Thirty years have passed since her days as a nurse in a war zone, but Ann Hershberger ’76 still has a sense of impending violence when she hears a helicopter over her head.

“I still can’t stand to have a helicopter go over me,” she says. “I remember looking up at them and not feeling scared, but angry. I hated the violence I saw there.”

When Hershberger graduated from 91¶ĚĘÓƵ in the mid 1970s, she knew she wanted to use her skills to help those who could not obtain the medical attention they needed. She headed to Nicaragua.

She returned to the United States in the spring of 1980, to teach at 91¶ĚĘÓƵ and share her experiences with students. A year later she found herself serving, at age 26, as the youngest member of a task force assessing whether 91¶ĚĘÓƵ should make cross-cultural study a graduation requirement.

“I felt so lucky to be surrounded by all these amazing and wise people. It was so interesting just to hear their stories and their individual experiences in other cultures.”

In 1983 Hershberger returned to Central America with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) where she tended the victims of war for six months.

In 1985, she and her husband, Jim ’82, MA ’97, led an 91¶ĚĘÓƵ-sponsored trip to Central America, toting along their infant daughter Sara (’07). They spent time in Nicaragua and Honduras, both countries in the grip of violent conflict, but the Hershbergers felt that the students needed to understand the dangers that people face in many parts of the world. (Twelve years later Jim became one of 91¶ĚĘÓƵ’s first master’s in graduates.)

The Hershbergers spent 1985-1990 working for MCC in Nicaragua, overseeing distribution of aid to persons displaced by civil war, doing education and leadership training with the Mennonite Church, and providing health care in areas where government personnel did not venture.

They returned to the United States with an appreciation for the Nicaraguans’ emphasis on family and community.

“I feel like you cannot be an educated citizen if you do not understand something about the world outside of yourself,” says Ann. “You have to immerse yourself in another culture and become a world citizen.”

Students on the Hershbergers’ 1993 91¶ĚĘÓƵ-sponsored trip to Central America recall a gutsy Ann preventing a 737 jet from taking off without some of the students’ belongings. “Without thinking I stood in front of the plane, shaking my finger at the pilot,” remembers Ann, laughing.

Ann has been a part of five 91¶ĚĘÓƵ cross-cultural trips, as well as hosted 91¶ĚĘÓƵ students during her time in Central America with MCC. Two of the Hershbergers’ children—Nathan ’12 and Rachel ’10—were born in Nicaragua (Rachel was adopted). The Hershbergers will be leading a cross-cultural trip to Guatemala and Columbia in the spring of 2013.

Having experienced or witnessed all kinds of student sojourns in Latin America, Ann argues for the benefits of study-trips led by caring, knowledgeable faculty members.

“All of the students are different. Some have different faiths, or experience their cross-cultural journey in a different way, ” says Ann. “We as faculty help the students create meaning from their experiences, and that is why the approach has been so meaningful for me.”

—Rachael Keshishian & Bonnie Price Lofton

Heatwole and Hershberger tied for top honors in the Anabaptist research paper contest, sponsored by the . The institute awarded Heatwole and Hershberger first place without knowing one small detail about the duo.

“They didn’t realize we were married until after they had announced the winners,” said Heatwole, who tied the knot with Hershberger in August 2010.

In awarding the couple a first-place tie, the committee stated in its award letter, “We decided to do something that we think has never been done before and may never be done again – award two first-place prizes to two individuals for two very fine papers.”

Heatwole graduated in 2011 with a degree in and now serves as office coordinator in . Her paper, “The Changing Relationship Between and Anabaptism,” allowed her to focus on Anabaptist institutions and “how they negotiate both the social justice and theological motivations for their work.”

I’m drawn to the motivations and methods for development and how they change over time,” said Heatwole. “I examined how MCC’s relationship to the Anabaptist principles has changed over time and highlight similarities in this shift to broader sociological trends of development.”

Hershberger, who graduated from 91¶ĚĘÓƵ in May 2012 with a degree in and , wrote his paper, “J. Denny Weaver, the Creeds, and Scripture: Thoughts on the Orientation of Anabaptism and Approaches to Theology,” on the differences between Weaver’s approach to scripture and theology and some contemporary approaches.

Hershberger said he wrote his paper in the fall of 2011 for his contemporary theology class.

“I spent a lot of time on atonement theology – thinking about the meaning of Christ’s death – and in particular J. Denny Weaver’s approach to that question, summed up in the book (and phrase) ‘The Nonviolent Atonement.'”

Heatwole and Hershberger heard about the contest through a friend and plan to use their combined winnings to buy a new laptop.

“Whatever is left over will go toward rent and groceries,” said Heatwole.

The Sider Institute for Anabaptist, Pietist and Wesleyan Studies facilitates the exploration and interpretation of the three theological traditions that have shaped the “personality” of Messiah College’s founding denomination, the Brethren in Christ Church.

Every year for spring break, several student groups spend the nine-day period doing service projects in various locales in the states – under the auspices of the Young People’s Christian Association (YPCA) – instead of going home or heading to warmer climes.

This year, for the first time, one group devoted the entire break to service projects right in Harrisonburg, Mar. 1-8. Listen to the March 11 chapel podcast featuring this and other spring break Y-trips!

91¶ĚĘÓƵ freshman Lucas Schrock-Hurst, (right), and his sister Grace Schrock-Hurst work on tiling the floor of Our Community Place.

Co-leaders Grace Schrock-Hurst and Rebekah [last name omitted on request] and Nathan Hershberger, Kaitlin Heatwole, Lucas Schrock-Hurst and Debbie Vasquez worked primarily with Our Community Place (OCP), a community center on N. Main St. across from The Little Grill collective restaurant.

They also related to New Bridges Immigrant Resource Center based at Community Mennonite Church.

At OCP, the students worked in the soup kitchen, helped organize activities for persons frequenting the center and laid tile in the main floor from a pattern designed by 91¶ĚĘÓƵ sophomore Kaitlin Heatwole.

With New Bridges, the group took part in a panel on immigration issues and visited immigrants at a local trailer park.

The students lived for the week at the Dean House across Water Street from Community Mennonite Church. To add a “green” element to their efforts, They walked or rode bike everywhere they went rather than using cars. They even borrowed 91¶ĚĘÓƵ recycling coordinator Jonathan Lantz-Trissel’s special cart to move their personal things from campus to the Dean House.

The group limited itself to bikes, walking and public buses for their modes of transportation during the service week in a concerted effort to be ‘green.’ (L to R): Lucas Schrock-Hurst, Rebecca [last name omitted on request], Debbie Vasquez, Grace Schrock-Hurst, Kaitlin Heatwole, and Nathan Hershberger

“There’s so much we can do right here in Harrisonburg,” said Grace Schrock- Hurst, a junior culture, religion and mission major from Harrisonburg. “When it’s over, we can continue the relationships we’ve started and learn more about the community.

“I would sum up our group’s experience in six words – surprising, humbling, challenging, enlightening, loving and beautiful,” Schrock-Hurst added.

Four 91¶ĚĘÓƵ students did Christian service projects at Hattie Larlham Center for children with severe disabilities, Mantua, Ohio. Another group of 10 spent the week at Jubilee Partners, a Christian intentional community in Comer, Ga., that works with refugees who settle in Atlanta.