“That first or second week, I thought, ‘I’m not gonna make it. This is my last semester here, and I’m not coming back,’” she recalled.

But then, she said, she began forming deep connections with her professors.

“Going to school with students nearly half my age, I felt a little more connected with my professors than with my fellow students,” she said. “When I started making those connections, I had this feeling that I was going to be OK after all.”

She had met her advisor, English Professor Dr. Kevin Seidel, during an open house the previous fall. “He checked in one day to make sure I was doing all right,” Beachy said. “We talked about how my experience was going, and that was super helpful.”

Beachy graduated with degrees in English and writing studies last spring after five semesters at 91����Ƶ. She had transferred to the university from online classes at Blue Ridge Community College. By the time she enrolled at 91����Ƶ, she had already spent four years teaching at the church school she graduated from and another 10 years developing curriculum at in Harrisonburg.

When Beachy, who lives in Staunton, expressed interest in pursuing a bachelor’s degree, a co-worker at Christian Light recommended 91����Ƶ. He thought the close-knit community would be a good fit for her, and he was right.

“The fact that 91����Ƶ is small makes it more personable,” she said. “I feel like you get to know your professors better. I didn’t know that when I started, but I’ve enjoyed that.”

She mentioned Dr. Marti Eads and Chad Gusler as faculty members she’s grown close to. “I appreciate the connections I made here, and I feel that some of my professors are still my friends,” she said. “They’re people I connect with when I see them, which is really useful.”

Beachy worked part-time at Christian Light while taking classes as a full-time student and tried to find courses that fit her busy schedule. When the registrar suggested she take a sociology class, she enrolled in Dr. Gaurav Pathania’s class.

She described the sociology professor as “very personable” and fondly recalled that he served chai and cookies in class. “That was something I always enjoyed,” Beachy said. “We would have discussions outside of class, too, and it was interesting to hear his perspectives on life in India versus life here.” She enjoyed his introductory sociology class so much that she signed up for more classes with Pathania. Those sociology classes helped her think about the world differently and better understand social issues.

Pathania remembers Beachy as never missing a class and demonstrating a level of thoughtfulness and maturity that set her apart. “Joyce is truly one of the most exceptional students I have encountered in my five years of teaching at 91����Ƶ,” he wrote.

Through a “Local Context” intercultural program, Beachy spent a summer studying various neighborhoods and social groups in Harrisonburg. That experience led her to try different ethnic restaurants in the area. “I still enjoy doing that to this day,” she said.

Last spring, Beachy served as an editorial intern for 91����Ƶ’s marketing and communications department, writing many well-received articles for 91����Ƶ News. She attended the 2025 Intercollegiate Peace Fellowship Conference and wrote a recap about it. Her story about the intercultural to Guatemala and Mexico was one of the most read stories of 2025. She also wrote about an initiative by the Latinx Student Alliance to distribute “Know Your Rights” cards to members of Harrisonburg’s immigrant community. At the same time, she volunteered to help adult English learners at 91����Ƶ’s Intensive English Program, which was at the heart of another article written by her.

Near the end of her time at 91����Ƶ, Beachy was promoted to the role of literacy coordinator at Christian Light Publications. She said her employer is helping reimburse her for tuition costs.

“In the (conservative Mennonite) setting where I come from, it’s not as common for people to pursue higher education,” she said. “They didn’t have any program in place to help with tuition costs, but now they want to offer it to others who want to go to college, which I’m really excited about. It means some reimbursement for me, but it also opens a path for other people.”

Beachy said there are advantages to attending college as a nontraditional, older student. She met students who knew what they wanted to do and were serious about studying, as well as others who were in college because their parents wanted them there. “They didn’t know what they were doing,” she said. “I always felt sorry for them and wished they could just go out and work for a couple years and figure out what they actually wanted to do.”

She mentioned reading The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald that was turned into a Brad Pitt movie a couple decades ago.

“It’s about a guy who’s born an old man, and he goes through life backwards,” she said. “I’ve thought about that story sometimes with my experience at 91����Ƶ. I felt like I was doing things backwards. Most people go to school and then start their careers. I did my career first, then went to school. But I’m really glad I did it. Now, if I have friends in their 30s who say, ‘Oh, I want to go to college,’ I tell them, ‘Yeah, you should. It’s absolutely worth it.’”

The novel is about a pastor and wife who are dealing with family issues, Davis said. It carries a clear faith message.

Copies of the novel will be on sale at the event for $10. Her other books will also be available to purchase for $2 or $3.

91����Ƶ the author

Davis was a dedicated Weather Vane staffer while at 91����Ƶ and graduated with an English degree. She worked for Mennonite Broadcasts Inc., now known as MennoMedia, in Harrisonburg for 43 years before retiring in 2018. She has written 12 books, mostly nonfiction. When her daughter challenged her to “write what people like to read: fiction,” she endeavored to write her first novel. A Place in the Fold released in November 2025.

She is the recipient of 91����Ƶ’s 2005 Distinguished Service Award.

Sizemore will read from his work Thursday, March 12 at 6:30 p.m. in Common Grounds Coffeehouse on the 91����Ƶ campus.

Sizemore himself was raised in the home of a fundamentalist Baptist preacher, where the King James Bible was he says in one interview. He graduated from Liberty Baptist Theological School, and earned an MFA from Seattle Pacific University in 2009. He teaches at Central Virginia Community College.

His short fiction has been published or is forthcoming in StoryQuarterly, Southern Humanities Review, Connecticut Review, Blue Mesa Review, ���dz�’w����ٱ��, and elsewhere.  Excerpts from his novel The Calling are published or forthcoming in Connecticut Review, Portland Review, Prick of the Spindle, Burrow Press Review, Relief, Rock & Sling, and Pithead Chapel.

Sizemore brings to his writing a “sharp sense of observation, of being able to see right into something to make it close,” says assistant professor of English Chad Gusler, who got to know Sizemore when both were at a summer MFA residency in New Mexico. “His characters are thrust into action immediately, and the places where his characters live out their lives are palpable and real. There’s a persistent pulse in his stories, a sneaky beat that sinks into a reader’s subconscious lingers there for quite some time.”

Sizemore’s fiction has won the New Millennium Writings Award. In recognition of the edginess of his writing and its appeal to today’s youth, Sizemore’s work was nominated to “Best American Nonrequired Reading,” an annual anthology of fiction and nonfiction works selected by a panel of high school readers.

His work has also been nominated for the prestigious . Nominations are limited to six entries per year from little magazine and small press editors, or from contributing editors to Pushcart Press, according to the prize’s website.

Sizemore has been a frequent contributor to on the evangelical channel of Patheos.com, where he has blogged about a myriad of topics, as related to Christian faith: food deserts, the World Cup, the movie “Noah,” the Ken Ham-Bill Nye debate at nearby Liberty University, and parenting three children.

“I lived [in Austin] for a summer, and a bunch of things happened all at once,” Hostetter said. “Harlem got signed to a record label. And right as soon as that happened I decided that the rock-and-roll lifestyle was not for me…. We went all over the United States playing shows, and I said, ‘This is not the kind of lifestyle that I can live.’”

So Hostetter returned to his hometown and approached , chair of the undergraduate teacher program at 91����Ƶ, about gaining a degree in education.

“When he first explored the option of pursuing the program, he didn’t have either English or education as his major. So he was kind of starting over, after already having the undergrad degree,” Smeltzer Erb said.

“And what so inspired me from the very beginning, which I think speaks highly of his character,” she continued, “was the way in which he interacted with peers who were several years younger, in age, and several years younger in development as teachers. He just navigated that classroom with such integrity, such interest, such grace.”

This spring, Hostetter was honored as one of five . His peers selected him to represent Shelburne Middle School, where he is a 6th-grade language arts teacher.

“I’ve been playing music since middle school,” said Hostetter, whose mother, Louise ’79, was recently in 2017-18. “When I graduated high school, I think I knew in the back of my mind that I would be a teacher eventually, but Berklee was kind of my way to prevent that from happening right away, because music was my first love.”

Raised in a Mennonite family and educated at , Hostetter developed early on a sense of social responsibility that influenced his decision to become a teacher.

“I think that probably a lot of my calling has to do with my Anabaptist heritage, the whole idea of serving the community, serving others,” Hostetter said.

“I want [my students] to develop a love for reading and a love for learning and discovery,” said Hostetter, who occasionally uses his vintage ‘73 Epiphone electric guitar to incorporate music into a lesson. “When I meet a student at the beginning of the year who doesn’t necessarily like reading, or isn’t very excited about language arts, if I can foster some kind of change in that disposition, I think that’s incredibly rewarding – because the habits that they make in 6th grade are usually the ones that they take with them for the rest of their academic careers.”

Last summer, Hostetter married Staunton 4th grade teacher, Nicole Barbano Hostetter. who was also one of the five teachers recognized as Teacher of the Year for Staunton City Schools. She was chosen from the faculty of Bessie Weller Elementary School.

The two met at a Staunton bakery three years ago, shortly before teacher orientation began.

“We were both first-year teachers and it was definitely luck that we were in the same place at the same time,” Nicole said. “We were both coming from different experiences, and I think that making the transition to teaching together was such a good experience for us to have. We really supported each other that first year and we continue to do that now.”

Smeltzer Erb attributes John Hostetter’s success in the classroom to his deep passion for learning to teach over time, and his respect for middle-schoolers and colleagues alike.

“For many students, the classroom is perhaps the only safe place in their day,” Smeltzer Erb said. “It’s the place where somebody like John can truly care about them as individuals.”

As one of just two 6th grade English teachers in Staunton, Hostetter’s job connects him to the community.

“Shelburne is wonderful because I get to know half the children who are in Staunton City schools,” Hostetter said. “When my wife and I are walking through the park, I mean, everybody knows us …. And because you’re teaching, and you’re spending seven hours a day with these kids, you get to know the parents pretty well, and I think it does provide a service. I think that public education is an extension of the community.”

Hostetter hasn’t abandoned music. He has “too many” guitars, a home recording studio and plays guitar in a local band named “Elephant Child.”

“I’ve got my guitar in the classroom, and they think that’s the coolest thing in the world,” he said. “And I try to goof around on occasion, and sometimes I’ll play my guitar, and they love that. But it’s not every day that I get to actually sit and sing to them.

“I’m going to dress up like Johnny Cash here in the next couple weeks, for a history lesson.”

A third individual selected as Staunton Teacher of the Year, Dixon Educational Center art teacher Gina Gaines, is also an 91����Ƶ alum, having taken classes in the late 1970s.

A new Amish romance is published about every four days, with at least 86 released in 2012, said Weaver-Zercher at a Saturday morning talk sponsored by 91����Ƶ’s .

She herself had never read an “Amish romance” until Johns Hopkins University Press approached Weaver-Zercher, suggesting she investigate this burgeoning market. That led to Weaver-Zercher’s first published book, .

No explicit sexual description

Even within the Anabaptist world, the books are widely read, despite their questionable authenticity. Weaver-Zercher, a ’94 grad who majored in , mostly focused on why people are reading this genre, rather than delving deeply into the books’ accuracy or literary quality.

She interviewed several Amish romance authors and numerous readers – mostly non-Amish, evangelical women – who cited two basic appeals of the books: evocation of “a slow and simple life,” and “a clean read” (i.e., no sexual explicitness).

Her audience laughed when Weaver-Zercher elaborated that a love scene within the genre “might be some romantic glances over a pot pie.”

Although the Amish comprise only one-tenth of 1 percent of the U.S. population, the genre is well-covered in the mainstream media, including a recent , who is also managing editor at and a contributing editor for .

At her presentation, several alumni, whose student years dated from the 1950s to the 2000s, named as a favorite the recently reprinted , a Mennonite author who penned a semi-fictional account of his mother, first published in 1940.

One million book sales, plus TV dramatization

Weaver-Zercher noted the first commercially successful contemporary Anabaptist-themed romance, Beverly Lewis’ 1997 , published by Bethany House and dramatized on television, has sold over a million copies. Its heroine endures ostracism after finding she was adopted.

Lewis, who based the character on her Mennonite grandmother, ranks with Wanda Brunstetter and Cindy Woodsmall among the genre’s top three authors, who together have sold more than 24 million books. Yet only one current Amish romance author, Linda Byler, is Amish or Old Order Mennonite (the two branches of Anabaptists share more similarities than differences) – which Weaver-Zercher notes engenders skepticism about the field’s authenticity.

The genre’s female protagonists tend to be virgins or young wives; the men, earnest and sensitive, Weaver-Zercher notes. At least four authors are men, and Weaver-Zercher found an elderly, Oklahoma Mennonite farmer who has read 90 Amish romances.

In her , Weaver-Zercher said some authors blend “a divine love story” with the earthly one. She cited a sentence in Brunstetter’s The Hope Chest in which a young woman, being kissed, finds herself “reveling in God’s glory.”

Gentle mysteries tucked in

“Some authors add gentle mysteries along with the romance narrative,” said Weaver-Zercher. Byler’s series, Lancaster Burning, portrays a community plagued by arson.

Weaver-Zercher finds “distinctive styles” among some authors, unlike the formulaic products of some mainstream romance publishing houses. However, they follow parameters common to “Christian fiction” – although a “false hero” sometimes appears, endings are always happy.

“The ‘thrill of the chaste’ may be rooted in the broader idea of moral innocence – a rejection of the mass culture,” said Weaver-Zercher.

She suggested the novels exemplify a “purity culture” in reaction to what Pamela Paul’s book Pornified terms today’s mass culture. They may also, Weaver-Zercher suggested, be seen as “a Christian version of “The Way We Never Were,” referring to the title of an analysis of the American family by Stephanie Coontz.

Pointing to what French theorist Gilles Lipovetsky has labeled “hypermodernity” – a rushed, materialistic, technology-dominated culture – Weaver-Zercher added with a smile that the books give readers “a temporary vacation from hypermodernity, even when they read them on Kindles or Nooks.”

Ironically, however, she noted Amish romances are “situated smack-dab in hypermodern publishing models.” She pointed to Christian publishers getting bought up by big houses (including HarperCollins, now owned by Rupert Murdoch), and the large stock of the romances in such stores as WalMart.

Part of commercialization of Amish phenomena?

Given those dynamics, she says, “It is likely that not everyone is amused.”

Weaver-Zercher’s audience mentioned other commercial Amish-related phenomena, ranging from the “Amish Mafia” reality show, to “Amish vampire” novels, to bestseller Danielle Steel’s new venture into the setting.

Audience member Shirley Hershey Showalter, a 1970 91����Ƶ graduate, suggested Amish romances appeal to “nostalgia for the rural life in general.” Showalter, former president of Goshen College, recently published .

At Herald Press, Weaver-Zercher edited a soon-to-be-released book which she terms “historical-romance fiction.” Jacob’s Choice by Ervin R. Stutzman, former dean of and current executive director of , deals with the life of Amish farmer Jacob Hochstetler, whose family was massacred during the French and Indian War. She says Stutzman, who was raised Amish but is now a modern-living Mennonite, did meticulous research and “stays very true to details, but adds fictional elements to make the narrative read like a novel.”

Reserve tickets online at or by calling the at 540-432-4168 by Oct. 26.

Inspired by actual events from her teenage years, Blue Hole Back Home explores the tensions and eventual violence that erupt in a small, all-white Appalachian town when a Sri Lankan family moves in. Ultimately, Blue Hole Back Home is a story not only of the devastating effects of racial hatred and cowardice, but more centrally, a celebration of courage, confrontation and healing, according to Jordan-Lake’s website.

Jordan-Lake has also authored Grit and Grace: Portraits of a Woman’s Life (Wheaton Library Series, 2000), Whitewashing Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Nineteenth-Century Women Novelists Respond to Stowe (Vanderbilt University Press, 2005), and Why Jesus Makes Me Nervous: Ten Alarming Words of Faith (Paraclete Press, 2007).

After earning a bachelor’s degree from Furman University and a master’s from a theological seminary,  Jordan-Lake earned a master’s and a PhD in English literature from Tufts University, specializing in the role of race and religion in 19th century American fiction.

More information

Several of the author’s books will be available for purchase. A book signing and short question-and-answer session with the author will follow her reading. Sign-language interpretation is available upon request.

• General admission, $15
• 91����Ƶ students with meal plan, $5
• All other students, $7

His own story moves from growing up in a rural church in southern Michigan to 91����Ƶ (91����Ƶ), Harrisonburg, Va., to Guatemala to Notre Dame (Ind.) University, where he completed a doctoral program in the sociology of religion. His dissertation has been published by Oxford University Press as the book Homies and Hermanos: God and Gangs in Central America.

Born in Pennsylvania, Bob moved to Michigan, where his parents helped Bob’s grandfather, who had started the North Wayne Mennonite Church as a church plant of the Conservative Mennonite Conference. Later Bob’s father served as pastor of the church.

In 1993, Bob began studies at 91����Ƶ, where he majored in and and minored in . During his four years there, he spent a semester in Guatemala at the CASAS program, in which students learn Spanish and live with a local family.

After graduating from 91����Ƶ in 1997, Bob returned to Guatemala and worked with for four years. There he met Gaby Ochoa, now his wife.

He became interested in studying at seminary and spent one semester at Associated (now Anabaptist) Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS) in Elkhart, Ind., in 2001, before returning to Guatemala, where he and Gaby married.

Pentecostalism: In 2003, he decided to study sociology of religion and enrolled in the graduate program at Notre Dame. He had read such authors as Peter Berger, Robert Wuthnow and Christian Smith and wanted to understand better the interplay of religion and society. He also studied liberation theology and Pentecostalism.

“Sociology emphasizes method and quantitative analysis,” he says. He thought that provided a better understanding of what’s going on in religion. He also hoped to get a theological degree at AMBS and took several more courses there. But once his children, Nicolás, who’s now 6, and Gabo, 4, were born, he gave up that goal.

Eventually, he needed to choose a dissertation topic. He was interested in studying foot-washing practices of Mennonites and published an article in Mennonite Quarterly Review. But his advisor talked him into focusing on another topic that interested him: gangs in Central America.

During his service with MCC, he had met an MCC worker from Colombia, Ricardo Borres, who worked with the Honduran church on reconciliation between warring gangs. But Bob had not dealt with them firsthand.

He returned to Guatemala and collected data in 2007 and 2008. As his book describes, he interviewed 63 former gang members who had chosen to leave that life. Many joined a church, usually an evangelical or Pentecostal church in their city or town.

But Bob did more than collect data. He told many of these (mostly) men’s and women’s stories. He begins each chapter of the book with a story of a former gang member. “I didn’t want to just use quotes to make a point,” he says. “I wanted to dignify the person telling his story and in the process change the one hearing the story.”

Global capitalism: Writing the book changed him as well, he says. And it helped him resist change. Academia tends to pull a person toward success and a safe environment, he says. But the book pulled him back “into caring about the plight of those being ground under by global capitalism.”

He has become more aware of the vast chasm between the opportunities he and his students have and what those young people he interviewed in Central America have who are tempted to join gangs. “I realize how privileged I am and how deeply divided the world is” between those who have so much and those who have so little.

What enables these gang members to leave their gangs, at the risk of their lives, and join a church? The churches are there, first of all, in the communities where these people live. The churches tend to stress transformation and see this as a social process, not just a psychological change. The churches also emphasize community, discipleship and nonviolence.

While most of these churches are evangelical or what we would call Pentecostal, the Honduran Mennonite Church has been involved in working with ex-gang members for many years. Bob says their ministry is among the most holistic and effective of all he witnessed.

Courtesy The Mennonite, Oct. 1, 2012

The language and literature department at 91����Ƶ will feature the narrative poetry of Cheryl Denise Miller at its next Writers Read program, 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21, in Martin Chapel of the seminary building at 91����Ƶ.

Cheryl Denise, of Philippi, W.Va., draws from her Canadian Mennonite roots in Elmira, Ont., rural life and an attachment to the people and mountains of West Virginia in her book of poetry, “I Saw God Dancing” (Cascadia Publishing, 2005).

“Her poetry is rich in concrete detail, and many poems contain a storytelling quality,” a reviewer noted of her work. “Subjects range from sheep farming to lusts and longings, biblical women, legs, old lovers and laundromats. Often humorous, she penetrates to the deep current of human relationship. Many people who don’t read poetry find themselves drawn to Cheryl’s truthful, clear style.”

After nursing school, the writer worked as a public health nurse in a rural Hispanic community in Colorado. Currently she and her husband, Mike Miller, are part of the Shepherds Field intentional community on a sheep farm in the hills near Philippi. She works as a nurse at the Barbour County Senior Center.

Cheryl Denise will have wool blankets from her farm for sale in addition to copies of her book.

Admission to the program, which includes dinner, is $14. Reservations are required and should be made by Friday, Feb. 15 by calling the language and literature department at 540-432-4168 or email: langlit@emu.edu.