ministry

EriC MUSSEr, MDiv ’97 // Pastor, Huntington Mennonite Church // Newport News, Va. // Church serves an area that has a large military presence.

MATT hAMShEr ’95, MDiv ’99 // Regional pastor for the Ohio Conference of Mennonite Church USA // Kidron, Ohio

ChriSTinE ’00 (MAL ’06) & PATriCK ’00 (MDiv ’06) nAFziGEr // Co-pastors, Millersburg (Ohio) Mennonite Church


roB LovETT (PASTor) & JoAn rAinSBErGEr (WoMEn'S MiniSTrY) // Seminary students who are leaders at First Christian Church // Winchester, Va.


ministry

CLYDE KrATz ’86, MDiv ’89 // Lead pastor, Zion Mennonite Church // Broadway, Va.

Rev. Dr. Clyde Kratz is the pastor at Zion Mennonite Church, a member of EMU's board of trustees, an overseer in Virginia Mennonite Conference, and the vice chair of the Faith and Life Commission. He has also served on Haverim, the Bible & religion support group at EMU, for two six-year terms.


ToDD ChriSTEnSEn // Seminary student from New York // Lutheran STEvEn SWArTzEnDrUBEr ’00, MDiv ’05 // Hospice chaplain // D.C. area

ChriS JohnSon // Seminary student from Harrisonburg // Baptist

photograph by steven stauffer


ministry

STEvE LAnDiS ’77, MA ’87 // Pastoral team leader, Franconia (Pa.) Mennonite Church // One of the first Mennonite congregations in America (it's 281 years old).

CArMEn SChroCK-hUrST ’81 // Volunteer bereavement coordinator for hospital-based hospice // Co-pastor, Immanuel Mennonite Church // Harrisonburg, Va.


MArK LAnDiS (CPS ’85) & riChArD K. EArLY (CLASS oF ’79) // Associate pastor (Landis) & pastor (Early), Grace Mennonite Fellowship // Harrisonburg, Va.

LEE A. MArTin ’83, MAM ’87 // Pastor, Mount Clinton Mennonite Church // Harrisonburg, Va. // This cemetery on the south side of Mt. Clinton Pike, about six miles west of EMU, is the only trace of the original 1874 church site. The current church, across the road from the cemetery, was dedicated in 1990.


ministry

hAroLD n. MiLLEr ’76 // Pastor, Trissels Mennonite Church // Broadway, Va. // Formerly pastored Community Mennonite Church in Corning, N.Y., for 30 years.

W. CArL & BECKY vAn STAvErn // Pastors at eight small churches in West Virginia under the United Methodist Church (he handles five; she handles three) // They drive six hours round-trip each week, spending weeknights in Harrisonburg, Va., to attend graduate classes on three days at Eastern Mennonite Seminary.


JEFF CArr, MDiv ’05 // Senior pastor, Bridgewater Church of the Brethren // Bridgewater, Va.


ministry

roBErT ALLEY, MDiv ’72 // Moderator-elect of the Church of the Brethren.


DAviD SEnSEniG & DArYL WEAvEr // Martindale Mennonite Church // Ephrata, Pa. // STEP (Study and Training for Effective Pastoral Ministry) at EMU-Lancaster.

nELSon oKAnYA, MDiv ’02 // Associate pastor, Capital Christian Fellowship // Lanham, Md. // Non-denominational urban church.

AL hUYArD ’71& roSE hUYArD (’96 MA in CoUnSELinG) // Co-pastors, Mt. Vernon Mennonite Church // Grottoes, Va.


ministry

JASon GErLACh ’01, MDiv ’06 // Pastor of youth ministry, Community Mennonite Church // Virginia Mennonite Conference youth minister // Harrisonburg, Va.

BASiL MArin, MDiv ’05 // Pastor (fifth adult from right, at back) with congregation of a recent church plant, New Song Anabaptist Fellowship // Harrisonburg, Va.


KAThY ’06 & BEn riSSEr ’85, MAL ’04 // Ben is pastor of Ridgeway Mennonite Church // Harrisonburg, Va.

YUMiKo nAKAShiMA, MDiv ’07 // Active in North County Japanese Christian Church // Vista, Calif. // Husband-pastor Mitsunari has two MAs from EMU.

DAviD MAUrEr, MDiv ’02 // Pastor, Bethel Mennonite // West Liberty, Ohio

photograph by steven stauffer photograph by matthew styer


ministry

J. JEFF BUTChEr, MA ’04 // Pastor, Stephens City United Methodist Church // Stephens City, Va. // His master's degree is in conflict transformation.

AniL DAniEL SoLAnKi // Seminary professor who spent 35 years translating Bible into native language of Gujarati; member of UCC church // Broadway, Va.

ALiCiA horST ’01, MDiv ’06 // Active in The Table, a new worship group //Director of New Bridges Immigrant Resource Center // Harrisonburg, Va.


ron CoPELAnD, MDiv ’06 // Founder of The Early Church // Harrisonburg, Va. // Oriented toward meeting the spiritual and practical needs of those lacking decent jobs, homes and friends. // In the background volunteers from the EMU community are visible, working in the garden and building lockers for storage.


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"[Ron] has a gift to minister to the most needy and broken, especially to befriend them. Institutions can get food and shelter for them … but what most of these people really don’t have is friendship."

–From a Daily News-Record article by Martin Cizmar


"We started out with 10 people in my house 25 years ago. Now we are 130 to 140 people – most are from Central America – worshipping on Sunday afternoons and Friday evenings. I baptized four just last Sunday! Praise the Lord!"

– Justino Cruz, pastor of iglesia del Evangelio Completo Alfa y omega


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"The numerical growing edge of Mennonite Church USA, like many other denominations, is in churches planted by various racial ethnic groups."

– Ervin Stutzman, MAr '99, executive director of Mennonite Church USA.

ConGrEGATion oF iGLESiA DEL EvAnGELio CoMPLETo ALFA Y oMEGA // Hyattsville (Md.) Mennonite Church // 2006 photo by EMU professor Howard Zehr


ChrisTians faCing oppression today ought to hear what happened to Ethiopia’s Mennonites. Reduced to five words, God did not forsake them.

From 1948 to 1982, the Mennonite church in Ethiopia – called Meserete Kristos Church (MKC) – grew from zero to 5,000 members in 14 congregations. Despite the anti-Christian bias of a Marxist group that came to power in a coup in 1974, MKC was able to continue worshipping openly during the late 1970s and early 1980s. On January 24, 1982, a total of 1,500 people worshiped at three Mennonite services in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.

Then, the Marxist regime (known as the Derg) brought the hammer down on evangelical Christians, including Menno-nites. For a decade, matters were grim for followers of Jesus in Ethiopia.

Expatriate Mennonites were told to leave Ethiopia, and almost all of them did. Public gatherings of Ethiopian-born Mennonites were banned. Five top MKC leaders – Kelifa Ali, Kiros Bihon (father of five), Abebe Gorfe (father of eight), Negash Kebede (cur-rent president of Meserete Kristos College), and Shamsudin Abdo – were imprisoned for four years. Tilahun Beyene was imprisoned for one year. Prison conditions were horrific.

In his book on the first 50 years of MKC, Beyond Our Prayers, Nathan B. Hege ’49 describes what Shamsudin faced:

Shamsudin was pushed into a crowded dark room less than thirteen feet square with thirty-five other prisoners. Here they sat, ate, and slept on the floor. At night they were crowded tightly against each other, alternating head to feet. They could

Kreider was the hostess at the guesthouse beside the Bole church (now called Kebena). Armed men surrounded Kreider and one of them announced: “As of this moment, this building, the car, everything on this compound – they all belong to the govern-ment.” Kreider’s reaction? She offered her guards tea.

By 1983, Mennonites in Ethiopia were reduced to secretly gathering in homes in groups of five to seven each week to study

eThiopians show powerOf Faithfulness to God

turn from one side to the other only when they could get permission of the whole row to turn at the same time.

Arlene Kreider ’62 was living in Ad-dis Ababa at that time. She had been in Ethiopia for 15 years, teaching elementary school and staffing the Menno Bookstore in the capital city. She had also worked with Peg Groff (now Engle), a 1968 graduate of Eastern Mennonite’s nursing program. For several years they had operated a mobile health clinic, helped refugees plant gardens, and taught nutrition. The women had traveled alone across hundreds of miles in the outback, themselves maintaining their Toyota Land Cruiser.

On the evening of January 24, 1982,

At top, center, arlene Kreider changes a tire (circa 1979). Bottom, Paul T. Yoder with an Afar patient (circa 1975). Photos courtesy of Peg Engle and the Yoders.


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the Bible. Baptisms took place under the cover of night. These groups functioned independently, mostly led by Ethiopian women relying almost entirely upon the Scriptures for guidance.

In 1991, after the fall of the Derg, these house fellowships emerged into public light. To the amazement of all, the number of church followers had increased tenfold. Worshipping openly for the first time in decades, 50,000 people crowded into a stadium. By 1997, MKC reported having 114,000 people in 180 congregations in 15 regions across the country. MKC was grow-ing 20% per year.

Having learned self-reliance under the Marxist regime, the Ethiopian Mennonites

had evolved a style of worshipping different from most American and Canadian Menno-nite congregations. Typically gathering for many hours, the Ethiopians sang songs they had created, listened to passionate messages, joyfully celebrated the Lord’s supper, and engaged in faith healing, casting out of de-mons, and speaking in tongues. They shared their material goods freely, as early Chris-tians did. They taught and lived that love was all important, regardless of someone’s

tribe or religion or political persuasion.In Beyond Our Prayers (from which the

writer of this article gratefully draws most of her information), Hege credits the Meserete Kristos Church for being “an authentic New Testament church intent on faithfulness to the Lord.”

The firsT MennoniTesAfter the Second World War, Emperor Haile Selassie I provisionally welcomed missionaries. He wanted them to be

“holistic in their approach and not just to focus on evangelism,” writes Hege. Selassie welcomed health clinics and hospitals, schools and literacy programs, agriculture and community development.

Center, Paul T. Yoder’s mobile “examining room” in a Toyota Land Cruiser in 1975. BOTTOM LEFT, A FORMER PATIENT, LAODA, SERVES AS A CULTURAL AND LINGUISTIC BRIDGE. PhotoS courtesy of the Yoders.


In 1945, the Mennonite Relief Committee and Mennonite Central Committee sent a shipment of clothing and food. They next provided short-term personnel to open a hospital in Nazareth, 60 miles east of Addis Ababa. The hospital was established in a former cotton gin building, with 80 beds and a bare-bones operating room.

In 1949, Chester ’36 and Sara Jane '42 Wenger – along with their three elementary-age daughters (Betty ’67, Margaret ’69 and Jewel ’69) – moved to Ethiopia from the Tidewater area of Virginia to do mission work. They spent much of their first year in the country functioning within the orbit of the Nazareth Hospital, while trying to master the complexities of the Amharic language. The medical director of the hos-pital was D. Rohrer Eshleman ’45, who was pleased that Wenger was willing to tend to the educational and spiritual development of his staff since he himself was fully oc-cupied with caring for the sick.

According to Hege, Wenger found that “many of those [Ethiopians] being trained in the hospital seemed to lack an essential ethical foundation for serving the sick with integrity. Hospital supplies and medicines

were frequently stolen. At one point, the whole staff went on strike for higher wages and presented false claims of promises made by a previous administration.”

Wenger felt that the “dressers” (the term used for nurses’ assistants) needed to learn to serve patients selflessly and to “know the love of Christ as expressed in Christian brotherhood.” In 1952, Wenger opened the Nazareth Dresser Bible School, with in-struction in Bible, world religions, English, carpentry, and personal development.

CoerCion rejeCTedYet patients received the same quality of care, regardless of their beliefs. “Rohrer [Eshleman] counseled evangelists not to take advantage of sick people by pressuring them into making a commitment to Christ,” writes Hege.

Other schools and clinics begun by Men-nonites during the early 1950s were: a school for the blind in Addis Ababa; a school in Bedeno, 350 miles east of Addis Ababa; and, in Deder 250 miles to southeast, a boys’ day school, a girls’ boarding school, a hospital that grew to 35 beds, and a clinic that served people suffering from leprosy.

The earliest Mennonite missionaries in pastoral Deder met a bright child named Tilahun Beyene, who spent his days watch-ing the family’s cattle. Years later Beyene was treasurer of Meserete Kristos Church when he was arrested and imprisoned by the Marxist regime for a year.

James Payne ’58 arrived in Ethiopia in 1952 as a 21-year-old tasked with building housing for mission personnel. Practical skills were in high demand. One afternoon when he was crossing a roof, the wood gave way and he crashed to the ground, striking his head and lying unconscious “for no one knows how long,” he recalls. Though Payne went on to become a professor (and a major donor to EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding), he has experienced excruci-ating, sometimes debilitating, headaches for almost 60 years as a result of this incident.

Top left, James Payne '58, with a transla-tor, leads devotionals at Deder in the early 1950s. Center, volleyball game at Deder with Mennonite-built school in background. Right, Payne preparing wood for construction. Photos, circa 1953, courtesy of James Payne.


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The physician assigned to Deder, Walter Schlabach ’43 and his wife, Mae (a ’43 nurs-ing graduate), “brought the first modern medicine and surgery to this highland center for 20,000 people,” Hege writes.

Ingida Asfaw ’62 was a lab tech at Deder before leaving his homeland to enroll in EMU. He is now an acclaimed cardiologist in Detroit.

BreaKing BarriersIn 1956, Paul “P.T.” Yoder ’50 headed to Ethiopia as a freshly credentialed physician. P.T. and his wife Daisy ’52 cast aside lingering cultural and racial barriers by taking their meals with students training to be dressers and opening their home to overnight guests from all walks of society.

(Mamo Dula, father of Andy Dula ’91, chair-elect of EMU's board of trustees, and of Peter Dula ’92, chair of the Bible and religion department, was an extended guest of the Yoders, living with them for two suc-cessive summers. In fact, when Mamo and Mary Ellen Groff ’67, an American-Men-nonite nurse, were contemplating marriage, they turned to P.T. for counsel -- interracial marriage was rare then. P.T. approved of the

match: “Mamo was like a son to us.")One day in the 1970s a man and his son

both came to the hospital in Nazareth for hernia repairs. During post-surgery recovery, P.T. noticed that his dressers avoided the beds of these two. “Why are you acting this way?” P.T. asked the staff.

P.T. was told: “They are not people.”P.T. replied: “They look like people to me.”The man and boy had walked about 75

miles to get to the hospital. They were the Afar nomadic tribe in the Awash Valley. This tribe considered it an honor and a neces-sity for their men to kill and eviscerate men from other tribes, in addition to rustling their cattle. “When the men died, stones were lined up by their graves – one per per-

son killed,” P.T. told Crossroads in a recent interview. “One time I counted 70 stones before a single grave.”

P.T. decided that the Afars, who barely subsisted off their camels, goats, sheep and cows, needed his attention more than any group he knew. So, in 1974, he and Daisy acquired two four-wheel drive vehicles – a Toyota Land Cruiser from Bread for the World and a Land Rover from Oxfam. Us-ing one of the vehicles as a mobile clinic/pharmacy and the other as a mover of people and camping gear, “we would go out on Monday, find sick Afars to treat, sleep in tents we brought, and move to another village until we returned to our home on Friday.” Each day began with devotions.

The four Yoder children were away from their parents in boarding school, except for monthly visits and holiday periods. Most children of missionaries serving in remote areas of Africa were enrolled in boarding school. This arrangement is one thing the Yoders would do differently, if they were able to repeat their 21 years in Ethiopia. “I wish we spent more time with our children,” P.T. says now. “I think they needed us too.”

Of the 194 Mennonite service or mis-

Top left, in January 2002 MKC members pack A church to celebrate the 50th anniversary of MKC. Top right, Mese-rete Kristos College students in their cafeteria. Bottom left, four graduates from Eastern Mennonite Seminary (l. to r.): Gemechu Gebre, Kebede Bekere, Bedru Hussein, and Hailu Cherenet. Bottom right, main all-purpose building, the first on the Meserete kristos college campus. Photos courtesy of Peg engle.


sion workers in Ethiopia from 1949 to 1998, more than 50% (98) were alumni of Eastern Mennonite College (later Univer-sity). Joining Chester and Sara Jane Wenger as educators from the 1960s into the 1970s, were these alumni: Henry ’52 and Pearl ’49 Gamber; Calvin and Marie Shenk, both ’53 graduates; Nathan ’49 and Arlene ’46 Hege; Paul and Ann Gingrich, both class of ’52; and Nevin and Blanche Horst, ’53 graduates.

Their teaching stints in Ethiopian schools were remarkably long, from 14 to 24 years, with the couples averaging 18 years in Ethio-pia. As in the case of the Yoders, this means they raised their children in Ethiopia. The Wengers, for instance, grew to be a family of six children. Two of them – Sara ’75 and Phil ’82 – were born in Ethiopia. (Mark ’79 was born while the Wengers were in Virginia on home leave.)

Some of the students who came through the Mennonite-sponsored schools stepped into the leadership of the Meserete Kristos Church in the 1960s. As a young boy, Mil-lion Belete, for example, began his relation-ship with Anabaptism by walking 14 miles roundtrip each day from his home to attend the Mennonite mission school at Deder. He topped off his education by attending EMU in 1961.

A few years later, with the North Ameri-can missionaries happy to hand off leader-ship to Ethiopian believers, Belete was named the first Ethiopian chair of MKC and the first ordained Ethiopian pastor in that church.

In the 1970s, a few EMU alumni focused on helping Ethiopians to earn their living in a sustainable manner. Carl Hansen ’65, who had grown up on an Alberta farm and studied at Eastern Mennonite Seminary in 1967, collaborated with Henry Gamber ’52 to import Swiss dairy goats to improve milk and cheese production at Deder. As Hege describes the effort:

At Bedeno, Carl set up a small demon-stration farm with a five-cow dairy herd, 75 leghorn hens to produce hatching eggs, a wool-sheep breeding program, and a beekeeping project. A farm supply center made new tools, seeds, fertilizers and chemicals available to farmers.

The goal was to reverse the trend of rural-dwellers abandoning the countryside and crowding into cities where decent jobs were scarce. The Mennonite service workers were trying to enable farmers to support their families from their land, without destroy-

ing the small pockets of remaining forestry. Hege says tree coverage had shrunk from 60% to 10% of Ethiopia from 1960 to 1980.

(Hansen and his wife, Vera ’65, worked in Ethiopia from 1967 to 1975, then returned in 1996. In the spring of 2010, they were both working at Meserete Kristos College.)

Just before MKC was outlawed in 1982, it planned to plant 1,200 acres of fast-growing trees each year for five years in a reforesta-tion effort. It was also working to reduce Ethiopians’ dependence on wood for cook-ing and for building houses.

Peg Groff Engle ’67, sister to Mary El-len (the nurse who married Mamo Dula), was one of the longest-serving alumni in Ethiopia, with 22 years there (1968-1990). She even managed to remain through the period of Marxist persecution of evangelical Christians.

Engle now lives in Harrisonburg, Virginia, with Jim Engle, the seminary professor she married as a middle-aged woman. She recently became an ordained pastor and is active in Lindale Mennonite Church. But she sorely misses Ethiopia, especially the warm hospitality, heartfelt faith, generous love, and impeccable manners of its people. She knows that Ethiopians wonder if their brothers and sisters in North America are at risk of being deaf to the call of the Holy Spirit amid their affluence and materialism. She wonders too.

Two-way road nowThis magazine has touched on just a fraction of the 98 alumni listed in the back of Hege’s book as Mennonite missionaries from 1948 to 1998. Dozens more EMU-linked people have gone to Ethiopia since 1998.

Yet the road is now two-way. With their inspiringly passionate relationship to the Holy Spirit – and experience of emerg-ing stronger from decades of oppression

– Ethiopian church leaders are being asked to serve in mission agencies outside of their home country.

Tefera Bekere (Kumssa), MAL ’03, works with the Global Discipleship Training program in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. (His daughter, Fakir, is a 2000 graduate.)

Million Belete (class of ’61) has been secretary of the Bible Society for Africa and president of Mennonite World Conference. Bedru Hussein, MDiv ’00, has been vice president of Mennonite World Conference (and has sent two sons to EMU, Selam ’04 and Beniam, class of ’05).

In addition to Bekere and Hussein, these six MKC members have earned master’s degrees at Eastern Mennonite Seminary: Hailu Cherenet, MDiv ’99; Gemechu Ge-bre (Telila), MAR ’02; Kebede Bekere (Tuli), MAPC ’01; Senait Abebe, MAPC ’00; Kenna Dula, MAL ’02; Selamawit Stifanos, MDiv ’08. Two others have earned master’s degrees in conflict transformation at EMU: Simon Badi (Kefachew) in 2001 and Solo-mon Telahun (Ketsela) in 2010.

Today a visitor to government offices in Ethiopia is likely to encounter a surprising number of officials educated at Mennonite-sponsored schools. If that visitor needs a hospital, she or he will likely be receiving care from someone trained at a Mennonite-founded clinic or hospital. If circulating through any large-sized town or city, visitors probably will pass by a place where MKC congregations worship on Sundays.

Meserete Kristos College, founded as a Bible institute in 1994, now offers education at levels up to a four-year bachelor’s degree in Bible and Christian ministry. It has about 400 alumni.

The college is directed by Ethiopian-born Mennonites, but receives continued support in the form of prayer, finances, and volunteer or low-paid service from North American Mennonites.

A four-year liberal arts degree is in the works. The college has formal links with Eastern Mennonite Seminary for those who wish to pursue a master’s degree. EMU professors teach three graduate-level courses to Ethiopian pastors each summer.

In 2007, the college inaugurated a new multi-purpose building, the first of many buildings on the drawing board for its 15-acre campus at Debre Zeit on the outskirts of Addis Ababa.

Prior to World War II, there were no members of Mennonite-type churches in Ethiopia. Some 60 years later, in 2009, there were 172,306 members, according to the latest report posted online by Men-nonite World Conference. This represents the third-highest national concentration of Anabaptists in the world, after the United States (387,103 in 2009) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (220,444). MKC is currently growing faster than 10% per year.

Such a trajectory toward the Light, de-spite hardships (or perhaps because of hard-ships), is a model for the world. In Calvin Shenk’s words, it shows “God’s faithfulness, with surprises beyond our prayers.”


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Neighbors used to murmur that Mother Roman would have a happier life if her 26-year-old son would just go ahead and die.

Solomon Telahun (Ketsela) had been self-destructing for 14 years at that point: chewing chat to get high, smoking marijua-na, and getting blind-drunk on alcohol, plus making three out-right suicide attempts. Solomon stole money from his mother to feed his addictions. Roman grieved for her son's lostness. But she never stopped praying for him. She never refused him a place to sleep when he entered her doorway after being gone for weeks, living as a filthy homeless man on the streets of the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa.

Solomon started down the path of destruction at age 14 – a teenager’s reaction, he believes, to his parents’ divorce when he was age 7. His mother had been trained as a “dresser” (nurses’ assistant) at Nazareth Dresser Bible School, and his fa-ther had been one of the first Ethiopian employees at Nazareth Hospital. But by the time Solomon was growing up, his father had left Mennonite circles. Solomon felt torn.

One August day in 1989, then-28-year-old Solomon agreed to accompany his mother and eldest sister to a MKC worship event. He refused to enter the church, though. Instead he tucked his dirty body, topped by a huge mound of matted hair, under an outside table. He could hear and feel the “outpouring of the spirit” from the building. He cried out in tears, “Oh, my Lord and redeemer, help me to give my life to you! Come into my heart and give me eternal life. Change me, because I am tired of myself!”

That did it. “In less than a month’s time, a complete U-turn took place in my life, to the amazement of thousands of people around town,” Solomon told Crossroads in the spring of 2010.

Though his native language is Amharic and he had not stepped foot in a classroom since high school, Solomon pleaded to be admitted in 1991 to Evangelical Theological Col-lege, a highly respected institution run in English.

After admission, “I nailed myself to a chair in the library. In two or three semesters, I brought up my grade point average to 3.7.” (He completed his BTh degree in 1997.)

In prayer meetings -- Solomon spent evenings, sometimes all night, at these -- he found the woman who became his wife after a two-year engagement. Today, Solomon and Muli are the parents of a son and a daughter. Muli works full-time as the chil-dren's minister in their 2,000-member church in Addis Ababa, where Solomon is an elder.

Solomon has managed to find time to earn a master of theol-ogy, write four books, and hold teaching and administrative positions at Pentecostal Theological College, Evangelical Theo-

logical College, and Meserete Kristos College. Solomon does not take credit for all this: “God heals. Jesus performs miracles. The fact that I am sitting here today is proof of that.”

In the spring of 2010, Solomon was in fact sitting mostly at Eastern Mennonite University, finishing a master’s degree (his second) in conflict transformation. He looked forward to reunit-ing that summer with his beloved wife and children in Ethiopia, where he hopes to be a “voice from the church to larger society, and a voice within the church to the church itself, on matters of peace and justice.”

From Addict On The StreetsTo peaCeBuilder aCross The world

Solomon Telahun on the eve of graduation from EMU


leonard dow ’87 enthusiastically followed the Cinderella story of EMU’s men’s basketball team in 2009-2010 from unranked to one of the best in the nation. He is someone who knows about breaking records.

Leonard, now a Mennonite bishop, remains the all-time record holder for career points at EMU (2,192), career rebounds (1,102), career field goals (872), and points in a season by a freshman (19.8 per game). Leonard is the only EMU player to be selected to the all-conference first team each of his four years. In the Royals Hall of Honor, Dow's uniform was the first to be retired.

As a junior and senior at Christopher Dock Mennonite High School three de-cades ago, Leonard was on track to attend a Division I or Division II college on a basketball scholarship when he was injured. Recruiters suddenly stopped calling.

“I was filled with self-pity,” he recalls with a wry tone. He decided to ditch college.

faCTory or College?Leonard’s father pressed pants and suits in a Philadelphia garment factory. Dad took his self-pitying teenager to work with him after graduation. Leonard lasted two weeks as a

“bundle boy” and then begged to be allowed to go to any college that would accept him.

His mother weighed in: “The Mennonites have done you well in high school” -- he came from a family that lived in Philly, where they were active in an African-American Baptist Church (later shifting to a Presbyterian church), but he commuted to classes at Christopher Dock in the far suburbs – “so why not continue with the Mennonites in college?”

Leonard’s one and only pre-admission visit to EMU was almost a disaster. His

mother, brother and a male friend drove down from Pennsylvania. They lost their way and arrived so late – after midnight

– the admissions representative who was supposed to greet them had assumed they weren’t coming and had gone home.

“Look, let’s be frank – we were three large African American males walking around the campus at one in the morning at a time

when Eastern Mennonite didn’t have many people of color.” Two young white women happened by and, to the visitors’ surprise, asked if they needed help.

When these women – who turned out to be undergraduates at EMU – realized that the three guys and the middle-aged woman with them had nowhere to go that night, they opened up their apartment to the group. “They had two bedrooms. They gave Mom one of their bedrooms, they took the other, and we [guys] slept on the floor.”

“They gave us breakfast in the morning, left for class, and I never saw them again until I ran into them my senior year. I still don’t know their names. But what they did

for us blew us away.” [Editor: If you are one of these former coeds, let us know at [email protected]; we’d like to print your names in the next issue.]

Leonard said that the hospitality of these two females to strangers of a different race confirmed in his mother’s mind that EMU was “a safe place for my boys.”

Being in The MinoriTyIt was not an easy place for her boys to be, though. Compared to Philadelphia, Harrisonburg was sleepy. Leonard was popular on campus because he was a basketball star. But there was also a disconnect.

His entire family – mother, father, two brothers and two sisters – sacrificed so that Leonard could be the first in the family to graduate from a four-year college.

Leonard was acutely aware that he didn’t fit the mold of the typical EMU student. “I would go to the financial aid office to deal with an outstanding bill and they would tell me to call Mom and get her credit card to pay it off.” That just wasn’t an option for Leonard.

During his eight years in Mennonite educational institutions, Leonard says he was invited to social events, but was never invited by a Mennonite to a Men-nonite church, church-sponsored camp, or religious retreat. To fill the spiritual gap, his brother insisted Leonard go with him to an African-American church in Harrisonburg.

Today Leonard chuckles at the irony: “Despite my best efforts and everybody else’s best efforts, I became a Mennonite pastor.”

Leonard does credit the Mennonite church, though, with supporting his church leadership roles, beginning 10 or 11 years ago: “I know how bad I had to be early on, yet the church stuck with me.”

Career leader in BasKeTBallBlazing Bold Path for Church


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Before moving to the pulpit to offer his Sunday message, pastor Leonard Dow ’87 worships among his family. Eldest child Carmela, 14, is in foreground.


oxford Circle's new $3.5 million complex in northeast Philadelphia houses their church, an MCC office, a day care center and many community activities.

BasKeTBall versus ClassIn a YouTube interview posted at www.emu.edu/crossroads, Leonard talked about focusing almost entirely on basketball as an undergraduate, while neglecting his studies and spiritual life. When asked to speak to athletes today, Leonard refers to the “three-point stance” in basketball, where a player positions himself to either pass, shoot or dribble around someone. “I challenge the young people to have a three-point stance in life – mind, body and spirit.”

Leonard says his coach, Sherman Eberly ’68, “was on me constantly” to perform as well off the court as on the court, but when

“you are young and dumb” you don’t always follow smart advice. “What I regret most [at college] is skipping the cross-cultural experi-ence – it interrupted the [basketball] season

– but I should have taken it to expand my world view.”

For athletes, Leonard says the “natural gravitation is to taking care of the body,” which is what he himself did by playing bas-ketball two or three hours a day as a college student. Excellence in athletics “gives you a level of confidence in yourself ” as well as “a pass” in ways that can be unhealthy. “Being

a star on the court can be intoxicating.”After graduation, however, athletes will

discover that they need to rely more on their relationship with God and the use of their minds to find fulfillment and success, Leonard says.

suCCess in BanKingUntil he was in his late 20s, Leonard climbed the ladder of success in the banking world, starting as a teller and ending up as a vice president. Since he grew up in a situation of tight finances, Leonard wanted to make money. He had season tickets to the Sixers, family health insurance through his employer, and a spacious house in Philadelphia. He was preparing to welcome his first child into a world of middle-class comfort and was putting his wife, Rosalie Rolón-Dow ’89, through graduate school.

(Leonard and Rosalie met when he was an upper classman working in the cafeteria line at EMU; she came through the line as a first-year student, the daughter of a Puerto Rican Mennonite pastor. She now has a PhD in education and is an education professor at the University of Delaware.)

But Leonard felt himself more energized

when doing his volunteer church work than when working in the bank. When his then 35-member church, Oxford Circle Menn-nonite in Philadelphia, went looking for (in Leonard’s words) “a pastor to be paid half-time to do full-time work,” nobody nibbled. Church members urged Leonard to consider being the pastor himself. He would be serv-ing a diverse, low-income urban neighbor-hood not populated by ethnic Mennonites.

Leonard wanted to respond to the call, but Rosalie hesitated at first: “She was con-cerned about the security of our family. She had married a banker, not the man I was becoming. I was changing the rules on her. She thought I was having a mid-life crisis.”

Ironically, it was Rosalie who had “dragged” Leonard “kicking and screaming into the Mennonite Church,” he says. “I got to choose the city where we live, and she got to choose the church.”

Money poor, spiriT riChToday Rosalie whole-heartedly supports Leonard’s ministry and accepts that part of that ministry is his receiving a salary that is lower than what he was earning in the banking business back in 1999.


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Professor rosalie rolón-Dow ’89, with her husband, Leonard. Leonard inspired thousands at the 2009 Mennonite Church youth convention.

“Our congregation consists of many people at the poverty level of income or just above the poverty level,” says Leonard.

“They give generously, but they can only do so much. If my wife was not a college pro-fessor on her way to getting tenure, I would not be able to pastor.” Leonard and Rosalie have three children – 14-year-old Carmela, 10-year-old Marcela, and 5-year-old Lorenzo.

Leonard says that the majority of the 140 people who attend his church these days come to Oxford Circle because they like what they find there – a caring community of people who are trying to live “the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel of hope.” They don’t necessarily associate the church with being part of the larger Mennonite world, he adds. They just naturally gravitate to living and teaching in simple, passionate, mutually supportive ways that resemble the persecuted, but evangelical, Anabaptists of centuries ago.

In 2009, several years after Oxford Circle had clearly outgrown its original 3,000 square-foot church, the congregation found a way to buy a 40,000-square-foot office-type building in an industrial park for $3.5 million. Under the mantle of a non-profit

corporation called Oxford Circle Christian Community Development Association, the church uses 8,000 square feet and much of the remaining space is rented out.

A number of Mennonite churches in Franconia, Lancaster and Harrisonburg have hugely supported this endeavor. EMU grads helped to make the project possible, including accountant Jim Rittenhouse ’84 (a fellow starter on the Royals team in Leonard’s era), lawyers Jeff Landis ’91 and Charlotte Hunsberger ’91, and businessman Ken Rush ’91. Nurse Karen Ann Jantzi '78 is on the pastoral team, and medical doctor Tim Leaman '93 chairs the church council.

serving The neighBorhoodBy renting unneeded space to several tenants, including a day care center and the Mennonite Central Committee’s East Coast regional office, Leonard’s church is able to meet its mortgage payments, while opening its doors to addresss needs in the surrounding community.

The church sponsors an after-school tu-toring program and a summer arts program for children aged 6 to 12. Oxford Circle par-ticipates with other churches in feeding the

homeless. Alcoholics Anonymous meets on the premises and so does a Friday afternoon program aimed at so-called “bad kids” in the adjacent junior high school.

Plans are underway for an English-as-a-Second-Language program and a mentoring program. Leonard hopes to follow some of the kids through high school, maybe even sponsoring them into college or into voca-tional training to be, say, an electrician.

The majority of the folks at Oxford Circle on Sunday mornings first encountered the church through one of its outreach programs. Two young women from the immediate neighborhood have followed Dow's footsteps to EMU: Courtney Walker is graduating this spring (2010), and Bianca Walker will be a first-year student in the fall.

How much of this bold vision, this willingness to take risks to achieve desired outcomes, can be traced back to the lessons Leonard learned on the basketball court?

“The skills I learned in my team do transfer to the larger world. You learn what skills you have and what you don’t have, and you learn to work as a team member to reach common goals. That’s true throughout life.”


he peered Through BinoCulars intently. His life, after all, might be at stake. Through the optics he could see the enemy smoking a cigarette, just over the border. Though he felt no hatred, Lee realized that at any moment he and that soldier could be trying to kill each other.

Jae Young Lee, 16 years later, remem-bers the absurdity of that moment. North Korea’s “beloved leader,” Kim Il Sung, had just died, and both militaries – north and south – along the “demilitarized zone” were on red alert.

“We had been given orders to shoot any-thing that moved in the river [dividing the armies]. We were all very quiet as we dealt with our own thoughts and fears of life and death. I thought, ‘I don’t even know his name. I don’t hate him, but if war broke out, I would shoot him and he would shoot me.’”

Lee realizes that the border dividing the Korean peninsula at the 38th parallel, a vestige of the Cold War, remains a potential flashpoint for nuclear-armed nations. He also observes that the wider North Asian region holds other historical traumas and current competitions which could – if not handled carefully – explode into regional or global conflict.

Hence Lee and a growing band of col-leagues are laying careful and visionary plans to establish a vigorous program for training a new cadre of peacebuilders in the region. They are laying the foundation for establish-ment of a Northeast Asia Regional Peace-building Institute.

Lee’s transformation from watchful sniper to dedicated, savvy peacebuilder has been over a decade in the making. After he com-pleted his 26-month stint as a draftee in the South Korean army, his father suggested Lee might want to get some education in North America. Forty-five years earlier, his father had worked as a farm manager in a voca-tional training school for orphaned boys. The school was run by Mennonite Central

Committee, which led his father to suggest that Lee apply to a Mennonite college.

In 1996, this fun-loving, ex-Marine found himself in classes at Canadian Mennonite Bible College (now Canadian Mennonite University) in Winnipeg. One of his profes-sors teased Lee that he was the first student to wear camouflaged fatigues to his class.

“They were the most comfortable pants I owned,” Lee now says with a chuckle.

In Canada, Lee kept hearing people

talking about, and praying for, world peace. “One day I saw 20 old ladies packing health kits for North Korea. I asked them why they were doing this and they said, ‘There is fam-ine in North Korea and we know that some-one out there will get help from these kits.’ I cried because I realized that I myself had no concern, but these Mennonites cared.”

In 2000, Lee headed south to attend the Summer Peacebuilding Institute at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU). His first class was “Introduction to Conflict Trans-formation” taught by John Paul Lederach. His second class was “Restorative Justice” with Howard Zehr. His third class was “Phi-losophy and Praxis of Reconciliation” with Hizkias Assefa. Lee had ended up in classes taught by three of the legendary professors of the program. The experience settled the

matter of what he wanted to study. With financial support from the Mennonite Central Committee and his parents, Lee completed a master’s degree in conflict transformation at EMU in 2003.

At EMU, Lee remembers witnessing a vigorous exchange between Fulbright-supported students from Israel and Palestine. They said that after this face-to-face encoun-ter they would probably next face each other over the military tanks in the Middle East.

“But at least they could meet,” Lee says wist-fully. “I felt I may never be able to meet my brothers and sisters in North Korea.”

During these years, Lee was undergoing a personal transformation. He was begin-ning to realize that guns cannot build trust between people. You build trust by meeting each other. He came to the conclusion that nothing will change people’s world views except education.

“We in Korea have not had alternate mod-els to the military model. War begins from the mind, and peace also begins from the mind. So peace education from a young age is important. I owe a lot to SPI [Summer Peacebuilding Institute] and EMU because

de-MiliTarizing norTheasT asia

By Earl and Pat Hostetter Martin ’64, MA ’98

“We in Korea have not had alternate models to the military model. War begins from the mind, and peace also begins from the mind.”


ministry

they got my peace education started.”In Seoul in 2001, Lee joined a fellow

graduate of Canadian Mennonite Bible College, Kyong Jung Kim, and a Canadian Mennonite service worker, Tim Froese, to found the Korean Anabaptist Center. Lee became its Peace Program Director. He also became a founding member of Grace and Peace Mennonite Church in 2007, one of two Anabaptist congregations in Korea.

Lee began to envision ways to foster a paradigm shift in Northeast Asia, from an atmosphere of animosity and militarism to one where both national security and hu-man security are guaranteed. And thus the idea of a regional peacebuilding institute was born.

Northeast Asia Regional Peacebuilding Institute (NARPI) organizers used 2009 as the “network building stage” for their re-gional effort. By early 2010, Lee had visited China, Japan and Taiwan to build interest and explore funding possibilities. He also found enduring support in Karen Spicher, a 2002 graduate of EMU, who came to Seoul to teach English under the sponsorship of Mennonite Mission Network. Though

trained as a teacher, she has become increas-ingly involved in launching NARPI. The two plan to marry soon.

In late April 2010, 20 people from six countries came to Seoul for several days for the first NARPI steering committee meeting. One of its first tasks was planning courses for a three-week training institute

– similar to SPI – to be held annually begin-ning in the summer of 2011, with its loca-tion rotated among participating countries.

Mennonite Central Committee and other donors have provided seed money to launch this critical effort, but Lee hopes that at least a quarter of the funding will come from the Northeast Asian region by 2011. NARPI is seeking a broad spectrum of supporters as it begins to train activists linked to non-profit organizations, peace educators, religious leaders, school teachers, university students, government officials and others desiring to move their region beyond the attitudes and practices fueled by the Cold War.

Northeast Asia contains more than a quarter of the world’s people and will likely emerge as the center of global economic and military power in the coming decades.

In Lee’s view it is critical for the region to transform its “long-standing animosity and mistrust” created by “wars and military confrontations.”

“What Northeast Asia now needs,” accord-ing to the NARPI brochure – printed in English, Korean, Japanese and Chinese – “is not only a new political structure and dip-lomatic framework, but also peace institutes through which sustainable peacebuilding can be discussed and molded.” (More at www.narpi.net or email [email protected].)

The Korea Anabaptist Center is responsible for an English-language-training insti-tute, connexus, located in the same office building. Lee welcomes English-speaking volunteers to work at Connexus for a year or more, especially those who can model Anabaptist values. Connexus teachers are accommodated in an apartment with other teachers of the same gender, provided with their food, and given a small monthly stipend. The cost of round-trip transpor-tation between North America and South Korea can also be covered. For more infor-mation, visit www.connexus.co.kr/english or e-mail [email protected].

Karen Spicher ’02 and Jae Young Lee, MA ’03, are personally committed to God and to each other, while professionally committed to peacebuilding.


iT was geTTing laTe, it was getting cold, their fire wouldn’t light and they were low on food. Anna Dintaman ’05 and a group of young Jesus Trail volunteers from the U.S. prepared for a miserable night near Mount Arbel.

Then a stranger, a young man who spoke little English, appeared out of the dark and startled the unhappy campers. He looked around their campsite for a minute, before vanishing again into the night. The group’s discomfort gave way to fear.

Before long, the young man returned – with gifts of yoghurt, bread, tea and kindling.

Like the Good Samaritan, like Mary with her expensive perfume, like Zacchaeus in the tree, unexpected lessons from unlikely

characters were a major theme of Jesus’ ministry in the Galilee. Two millennia later, the Jesus Trail (jesustrail.com) is giving wanderers and pilgrims the opportunity to learn surprising lessons of their own while walking, literally, where Jesus did.

Conceived in 2007 by co-founders David Landis ’04 and an Israeli friend, Maoz Inon, the 38-mile Jesus Trail from Nazareth to Capernaum has been open to hikers for more than two years. As it attracts increas-ing international attention, and after it was officially blazed as part of Israel’s extensive trail network last summer, more people than ever before are coming to follow Jesus’ path through the Galilee.

Landis and Dintaman estimate that about 1,000 people hiked all or part of it

in 2009. The couple – their wedding is this May (2010) – works full-time developing, promoting and guiding visitors along the Jesus Trail.

While any trip to the Holy Land places familiar Bible stories in geographic context, the Jesus Trail – often hot, steep and rocky

– allows hikers to experience the land and the people of the region much as Jesus did. Well-known points along the way include Nazareth, Cana (of water-to-wine fame), Capernaum and the Mount of Beatitudes.

“[People] often comment on how their understanding of Jesus was greatly enhanced by visiting the places he visited and travel-ing the way that he traveled,” said Kevin Butrick, a 2008 EMU graduate living in Nazareth and a volunteer for the trail.

Thousands walKing The walK

Student group takes the trail from the Mount of Beatitudes.


ministry

Yumin Liang, a 23-year-old nursing stu-dent from Sydney, Australia, who biked the Jesus Trail last spring, said that was one of the most meaningful aspects of her trip.

“It was really amazing to just picture the Lord Jesus sitting at a spot looking out at the same place we were looking at,” said Liang, who biked with a group of 40 young adults and an ABC camera crew in tow.

Smaller details came alive for Liang, too. At one point, while biking past a field of blooming poppies, the scripture from Mat-thew 6:29 – “…not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these…” – popped into her head.

“The Jesus Trail certainly has a lot of pre-cious places that are conducive to periods of quiet reflection,” she said.

The diverse group of hikers who visit the trail have widely varying motivations and goals – groups like Liang’s on spiritual pil-grimages, Israeli backpackers checking out the new trail, young wanderers looking for a next adventure, honeymooners, a 70-year-old woman, a couple with an 8-month-old baby and many others.

As in Jesus’ day, the modern-day Galilee is a diverse place itself. As it winds from Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth and the lakeshore village of Capernaum, the base for his brief ministry, the Jesus Trail passes through towns and villages inhabited by religious, secular and messianic Jews and Muslims, Christians and Druze Arabs.

That’s another aspect of the trail that al-lows visitors to gain a better understanding

of the world in which Jesus traveled and taught.

“We try to play on that idea of Jesus walk-ing through diverse communities, and give people today an opportunity to do some-thing similar,” Landis said.

Roanoke (Va.) College religion professor Gerry McDermott explored that diversity last fall when he hiked the trail with his son. Along the way, he asked every local person willing to talk a simple question: “What does Jesus mean to you?”

McDermott, who used some of those interviews for an essay about the Jesus Trail published in the April 2010 issue of Chris-tianity Today, said his conversations were

“absolutely fascinating.” Among the many people he spoke to was

David Landis ’04 and Anna Dintaman ’05

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a Muslim who reveres Jesus as nothing more (or less) than a prophet, a Jew who consid-ers him, simply, a “capable Jew,” a Jew who considers him demon-possessed, a Christian eager to spread Jesus’ message and a Chris-tian reluctant to discuss his faith for fear of persecution.

“Jesus exerts extraordinary power [in Galilee],” McDermott wrote in his article.

“Just as he did two thousand years ago, he continues to fascinate the masses, inspire persecuted disciples, and split families and communities.”

Engagement with those communities along the Jesus Trail is a major goal of Landis's and Dintaman’s. They encourage hikers to spend nights in homes that offer lodging, eat in local restaurants and take advantage of people’s knowledge at points of interest on the route. Those who live along the trail, they said, are generally honored that so many travelers are eager to hike it; Landis and Dintaman frequently hear hikers talk about invitations to coffee and other hospitality they encounter.

The influx of visitors has in turn benefit-ted the local economy. Several new business-

es catering to Jesus Trail hikers have opened, and feedback from the towns and villages along the trail has been positive, they said.

From their base in Nazareth, Dintaman and Landis are optimistic that the Jesus Trail’s impact will continue to grow as more and more visitors arrive. By late winter, several hundred people had already signed up for a package tour hike for this spring (2010), and the first Jesus Trail guidebook, which they co-wrote, was published in March. The EMU spring cross-cultural group in the Middle East hiked the trail in April, while emails and phone calls from interested visitors arrive by the day as word of it spreads.

“I believe Jesus is getting very busy on his trail,” said Linda Hallel, another Jesus Trail volunteer. “A lot of people who’ve come and walked were looking to find something, and [they] seem to have found it.”

Andrew Jenner ’04 is a freelance writer who lives in Harrisonburg. He saw some parts of the Jesus Trail while on an EMu-sponsored cross-cultural semester in 2002.

Anna Dintaman particularly enjoys hiking rural segments of the Jesus Trail.

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Faculty and StaffJames "Jim" Bishop ’67, public infor-mation officer, John horst ’60, retired professor of physics, and Ted Grimsrud, professor of Bible and religion, were fea-tured in the Jan. 18 issue of Mennonite Weekly Review. The trio is on a mission: providing eclectic music that might otherwise not hit the radio airwaves. As volunteers, they produce and host weekly programs on WEMC, a public ra-dio station. Bishop dishes up an hour of discs from the 1950s on the Friday Night Jukebox, 8 to 9 p.m. John hosts Mostly Mennonite, Mostly A Capella, 8 to 9:30 on Sunday mornings. Ted is the host of Wavelength, 3 to 6 p.m. on Saturdays.

David Brennan, recycling crew member, has had his first book of poetry, The White Visitation, published by BlazeVOX Books.

Linda Gnagey, director of the academic support center, attended the annual National Association for Development Education conference in Columbus, Ohio, March 11-13. Linda enjoyed con-current sessions that focused on student retention strategies, peer assistance programs, and developmental reading best practices.

Darrel D. Jantzi ’65, Elmira, Ontario, Canada, has been actively engaged the past four years as a development associate with Meserete Kristos (MK) College Link Canada. He has been an

advocate and a resource for MK Church and its college, MK College in Debra Zeit, Ethiopia. Darrell and Florence have just returned from leading their fifth Ex-perience Ethiopia Tour, which included a Safari in Kenya. Darrel was a pastor in Ontario for 35 years. Upon retirement, he served MCC Ontario as a resource generator/development builder.

ralph King ’69, Sugarcreek, Ohio, is serving as a volunteer in the gifts dis-cernment ministry of Ohio Conference of Mennonite Church USA.

Kevin nickel, director of finance/con-troller at EMU since January 2007, will move to Bluffton, Ohio, by July 15. Kevin has been appointed vice president for fiscal affairs at a sister Mennonite institution, Bluffton University. Kevin's guidance of the business office and ac-counting functions during the arduous EX system software upgrade is notewor-thy and appreciated.

Byron J. Peachey, campus pastor, was ordained by Virginia Mennonite Conference at Martin Chapel, April 11, in recognition of, and support for, this ministry.

Lisa Schirch, PhD, has been profes-sor of peacebuilding at EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. Lisa is stepping down from a full-time teaching job at EMU as of the summer of 2010 in order to focus on directing the 3D Security Initiative (www.3dsecurity.org). She is promoting a comprehensive peace process that includes civil society

in Afghanistan. She was in Kabul, April 8-16, to consult and participate in a peace-themed conference.

nancy Good Sider, PhD, LCSW, has been associate professor of trauma and conflict studies at EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. A psycho-therapist and mediator for more than 30 years, Nancy was one of the earliest teachers at CJP and a founding partner at Newman Avenue Associates in Harri-sonburg, where she works as a licensed therapist, organizational consultant/trainer, and mediator. She concluded her teaching career at CJP/EMU at the end of the 2010 spring term. She will continue with Newman Avenue Associ-ates and will consult with The KonTerra Group, a Washington D.C.-based group.

Sanford (Sandy) Snider ’62, Broadway, Va., alumni association secretary, is retiring from this role, in which he has served with dedication and expertise for 12 years.

Lee F. Snyder ’63, Harrisonburg, Va., recently had her life story and ministry, At Powerline and Diamond Hill: Unex-pected intersections of life and work, issued by Cascadia Publishing House. Lee lived in West Africa in the late 1960s, stationed at Qua Ibo Secondary School in the heart of the equatorial rain forest. She and her family moved to Virginia in the early 1970s for her husband, Delbert (Del), to work at EMU. This led to Lee’s graduate work and her later appoint-ment as vice president and academic dean of EMU. Lee left this position after

12 years to become the president of Bluffton (Ohio) University. She served as the university’s eighth president, its first female head, for 10 years. Lee contin-ues serving in a variety of assignments with educational institutions, boards of trustees, and the Christian faith com-munity.

Carl Stauffer, ’85 MA ’02, is now assis-tant professor at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. Carl specializes in development, as well as in restorative and transitional justice. He has just con-cluded 15 years with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in Southern Africa, where he was the regional coordinator for the Southern Africa Peace Network.

Don Tyson, assistant professor of nursing, served as the 2010 Mennonite Health Assembly Moderator in Norfolk, Va., March 4-7. The theme, “Navigat-ing in a Sea of Change,” was further explored by others from EMU, including Dave Brubaker, PhD, CJP associate professor, who served as the Friday plenary facilitator, heidi Winters-vogel, associate professor of theater, who presented a worship drama Sunday morning.

Diane Yerian began her role as the EMU human resources representative on May 3. Diane assists in the areas of training and development, benefits en-rollment, and new employee orientation. Diane has been a consultant, primarily in the areas of performance improve-ment and leadership. Prior to her consulting role, Diane was employed at

milepostsThe second president of EMU, A.D. Wenger, would surely be pleased at the work of his descendants: (from left in this homecoming 2009 photo) granddaughter Sara Wenger Shenk ’75 was recently named president of Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary; son Chester Wenger ’36 (ThB ’41) and his wife Sara Jane ’42 were long-time missionary-educators in Ethiopia; grandson Mark r. Wenger ’79 is director of pastoral studies at the Lancaster site of EMU.

46 | crossroads | fall 200746 | crossroads | spring 2010

James Madison University, where she served as director of training from 2004-2008 and human resources representa-tive from 1996-2004.

1950-59roy Kreider ’51, ThB ’52, Broadway, Va., Eugene Souder ’51, Grottoes, Va., Aaron King ’53 and Paul Swarr ’51, both of Harrisonburg, Va., met as freshmen at Eastern Mennonite College in the fall of 1947. All of these alumni came to college with experience in church leadership in their home congregations, especially the music ministry. They embarked on a new and significant ministry under the banner of “The Crusaders Men’s Quartet.” At first, college administrators and some Men-nonite Church conference leaders did not embrace this vision. The men began to sing in churches in Kentucky, Missouri, New York City and Canada. They approached WSVA for free radio time. Their request was granted, Sept. 18, 1950, with an offer for 15 minutes of free airtime once a week. The ministry evolved into “The Mennonite Hour,” which continued to expand for a number of years. Later, they were joined by B. Charles hostetter, GT ’37, in evangelistic crusades in the U.S. and Canada. To celebrate the 60th anniversary of this ministry, Roy and Eugene, with assistance from their col-leagues and spouses, produced the book-let and CD package (11 songs recorded in

’49 and ’51) entitled He Keeps Me Singing: Journeying with the Crusader Men’s Quartet 1947-1951. To obtain a copy, e-mail Eugene at [email protected].

Martha Denlinger ’58 Stahl nissley, Lititz, Pa., recently saw her third book, Second Wife: Stories And Wisdom From Women Who Have Married Widowers, published by Good Books. The book is for anyone contemplating becoming a second wife, or for the children or friends of any such adventure. Martha was an elementary school teacher for 20 years. She received a master’s in education degree from Millersville (Pa.) University. Currently, she lives in a retire-ment community, where she continues to write, lead singing, and volunteer.

1960-69Paul M. zehr ’62, SEM ’65, Lancaster, Pa., has completed a commentary on 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus for the Believers Church Bible Commentary series. He has served on the editorial council for this commentary series since 1987. Paul has retired as pastor and bishop in the Lancaster Mennonite Conference and from teaching at Eastern Mennonite Seminary. Since 2007 he is one of the teachers on the Sunday School Medita-tions radio program.

noah S. Martin ’63, Johnstown, Pa., received the Book of the Year 2010 Award from the Christian Small Publish-ing Association for his book What To Do While You Wait for the World to End. The book offers down-to-earth, wise, Biblically-based counsel to those who feel the Apocolypse is imminent.

Mary Lou Weaver ’66 houser, Lancaster, Pa., was featured in the Feb. 14, issue of the Daily News Record of Harrisonburg in recognition of her art exhibit, Feb. 13-Mar. 15, in EMU’s Sadie A. Hartzler Library. In addition to a career in teaching and creating art, Mary Lou is a certified spiritual director. She is a member of Spiritual Directors International, and is active in leadership and education at the Community Men-nonite Church of Lancaster. She and her husband, Rod, operate Herrbrook Farm Retreat, near Lancaster, a facility for per-sonal or small group spiritual renewal.

Calvin (Cal) Litwiller ’69, Mount Pleas-ant, Iowa, has completed 38 years of teaching high school science courses in four schools, including The American School of The Hague in Holland. The last 31years were at Mount Pleasant, teaching some combination of biology, chemistry and physics. Cal has received numerous awards during his career, including Who’s Who Among American Teachers and the local Wal-Mart Teach-ers Award. He has operated the public address system for local sporting events for more than 30 years. Cal is currently serving Rotary as District Governor for District 6000. His spouse, rachel hess

’69 Litwiller, is a fellow Rotarian and as-sists Cal in his Rotary responsibilities.

1970-79Samuel J. Espinoza ’70, Harrisonburg, Va., has been teaching at the Methodist Seminary, Mexico City, Mexico.

Lois J. Floyd ’70, Warren, Ohio, was The Week Coordinator for North-Mar Church of the Christian Missionary Alli-ance of Warren.

Arthur (Art) G. McPhee ’70, MDiv ’76, Nicholasville, Ky., is the E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism in the school of world mission at Asbury Theological Seminary. He teaches and mentors students working on their PhD degrees in intercultural studies. In the summer and January of some years, he teaches at the South Asian Institute of Advanced Christian Studies (SAIACS) in Bangalore (now Bangaluru), India. Art has also taught at Serampore College near Kol-kata, founded by the missionary William Carey. McPhee's latest book, published in India, was the story of missionary J. Waskom Pickett, famous for his massive study of Dalit Christians. Art’s wife, Evelyn (Evie) horst ’69 McPhee, retired early from her social work career, allowing the McPhees to travel together. She has worked in the libraries of both SAIACS and Serampore in India. At Asbury, she helps arriving international students, sings in the seminary choir, and has also helped in an ESL program for international student spouses.

Melvin "Mel" L. Lehman ’71, direc-tor of Common Humanity in New York City is working with trusted partners in Syria, including an order of Roman Catholic nuns in Old Damascus, to help

Few Colleges HaveSeminaries. So Sorry!EMU has one thing that most liberal arts colleges don’t have – a seminary. Few universities – Anabaptist or otherwise – have a seminary right on campus, alongside the science labs, language departments, music studios, theaters, and recreational spaces frequented by undergraduates.

“Having a seminary permits great cross-fertilization,” says Brian Martin Burkholder, EMU campus pastor. He earned his BS at The University of Akron (Ohio), a public institution without a seminary, and his MDiv at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, on a self-contained campus in Indiana.

“Seminary students taking class on our main campus get to benefit from the facilities available in the larger college world,” said Burk-holder, citing EMU’s fitness center and 165,000-volume library as ex-amples of such facilities. “They also get to take in events not normally offered by seminaries, such as speeches by Jim Wallis and Archbishop Elias Chacour and cultural events like the annual Bach Festival.”

At EMU, seminary students can take graduate-level courses in re-lated disciplines, such as conflict transformation and counseling. And students in those disciplines can take seminary courses. Undergrads may take seminary classes like Greek or Hebrew.

Some students actually opt to get two graduate degrees at EMU. Mitsunari Nakashima of Japan, for example, finished a master’s degree in conflict transformation in 2005, followed by another year of study to complete a MDiv in 2006.

Seminary faculty, staff and students can also be a resource to the rest of campus. Some seminarians are hired part-time, for example, to work with undergrads as ministry or residential staffers. Some com-plete internships through serving in campus ministry.

For those seminary students who need to remain in their home locations and to pursue graduate studies through distance learning via the Internet, it can still be an advantage to have a seminary operating within a larger university. EMU’s computer “help desk” – known for its efficiency and true helpfulness – is always at their service.

Responding to their students' desires to work in a variety of min-istry settings, the seminary recently revised its curriculum. Students who want to work as, for example, hospice chaplains or as pastoral leaders in camp settings, will have the flexibility to take classes in their specific areas of interest. “EMS has a long tradition of train-ing pastors for church leadership,” says Laura Amstutz, MDiv ’06, seminary communication coordinator. "We're simply broadening our focus to train people for all types of ministry.”

Seminary professor nate Yoder (center) got to meet members of his distance learning class at the 2010 School for Leadership Training. They are (l to r) Jon Swartz (ind.), Luke Weaver (va.), Charlene Davis (va.), and Scott roth (Pa.).


Iraqi artists living as refugees in Syria to support themselves. To help them raise money, Mel sells boxes of note cards featuring some of their paintings. Mel explains that purchasing the note cards is a humanitarian and compassionate act that will help build bridges between the U.S. and Middle East. Common Humanity is incorporated as a non-profit corporation that anticipates receiving tax-exempt status soon. The web site is CommonHumanity.org.

Lois Yoder ’72 Bontrager is the new volunteer chairperson for the Steward-ship Ministry of Ohio Conference of Mennonite Church USA. Lois is also church relations manager for Mennonite Mutual Aid in Northeast Ohio.

Melinda (Mindy) zook-Weaver ’74 retired in May from Mon General Hospital, Mor-gantown, W.Va., where she served as the clinical nutrition manager for 22 years. She remains active in the American Dietetic As-sociation. Mindy and her husband, Charlie, have relocated to Poland, Ohio, to be closer to family.

randall "randy" Longenecker ’75, a family physician based in Bellefontaine, Ohio, was one of six physicians recognized nationwide at the October 2009 convention of the American Academy of Family Physi-cians. He was one of two to receive the Exemplary Teaching Award. In 2008, the Ohio Academy of Family Physicians named Randall their "Family Medicine Educator of the Year." Randy is clinical associate profes-sor and assistant dean for rural medical education at Ohio State University. He is active in spreading quality health care into rural areas nationwide through leadership roles in the National Rural Health Associa-tion. His teaching style is "reflective" and practice-based, rather than relying mainly on lectures.

harlan (Lanny) Millette ’75, Halifax, Pa., was installed as president of the Mennonite Camping Association (MCA) on Mar. 24 in New Hamburg, On-tario. MCA is a bi-national organization serving camps in the US and Canada. Lanny has served as executive director of Camp Hebron in Halifax, Pa., for 15 years.

G. roger rutt ’76, Lancaster, Pa., is head of purchasing and operations at Hajoca Corporation, a plumbing and heating company in Lancaster.

J. Samuel Thomas ’76, Landisville, Pa., has been appointed bishop of the Manor District of Lancaster Mennonite Conference. He will continue serving as bishop of Landisville District.

Gerald (Gerry) Keener MDiv ’78, Lan-caster, Pa., is in a half-time position as chief operations officer at Eastern Mennonite Missions. In this role, Gerry will focus on ways administration can effectively help ministry happen.

nelson E. Longenecker ’78, Elizabeth-town, Pa., vice president for business innovation, Four Seasons Produce, Ephrata, Pa., is a robust promoter of energy and

sustainability. Four Seasons Produce facility is one of two buildings identified as “Early Champions” in Pennsylvania by the Environ-mental Protection Agency in a retrospective entitled, “Celebrating A Decade of Energy Star Buildings:1999-2009.” Nelson notes,

“Through 2009 we are saving 25% in annual energy bills, reducing water use by 24%, and recycling over 86% of our waste. Better yet, we continue to find significant ways to reduce our energy footprint.”

James "Jim" Bell ’79, Roanoke Rapids, N.C., has expressed his deep appre-ciation for his educational experience at EMU. He first learned about EMU through an advertisement in a Campus Life magazine. Jim has served as a pastor of various churches in the North Carolina Conference of the United Meth-odist Church since graduating from Duke University Divinity School in 1982. He is currently the pastor of Rosemary United Methodist Church in Roanoke Rapids, N.C. He notes he experienced EMU as a Christ-centered community of students, faculty and staff who sought to honor and obey Jesus as Lord and who attempted to live by the authority of the Scriptures, reflecting the school’s motto from 1917, “Thy word is truth.” (John 17:17) EMU provided significant oppor-tunities to explore his sense of Christian vocation and call from the Lord. It was at EMU that James first fully grasped the concept of servant leadership, which has shaped his ministry to this day.

Kathy Dwyer ’79 Yoder, was licensed leading toward ordination and installed as pastor at West Swamp Mennonite Church, Quakertown, Pa., on Jan. 31.

1980-88Mary Morrow Farrell ’80, Philadelphia Pa., is now curator of education at Johnson House, the National Historic Landmark, significant for its role in the Underground Railroad. Johnson House is located near the historic Germantown Mennonite Church.

Philip E. Martin ’80, York, Pa., is facilities manager for the West York, Pa., school system.

Dwight Gingerich ’81, Kalona, Iowa, led a boys’ basketball team to a come-from-behind 61-51 win at Mediapolis Jan. 26. After 28 successful years of coaching, Dwight earned a place in an elite fraternity of basketball coaches with 500 career victories. His career record is 500-137, for a .785 wining percentage, all at Iowa Mennonite School.

Judith reitz ’82 Trumbo, a five-year veteran of the board of directors of United Way of Harrisonburg and Rockingham County has been elected as the president of the agency. Judith continues in her role as Rockingham Memorial Hospital’s (RMH) transition planning director.

Elvin Kennel ’83, Lancaster Co., Pa., will begin a new job as principal of Lancaster Mennonite Middle and High

Success! Theater and Digital Media to Get Great SpaceEMU students will soon have state-of-the-art digital media lab space, classrooms and galleries, thanks to the successful completion of a major fundraising drive for "Phase II" of the University Commons.

The board of trustees, alumni and friends "stepped up" to provide $2.41 million in cash and pledges to bring the University Commons project to completion, reports Kirk Shisler '81, vice president for advancement. "It's an amazing show of support in these uncertain economic times," he says.

The overall project includes renovation of the former gymnasium, built in 1957, into two upgraded theater performance spaces and classrooms. This includes a new Mainstage Theater as well as the Lee Eshleman Studio Theater, named in honor of the late artist and actor who was a 1986 graduate.

A new student art gallery will be named in honor of Margaret Martin Gehman, retired art faculty member. An advanced media lab will be named in memory of former EMU trustee and long-time supporter, Kenneth A. Longacre. The popular student coffee house, Common Grounds, will also be expanded in the renovation.

"EMU offers an excellent digital media program taught by faculty who are experts in the field and is one of the few Christian colleges to offer a full photography major," notes Steven D. Johnson, associate professor of visual and communication arts. "With increased student demand for our programs, these upgraded labs will advance our goal of teaching students to communicate effectively, passionately and ethically in an increasingly diverse society."

"EMU theater faculty, staff and students have been making amazing art happen in primitive conditions," states Heidi Winters Vogel, theater department chair. "I am so excited to see what we can do with performance and production spaces that are designed for theater. "

Renovations will begin in early May with completion anticipated in November. The first theatrical production in the renovated Main Stage Theater is scheduled for March 2011.

More information about the project can be found on EMU's web-site at www.emu.edu/giving/commons.

— Jim Bishop '67

Professor Steven Johnson works with a digital media student.


Many Changes At V-P LevelOf the eight members of President Loren Swartzendruber’s cabinet, four will be new or relatively recent arrivals in the 2010-11 school year. Each has distinguished himself or herself elsewhere and thus will bring fresh energy to Swartzendruber’s leadership team.

“I haven’t been chasing my cabinet members away,” Swartzendru-ber jokes. Two of those leaving cabinet retired from full-time work: provost Beryl Brubaker, class of ’64, and finance vice president Ron Piper. Two were recruited into highly responsible positions: under-graduate dean and v-p Marie Morris '84 moved to a similar role at a larger college, Anderson University in Indiana, and seminary dean and v-p Ervin Stutzman, MAR ’99, became head of Mennonite Church USA.

Stutzman's position was filled on an interim basis by Sara Wenger Shenk ’75, until she too was recruited to serve elsewhere. She will be the president of Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Indiana, beginning in the 2010-11 school year.

“I would rather have leaders at EMU that other institutions wish to recruit as their leaders than to have the opposite situation,” Swartzen-druber notes with a smile.

Fred Kniss ’79 arrived from Loyola University Chicago to be provost in July 2009. (Lee F. Snyder, class of ’63, served as interim provost.) Kniss was professor in the Loyola department of sociology and, most recently, the department’s chair. He was also interim dean of The Graduate School at Loyola for a year and graduate program director of the sociology department for four years.

In February (2010) Michael A. King ’76 of Telford, Pa., was named to replace Stutzman and Shenk as seminary dean and university vice presi-dent. "Michael King comes to us from a distin-guished career as a pastor, scholar and publisher [as owner of Cascadia Publishing House],” said Kniss when announcing the appointment.

In April (2010) Daryl W. Bert, a 1997 EMU graduate with a BS degree in accounting, accepted EMU’s invitation to succeed Piper, who served 24 years as EMU’s top financial official. Previously Bert spent seven years doing financial work for the Dell Computer Corporation. In addition to being a certified public accountant, Bert holds an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.

Finally, in late April (2010), Nancy Heisey, MDiv ’94, chair of EMU’s Bible and religion department, responded to her institution's heartfelt request that she succeed Marie Morris as vice president and undergraduate dean. (Veteran professor and admin-istrator Vernon Jantzi ’64 had served on an interim basis for 2009-10 while the search committee did its work.) In the summer of 2009, Heisey finished a six-year term as president of Mennonite World Conference.

All of the academic administrators mentioned above hold doctorates earned at respected institutions. An article on Ron Piper's 24 years of financial stewardship will appear in an upcoming issue of Crossroads.

— From press releases by Jim Bishop '67

School in July 2010, leaving his job as principal at West Fallowfield Christian School. He is a former science teacher and administrator at Christopher Dock Mennonite High School, Penn View Christian, and Linville Hill Mennonite.

Elaine hostetler ’84 Miller, Millersburg, Ohio, began teaching science, health and physical education at Central Christian Middle School in Kidron in the fall of 2008.

Thomas L. Eshleman ’86, MDiv ’07, be-gan as lead pastor at Groffdale Mennonite Church, Leola, Pa., on Sept. 26, 2009.

r. Todd Weaver ’87 is a founding partner in Weaver, Reckner & Rein-hart Dental Associates with offices in Souderton and Harleysville, Pa. This dental practice was ranked 23rd in the medium-sized-company category in Best Places to Work in Pennsylvania for 2008. The award program, created in 2000, ranks the top 100 best employers in the Commonwealth and is one of the first of its kind. The program is a public/private partnership in which the rank-ings are published by the Central Penn Business Journal.

Lee Ebersole ’89, MDiv ’96, Kalona, Iowa, is Bible instructor at Iowa Men-nonite School. He wrote: "I very much appreciated the time I was at EMU as a Bible major undergrad as well as my time in seminary. The professors I had were passionate about their subjects and cared very much about helping others to learn. I hope that I convey the same kind of passion for the Scriptures and my students in my classroom today."

1990-99 Gaye Spivey ’91, Reidsville, N.C., graduated from the pharmacy techni-cian program with the highest GPA in her class from Rockingham Community College, Reidsville, N.C., and took her National Certification Examination for pharmacy technician. She is now a licensed pharmacy technician, working for Wal-Mart Inc.

Mark ’92 and Donna Metzler ’91 Glunt have moved to West Liberty, Ohio, for Mark to become the associate pastor of Oak Grove Mennonite Church. Mark’s duties include being pastor of youth and worship.

robert Kanagy ’92, Lancaster, Pa., completed a camping, recreation, and youth ministries major at EMU. After graduation, he spent 12 years in various roles of camp ministry. He completed a master’s degree in Counseling Education at Mississippi State University. In 2004, Robert became pastor at Masonville Mennonite church in Lan-caster Mennonite Conference, where he continues to serve. He is a student in the MDiv program at EMU, Lancaster Campus. Robert credits starting on his life's path to many friends at EMU, professors (especially Lester Zook) and

his time in the cross country and track and field programs.

Michael Scott osinski ’94, Leesburg, Va., is senior manager at Goodman & Company in Washington, D.C. Michael has been working in the business and individual income tax fields since November 1994. He works primarily with businesses and their owners in the real estate and government contracting areas and has recently started working with clients that have inventory issues. He added licensing and expertise in business valuation in 2001. In this role, he performs business valuations for es-tate, gift and S-Corporation built-in gains. His industry concentration has been in closely held entities that own real estate and securities.

Elaine Marie Shenk ’94, Philadelphia, Pa., is currently teaching both linguistics and Spanish classes at St. Joseph’s Uni-versity in Philadelphia. Elaine completed a degree in liberal arts at EMU. As part of that degree, she had two language-related areas of concentration, one in Spanish and one in teaching English as a second language. Both of these con-tributed to her decision to go to gradu-ate school, focusing on Spanish and linguistics. Elaine also completed an area of concentration in socio-economic development.

Matt Moyer ’95, Souderton, Pa., was recognized as "coach of the year" for small high schools by the Pennsylvania State Soccer Coaches Association. Matt coached his team to 20 wins and a state championship this year-- his fourth state title in 10 years.

Chad E. Lacher ’97, is a partner with his brother, Mark, in Lacher & Associ-ates, Souderton, Pa. Lacher & Associ-ates was ranked 17th among the Best Places to Work in Pennsylvania in 2008, medium-sized company category. (More information about this program is available under the Milepost of r. Todd Weaver ’87.)

rodney A. Martin ’99, Lititz, Pa., began a term as lead pastor at Lititz Mennonite Church on Sept. 18, 2009.

2000-09Amy Sauder ’00 Lehman, Alexandria, Va., embarked on a long journey with her friend, Kate Brumbrut, towards publishing their book. Two years and three babies later (between Kate and Amy), they are excited to announce that their book, That’s My Story, Too!, was released in early February. For more info, visit the publisher’s website www.youthlight.com. The book is intended for counselors and teachers, but is also applicable to parents.

Laura Polk ’00, College Park, Md., is in her second year of studying for a master’s in applied anthropology at the University of Maryland.

Fred Kniss

Michael A. King

Daryl W. Bert

nancy heisey


Mindy nolt ’01, Lancaster, Pa., is employed as a teacher of English as a Second Language at Milllersville Interna-tional House.

Jared hankee ’02, Lancaster, Pa., is serving as the MCC U.S. peace and justice ministries administrative assistant.

Barbara norris rutt ’03, Lititz, Pa., graduated with a second BS degree in occupational safety and environmental health from Millersville U. in December 2009. She also earned the graduate safety practitioner designation from the Board of Certified Safety Professionals. Barbara continues to work as a safety and health consultant with High Safety Consulting Services Ltd in Lancaster, Pa.

rosa C. Bare ’04, Fulks Run, Va., is the new director of annual giving at the Virginia Mennonite Retirement Founda-tion in Harrisonburg, Va. Rosa will work on fundraising for the foundation. Prior to joining the foundation, Rosa worked for more than 20 years with Pleasant View, Inc., in capital campaign, fundrais-ing and administrative positions. Most recently, she was director of marketing and special events for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Harrisonburg and Rock-ingham County.

Kim L. Fawley of Broadway, Va., dem-onstrated that she merits her MA ’04 in educational leadership by persistently writing letters over a three-year period to be accepted as one of 100 volun-teers who decorate the White House for Christmas. When she succeeded this year, she not only helped decorate the huge Blue Room, she became the focus of media attention as a 7th grade teacher absorbing civic lessons for her students at J. Frank Hillyard Middle School. She was on CNN and Oprah’s Harpo network. She sat in a press con-ference given by Michelle Obama and saw the president leave by helicopter.

Laura hershberger ’04 of Lancaster, Pa., formerly of Sugarcreek, Ohio, is serving with MCC in Akron as a donor support specialist.

Audrey Berkshire ’04 Jackson, Rich-mond, Va., will serve as director of legis-lative and government affairs of Virginia General Assembly (VGA). Audrey has numerous years of experience working with the VGA. She served as member support manager for the National Federation of Independent Business of Virginia. She has also served as legisla-tive director for delegate Matt Lohr, 26th House District of Virginia and was Central Virginia field director for Attorney General-elect, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, II.

Timothy Fitzgerald ’06, Staunton, Va., veteran Virginia Department of Trans-portation (VDOT) administrator is now director of community development for Augusta County.

Timothy (Tim) Moyer, CMS ’06, MDiv ’08, Harleysville, Pa., is featured in a special section on Mennonite education

in the January 2010 issue of The Men-nonite. Tim credits his EMU-required cross-cultural visit to Haiti for transform-ing his belief in the “American dream.” He notes that when we sing “Showers of Blessing,” it means something totally different than when it is sung in Haiti. He was impressed that despite the profound poverty in Haiti, Haitians were able to sing the song with great joy. Tim maintains that a cross-cultural experi-ence “deepens a person’s capacity to minister.” Tim is the owner of an auto body and mechanical repair shop in Harleysville.

Adrienne M. Patterson ’06 is engaged to Dustin (Drew) Cobb ’06. Adrienne is currently at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Medical College of Vir-ginia, School of Pharmacy, in Richmond. She anticipates receiving her Doctor of Pharmacy degree in 2011. Drew is a PhD candidate in immunology/microbiology at VCU's Medical College of Virginia. They plan to get married on July 10, 2010, at First Mennonite Church of Richmond.

Mary Jo Bowman, MDiv ’07, Harlan, Ky., was ordained Oct. 25 at Harlan Mennonite Fellowship for her work as a chaplain.

rachel ringenberg Miller, MDiv ’07, was ordained for pastoral ministry at Portland Mennonite Church, Portland, Ore., Oct. 18, 2009.

robyn Mast ’08, Weatherford, Okla., is on a one-year service assignment with MCC's SALT program in Burundi as an HIV and AIDS nurse.

Kristen Swartley ’08, Cedar Falls, Iowa, is on a one-year service assignment with MCC's SALT program in Bolivia as a youth orchestra and choir facilitator.

Laura Bomberger ’08, formerly of Harrisonburg, Va., moved to Lancaster, Pa., in November to work as a seasonal sales associate at Ten Thousand Villag-es. Laura is also Advancement/Interna-tional Coordinator with Global Disciples, a non-profit mission organization that empowers churches and individuals to share the Good News. Laura will help

“tell the Global Disciples’ story” through meetings and special event planning. She will also be working in the account-ing office one day a week.

Justin hochstetler ’09, Iowa City, Iowa, is on a one-year service assignment with MCC's SALT program in Laos as an English as a Second Language teacher..

Michelle Kennel ’09, Jonesboro, Ga., is on a one-year service assignment with MCC's SALT program in India as an English as a Foreign Language teacher and a social worker.

MarriagesBetty Wenger ’67 Good, to Donald E. White, Jan. 2.

Emily Wenger ’76 to Robert vandevander, Jan. 24, 2009.

New Masters Programin Nursing Leadership Building on its well-known and respected undergraduate BSN programs, EMU's nursing department is launching a master's program in nursing leadership and management. The program is designed to prepare graduates to lead and collaborate in complex health care systems. The master's level program offers a 24-month, 37-credit hour cohort model in which no more than 16 students work together and move through the program as a cohesive unit.

"The EMU teaching framework includes approaches that are vital for nurse leaders and managers to bring about change within the systems in which they work," noted Ann G. Hershberger '76, PhD, professor of nursing and program coordinator. "Approaches in the EMU philosophy include empowerment, reconciliation, partnership, presence, justice, service and advocacy.

"The overall goal is the creation of just systems through cultural competence, evidence-based practice, conflict transformation, and enhanced communication," Hershberger said.

The program will run fall, spring and summer semesters, with a teaching-learning approach known as "click and brick," a combina-tion of distance learning courses ("click") and at least one face-to-face meeting ("brick") each semester.

The program is designed for working nurses who need to maintain family commitments, stay in the same area and remain on the job while developing leadership and management skills and deepening scholarship.

"Professors will draw on EMU's extensive experience in cross-cultural learning and the nursing department's established reputation for educating nurses with high moral values, a broader view towards others, in-depth communication skills and cultural competence," she said. "Students will gain from the expertise of entrepreneurial faculty in EMU's other graduate programs in business and conflict trans-formation as they cultivate leadership skills and an effective voice, remaining mindful of what is just, respectful and sacred."

As Crossroads went to press, approval by the Southern Associa-tion of Colleges and Schools for the MS in nursing leadership and management degree program was still pending. In anticipation of approval, EMU began accepting applications March 15 for a cohort beginning Aug. 28, 2010. For more information, contact Joan Henry, (540) 432-4983, email: [email protected] or visit this website:

www.emu.edu/msn-leadership— Jim Bishop '67

nursing professor Ann G. hershberger


Mary Beth Lichty ’86 to Roger Lee Wagoner, Oct. 29.

Sally Enders ’88 to Jim rodriguez, Nov. 1, 2008.

rosemary (rose) Shenk ’90 Stoltzfus to Bruce Buckwalter ’91, Jan. 16.

Steven Baer ’98 to Liz Sunde, June 27, 2008.

Sherri Ann zook ’00 to Aaron Marcel Gagne, Sept. 6, 2008

Mindy nolt ’01 to Jared hankee ’02, July 25.

M. Alison D’Silva ’01, MA ’06, to rich Myers ’97, Jan. 8, in Noakhali, Bangladesh.

Annie E. Bontrager ’03 to Seth Trance, Dec. 19.

Linda n. Mugambi ’03 to Michael Brown, Oct. 3.

Tanya Sue nissley ’03, to Chris hol-land, Apr. 24, 2010.

Sara Kauffman ’03 to Joseph Mwagu-ra, Jan. 10.

Carrie June Landis ’04 to Preston Knight, Aug. 8.

Jason rutt ’06 to Alexis Sauder ’06, June 6, 2009.

Justin Shenk ’06 to valerie Showalter ’06, May 22.

Betsy Fisher ’07 to Philip rhodes, Mar. 28, 2009.

Andrew hershberger ’07 to Elisa (El-lie) Spaulding ’07, Dec 15.

Brenna Steury ’07 to Bradley (Brad) Graber, Jan. 2, 2010.

rachel Clemmer ’09 to Michael Charles ’09, July 18.

BirthsBradley (Brad) ’93 and Beth Friesen, Lincoln, Vt., Drew James, Feb. 24, 2010.

Monica Cope ’94 and Dan Cooper, Coopersburg, Pa., Franklin Reagan, Dec. 29.

Kristen hoober ’94 and Mark Leichty, Ella Ruth, Feb. 15, 2010.

Jon ’94 and Marjorie herr ’00 rush, Lowville, N.Y., Anya Elizabeth, Dec. 28.

Jeffrey (Jeff) ’95 and Julie Litwiller ’95 Shank, Sarasota, Fla., Emilee Grace, March 22, 2010.

heidi Metzler ’95 and Jonathan West, York, Pa., Aaron Timothy, Jan. 18.

Stacey ’97 and Angie Cerda ropp, Lon-don, England, Hannah Elizabeth, Nov. 22.

Steven Baer ’98 and Liz Sunde, Bea-verton, Ore., Addison Marie, June 18.

ryan ’98 and Maria ’98 Linder-hess, Lancaster, Pa., Arthur, May 5.

Doug ’99 and Kristina Blosser ’98 Blyer, Harrisonburg, Va., Emma Eliza-beth, March 12, 2010.

Doug ’99 and Kristina Blosser ’98 Blyer, Harrisonburg, Va., Emma Eliza-beth, Mar. 4.

Mark ’99 and Heidi hamsher, Sugar-creek, Ohio, Sophie Grace, Nov. 13, 2009.

Jeremy ’99, MDiv ’06, and Jody McKin-sey ’99 Byler, Harrisonburg, Va., Jordyn Faith, Sept. 22.

James (Jamie), MACoL ’99, and Lou-ise Johnson, Weyers Cave, Va., James Avery, Nov. 9.

Jeffrey L. nolt ’99 MA in EDL’04, and Ellyn Marie-Trout ’99 nolt, Lancaster, Pa., Josiah LeRoy, April 4, 2010.

Sherri Allebach ’00 and Emmil vass, Sell-ersville, Pa., Alexander Thomas, Oct. 22.

Brittany Culbertson ’00 and Tom Bates, Harrisonburg, Va., Raleigh Edward Davenport, July 20.

victoria (vicki) halteman/Chavous ’00 and James Deatelhauser, Sellers-ville, Pa., Samuel Kenneth, March 22, 2010.

Aimee neuenschwander ’00 and Kevin Yost, Newville, Pa., Avalee Rose, Aug. 2, 2009.

heather Good ’01 and Joel nyce, Schwenksville, Pa., Claire Avery, Nov. 20.

Brad ’02 and Jessica, Miller Yoder, Engle-wood, Colo., Silas Emerson, Nov. 1.

Sarah roes ’02 and nevin ’99 Yoder, Staunton, Va., Layah Grace, Oct 23.

Bess Steury ’03 and Joel ’03 Daly, Goshen, Ind., Jonah Michael, Jan. 30.

vincent ’03 and Melissa Hofmann Friesen, Sutton, Neb., Ashlyn Marie, Dec. 21, 2009.

Adam ’03 and Sarah Sensamaust, Kin-shasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Charlotte Victoire, Jan. 19.

Angela Swartzendruber ’03 and Joe hackman, Sellersville, Pa., Ila Grace, Jan 15.

Alice Yoder ’03 and Zachary (Zac) DiGuardi, Davidsville, Pa., Levi Aspen, Feb. 15, 2010.

AnniversariesJ. robert ’56 and Rosalie Hartman Eshle-man, Harrisonburg, Va., 50th, married June 8, 1957.

richard F. Sem ’71 and Elizabeth Brenneman ross, Orville, Ohio, 70th, mar-ried Jan. 22, 1940.

DeathsEsther v. Knicely ’32, Mount Crawford, Va., 98, died Nov. 23 at her home. She was a homemaker and a member of Pike Mennonite Church.

Mildred Wenger ’34 Plank, Harrison-burg, Va., died Jan. 5, at the age of 93, at Oak Lea Nursing Home. Her special ministry in life was her robust concern for others, as demonstrated by count-

Retired Goshen ProfessorRecommends PeacebuilderThe following was posted on April 14, 2010, at www.jdanielhess.com, a blog maintained by Dan Hess ’59. Hess was a professor and administrator at Goshen College (Ind.) for almost 30 years. He now freelances and consults on communications.

“The acronym CJP is not as widely recognized as MCC, but its work deserves our support. The Center for Justice and Peacebuild-ing is yet another expression of the Mennonite understanding of faithfulness.

“This week we received Peace-builder [online at www.emu.edu/peacebuilder] from Eastern Men-nonite University that tells one particular reach of CJP — to the two nations of Afghanistan and Pakistan. I wish all members of my congregation would read it.

“CJP is linked to about 40 people with work experience in either of the countries. These people, now living in Kabul and Islamabad as well as smaller regional cities, work with organizations such as Church World Service, Open Society Institute, the United Nations, USAID, Caritas Pakistan Faisalabad, Norwegian Church Aid, Just-Peace International and other similarly worthy organizations.

“The issue supplies a history of the troubled region and then features the work of Ali Gohar, Suraya Sadeed, Hamid Arslan, and Yasmine Joseph. Ms. Sadeed heard about EMU’s Center from a staff person at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington D.C. who told her CJP is “cream of the crop.”

“Thanks to EMU and all of the staff members of CJP for good work. I hope your Summer Peacebuilding Institute is again blessed this year.”

Drescher's Books Are GlobalThe third Italian-language edition of Seven Things Children Need by John M. Drescher, ’51 (ThB ’53) recently came out. This book has been translated into Chinese, Arabic, Russian and 15 other languages.

As the spring 2005 issue of Crossroads reported, John has filled many important roles in the ministry: writer of more than 37 books and pamphlets ("probably the most published Mennonite writer alive today," according to the magazine Christianity Today), editor (of the Mennonite church's official magazine Gospel Herald from 1962 to 1973), and traveling preacher (with more than 200 speaking appoint-ments annually during his prime).

One of his books, If I Were Starting My Family Again, was con-densed in Readers Digest and at least 70 other magazines worldwide.He was also a chapter author in Chicken Soup for the Expectant Mother's Soul.

Drescher has served as pastor of four Mennonite congregations, as bishop or overseer in three district conferences and was "churchman-in-residence" at our seminary, 1979-83. He and his wife Betty '50 were honored at EMU's 2005 School for Leadership Training.


less friends she entertained and her handwritten notes to them, in the times of joy and sorrow.

Marlin hess Seitz, hS ’31 & EMC class of ’36, of Messiah Village, Me-chanicsburg, Pa., died at his residence Oct. 24, 2009, at the age of 96. Marlin was a member of Slate Hill Mennonite Church where he served as superinten-dent of Sunday school and the Summer Bible School as well as teaching many classes and song leading. After manag-ing food production for alternative service during WWII, Marlin moved into supplying farm supplies as an Eastern States Farmers Exchange Representa-tive, which later became Agway. Marlin built and opened the current Agway store in Mechanicsburg. He served on the board of Eastern Mennonite Board of Missions and became a pioneer and a founder of Camp Hebron Association in 1950, which established a camp on Peters Mountain in Dauphin County. After serving for many years on its Board of Directors, in 1969, Marlin leased the Agway business and moved to help manage the camp, with his wife, for eight years.

h. Ernest Bennett GT ’36, ThB ’38, Goshen, Ind., died Nov. 18 in Green-croft Healthcare at the age of 94. He served with passion and humility as a leader of mission efforts in the former Mennonite Church for more than two decades. Ernest served with Mennonite Health Association, Mennonite Health Assembly and Mennonite Central Com-mittee (MCC), but spent most of his life with Mennonite Board of Missions, a predecessor agency of Mennonite Mission Network, including 21 years as executive secretary. During the Span-ish Civil War in 1939, Ernest did relief work in Spain under Mennonite Relief Committee. In the early days of WWII, he served under MCC in France. From 1941 to 1946, he was assistant treasurer of MCC in Akron, Pa. He served at Men-nonite Board of Missions headquarters in Elkhart, Ind., from 1946-1980, first in hospital development, then as treasurer and secretary of heath and welfare. From 1959 until his retirement, he was executive secretary.

vivian Eby (GT ’38 ’53) Denlinger, 96, of Landis Homes, Lititz, Pa., died Sept. 8, 2009, at the age of 96. She had a lifelong passion for sharing Christ and ministry in the Christian faith community. She served with Eastern Mennonite Missions (EMM) in Africa for 20 years. After her marriage to Chester Denlinger, they continued to serve under EMM in Africa, Belize, Florida, and Alabama. After moving home to Lancaster, they were active in the Columbia Mennonite Church and later at Landis Homes. Vivian was a teacher by profession. She taught in public and parochial schools in Lancaster County and in the mission field.

Earl r. Delp (hS ’37) ’39, a resident of Virginia Mennonite Retirement Com-munity, Inc., Harrisonburg, Va., died Dec. 19, at the age of 93. Earl was an active member of the Mennonite Church, serv-ing the denomination in pastoral minis-try in Pennsylvania and Virginia. He was bishop/overseer of the northern district of Virginia Mennonite Conference from 1975-1986. He was skilled at making cabinets and objects of wood, working for Miller’s Cabinets in Harrisonburg for many years. His fondest pastime was reviewing books, thousands of them, which he did for most of his life, first for Mennonite Publishing House, Scottdale, Pa., and then for Choice Books Minis-tries, Harrisonburg, Va. Earl is survived by six children, Earl, Jr. ’62, Earlene Delp ’69 Wallick, harriet Delp ’66 Miller, Charles ’68, Evangeline Yoder, and ronald ’80.

Anna Dayton (hS ’39) Bishop, died at age 88 on Dec. 20 at Rockhill Menno-nite Community, Sellersville, Pa., where she was a resident the last 10 years. For many years, Anna and her spouse, J. Vernon Bishop, served as camp direc-tors at Laurelville Mennonite Church Center, Mount Pleasant, Pa., as mem-bers of EMU’s Parent Council and as leaders of Torchbearer youth programs at their church. Anna was noted for her generous hospitality and hosted many friends and guests in her home. Anna is survived by five children, James (Jim)

’67, public Information officer of EMU, robert ’70, J. Eric ’78, Michael ’81 and Rebecca Bishop Swartzendruber.

Ellen Brunk ’39 Griffin, died peacefully in her sleep Jan. 2 at age 89. For many years, Ellen worked in the family busi-ness, Peoples Supply Co., Bladensburg, Md.

ruby A. King (hS ’42) horst, Reading, Pa., died Nov. 21 at the age of 84. She was a member of Fairview Mennonite Church. Ruby was a homemaker and enjoyed gardening, working in her flower beds, and watching birds. She is survived by five siblings who are EMU alumni: ruth King ’45 horst, isabelle King ’49 Yoder, Sanford King ’50, Esther King ’61 Jones, nancy King

’82 Wood.

Mahlon h. Showalter, hS ’40, Har-risonburg, Va., died Dec. 22 at the age of 88. Mahlon was a member of Bethel Mennonite Church, Broadway. He was a farmer and formerly part owner of Broadway Metal Works.

Tillie Yoder ’46 nauraine, Goshen, Ind., died Feb. 27, at the age of 89. From 1947 to about 1950, Tillie operated a camp for African-American children on her parents' farm in Millersburg, Ohio. Children from Cleveland, and later, from Chicago, enjoyed the rural environment. Tillie also operated Tillie’s Tinkerbell Shop in Goshen.

Elizabeth (Betty) Clemmer ’47. Kupeerus, Milford, Ind., 84, died at

SACS Team PraisesPlan for Sustainability“A model for other colleges.”

That's how the EMU “Quality Enhancement Plan” – dubbed QEP – was described by a visiting team from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). The team spent several days on campus in early March (2010), assessing EMU for reaccreditation.

Our QEP is called “Peace with Creation: Environmental Sustain-ability from an Anabaptist Perspective." Some 800 schools are under SACS. Each requires a QEP as part of their reaccreditation process.

Michael Johnson, one of the nine-person review team representing eight colleges and universities, suggested that “peace with creation” offers a model for other colleges to adopt.

Under this QEP, EMU will integrate “environmental sustain-ability” into the cur-ricula of all departments, while strengthening (or complementing) EMU's already strong invest-ment in sustainability through better energy use, recycling, and facilities development.

EMU will be build-ing on the Anabaptist tradition of stewardship, simple living and peace under an interdisciplinary undergraduate frame-work. These principles will guide EMU’s work, as set forth by Dr. Anthony Cortese of Second Nature, a non-profit organization:

• the health of all current and future humans and other species• fairness, equity, stability and security in human cultures and

social systems• economic opportunity for all current and future humans • ecological diversity and integrity"The EMU QEP focus... is a unique and precedent setting initia-

tive," wrote Dodd Galbreath, executive director of the Institute for Sustainable Practice at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn., and lead evaluator of the QEP.

The March 1-4, 2010, on-site reaccreditation visit, chaired by Dr. Mark Smith of Rhodes College in Memphis, resulted in a strong af-firmation of EMU's undergraduate programs, with an strong recom-mendation for reaccreditation for 10 years, the maximum time period.

"This affirmation of what we do and how we operate is significant," noted EMU provost Fred Kniss. "Our QEP is a place where our core values as a university can intersect with a pressing issue for the global community."

The QEP will be implemented over the next five years. The first step in implementation is to include sustainability themes in several courses, including the first-year writing and Bible and religion classes, and in the cross-cultural programs.

Details of the plan are available online at www.emu.edu/qep. A full copy of the visiting committee's exit conference report is available on request by contacting B.J. Miller, EMU Institutional Research at [email protected] or (540) 432-4304.

— Andrea Schrock Wenger '86


Lakeland Rehabilitation and Healthcare Oct. 28. Betty was known to many as the “First Grade Teacher.” She taught at the New Paris and Goshen Schools for 39 years. She was a member of College Mennonite Church of Goshen. Betty enjoyed crossword puzzles, reading and, most of all, traveling with her family, especially to Europe.

Anna Bricker ’47 Shank, Chambers-burg, Pa., 86, died Nov. 23 at Menno Haven in Chambersburg. She was an elementary school teacher in the Cham-bersburg Area School District, where she retired from teaching first grade at Fayetteville Elementary School. Anna was a member of Pond Bank Mennonite Church, the Pennsylvania State Educa-tion Association, National Education Association, and Menno Haven Auxiliary, where she served as a past president. Anna enjoyed volunteering, serving in a variety of volunteer activities at Menno Haven until this past summer, having of-fered more than 27,245 volunteer hours in more than 35 years of service.

naomi Graybill ’51 Moon, Scottdale, Pa., died Feb. 9, 2010, at the age of 85. She lived most of her adult life in Scottdale, working at the Mennonite Publishing House as a proofreader. Naomi was an active member of Kingview Mennonite Church and then Scottdale Mennonite after the churches merged. She brought her strong faith to work as a volunteer with the Food Bank and World's Attic thrift store. She hosted many visitors through the Pittsburgh Council for International Visitors as well as others in need of hospitality.

Maribel Garber Kraybill ’53, died at Landis Homes, Lititz, Pa., March 30, 2010, at the age of 85. Maribel received a master’s degree in education from Temple University in 1963. She was the recipient of EMU’s “1977 Alumnus of the Year” award, in recognition of her having made a significant contribution in her profession, her church and her community. Maribel taught elementary school in Alabama from 1949-52. She was principal of Locust Grove Elemen-tary School from 1955-1987. Maribel was director of The Mennonite Informa-tion Center from 1988-1998. She was a member of East Chestnut Mennonite Church, Lancaster, where she served as superintendent of the Sunday school. Maribel travelled extensively in Africa and Europe. She taught English as a second language for six summers at several universities in China, including North Western University in Shenyang.

ralph L. Weaver ’53, Lyndhurst, Va., died Dec. 10, at the age of 84, after an extended illness. As a member of Springdale Mennonite Church, Ralph served in many capacities. He owned Weaver Hatchery and Feed Company, served on the Peoples Bank Board in Stuarts Draft, and was a past mem-ber of Stuarts Draft Ruritan Club and Business Administration. In 1959, he

founded Weaver Insurance Agency and served as its president until retirement. He was past president of Shenandoah Valley Life Underwriters Association. He served 10 years, one as chairman, on the Virginia Commission of Game and Inland Fisheries and was on the Governor’s Environmental Council. He enjoyed hunting and fishing and served on the Waynesboro Game and Fish Protective Association and the Virginia Wildlife Federation. Ralph was a mem-ber of Gideons, Waynesboro Rotary Club, a board member of Sovran Bank and was involved in many other civic and charitable organizations.

vivian Marie Beachy ’55, died Feb. 8, at the age 80 at the Country Rest Home in Greenwood, Del. She began her 45-year teaching career after graduating from Lancaster Mennonite School in Pennsylvania, teaching at Greenwood Mennonite Elementary School until 1953. After graduating from EMU, she taught English at Eastern Mennonite High School for 40 years until retiring in 1995. She also taught English as a sec-ond language at two mission schools, two years at Good Shepherd School, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and in Honduras for one year. As a retiree, she served as a chaplain in the intensive care unit at Rockingham Memorial Hospital and as a deaconess at Trissels Mennonite Church, Broadway, Va. Vivian moved back to Delaware in 2003 and again became a member of the Greenwood Mennonite Church.

Wesley (Wes) r. ropp ’55, Har-risonburg, Va., died at the age of 81, surrounded by family, in his apartment at Park Place at Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community. While at EMU, he was the leader of a YPCA team and evangelical witness in street meetings at Mount Jackson, Va., which gave rise to Mount Jackson Mennonite Church. Wes was the first sociology graduate of EMU. He became the first principal of Sarasota (Florida) Christian School, si-multaneously, serving as a teacher. Later, he was self-employed, manufacturing mobile homes and RVs. Wes was an active member of Full Gospel Business Men’s International for many years. He was a member of First Assembly of God Church in Harrisonburg. Wes is survived by his wife, Anna Yoder ’58 ropp, two sons, John and Ken, two EMU alumna daughters, Faythe ropp ’86 Silveira, Joye ropp ’87 Cavari, and daughter, Charity Burkholder.

Mary Ethel heatwole ’57, Harrison-burg, Va., died Jan. 1 at the age of 77. She received her master’s in dietetics from Penn State University. She was a member of the American Dietetic As-sociation and the Blue Ridge Dietetic As-sociation. Mary Ethel served in several roles at EMU from 1970-1975: director of food services, director of dietetics, and teaching in dietetics. She was a dietitian for DeVita Healthcare in Harrisonburg for 21 years, retiring in 2007.

Best Basketball Season Ever!Record-breaking wins and massive fan support for the 2009-10 EMU men’s basketball season made this a year to celebrate.

The team ended with a 25-5 record, including 14-2 in the Old Do-minion Athletic Conference (ODAC) and just the program's second regular season ODAC title. The previous best mark in program his-tory was the 16-9 record of the 1997-98 team.

They earned the first national ranking for the Runnin’ Royals ever and ended the season ranked #4 in the nation in the D3hoops.com national poll. See D3hoops.com for the full top 25 list.

EMU hosted first and second round games of NCAA play to sell-out crowds and the team went all the way to competition in the Elite Eight during their first-ever trip to the D-III National Championship.

“The atmosphere and support in Yoder Arena during the NCAA games was beyond my wildest dreams,” reflected Head Coach Kirby Dean ’92, at season’s end. Dean was named “coach of the year” by three major organizations: ODAC, National Association of Basketball Coaches (South Region), and Virginia Sports Information Directors.

Todd Phillips was named First Team All-American by D3hoops.com and “player of the year” by Virginia Sports Information Direc-tors (Div. III). He was one of four EMU players honored by ODAC.

Fans came out in droves and broke all records for EMU basketball:• 13,558 total attendance at 13 home dates • 1,043 average at home dates • 828 average for total season • 1,689 fans for 2/17/10 Bridgewater game (record for EMU event) • more than 1,500 fans at a home game four times The number of fans watching via webcast broke records for the

ODAC, too. In most cases, fans gathered and watched together on one screen. Some even coordinated parties.

• 3/13/10 vs Guilford – 2,342 views • 3/12/10 vs Whitworth – 1,120 views • 3/6/10 vs Wilmington – 464 views • 3/5/10 vs Centre – 419 views “Athletics can be fickle,” reflected Athletic Director Dave King '76

at a post-season celebration for the campus and broader community. “But we are grateful for this opportunity to excel and in that, raise awareness about the bigger picture that is EMU and the success this team exemplifies both on and off the court.”

For more information, visit:www.emu.edu/athletics/2010bball

— Andrea Schrock Wenger '86

The men's basketball team played before packed viewing stands in 2009-10.


Florence E. horst ’58 a resident of Crestwood at Virginia Mennonite Retire-ment Community, died Dec. 19 at age 93. She was a member of Park View Mennonite Church, serving on various congregational committees. She super-ised EMU food services for 23 years.

Edna Lorraine rice ’59, Waynesboro, Pa., died in her home, Nov. 26, at the age of 74. After completing her degree in education at EMU, Edna completed a master’s degree in education at Ship-pensburg University in Pennsylvania. She taught in the Waynesboro School District from 1958 to 1977 when she retired from Fairview Elementary school. Edna spent one year teaching in Taipei, Taiwan. She was a member of the Penn-sylvania State Education Association, National Education Association, and Waynesboro Church of the Brethren.

richard S. Krabill ’60, Madison, Ohio, died Dec. 23, 2009 at the age of 71. He grew up in the Louisville area, where he lived during his later college and teach-ing years. He taught junior high science for five years at State Street Junior High in Alliance. He received his MEd from Kent State in 1968. In the fall of 1967, he went to medical school at Kirksville College of Medicine in Kirksville, Mo., receiving his medical degree in June 1971. Richard began his private practice in Madison in 1975, where he practiced until his retirement in 2005. He was on staff at Northeast General Hospital in Madison, Huron Hospital in Cleveland and Geneva Memorial Hospital in Geneva. He was a member of Beech Mennonite Church in Louisville.

Anna M. Detweiler ’61, Goshen, Ind., age 71, died Jan. 15 from injuries sus-tained in an automobile accident. Anna was a secretary at Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, and Goshen College Church. She attended Voice Ministries Church of Osceola.

ray Laverne Landis ’63, of Tunkhan-nock, Pa., died at his home Jan. 16 at the age of 74. He was a graduate of Temple University Medical School. He was a family physician in Factoryville and Tunkhannock for 25 years. He served as chief of staff and as a board member for many years at Tyler Memo-rial Hospital, Tunkhannock. He was a member of Plains Mennonite Church, Hatfield, Pa., and First Baptist Church. After retirement, he and his wife decided they wanted to work in poverty-stricken areas of the world. They were medical volunteers in Jamaica and worked on nine Indian reservations. His spouse, Emma Jean Mack ’62 Landis, survives.

William Garber ’68, Deer Lodge, Tenn. died Nov. 3 at the age of 74 after an extended illness.

Delilah (Dee) Detweiler ’69 Sherman, age 84, Goshen, Ind., died Jan. 15 from injuries sustained in an automobile accident. Dee and her sister, Anna ’61, were on their way to celebrate Dee’s

birthday when the accident occurred. She was a registered nurse who served eight years teaching nursing in Tanzania, Africa. She was director of nursing along with other responsibilities at Greencroft Communities, retiring five years ago.

Luella Linder ’70, Louisville, Ohio, died Feb. 18, 2010, at age 79. Luella retired from Louisville City Schools, having taught 13 years at North Nimishillen Elementary and 13 years at Fairhope El-ementary. She was an active member of Beech Mennonite Church. She served on the board of directors for Shepherd’s Gate Child Care Center. Luella was a member of the Stark County Retired Teachers Association, the Ohio Retired Teachers Association, and the Ostomy Association, Chapter 161. Luella’s pastor, Daniel (Dan) King ’75, paid tribute to her for her energetic commitment to worship, service, and generosity.

Paul Luke D. Yoder, SEM ’78, Pigeon, Mich., died April 4, 2009, at Country Gardens in Pigeon at the age of 79. Luke served as a minister and bishop of Pigeon River Mennonite Church for more than 40 years. He was a board member of Rosedale Mennonite Mis-sions and served terms on the executive committee of the Conservative Men-nonite conference, of which he was a member. He was a board member of the Mennonite Church and EMU. He earned his living as a farmer, owning and operating Yoder Farms on South Bay Port Road.

Kevin S. Swartz ’85, Schwenksville, Pa., age 54, died Oct. 2, 2009, at Grand View Hospital. Kevin was an avid reader, a Philadelphia sports fan. He loved playing on the church league softball teams for the Souderton and Spring Mount Mennonite churches. During the 1970s and 1980s, he was employed by Daub’s Supermarket in Souderton. He and his wife, Stephanie, served a term in voluntary service in Akron, Pa., where he was a warehouse supervisor for Ten Thousand Villages. In 1993, he began working for Hatfield Quality Meats, where he was a smokehouse opera-tor. He attended Life Center Ministries International of Harrisburg, Pa.

Correction

Michael Kurtz ’77 was seated between Gene Miller ’79 and Randy Franklin ’80 in a photo of the 1977 men's basketball team published on page 37 of the fall/winter issue of Crossroads. Michael's name was inadvertently omitted from the photo caption.

Mileposts is compiled by retired physi-cian Paul T. Yoder ’50, MAL ’92, who may be reached at [email protected] or at (540) 432-4205. Feel free to send news directly to Paul or to the alumni of-fice at [email protected]. Abbreviations herein are spelled out in a key with the map at the front of this magazine.

Softball Makes HistoryAdvancing to NationalsEMU's second overcome-the-odds sports story came late in the spring when the Royals softball team claimed the Old Dominion Athletic Conference championship with a 5-1 victory over Virginia Wesleyan in the conference tournament.

The Royals, who entered the tournament as the lowly eighth seed, won four straight games to claim the ODAC crown.

After dropping the final four games of the regular season and slip-ping into eighth place in the league, EMU opened the tourney by up-setting top-seeded Guilford. The Royals proceeded to stake victories over fourth-seeded Lynchburg, sixth-seeded Randolph-Macon and third-seeded Virginia Wesleyan.

The ODAC crown is the second in program history. The Royals also won the first league tournament in 1990. They have finished as runners-up three times, including last year. It is also the first ODAC Championship for Eastern Mennonite in any sport since the women's basketball team won in 2004.

Coach J.D. McCurdy, whose teams have a history of postseason success, said the women just played well at the right time.

“This year it happened to be one of those years where we were up and down like a roller coaster,” McCurdy said. “[During the season] we were in all the major games with the one seed, the two seed, the three seed, and the four seed. We were right there with everybody.”

Nicole Wade pitched 4.1 innings in the title game, allowing just two hits. Lisa Lee was good for 2.2 innings, allowing a pair of hits and the lone Virginia Wesleyan run. She also starred at the plate, go-ing 2-4 with a homer and two runs scored. Rachel Breeden had a big two-out, two-run single in the first inning.

Wade was named Most Outstanding Player of the ODAC Tour-nament. She went 3-0 at the tourney, giving up just 3 runs in 18.1 innings of work. Lee and Jessica Blosser were both named to the All-Tournament Team. Lee went 6-11 with three home runs in three games, along with nine RBIs and five runs. Blosser finished 7-15 with seven runs and two RBIs.

Eastern Mennonite, now 19-16 overall, advances to the D-III Na-tional Softball Championship for the first time in school history.

— James De Boer

The royals softball team made a Cinderella run to the oDAC crown.


By E. "Ike" Porter '79

When I first arrived at EMC (now EMU), I felt like a fish out of water. I had been recently discharged from the military at the conclusion of a very unpopular war. As a 23-year-old freshman, I was entering a Christian college steeped in a tradition of pacifism. I was a warrior entering a faith community that did not believe in war. I genuinely wanted peace and wholeness for my soul but at that time was unable to articulate such a profound concept. I had not been raised in a Christian tradition, but had a conversion within a fundamentalist theological tradition while I was in the military.

Through humor-tinged lens, these descriptors of that long-ago experience come to mind: evangelical, independent, fundamentalist, pre-millennial, literal, iner-rant, God-and-country, King-James only, Christian-and-proud-of-it.

Today, I serve as the chief chaplain at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Battle Creek, Michigan. In this role, I wear many hats. I am the director of pastoral care in a setting that addresses post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, chronic and acute psychiatric illnesses and includes units for domiciliary, medical, blind rehabilita-tion, geriatric psychiatry, nursing home care, dementia care, and hospice. I have a staff of five full-time chaplains, including a clinical pastoral education (CPE) supervisor, three part-time chaplains, a secretary and con-tracts with several other providers to fulfill auxiliary tasks.

We currently have six students working on extended units of CPE. I am certified as

Army Veteran to Military ChaplainwiTh eMC's help

an anger management specialist and a fed-eral mediator; I work with veterans trying to help them heal from their experiences of war so they can live at peace with their spouses, their children and their communi-ties. I am also the director of consultative ethics at our facility and have been selected to serve on the National Ethics Committee.

How did I get here? I had a sojourn with the U.S. Army from 1972 through 1975. This experience taught me what it means to be a member of the military, with necessary self-discipline. Also, the military gave me the GI Bill, which enabled me to afford EMC. Today, this military background serves me well for my work. My own traumas give me insights and understand-ing when entering into the terror-stricken world of the traumatized veteran.

"I work with veterans trying to help them heal from their experiences of war so they can live at peace with their spouses, their children and their communities."

EMC taught me how to think. This is a simple, yet profound statement. Many religious-based educational institutions do not teach students how to think; instead they teach them what to think. I majored in social work and Bible and religion. I re-member many times being confused about an issue I was studying only to have the professor encourage me to work it through. I wanted answers, and my professors wanted me to think.

The discipline of research and compara-tive study I learned at EMC continues to prepare me for the issues I encounter. I learned about a people [Anabaptists] who would pay a price for standing up for what was right. I learned about a people who valued love and reconciliation. I learned

much from the study sessions in the snack shop and from my fellow students and my sisters and brothers of faith. I learned that my professors and others in leadership were fellow pilgrims as we sought to know and to serve the one whom we call Lord. I learned about a God who loves regardless of our sin. I learned to be loved.

Today I am in a role made possible by my education at Eastern Mennonite College, Eastern Mennonite Seminary, Ashland Theological Seminary, Associated Men-nonite Biblical Seminary, and Western Theological Seminary. The values I bring to my work reflect my education at all of these institutions. My work in anger manage-ment and as a federal mediator grows out of the theology of peace and reconciliation I learned and embraced at EMC. My work in ethics is enhanced by my formal education but it is driven mostly by living with, taking communion with and becoming one with a people who are willing to pay a price for standing up for what is right.

My brothers and sisters in the church stand with the attributes of God: love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, faithfulness, goodness, kindness and self-control. They seek justice and wholeness. When confront-ed with an ethical issue, we can be tempted to settle for the easiest solution, but EMC taught me to work through the issue and to seek the best answer for a given situation.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).” In truth, God has taken what good I learned in the military and has combined it with that I learned at EMC to enable me to be a minister of hope and reconciliation in a realm where many are devastated and wounded physically, emotionally and spiritually by the worst that humanity can do to humanity.

Editor's note: Ike porter is now a member of skyridge church of the brethren in kalamazoo, michigan. He has been a pastor at three mennonite churches and a member of two more. Two Seminary alumni currently min-istering to soldiers or veterans are John W. Jacobs Jr., MDiv '04, who is with the Na-tional Guard in Virginia, and Brian Palmer, MDiv '96, who is with the U.S military army.

Eastern Mennonite University

Development Department

1200 Park Rd.

Harrisonburg, VA 22802

(800) 368-3383

Phil Helmuth

Executive Director of Development

(540) 432-4597 (direct line)

(800) 368-3383

E-mail: [email protected]

Art Borden

Director of Planned Giving

(540) 746-5127 (direct line)

(800) 368-3383

Email: [email protected]

emu.edu/giving

Esther K. Lehman ’45 Jan. 14, 1924 - Jan. 30, 2009

She cared as a professor of education. She made certain her students not only learned but enjoyed life at EMU. She opened her door to all students, but African students (far from their homes) were especially looked after.

She cared for family and friends, while taking steps to avoid burdening anyone. She lived a frugal life. She had long-term care insurance.

She cared about giving regularly and generously, though she was not a wealthy woman:

She never made more than $30,000 a year, usually much less.

She never received an inheritance of significant value.Her largest gift was $5,000 (only one of these).Her smallest gifts were $25.Her gifts added up – before her death, she had given

EMU nearly $45,000.

She cared so much, she left a lasting legacy. She topped off her remarkable life by leaving about $76,000 in her will for an endowment for Eastern Mennonite Seminary. This estate gift was 170% of her entire life-time giving to EMU. It was 150 times larger than her largest annual gift.

LET US ALL CARE AS SHE CARED. Let us follow Esther’s lead and remember Eastern Mennonite University in our wills. This could be the largest gift of our lifetimes, and it could be one that benefits not just the current generation, but generations to come.

She Who Cared

Harrisonburg, VA 22802-2462

Parents: If this is addressed to your son or daughter who has established a separate residence, please give us the new address. Call (540) 432-4294 or e-mail [email protected]

PERIODICALSPOSTAGE PAIDHarrisonburg,

VirginiaEASTERNMENNONITEUNIVERSITY

EMU Homecoming 2010

EMU Homecoming2009

EMU Homecoming 2009

Save the date! October 8, 9, 10

It’s class reunion time for years ending in "0" and "5"!Come for an unforgettable weekend gathering with your classmates and reconnecting with EMU. Watch for more homecoming information in the summer issue of Crossroads and posted at emu.edu/homecoming.

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Crossroads Spring 2010 - Alumni Magazine of Eastern Mennonite University

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