The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the water.

After leading groups of students and alumni to the Mediterranean for more than two decades, Dr. Linford Stutzman ’84, SEM ’90, and his wife Janet Stutzman SEM ’91 are putting together a “grand finale” of a trip. And they’re pulling out all the stops for this one. 

The trip, named “On the Face of the Deep” after a verse from Genesis, will take travelers on a voyage that follows parts of Paul’s mission journeys in the book of Acts, October 4-13, 2025. Passengers aboard two gulets (a traditional Turkish wooden sailing vessel) will explore the archeological sites of Ephesus and Perge, take in the Aegean islands of Samos, Patmos, Kos and Rhodes, and immerse themselves in the rich culture and history of the Mediterranean. 

“When you see the Mediterranean Sea in person, it blows your mind,” Janet Stutzman said. “People can’t believe how blue the water is. They’ve never seen anything like it.”

Take of the gulets!

Guests on the 10-day tour will spend each night on the gulet in private suites. They’ll savor Mediterranean cuisine each day, learn stories of the sea from history and from Scripture, enjoy performances of original sea shanties by alumni a cappella group Cantore, and engage in spirited discussions. 

“People will be sharing their own life stories and observations,” Linford Stutzman said. “Those conversations can go on for hours after a meal is done because they’re so fascinating. That’s what makes this more than a tour.”

The gulets sail from the port of Kusadasi, Turkey, on Oct. 6, ending in Fethiye, Turkey, on Oct. 11.

“It’s my favorite time of the year to visit,” said Linford Stutzman. “The water is warm and the days aren’t hot.”

The trip is part of ���ѱ�’s “Alumni and Friends” series of cross-cultural tours and is open to alumni, current and former parents, and friends of alumni. There is space aboard the gulets for 60 guests who will travel together. The total cost of the trip is $5,500 per traveler plus airfare. The first payment of $2,500 is due Sept. 1, 2024.

All proceeds from the trip go directly to current 91����Ƶ students in need of financial support on their intercultural semester.

Learn more about the trip and register here!

91����Ƶ the leaders

Linford Stutzman spent more than 25 years as a professor at 91����Ƶ teaching culture, religion and mission courses. Janet Stutzman served as director of alumni and parent relations for 13 years.

The globe-trotting couple is well-known in the 91����Ƶ community for their decades of experience leading intercultural programs and Alumni and Friends tours. This tour is one that Linford and Janet Stutzman say they’ve dreamt of sharing with others since a sabbatical trip 20 years ago.

From 2004 to 2005, the Stutzmans sailed 4,000 miles over 16 months to visit every port linked to Paul’s travels in Acts. Their journey is detailed in Linford Stutzman’s book, published by Good Books. 

The couple has led similar sailing trips in the Mediterranean since then, but not to this scale. It will also mark the first to feature the sea shanties sung by Cantore, Linford Stutzman said. 

“We’ve never done anything of this magnitude before,” he said.

Lyrics to the shanties were written by the 91����Ƶ professor emeritus and are based on biblical stories involving the sea.

Listen to clips of the album of sea shanties .

Through their years of leading tours in the region, Linford and Janet Stutzman have built up a network of connections. They’ve tapped into that network to reserve the top gulets and travel guides. 

Those who have taken trips with the Stutzmans form lifelong friendships with one another and meet for reunions years after their trips end. They say their experience forever changed the way they read the Bible and the stories of Paul in Acts, Linford Stutzman said.

“It’s a story you can’t fully appreciate unless you experience it yourself and immerse yourself in it,” he said.

For more information, contact the alumni office at 540-432-4206.

The new incarnation of the 91����Ƶ (91����Ƶ) Royals mascot will make his first appearance Friday, Oct. 16, at 7:30 on Facebook Live during Homecoming weekend. He’s coming to fill some (literally) large shoes left behind by the “sleek blue” Herm that Royals have come to know and love for 22 years.

But the history of Herm begins well before this passing of the torch – the Herm unveiled this October will be the fifth loyal lion to take to the court, fields, and campus-at-large. Read on to learn how our very own, very loveable Panthera leo came to be.

Many thanks to Ashley Kishorn, field hockey head coach, and Les Helmuth, former alumni relations director, for their contributions to this history.

March 1980 

•  Eastern Mennonite College basketball coach Sherman Eberly ’68 says that he’d like to see “some type of mascot” and an organized pep band next season, which would “add a great deal to team spirit.” Up until now, the Royals logo .

1981  

• Alumni relations director Les Helmuth ’78 holds a student competition to create a cartoon mascot for the Eastern Mennonite College Royals. The Royals Lion wins the competition, and a character design is first drawn by Darrell Yoder ’81 with the name “HRM,” short for “his royal majesty.”

• Gloria Lehman ’74, a home economics teacher at Eastern Mennonite High School, and Helmuth create the first iteration of the Herm costume. Helmuth said he served as the first HRM as “the headgear was intoxicating and I couldn’t find anyone to wear it.” This first incarnation became known as the “wimpy” lion.

• Rob French ’84 becomes HRM for the next three years. , “there was a disagreement between our cheerleaders and Bridgewater’s. I went over to apologize and they pulled my tail!” 

1984

• HRM is reborn as a professionally made costume with string hair.

1988

• A new and improved “Herm” enters the scene with a mane of blue and white feathers. “That was a flea-bitten old thing,” said Professor Lester Zook. “Every time it would run across the gym, those feathers would fly. It was almost embarrassing.” 

1994

• The athletics department commissions artist Henry Gomez to rebrand Herm, but “its rippling muscles and grimacing expression created controversy in the department,” The Weather Vane .

1995 – 1997

• Herm is mysteriously absent … gap years, perhaps?

1998

• The “sleek blue lion” Herm, designed by 91����Ƶ communications staffer Wendell Esbenshade, begins its 22-year reign over 91����Ƶ’s athletics facilities after appearing on the basketball court. Director of alumni and parent relations Janet Stutzman purchases the new costume on behalf of the alumni club “the Loyal Royals.” 

Fall 2000

• First-year student Rebecca Shimp, as Herm, hands out balloons for the newly-constructed University Commons. “Those big fuzzy feet are hard to manage,” Shimp says.

January 2002

• , who helps throw candy, t-shirts, and water bottles to the crowd at basketball games. Not to be outdone, “I can act stupid and make the crowd laugh,” says Herm.

February 2008

• Herm is named “player of the week” . “Herm can usually be seen dancing on the sidelines, goofing around with a referee, or running up and down the sidelines, all to encourage the fans to cheer on their Royals,” Sunil Dick ’08 wrote.

April 2009

• that Herm is suspended indefinitely for fraternizing with a rival mascot – the Bridgewater Lady Eagle – in “late night roller [rink] escapades”

November 2012

• as a bronze-level Bicycle Friendly University by the League of American Bicyclists.

October 2013

• to open the annual ResLife Olympics, in which dormitories compete against one another in “extreme” musical chairs, “Ninja” dodgeball, and soccer. Parkwoods wins this year for the third time in a row.

April 2017

• Herm helps escort 91����Ƶ’s ninth president, Dr. Susan Schultz Huxman, around campus during her Inauguration Week.

April 2020

• Herm announces his retirement, saying, “my speed and agility are no longer a match for today’s athletes, and with my limited tech skills I have fallen behind in my abilities to stay ‘hip’ with our student body … I feel the time has come for me to walk away from the Royal throne and pass the torch to the next Loyal Lion in line for 91����Ƶ.”

October 2020

• Herm the Fifth begins his tenure as the 91����Ƶ Royals mascot.

Tension between Israelis and Palestinians was quickly escalating when Linford Stutzman ’84 (Seminary ’90) traveled to the Middle East in the summer of 2000 to prepare for his first turn leading ���ѱ�’s to the region. By the time he and his wife, Janet Stutzman (Seminary ’91), arrived with the group in early 2001, the second Palestinian Intifada, marked by frequent violence between the two sides, had begun; the group heard nightly gunfire during its stay that winter in the West Bank.

Looking back more than a decade later, the Stutzmans say it’s amazing 91����Ƶ let the Middle East cross-cultural continue through that time of upheaval. It was a decision that paid off, however, as it led to deeper relationships with the program’s partners in the region, who remember and admire ���ѱ�’s commitment to cross-cultural education through thick and thin. 91����Ƶ was the only American university that didn’t cancel programs with several of these partner institutions.

“Jesus doesn’t invite us to a life of not taking risks,” says Linford, a professorin the Bible and religion department. “Faith is made for risk-taking. The whole Biblical story is one of leaving behind the ‘safe.’ This [trip] is a metaphor for life and faith.”

The Stutzmans, who lived through the 1973 Yom Kippur War while working as independent volunteers in Israel, emphasize that risk-taking doesn’t equate to recklessness, and that careful planning for contingencies is a part of each of the trips to the Middle East that they’ve led.

“We’ve gone into it with our eyes wide open … our agreement with 91����Ƶ was that we would work with our local [contacts] and make safety decisions based on that,” says Janet, director of alumni and parent relations at 91����Ƶ from 1991 until 2004.

And so, through the first Palestinian Intifada in the late ’80s and early ’90s, the tense months before the Gulf War in 1991, the second Intifada early in the new millennium, and the Arab Spring and new talk of war between Israel and Iran over the past two years, the trip has continued uninterrupted since Willard and Mary Swartley led the first Middle East cross-cultural in the spring of 1975.In doing so, Janet and Linford say, students experience the volatile nature of day-to-day life in the Middle East, while learning valuable lessons about interdependence, self-reliance and the value of taking wise risks throughout their lives. Since 2001, the Stutzmans have led eight cross-culturals to the Middle East (on two occasions, when Janet’s work in Harrisonburg prevented her from being along for the whole trip, their son, David Stutzman ’00, filled in as a co-leader).

“We are risk-takers,” agrees Beth Aracena, director of cross-cultural programs at 91����Ƶ from 2006 to the end of the 2011-12 school year. “I think students learn the most when there are risks, and they’re challenged to stretch themselves.”

Throughout the planning process as well as the trips, Aracena has worked closely with the Stutzmans and the university administration to monitor developments in the region and, if necessary, change plans when certain risks no longer seem wise. One recent example of this is ���ѱ�’s decision to scratch a previously planned visit to Syria from the itinerary for its 2013 Middle East trip (the Stutzmans led a smaller-than-usual group there for the first time in the spring of 2011).

Aracena describes Linford and Janet as “an absolutely phenomenal pair,” constantly tweaking and improving the itinerary to keep the trip new and on the cutting edge.

The wisdom and obvious enthusiasm the Stutzmans bring to their roles as leaders has endeared them to each new group of students they take to the Middle East.

“They taught us throughout the trip how to be resourceful and successful travelers,” says Ellen Roth ’13, a member of the 2012 Middle East cross-cultural. “[And] they were there to talk with us to help us through all the tough questions we were confronted with even if there wasn’t a direct answer.”

Roth also admires the way the Stutzmans, who call themselves best friends in addition to husband and wife, interacted. They finish each other’s sentences, and they interrupt one another as they tell stories because they both tell certain parts better,

“They are such complementary leaders,” she said.

Anna Dintaman ’05 Landis, who went on cross-cultural to the Middle East in 2004, says “they amazingly don’t lose their sense of humor even after three months on the road.”

According to the International Institute for Education, just 1.8 percent of American students studying abroad in 2009-2010 went to the Middle East. With ���ѱ�’s long academic ties to this region infrequently visited by American university students, the Middle East cross-cultural has developed into a special niche program for the university and its students, Aracena says. Because of high student interest in the trip, the Stutzmans have been leading it each spring in recent years.

“It is just an exceptional learning opportunity for our students,” Aracena says.

Outreach to students’ families is another important aspect of making the trip successful; the Stutzmans and Aracena have regularly responded to questions and concerns from worried parents. Talking with them about the careful planning and collaboration with Palestinian and Israeli partners throughout the trip usually allays parents’ fears. Unfamiliar risks (say, studying abroad in a place typically associated with ominous headlines) often are scarier than familiar risks (e.g. driving to the airport) the Stutzmans say, even when, in fact, statistics show that the drive to the airport is the far riskier undertaking.

As parents learn more about the trip, they often say they wish they could have a similar opportunity to visit the Middle East. The Stutzmans – who have also spent nearly every summer since 2004 retracing Paul’s Mediterranean travels together by sailboat – need little encouragement to plan new adventures, and so, in the summer of 2011, they led 1491����Ƶ parents and alumni on a unique “parents cross-cultural.” On that trip, they compressed the usual itinerary into a 16-day tour of Israel and Palestine, affording Linford and Janet yet another opportunity to teach others about the people and places they’ve come to love over the years.

Leading the cross-cultural “is a privilege,” says Linford, adding that leading the trip is the most rewarding aspect of his work with undergraduates at 91����Ƶ. “It never gets old.”

Each new group has its own personality, the Stutzmans say, and each student returns home with a changed view of God, of the world, and of themselves. By having agreed to lead the Middle East cross-cultural each spring through at least 2015, Janet and Linford will continue influencing dozens more 91����Ƶ undergrads over the next several years by exposing them to the conflicts and contradictions, as well as determined hopes for a better future, that exist throughout the region.

Perhaps most formative, they say, is the fact that 91����Ƶ students on the trip interact with and learn from people who hold wildly divergent views on religion, politics, security, justice and other issues of fundamental significance. At the same time, the students’ immersion in day-to-day life in the region leads to deeper, human connections with the people they encounter.

“I think it’s a lesson that our students are learning in life – that even though you disagree with people, you can be respectful and you can be friends,” says Janet. “There are so many of our young adults who are going on to do amazing things, and I feel that it’s so neat to be a part of that.”

—Andrew Jenner

“There are more options out there for today’s students,” says Dula. “Rather than joining a traditional church structure, they sometimes choose to search for something even more Anabaptist.”

The emerging church movement and New Monasticism have created alternatives to traditional church that draw from and can inform an Anabaptist perspective, says Dula, a 1992 graduate.

“New Monasticism focuses on prayer, communal life and reaching out to the poor… Ideas that are rooted in the Christian tradition, but in a way Anabaptists can recognize as their own. It is an interesting time to teach and think about Anabaptism.”

Embracing the change

Instead of resisting alternatives to traditional worship, Dula and , a 1981 91����Ƶ graduate and Bible and religion instructor, see an opportunity to embrace alternatives and use them to engage and inform students.

“Our goal is to equip students to engage in shaping the future of the church,” said Schrock-Hurst, who also serves as co-pastor at Immanuel Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, Va. “All these ideas are available to this generation and we can create space for them to explore and figure out what works in their faith journeys.”

���ѱ�’s Bible and religion department tries to continually learn from students, says Dula. “Many of them are way out ahead of us as teachers.” We want to be a “meeting place,” he notes, where Mennonite and students from diverse backgrounds can share ideas on faith and God’s calling in their lives.

“Some of our best students enter 91����Ƶ without a background in Anabaptism or the Mennonite church,” said Dula. “They find here, however, a space to own, appropriate and transform what they learn in our classrooms in ways that manage to be thoroughly Anabaptist.”

, professor of Bible and religion added, “I find that sometimes the students who are not from Mennonite backgrounds add a kind of new-discovery freshness when they embrace the peace position. Other times, we get challenges to pacifist assumptions born out of different ways of thinking about the Bible and Christianity.”

More than a classroom

���ѱ�’s provides an alternative classroom for many Bible and religion students with profound results. The experience, led by , professor of culture and mission and his wife, , showcases the history of the Bible while exploring current conflicts. Students are immersed in language and cultural studies while living in Palestine and Jerusalem.

After spending a semester in the Middle East, senior Jamie Hiner, from Culpeper, Va., observed, “I can connect to the stories [of the Bible] on a completely different level. I understand who Jesus was on a human level, and I have a connection to the land, people and cultures.”

In addition to the Middle East cross-cultural program, 91����Ƶ is the only higher-education institution offering a major in . , associate professor of , says that while Catholics and Protestants have a long academic tradition in philosophy, Anabaptists are important contributors “because our own history of having been marginalized, our understanding of concrete embodied community, and our commitment to peace and reconciliation.”

Senior Ben Bailey, from Simsbury, Conn., found his knowledge of the Bible to be “limited compared to my peers at 91����Ƶ.” A double-major in and , Bailey says his studies have provided him with a “comprehensive base knowledge to build upon.

“I continually feel the need to understand and question the Bible and theology on a deeper level.”

Hiner, a major with a minor in , added, “I’ve learned so much from personal relationships with my professors. I love having real conversations with them outside the classroom.”

Looking ahead

Bible and religion department faculty envision their department’s influence expanding across campus and in the community through dialogue with campus ministries and local churches. Interest in the department’s is growing as opportunities to explore internships outside of “traditional” pastoring arise. The very definition of “pastor” and “church” is changing; students are interested in how they intersect with these concepts.

“Students have an advantage with on campus, in addition to and numerous Mennonite churches nearby to integrate and connect with pastors, leaders and teachers,” Schrock-Hurst says.

Dula agrees, adding, “The goal is to make the discussion and debates that occur in our classrooms become the heart and soul of campus. This will encourage growth not only in the department and across campus, but in the broader church.”

And so, early on Easter Sunday, 2008, the 91����Ƶ junior biblical studies and philosophy major from Lansdale, Pa., was baptized in the Jordan River into the community of faith.

91����Ƶ student John Tyson during his baptism in the Jordan River on Easter Sunday.

What made the experience even more special: Tyson was baptized by Linford L. Stutzman, associate professor of culture and mission at 91����Ƶ and witnessed by 29 fellow students in his Middle East study group. Dr. Stutzman and his wife, Janet M. Stutzman, are leading the cross-cultural seminar during the university’s second (spring) semester.

‘Sharing Something Special’

“The community I’ve experienced in this cross-cultural group and the journey we are sharing is something special,” Tyson said afterwards. “I’ve been active in the Mennonite church for several years, but traveling with this group has been the place where I’ve been most at home with God and the world.

“John had asked about the possibility of being baptized several weeks before Easter, when our group was still in Jerusalem,” said Stutzman. “I mentioned that the Jordan River runs through the back of Kibbutz Afikim, and that we would be there over Easter. Perhaps that would be a good opportunity.”

The 91����Ƶ group arrived at Kibbutz Afikim on Mar. 17 for two weeks of work, study and field trips. Kibbutz Afikim is a secular Jewish agricultural commune established around 1925. In the fields behind the kibbutz is their graveyard on a bluff overlooking the Jordan River.

Easter Sunday morning the entire group, got up early and assembled at 5:30 for the 20-minute hike to the graveyard. They walked through the kibbutz quietly to keep the dogs from barking, toward the Jordan. In the graveyard, the students led songs and read scriptures as the sun rose over the Golan Heights. It was a beautiful, peaceful morning.

Then they hiked for about another 10 minutes down toward the Jordan through the fields of freshly-cut barley singing, “As I went down to the river to pray.” Earlier, Stutzman had found an ideal baptismal spot with a break in the reeds that grow along the banks that allowed the group to stand on the bank and see the water flowing.

“I recounted the journey of learning and faith that everyone is traveling on this cross-cultural, paralleling the journeys of faith in Scripture, how wilderness and water are so much a part of it, and how baptism connects to these stories – Moses and the Hebrew children crossing the Red Sea, the Hebrews wandering through the wilderness then crossing the Jordan to the promise, John baptizing in the Jordan, Jesus being baptized in the Jordan. All of these places and events have been part of the group’s travels, and all relate to the meaning of baptism,” Stutzman recalled.

‘God at Work in the World’

Tyson and 91����Ƶ Professor Linford Stutzman, leader of the Middle East crosscultural, embrace after Tyson’s baptism.

Tyson then recounted his own journey of faith and why he chose to be baptized at this point in his life.

“I decided that taking this step [to be baptized] was appropriate and the time and place and people only confirmed that,” he said. “For me, water baptism symbolized the life of God at work in the world through things we often take for granted but that create new life.”

The men waded into the middle of the Jordan, and Stutzman poured water over head. (The Jordan is fairly shallow, so immersion wasn’t a good option). Then they waded back to shore, and the students gave their encouragement and blessing, sang several songs and hiked back to the kibbutz in time for breakfast.

Tyson has been attending Souderton (PA) Mennonite Church since age 17. More recently, he’s attended Park View Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg.

It is the fifth time for Linford and wife Janet, a former director of alumni/parent relations at 91����Ƶ, to lead a cross-cultural program in the Middle East. The group is scheduled to return to campus Apr. 22.

By Luanne Austin, Daily News-Record

The story starts off a 5-year-old boy sitting in a Sunday morning church service studying the maps in the back of his mother

Mary Deputy Brubaker, 92, who helped start the nursing program at 91����Ƶ, died Oct. 5, 2006, at Rockingham Memorial Hospital. She was a resident of the Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community (VMRC).

Brubaker taught 10 years at the Rockingham Memorial Hospital School of Nursing before coming to 91����Ƶ in 1962 to teach nursing to students who attended hospital nursing diploma programs but also wanted a university degree.

Brubaker “was instrumental in shaping the basic nursing collegiate program which admitted its first class the fall of 1966, serving as interim educational director until 1968 when a doctorally-prepared nurse took over the program,” noted Arlene G. Wiens, current chair of 91����Ƶ’s . “It was Mary Deputy’s vision and hard work that made the collegiate program possible,” she said.

Brubaker was a member of the class of 1932 at the former Eastern Mennonite School. She later earned an RN and master’s degrees from the University of Pennsylvania.

She served 20 years as archivist of the “Old Grads,” those persons who graduated from 91����Ƶ 50 or more years ago. The group is now called the “Jubilee Grads.”

She was a charter member of the Mennonite Nurses Association and its secretary for seven years. She was named Mennonite Nurses Association “nurse of the year” in 1977 and was a board member of the Virginia Lung Association for 30 years. She worked as a volunteer for the VMRC Auxiliary for 22 years.

On June 12, 1966, she married Jacob Brubaker. He preceded her in death Apr. 22, 1973. She was a member of and deaconess at Pike Mennonite Church, Harrisonburg.

Surviving are a brother, four stepdaughters and a stepson.

A memorial service was held Oct. 7 at VMRC with a private burial following.

“We of the 91����Ƶ loved Mary

Seafaring isn