“The Summer Institute for Missional Questions fits our goal of bringing flexible high-quality ministry education close to congregations,” said , director of EMS Lancaster.  “These instructors bring rich global and local perspectives to the landscape of contemporary Christian mission.”

The 2013 summer institute kicks-off early with a course in April – May:

• “Romans: A Letter to the Church,” taught by Myron S. Augsburger. The class meets weekly on Friday evenings, beginning April 5, concluding May 18. It includes two Saturday sessions.

Two courses are slated for May – June:

• “Encountering Anabaptism in the Global South,” taught by Conrad L. Kanagy. This is a hybrid course, combining online components and a weekend in the classroom, May 31-June 1.
• “Human Sexuality in Theological Perspective,” taught by Mark and Mary Thiessen Nation. This course meets on three weekends, May 10-11, May 24-25 and June 7-8.

Each of these courses is available for graduate academic credit or for audit. The final weekend of the “Human Sexuality” course will focus on theology and homosexuality.  There will be separate non-credit registration for this weekend event.

For more information call 717-397-5190 or visit

Eugene, in fact, is often in the sky Sunday mornings, piloting his United Airlines CRJ-700 from Dulles International Airport – a job he enjoys and plans to continue indefinitely. Ministry, for him, is “not ‘a calling’; it’s life.”

“We really feel called to be workplace ministers,” adds Christina, who often accompanies her husband on flights, along with serving on the ground at Dulles, where both are volunteer chaplains.

They enrolled in in Harrisonburg, Va., in the fall of 2010. In a Sept. 22, 2012, service at the airport, they were licensed – a step toward ordination, which they hope will occur in 2014. Balancing study with work, they anticipate earning master of divinity degrees in perhaps 15 years.

Eugene has flown for 25 years, the past 12 with United and affiliates. The couple have been chaplains at Dulles for four years since relocating to Virginia from Pennsylvania. First they lived in Herndon near Dulles, operating a guesthouse for pilots and flight attendants, before moving in 2011 to Berryville, 40 miles east of Dulles and 80 miles north of Harrisonburg. Prior to EMS they trained with the .

After approaching Dulles senior chaplain Ralph Benson to offer much-needed office-organizing skills, Christina became the first woman among the airport’s 15 chaplains – including Eugene, the group’s only airline employee. All chaplains, excepting Benson, are volunteers, including an imam and a Catholic priest.

Christina’s social-work background proves helpful. “We often see passengers who have arrived and have nowhere to go,” she says – and penniless travelers who take free shuttles from D.C. to the airport. Other times, employees request prayer – including a woman anxious about her troubled teenager.

Christina’s a native of Pennsylvania. Eugene was born in Vietnam to a Mennonite medical missionary family and spent some of his formative years in Ethiopia.

The couple made the nearly hour-and-half trip to Harrisonburg weekly together for their first two EMS courses, while separating for small-group class discussions. Sometimes they stayed overnight with relatives or in their cabin in Mathias, WV. Eugene benefited when some courses shifted to meeting for longer periods once per week. Christina took the fall 2011 semester off to renovate their 1875 railroad-worker home in Berryville. Last month she opened a Fair Trade store, , from their house.

EMS has enrolled 11 couples over the past decade, says , EMS associate director of admissions and communication coordinator. The seminary now has 140 students.

VMC overseer Luke Schrock-Hurst and EMS professor gave testimony at their licensing ceremony, where Christina shared a poem she’d written, “Airport Chaplains Walking.” It was inspired by Luke 24: 13-35, in which two disciples, on the road to Emmaus, are joined by Jesus – whom they invite to dinner before recognizing him. She remembers that story when “people ask us to meet their family, or attend a party.”

Close friends the Kraybills have made among Dulles’ international community include a ramper (who moves planes into position) and his wife, who are Muslims from Tunisia. Eugene discourages attempts at “profiling” passengers. At the airport chapel, where Christina conducts Bible classes, she also sometimes watches children for Muslim women while they pray.

When hosting employee dinners, the Kraybills included invitations to mechanics, who had previously felt excluded.

They have yet to experience a disaster. (Asked about prayer in moments of danger, Eugene replies he tries to always have “an underlying mode of confidence. I’m praying in my spirit.”) They’ve helped conduct memorial services for two workers killed in accidents on the ground. After such tragedies, Christina notes, the work “stops briefly to address the emergency, and then it has to continue.” Yet the chaplains remain.

“Managing Congregational Conflict” was a lynchpin course for Barbara Robbins, a 2011 graduate of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP).

“I am a congregational consultant for Virginia Baptist Network,” she said. “I provide coaching and guidance for congregations in conflict, as well as helping congregations work with reorganization and strategic planning.

“The course was the perfect blend of theory and practice,” said Robbins. “I am able to apply projects from that class directly into congregational settings.”

“Managing Congregational Conflict” is open to students in both 91����Ƶ’s CJP program and to Eastern Mennonite Seminary students, as well as to community members or others who are interested in the topic.

“I entered the CJP program as a mid-life student seeking to fine-tune what I already know and enhance what I was already doing,” said Robbins. “This course brought together the strong foundation in organization studies that CJP brings, into a life application I was interested in.”

Mike Metzler, ’09 grad, took the class while in seminary. “I learned that conflict is an opportunity for change. Conflict is still scary but framing it as an opportunity allows me to move towards conflict with some excitement as well.

“This is one of my top three courses from my master of divinity studies at EMS,” added Metzler, associate pastor at Mountville (Pa.) Mennonite Church. “It builds on the foundational classes in ways that transform the students as well as impacting the congregations in which they are called to serve.”

The course focuses on congregations both as family systems and organizational systems. It also works with the ideas of forgiveness and the theology of forgiveness in congregations.

, PhD, associate professor of organizational studies at CJP, and , PhD, adjunct instructor for EMS, co-teach the course.

The course will run Friday 6-9 p.m. and Saturday 9 a.m.-4 p.m. beginning the weekend of Sept. 23-24, and continuing one weekend every month through December.

EMS and CJP collaborate on a number of courses. The two graduate programs offer several courses as options for a or a degree.

A veteran urban mission worker will present the annual Augsburger Lecture Series Monday and Tuesday, Feb. 14-15, at 91����Ƶ.

Mary Thiessen Nation, currently of Harrisonburg, will speak and lead discussion on her journey from a Canadian farming community to years spent in a violent neighborhood in Los Angeles, Calif., and then to London, England and finally to Harrisonburg.

She will share discoveries about authentic biblical and communal hope gleaned with the help of her inner-city friends in presentations 10 a.m. Monday, Feb. 14 in Lehman Auditorium, 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 15 in Martin Chapel of the seminary building and in a lecture-forum setting 7 p.m. that day, also in Martin Chapel.

Dr. Thiessen Nation, the third oldest of 10 children, grew up on a farm in Southern Alberta, the daughter of Russian immigrants. After graduating from high school, she attended a Mennonite Brethren Bible College in British Columbia for two years, followed by a year in the Netherlands in an exchange program sponsored by Mennonite Central Committee. She received her teaching credential at Tabor College in Kansas, volunteering in inner-city mission on weekends during her final year in college.

Upon graduation, Thiessen Nation moved to Los Angeles, Calif., to serve with World Impact, an interdenominational Christian mission organization. She lived and served in the inner city for 18 years.

She completed a masters degree in Intercultural Studies in 1993, a masters in theology in 1994 and a Ph.D. in 2004, both from the School of Intercultural Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, Calif. Her dissertation was, "Realizing Hope in the Midst of Despair: Narratives of an Urban Mission Community."

She married Mark Nation, a Mennonite theologian and ethicist at Fuller Seminary, in 1995. The couple moved to London, England with Mennonite Mission Network in 1996 where Mary served as a consultant on urban mission and spirituality at the London Mennonite Centre. Her spouse is now an associate professor of theology at Eastern Mennonite Seminary.

Thiessen Nation has served as an adjunct professor in urban mission and spirituality at three Mennonite seminaries and at Fuller Seminary. After completing her dissertation, she hopes to mentor/partner with urban missionaries, particularly those who serve among people who have experienced trauma. She will seek opportunities to write, speak and teach about what she learned through her experience in mission and through her study of hope and despair.

Admission to all presentations is free.

The Augsburger Lectureship was established by 91����Ƶ president emeritus Myron S. Augsburger and his wife Esther to bring noted speakers to campus to address topics in the areas of Christian mission and evangelism.

For more information, call the office at 540-432-4342.