“She had a presence and an authority that made her quiet words deeply significant wherever she spoke them,” said Professor Emerita Dorothy Jean Weaver, who taught Miller at Eastern Mennonite Seminary (EMS) and worked alongside her on faculty for 19 years. “In her own way, she was a giant. She had a huge impact wherever she was, and certainly here at EMS.”

Miller served the seminary from 1991 to 2010 in roles including campus pastor and assistant professor of spiritual formation. She was committed to helping people discover their story within “God’s great story,” establishing EMS’ spiritual formation program, and founding training programs for spiritual directors within Mennonite Church USA and The United Methodist Church.

At EMS, she led the Summer Institute for Spiritual Formation and developed “Soul Space,” an online guide for scripture reading and prayer. Many of her lasting contributions, through the gifts she shared and the lives she touched, endure today.

In addition to her two decades on seminary faculty, she was an ordained minister in Mennonite Church USA’s Virginia Conference and was a leading author. Among her writings, Invitation to Presence: A Guide to Spiritual Disciplines (Upper Room Books, 1995) was translated into several languages. She maintained a private spiritual direction practice until entering hospice care last summer.

Formerly of Broadway, Virginia, Miller was living in West Chicago, Illinois, when she passed away on Oct. 8, 2025. She was 87. A memorial service celebrating her life, held on Dec. 6, can be viewed on YouTube . A full obituary is available at .

Her husband and partner in ministry of 65 years, the Rev. Edmond F. Miller, died in October 2024.

‘Her imprint remains’

Because of Miller’s “gentle and steady efforts” beginning when she joined the seminary faculty in 1991, said the Rev. Dr. Sarah Ann Bixler, dean of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, EMS centered spiritual formation in its curriculum “long before theological schools in general and Anabaptist schools in particular caught on to the importance of tending the inner life of ministerial leaders.”

“Today, hundreds of EMS graduates have been sustained in their ministerial vocations because of the ‘invitation to presence’ Rev. Miller modeled and extended to them,” wrote Bixler. “Her imprint remains on the EMS curriculum, and students today cite the contemplative attentiveness cultivated by EMS as a distinctive and transformative aspect of their theological education. They are more compassionate, discerning, and resilient because of Rev. Miller’s influence.”

Her influence also lives on in the touches and traditions that have become part of the fabric of the seminary.

As reported in a in the Daily News-Record, Miller was “the driving force behind getting the (prayer) labyrinth installed” on the 91����Ƶ Hill above the Seminary Building. Dedicated in 2007, the labyrinth offers a unique way to connect with God.

Visitors to the Seminary Building might be familiar with the rectangular wooden “free table” just outside the second floor kitchen. It displays food and other items that people can leave or take. “That was Wendy’s idea,” said Weaver. “That’s how tangible and simple her ideas could be. She had a deep heart for the collective community.”

Another contribution she made to the seminary was the awareness that its faculty retreats should be held away from campus, Weaver said. For several decades, those retreats were held at Camp Overlook, a nearby United Methodist camp and retreat center. “She was someone who looked around and dreamed of things that could be,” Weaver said.

‘She saw potential in (us)’

One of Miller’s first students in the spiritual formation program, the Rev. Dr. Kevin Clark MA ’96 (church leadership) was trained and trusted to lead the program when she retired in 2010. “She was my teacher, my professor, my mentor, my friend, my spiritual director, and my colleague, all wrapped up in one relationship,” said Clark, a former campus pastor and retired assistant professor of spiritual formation at EMS.

“Wendy had this wisdom and insight into others that was unique,” he said. “Part of it was just rooted in who she was, as someone who paid attention to how God’s spirit was at work within others, and offering and evoking that in her quiet, questioning way. I was always amazed at how she would be in a classroom, we’d be in conversation, and she would have these wonderful little pauses, then come back with a question that was profound for a student to begin to think about. It opened up the whole classroom to a deeper understanding and awareness of their own spirituality.”

Les Horning ’86, MDiv ’98, director of admissions for EMS from 2012-18, also had Miller as a professor. He described her as “one of the most formative presences” of his MDiv experience.

“She saw potential in folks and would find ways to let them know,” he said. “Suddenly, you realized, Oh, she’s seeing my heart. I think that was one of her gifts, helping people dig beneath the surface and find out who they were.”

Horning graduated from 91����Ƶ with bachelor’s degrees in biology and chemistry and worked as a research chemist for five years before feeling a call for ministry and enrolling at EMS. “For me to come to seminary was a huge change and Wendy was a key part of helping me see that it was a good and right thing,” said Horning, pastor at Stephens City Mennonite Church. “She was very good at pulling out folks’ unique contributions to the community and making people feel valued and accepted and wanted.”

Along with Clark and Horning, Weaver traveled on an overnight train to Chicago last month to attend the memorial service. She remembers Miller for her love of Winnie the Pooh, her delightful laugh, and whimsical sense of humor. 

“She was a blessed woman who shared blessing with everyone she came in contact with,” Weaver said. “I consider it a major gift of my life to have been a friend of hers.”

She grew up in England

The following is from an obituary printed in the :

Born in 1938 in Westham, England, Miller was a child in London during World War II and later lived in Eastbourne, East Sussex. She immigrated to the U.S. in 1959, settling in Chicago with her husband. They served as missionaries in Frankfurt, Germany, and pastored churches including Woodland (Basye) Mennonite, as well as across the Midwest and eastern U.S. Following retirement, they lived in Virginia, Texas, and North Carolina before returning to Illinois.

Rev. Miller earned a bachelor’s degree from Iowa Wesleyan University, a master’s degree in church leadership with a concentration in pastoral care and counseling from EMS, and a master of sacred theology in spiritual theology and spiritual direction from General Theological Seminary in New York City.

She leaves five children, Paul (David Selmer) of Maine, David (Julie) of Georgia, Mark (Wendy) of Kansas, Scott (Laura) of Illinois, and Heidi (Gary MacDonald) of Georgia; 14 grandchildren; six great-grandchildren, three brothers, and four sisters-in-law.

In those 20 years, one family member, Bshara Nassar, attended and graduated from the . (Bshara, married to Kiersten Rossetto Nassar ‘13, ��is a founder of ��in Washington D.C.)

But his uncle, Daoud Nassar, who directs farm operations and is the lead spokesperson for Tent of Nations, had never visited 91����Ƶ.

That changed the first week of November when Nassar spent two days on campus, participating in several interactions: a seminary chapel sermon, a lunch discussion with present and future Middle East cross-cultural participants, a classroom discussion with students at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, and an evening forum and discussion open to the community. Nassar’s time on campus concluded with a student-led tour of 91����Ƶ’s sustainability efforts, a request he specifically made to gain more ideas for his own family farm in Palestine.

Among many familiar faces on campus to greet Nassar was Timothy Seidel, director of 91����Ƶ’s Center for Interfaith Engagement (CIE) and assistant professor of international development. While living in Bethlehem and working for Mennonite Central Committee from 2004-07, Seidel visited the farm on a number of occasions and saw the family regularly at Christmas Lutheran Church. More recently, he into nonviolence and civil resistance in Palestine. ��

Nassar’s visit was sponsored by CIE, Eastern Mennonite Seminary, and the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. ��

‘Who Is My Neighbor?’

Emeritus Professor Dorothy Jean Weaver introduced Nassar to the seminary audience, delighted to finally be able to reciprocate the hospitality and love the family had shown to her and her students over more than 10 visits to Palestine since the 1990s.

“Their ongoing friendship has blessed my life,” Weaver said. “And like me, I would venture that many of our seminary students who have visited Tent of Nations would say their experience was uplifting and inspiring, seeing how the Nassar family has endured their situation with a deeply hopeful approach to life and so guided by Christian principles.’”

The Nassar family lives on land that they have owned for generations, yet nevertheless has been in continuous litigation with the Israeli government since 1991. Their choice of family motto��— “We refuse to be enemies” — was deeply intentional and has strong links to the scripture text about the Good Samaritan, he explained during the seminary chapel service. ��

“The good Samaritan did not raise the question what would happen to me if I stop? He asked what would happen to that man if I don’t stop?,” Nassar said. “This is the true meaning of love which is action, to see and act in a different way … Acting differently, that is what Jesus meant by loving your neighbor. When you act in a different way, you open a new perspective for someone else to see the other differently.”

Acting with violence toward their oppressors would not change their situation, Nassar said, recounting the family discussions that led to the eventual establishment of Tent of Nations. “We decided there must be another way of resistance, to resist with love, because we believe that hatred creates more hatred, darkness more darkness.”

Spiritual experiences and more

Bill Goldberg, director of CJP’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute, spent a memorable week at Tent of Nations while co-leading the fall 2017 cross-cultural with his wife Lisa Schirch, son Levi and daughter Miranda.

The days were simple, rich and full, he remembered, with hours of labor helping with the olive harvest followed by meals and fellowship around a fire at night. While the nights were dark, peaceful and still, the hum of construction and the sight of electricity in nearby Israeli settlements, as well as the main road blockade set by Israeli soldiers, was a constant threatening reminder of the situation in Palestine. ��

Reconnecting with Nassar on campus brought back strong recollections for Goldberg of the site of his “most profound spiritual experience.” Palestinian guide Alaa Hamdan MA ‘08 (the group also had an Israeli guide) had said that the Muslim call to prayer is “constant, circling the globe continuously, starting a few seconds to a few minutes later in each village as the earth rotates.

On a hilltop at Tent of Nations one evening, Goldberg says he thought the call was merely echoing off the hills. “But then, in succession, it stopped in each village. ��I was actually hearing the call to prayer travel around the world. It was beautiful and uplifts my heart now just to think about it.”

At the reunion, students shared reflections of their own experiences at the farm. “Daoud talked about the land and updated us on the complex legal situation,” Goldberg said. “While we were there, the family was rushing to refile paperwork to keep their land ownership case in the Israeli court system, a cycle that has sadly become as much a part of their calendar as the olive and fruit harvests. So that was something we wanted to know about.”

“He also talked about volunteers helping at the farm,” Goldberg added, “and of course, tried to recruit a few to come back.”

Future Middle East travel

• 91����Ƶ’s connection to the Middle East expanded last year with the first Alumni and Friends Cross-Cultural to the Middle East with longtime and much beloved leaders Linford and Janet Stutzman.��Read more here.
• Check out the Alumni and Friends Cross Cultural webpage for more information on other travels, including the next Middle East trip with the Stutzmans in fall 2019.
• Seminary professors Dorothy Jean Weaver and Kevin Clark co-lead a Middle East cross-cultural for seminary students in summer 2019.
• The next Middle East cross cultural for 91����Ƶ undergraduate students travels with the Stutzmans in spring 2019.

She is pastor of youth and children’s ministries at Shalom Mennonite Congregation in Harrisonburg. She and partner Justin Shenk, both 2006 graduates of 91����Ƶ, were community hosts in a United Reformed Church through Mennonite Mission Network in London, England, for three years. Valerie‘s work in London and following has focused on community organizing and faith formation through facilitating theology roundtable discussions, craftivism (craft + activism), and countless cups of tea.

***

Two years ago, my partner and I were anticipating the end of an international service assignment with Mennonite Mission Network. We were returning to the U.S. with no set plans, no jobs, and having spent three years not really earning money.

As we were packing and discerning next steps, I decided to try my hand and my brain at a course, offered online by Eastern Mennonite Seminary. That course was “New Testament: Text in Context” with .

Maybe enrolling in that class was a strategy for distraction as we left behind the community we had known, or the nervous anticipation of reverse culture shock, but my eager engagement in that class set me on a trajectory that made evident that seminary was where I was being called.

And that’s where you enter my story.

I was fortunate to be offered one of the Ministry Leadership Awards, an award that covers half of my tuition. I am personally grateful for the investment made in me, and it’s the same generosity that inevitably is investing in the future of the church. Which may lead you to ask, “Well, what does the church’s future hold? What are we investing in when we give to 91����Ƶ or EMS?

From where I am as a student in the seminary, this is what I envision: The future church is a beacon of the kind of hope that transforms, a hope that invites our participation in the in-breaking of God’s kin-dom on earth.

Through the lens of David Evans’ course on churches and social transformation, I envision a church that strives to dismantle racism and white supremacy, because the church has deconstructed its own complicity in structural violence and acted to change. It is a church of deep equity and broad diversity.

Through the lens of Dorothy Jean Weaver and Kevin Clark’s course “Women and Men in Scripture and Church,” I envision a church that is free from the oppressive structures of sexism and patriarchy, a church that proclaims that all, regardless of gender identity, are beloved children of God, called by God to full participation in the body of Christ.

Because of the team-taught courses that focus on the holistic formation of each seminary student, I envision a church with well-equipped and wise leaders, drawing the church into a deeper faith that kindles our passion for justice and inspires unreserved acts of mercy.

This vision of the future church – surely augmented by many other facets of discipleship and study – does not come without cost. There are many ways to pay this cost, but tonight, I thank you for your financial contributions. My hope and my prayer is that – here, in the community united by Eastern Mennonite – we each find a way to share our gifts with one another, equally beloved participants in the kin-dom of God.

To learn more about EMS, contact Les Horning, director of seminary admissions.

As an Anabaptist seminary,��EMS��has special emphasis in peacebuilding, biblical studies, spiritual formation and theology, training leaders for��, and��, as well as other denominations.

[Since attending 91����Ƶ, the couple, formerly known as Anita and Cristian, have begun using their Jewish names.]

Channah completed a master’s degree in religion at , but also took courses through the (CJP), including . ��

David, who studied law in Chile, attended CJP and earned a . There he also assisted professor with , a storytelling project for survivors of domestic violence, and professor with the ongoing translation into Spanish of his book Changing Lenses.

Earlier this year, Channah finished a master of theology degree from the , and the couple has since moved to Hamilton, Ontario, where Channah is beginning her doctoral studies at and David is looking for opportunities to develop processes of dialogue in the Jewish community about the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine.

While at 91����Ƶ, the pair collaborated on various projects, one of which was offering coping with past trauma and the pressures of a new country and being ostracized due to immigration status. The workshops were built on the idea that doing art — painting, drawing, photography, poetry and more — would help participants reflect on their experiences.

For Channah and David, facilitating reflection was a natural extension of their own experiences at 91����Ƶ, where personal reflection was central to their formative coursework.

“For us, having that time of introspection and learning at 91����Ƶ is what made us what we are today,” Channah reflected recently. “There are so many key aspects of who we are and that will never leave us that were borne out of 91����Ƶ.”

Attuned to trauma

Two years after they were married, Channah and David experienced the physical trauma of an 8.8-magnitude earthquake in Chile in 2010. But they are also attentive to historical and societal trauma, including their own, and 91����Ƶ was a place where they could explore, share and grow from their experiences.

Both Channah and David were raised in Christian families with Jewish ancestry, and have since — together — chosen Judaism. That wasn’t a quick or easy transition, and it put them in touch with their own families’ historical trauma stemming from the Inquisition long ago and subsequent discrimination and persecution.

More immediate, though, was the trauma of growing up under the rule of the dictator General Augusto Pinochet.

David remembers checking his family’s household garbage to make sure no evidence of black market items or political dissent could be be found by anyone who might look through their trash.

“You were always scared of saying what your political views were because you didn’t know who you were talking to, and if something you said would go back to the army,” Channah said. “There were a lot of people who were paid by the dictatorship to spy on other people.”

Such threats meant that homogeneity was valued highly: not standing out was safer. Channah said that translates into “‘Don’t be anything that makes you stand out and be different, because you could be in danger.’ Even though that’s not the case anymore, that’s how trauma works. The traumatic stress is still there.”

Even though Pinochet’s rule ended in the 1990s, David added, the government was still considered “transitional” as late as 10 years ago, and he described the ongoing environment as one not welcoming of minorities, hugely divided along economic and political lines, and subtly violent.

“That kind of violence is invisible, if you look just superficially, but it’s really strong and it has really deep roots in the culture,” he said.

Not just a defining language

It was in that context that David trained in Chile as a human rights lawyer, motivated by “growing up seeing too many injustices against the people I loved, and a kind of rebellion against the imposed narrative of oppressor/oppressed that I experienced,” he said. “I thought that through justice this dynamic could be changed.”

But it wasn’t until coming to 91����Ƶ that his current foundation for peacebuilding was established, and as a CJP graduate student, David says, he learned the language that has since defined his life.

“I lacked a lot of the language about peacebuilding, of conflict transformation,” he said. “I realized that justice is just one element in the process of social transformation and part of what, as a society, we should do so as to aim to build healthy communities.”

“I don’t know if the people at CJP see the magnitude of the training that they are providing,” he added, “but without that I couldn’t be working in the healthy way I’m approaching the society, the community where we are working right now. All those peace concepts within the Mennonite tradition are really important for us, even if we are not Mennonite — even for people of different religions, different traditions.”

Being educated at 91����Ƶ in that new language of peacebuilding, though, was not solely technical. “You have this safe environment where you can speak about your background, where you can relate with other people of other traditions. That was a powerful energy in our journeys,” he said.

Contributions to Biblical studies

Channah also credits her time at 91����Ƶ with bringing her academic Biblical studies into focus, in part thanks to the advising of professor , known for his work in trauma, identity and conflict studies.

Hart was David’s practicum advisor — and became friends, he said — and when Channah asked him to be her thesis advisor, he was “honored, and intrigued” by the thesis topic: the relationship between religious meditation, Hebrew chant and the trauma healing process. He said Channah has an ability “to see and explain complex spiritual and psychological relationships — for the purpose of self-understanding and from a desire to help others traumatized by violence of all kinds.”

While there are many who are exploring the intersection between psychology and Biblical studies, Channah said, she seeks out themes of resilience and dignity, themes that at 91����Ƶ she realized were central in her own life starting in her childhood.

“Growing up a Latina was a difficult experience, with all the machismo and the sexism and really not feeling like I was a first-class citizen,” she remembers. As a 10-year-old child traveling with her father, a Baptist pastor who visited seminaries and attended conferences with Channah and her three-years-younger brother in tow, people would ask her brother what he wanted to be when he grew up.

“I was not looked at at all,” she said. “It was subtle, but it told me, ‘You don’t really matter. You don’t get to have choices, because you’re not a man.’”

When she decided to attend college, people asked her, “Why would you want to do that?” When she decided to pursue a master’s degree, she was asked, “Well, isn’t that a little too much?”

Even today some in her extended family still don’t understand why she’s entering a doctoral program. “It still doesn’t fully register that women are just as capable as men. It feels so ridiculous to even say it, because of course they are,” she said.

Somehow, though, even way back as a child, something was driving her, something she can’t really pinpoint. It could have come from having also spent several of her formative years living in Canada and seeing a different form of society — or, she wonders, “Was it the Shekhina, the Hebrew name for divine presence, for the energy of God? I wonder if it can be that.”

Spiritual director and Eastern Mennonite Seminary professor Kevin Clark noted a “particular resiliency” in Channah, and the “interplay of her own inner narrative and the context around her which emerged as resourceful and creative engagement,” he said. “I appreciated the integrity with which she asked the questions of experience and the Holy, immersed at times in the silence of prayerful awareness which, in turn, inspired artistic expression and a discerned way forward.”

Whatever it was that was moving her, when Channah — and David — eventually came to 91����Ƶ, they immersed themselves in the community, earning not just graduate degrees but also “the respect of many for their deep spiritual wrestling and personal integrity,” Hart said. “We were given a gift when they joined us.”

“There is something about 91����Ƶ’s openness and sense of safety it creates, and the inclusiveness of people from different parts of the world,” Channah said. “Even though we’re all so different, we’re on the same wavelength of creating community and peacebuilding, and that creates a sort of connection that really opened our eyes not just to learning about others, but to learning about ourselves and where we wanted our journeys to take us.”

“We have many, many cultural things in our family,” David added. “We are Mennonite, we are Jewish, we are Latin American, we are minority — but we are very proud that the Mennonite culture in us is key. We were changed by the Mennonite culture at 91����Ƶ.”

happening with our neighbors,” said Professor during ’s School for Leadership Training. “In the 21st century, we don’t need to travel 6,000 miles to meet others, ethnic others, racial others. We just need to open our doors or walk down the hall. We could do better to love our literal neighbors, those people closest to us.”

Evans’ point, made during a panel presentation on the themes of “neighboring” and “othering,” drew nods from listeners in Martin Chapel – all of whom had come to the two-day workshop to deepen knowledge and explore engagement with the diversities of politics, culture and theology in today’s modern church and culture.

Approximately 240 pastors and lay leaders from 16 states attended. At least eight denominations were represented: Brethren in Christ, Church of the Brethren, Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, Mennonite Church USA, United Methodist, Lutheran and Unitarian Universalist. The event included four keynote addresses, workshops and a seminary faculty panel addressing the theme of “Yearning to Get Along … And Stay True to Ourselves.”

‘It is not enough to stay silent’

Participants ranged from veteran pastors to seminary students to laypeople such as Janelle Clark, of Newport News, Virginia, who is contemplating seminary studies. Pastor Sandy Drescher-Lehman has attended for the past seven years, anticipating by January, the need for collegial connection, spiritual sustenance and reflection “on where I was when I came last year — spiritually, emotionally and vocationally��— and comparing that to my current place in the world.”

“As a white person living and working in a multicultural neighborhood,” Cynthia Lapp, pastor at Hyattsville Mennonite Church in Hyattsville, came to learn “more about racism and the ways white privilege functions … It is not enough to stay silent. Racism will not just fade away; we must act and speak.”

“I came to help uncover and discover what is often hidden in our racialized society and to consider how these forces of racialization are forming and shaping us as a church,” said John Stolzfus, Franconia Conference youth minister and campus pastor for Dock Mennonite Academy.

Reflecting after the event, Stolzfus questions: “How can we as leaders empty ourselves of our privilege and power in the self-emptying way of Christ in order to embody the incarnational love of God? To the extent in which we are not able to see or understand the suffering and struggle of the immigrant, racial minority, foreigner, sexual minority, or anyone who may be different from us reveals the poverty of our relationships. We need to be in proximity to and stand next to those who are “other” in order to truly be a neighbor.

With opportunities for worship, reflection and prayer in the midst of education, many came away with more questions than answers.

Mick Sommers, lead pastor at Ridgeview Mennonite Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was “sobered by the realization that generations of attitudes and structure within the church will likely not be altered in a short span of time … I recognize within myself the need for a constant awareness and intentional mindfulness to counteract what has been my own socialization about race and power.”

Inequality and the ‘whitened Jesus’

, of Duke University Divinity School, and , of Messiah College, offered three extensive keynotes on the subjects of a practical theology of inequality, power and unity and the whitened Jesus, respectively.

Cleveland, a social psychologist, talked about the socialization of racism, the current politics of victimhood and related both concepts to Jesus’s statements and actions as a marginalized and oppressed person.

“If you looked to see where Jesus was socially located in every single one of his actions, how he emptied himself of his influence, platform and power … you’ll probably be astounded,” she said. “Jesus was always using his voice to make a point about what our relationships should be.”

Hart drew from history and culture to highlight the ubiquity of the “white European Jesus fixed in our places of worship,” an image that “bolsters a social system organized around racial hierarchy. “

While lifting up the constructed image of the blonde, Nordic and explicitly non-Jewish Jesus, Hart asked, “Where do we go with that image … to recover our Gentile identity? None of us have a copyright on Christianity or Jesus … Let us remember that it is someone else’s story that shapes our lives.”

Selected seminars summarized

A complete list of seminars is available .

Understanding the ‘other’ through the mirror/window of popular culture with Benjamin Bixler, PhD student, Drew University.

Bixler began with a clip of Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy Awards performance of “The Blacker The Berry,” in which the rapper and dancers, dressed as convicts, perform in the setting of a jail. Bixler discussed popular culture (movies, novels, music, etc.) as a way of engagement with “the other” on several levels: not only does the alternate world and characters offer alternate perspectives and provoke empathy, but the people who are discussing, analyzing or critiquing the work are also learning about themselves and each other.

Rebirth of a White Nation, with Dr. David Evans, EMS professor.

Evans facilitated discussions about white racial identity, a brief history of race in the United States, and the characteristics or qualities of “good white people” before asking the question “How might following Jesus be consistent or inconsistent with pursuing white status?”

“Race is national discipleship that teaches us the values we must have in order to belong to a certain status or group,” Evans says. “These values rival what Jesus calls us to be or to become … If we’ve been discipled into white nationalism, and no one was born white, then we’ve been converted into something that we need to be converted out of.”

How Do You Measure Life Change? The Role of Data and Measurements in Community Engagement with Wes Furlong, director of church development, EVANA network.

• Churches often take an input-focused approach to thinking about social/service work (e.g. pounds of food gather for food drive) rather than thinking carefully about outputs and desired impact.
• Serving communities, at its best, begins with careful work to fully understand context, strengths and assets and to ensure that all actors are involved.
• Those involved in social/service work need to avoid the temptation of taking a short-term or transaction view to their efforts and instead strive to take a systems view with a focus on the long-term.

Seeking the Peace of the City, with Dr. Johonna Turner, 91����Ƶ professor, and Julian Turner, graduate student.

The Turners, both raised in the Washington D.C. area, also lived and worked there until moving to Harrisonburg. Johonna Turner was a public school teacher involved in peacebuilding and empowerment work with youth, while Julian Turner worked in social services, specifically with HIV-AIDS patients. The Turners led discussions, framed by Jeremiah 29.7, about perceptions of the choices inner-city citizens make and the visualization of a more peaceful and harmonious city. This was conjoined to a scriptural exploration of compassion as modeled by Jesus, leading to a model for action in connection, lamentation and amplification. Presenters emphasized that care and consideration for voices of all citizens, whether urban dweller or rural folk, because “we are all connected.”

Panel: Navigating the move from ‘other’ to ‘neighbor’ in the context of theological education.

A panel of seminary faculty — including Dr. Kevin Clark, Dr. David Evans, Dr. Lonnie Yoder, Dr. Andrea Saner, Dr. Emily Peck McClain, Dr. Kenton Derstine and Dr. Dorothy Jean Weaver — discussed the role of theological education and cross-cultural engagement in shaping the move from ‘other’ to ‘neighbor’ in students and communities; how society defines each of these terms; and issues of power and privilege in the seminary classroom.

The Tony-nominated Broadway musical “A Year with Frog and Toad” is based on author/illustrator Arnold Lobel’s “Frog and Toad” children’s book series. The musical, directed by professor opens Nov. 20. Additional performances are Nov. 21 and Dec. 3, 4 and 5 at 7:30 p.m. with matinees Nov. 22 and Dec. 5 at 3 p.m. Tickets can be purchased through the 91����Ƶ box office at 540-432-4582 or��.

“Our production��is set here in the Shenandoah Valley and the animals are the kind you would find in the woods and ditches right here in western Virginia,” says Vogel. Her vision was to have the actors portray human characters with animal qualities instead of being in animal costumes. “The actors have studied the way the animals move and are using that in their portrayals. Also, the characters reflect folks you might meet here too.”

For history major Derrick Turner, assistant director and dramaturg, the show brings back memories. “I loved those books. My mom read them to me when I was a child.”

To spark the actors’ imaginations, Turner conducted extensive research with 91����Ƶ professor and conservation photographer . He then compiled movement videos and information on each portrayed animal for the actors, including habitat, food and skeletal structures.

91����Ƶ hasn’t done a children’s play in at least a decade, Vogel says, but the play meets the ‘s educational goals. “Theater for Young Audiences (TYA) is a hugely important genre of theater that our students should have experience performing and producing. Children are a different audience than adults.”

The cast will perform three additional matinees for students from six local schools and three home school groups, says Turner, who made study packets accessible for K-5 grades.

“Adults are much more well-behaved, but I find performing for children is a much more interactive experience,” says actor Josh Helmuth, a music composition major who performed for elementary students while in high school.

Helmuth portrays four animals, including a showy bird and a straight and narrow lizard. “Yeah, I don’t get a break,” he says, smiling.

Playing animals has never been a favorite role for English and theater double-major Makayla Baker. “I don’t like when people portray animals. It’s so weird. But here I am—I’m a turtle,” she deadpans. “But it’s been great.”

Baker’s turtle is a laundry woman carrying a basket on her back and a scrub board around her neck.

Myriam Aziz, a graduate student in the master’s conflict transformation program, was cast as Frog. “A female playing a part for a male, I think that’s really funny,” says Aziz, who is active in theater in Lebanon. But having a male as a pal, she says, “reminds me of my friend back home. We’ve been friends for 13 years.”

The cast and crew agree that even though “A Year With Frog and Toad” is based on a children’s book series, adults will also appreciate the cheerful upbeat musical.

“There’s a lot of comedic effect in it,” Helmuth says.

“It is funny,” says Baker, noting that the 91����Ƶ community is inviting younger family members and people from their church to the show. “A lot of 91����Ƶ students were raised on these books.”

Cast

Myriam Aziz, Christian Parks, Ezrionna Prioleau, Bianica Baker, Esther Ajayi, Josh Helmuth, Makayla Baker, Zoe Parakuo, Hailey Holcomb

Crew

Director – Heidi Winters Vogel
Choreographer and Costume Designer –
Accompanist – Jim Clemens
Stage Manager – Caitlin Randazzo
Assistant Stage Managers – Lydia Hales and Belen Fernandez
Props Designers – Alex Rosenberg and Kevin Clark
Assistant Lighting Designer – Sierra Comer
Assistant Director and Dramaturg – Derrick Turner
Music Director –
Set Designer –
Lighting Designer –

After a thorough search process, Peck-McClain has been hired as assistant professor of Christian formation, preaching and worship, said , PhD, vice president and seminary dean.

“Formational resources, training, and activities have long been an EMS specialty,” he said. “We see Emily as particularly well-suited to be steward of this EMS treasure. Emily embodies and owns formational questions and considerations at great depth in her life, thought, and experience.”

Peck-McClain said she is excited by the position “because it combines what I see as essential in the practical theology and practice of ministry fields. I can tell that formation is something the seminary community as a whole truly values.”

Each degree at EMS has at least one full-year required course in Christian formation. The master of divinity degree has three full-year required courses. Peck-McClain will be giving direction and oversight to these full-year formation courses, in addition to teaching in preaching, worship and Christian education. , adjunct instructor and campus pastor, will continue to work with spiritual formation electives.

Peck-McClain’s work reflects her experience growing up in an interfaith home with one Jewish parent and one United Methodist parent and her education in liberation theology. As an ordained minister in The United Methodist Church, she has pastored two congregations in New York City.

“A community is enriched when different experiences of God and Christian living interact,” she told 91����Ƶ News Service. “The diversity of how God reveals ‘Godself’ is a gift to God’s diverse global community.”

Peck-McClain said she was attracted to EMS’s commitment to “faithful Christian leadership in a global, challenging, and changing context.” She deeply appreciates the Anabaptist values at the core of EMS’s mission.

“One of the things that impresses me most about EMS is how formation is valued not only as a separate discipline, but as integral to how teaching and learning take place in the seminary. I seek to balance individual journeys and spiritual disciplines with communal practices, actions, and discernment in how I teach formation, preaching, and worship.”

Emily received a BA in religion from Washington and Lee University in 2002 and a master of divinity from Union Theological Seminary in New York City in 2005. She is finishing her ThD through Duke Divinity School. Her dissertation “Revealing the Power: New Creation Epistemology for Adolescent Girls” is on reading Romans 1-8 as a liberative source for ministry with adolescent girls. She has also been a teaching assistant, co-instructor, and adjunct instructor at Duke Divinity School in areas of Christian education, New Testament, and worship.

Lilian Calles Barger

Barger is the author of “Eve’s Revenge: Women and a Spirituality of the Body” and “Chasing Sophia: Reclaiming the Lost Wisdom of Jesus.” She will focus on material from the latter book in her chapel address.

In 1997, Barger helped create The Damaris Project, a place of dialog where women can talk about spirituality in new and relevant ways. The Damaris Salon has become the vehicle for ongoing conversation.

In this role, she works as a researcher, cultural critic, writer and speaker on the intersection of the teachings of Jesus and contemporary issues. She is considered an expert in feminist spirituality and theology and an astute observer of social trends.

A brown bag lunch discussion with Barger will be held in seminary room 203 at noon on Dec. 4.

Seminary chapels are free and open to the public. For more information, contact seminary campus pastor Kevin Clark, 540-432-4217 or clarkka@emu.edu.

Three staff persons from 91����Ƶ were among eight Harrisonburg area people who worked together to create resource materials for a 2005 Easter to Pentecost worship series.

The materials, titled "Unbound!", with a different subtitle for each Sunday, are intended for use by pastors and other congregational leaders and will soon be available in "Leader" magazine, published by Faith and Life Resources, a division of Mennonite Publishing Network.

At the invitation of Marlene Kropf, director of the Office of Congregational Life, Elkhart, Ind., the group gathered last winter at Park View Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg for a weekend to begin the planning process. The work was completed individually and in small groups through the spring and summer months with Shirley Yoder Brubaker of the Park View congregation as local team coordinator.

"The Office of Congregational Life has coordinated the development of worship resources for Advent and for Lent, but this was the first time to develop worship resources for the Easter to Pentecost church season," noted Brian Martin Burkholder, 91����Ƶ campus pastor and a group member.

Other 91����Ƶ employees on the planning team were Jill K. Landis, associate director of church partnerships at Eastern Mennonite Seminary, and Kevin Clark, part-time instructor at the seminary.

Other committee members included Kris Shank Zehr, Edie Bontrager, Gloria Diener and Lucinda Swartzendruber, all from the Harrisonburg area.