HARRISONBURG – Lonnie Yoder will long remember the story told him by a young woman from Haiti who survived the country’s horrific earthquake.

“She was a nursing student in [Haiti’s capital city of] Port-au-Prince, who survived when her school building collapsed,” Yoder said. “She talked about holding the one-year-old baby of her best friend as the baby died.”

Yoder, 59, professor of pastoral and counseling and the new associate dean at Eastern Mennonite Seminary, has an avalanche of accounts he could share from his recent visit to Haiti.

Yoder traveled as part of a group on a mission run by Mennonite Central Committee and the Virginia Mennonite Mission.

The U.S. mission also included Joe Arbaugh, a building contractor from Verona, Elizabeth Showalter, a cheese-shop worker from Stuarts Draft, and Shelly-Ann Peart James, a graduate school grad and lecturer at a seminary in Jamaica.

The group stayed at an MCC home in Port-au-Prince.

Yoder’s group spent May 17-24 in Haiti, a visit that included three days of meetings with quake victims in Port-au-Prince. The sessions were designed to help Haitians deal with grief and despair brought on by the Jan. 12 disaster by sharing their stories of the catastrophe, which claimed an estimated 230,000 lives.

The tales, Yoder said, were “incredible stories of pain, suffering and death.”

The mission of 90 participants took place at Quisqueya Chapel, an interdenominational church in the city’s northeast section. Still reeling from the quake, residents opted to gather on a lawn outside the building.

Going On With Life’

In a setting where tents serve as houses and rubble rules the landscape, Yoder and his party marveled at the locals’ unnatural grit.

“I was amazed by the ability of the Haitian people to go on with life, in spite of the incredible challenges,” he said.

“We focused on psychological and emotional issues, but this was a spiritual experience,” Yoder added.

Fellow group member Eldon Stoltzfus, a Mennonite pastor from Goshen, Ind., shared Yoder’s amazement at Haiti’s resilient people. Stoltzfus, 62, had seen such toughness in better times, when he brought his family on previous mission trips to Haiti from 1974 to 1987.

“Even before the quake, the Haitian people had gone through hundreds of years of suffering,” he said. “I was awed by their ability to put it all into the context of life – they felt blessed that they were still alive.

“So many people go to Haiti and say, ‘Is there any hope?'” Stoltzfus said. “My response is as long as there are Haitian people, there is hope. It’s going to be hard work – very hard work – but I trust that as a people they will work through that.”

Contact Tom Mitchell at 574-6275 or mitchell@dnronline.com

Read more…

91短视频 grad Nick Detweiler-Stoddard, a biblical studies major who is now entering the M.Div. program at Eastern Mennonite Seminary.

As a recipient of a 2009 FTE Congregational Fellowship, Detweiler-Stoddard will receive a $2,000 to $5,000 award from FTE, which matches support from his nominating congregation for seminary tuition and living expenses. He will also attend the 2009 FTE Conference on Excellence in Ministry, “Becoming Rich toward God: Pastoral Leadership and Economic Justice,” June 17-21 at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Va.

FTE Congregational Fellows are selected competitively from a pool of applicants from across the U.S. and Canada. They must be nominated by a congregation, be preparing for congregational or parish ministry, have a minimum grade point average of 3.0 and have intellectual and interpersonal gifts for pastoral leadership. Detweiler-Stoddard was nominated for the fellowship by Community Mennonite Church of Harrisonburg, where he is a member.

The Wellman, Iowa, native is a 2008 biblical studies graduate of 91短视频. He is a behavior support specialist at Crossroads Counseling Center in Harrisonburg, working with clients to help them function better in school.

In 2007, Detweiler-Stoddard won the grand prize at the bi-national level in the C. Henry Smith Peace Oratorical Contest with his speech, “Connect the Dots.” Read the speech (PDF)

He and his wife, Erika Detweiler-Stoddard, are youth sponsors at Community Mennonite Church.

More about FTE fellowships

FTE awards the fellowships, which are funded by Lilly Endowment Inc., to increase the number of highly capable young people exploring or preparing for ordained ministry as a profession. Fewer than seven percent of clergy in most denominations today are under age 35, and interest among seminary students in congregational ministry has declined over the past five years.

“In today’s economy, the need to support young people who aspire to serve the church and the common good is an essential investment,” said the Rev. Ellen Echols Purdum, director of FTE Ministry Fellowships. “Congregations and entire communities need the intellect, leadership gifts and compassion that these candidates will bring to local challenges, spiritual, social and economic.”

The Fund for Theological Education is a leading ecumenical advocate for excellence and diversity in pastoral ministry and theological scholarship. It supports the next generation of leaders among pastors and scholars, annually providing $1.5 million in fellowships and support to gifted young people from all denominations and racial/ethnic backgrounds.

For more information about FTE fellowships, visit .

Read more…

Shane Hipps () of Phoenix, Ariz., believes there is great promise as well as peril in our technological society, but, he says, “we’ll never make our way through the maelstrom of our media if we don’t stop and ask the right questions before moving forward.”

Hipps speaks from experience. Before accepting a call as a pastor, he was a strategic planner in advertising, which included working on the multi-million dollar communications plan for Porsche Cars North America.

Today, he is pastor of Trinity Mennonite Church, an urban Anabaptist congregation in Phoenix, a writer and sought-after speaker on the topic of media’s effect on the church and its mission in the world. He is a graduate of Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, Calif.

Hipps is a contributor to “Leadership Journal,” host of the “Third-Way Faith” podcast on and author of The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: How Media Shapes Faith, the Gospel, and Church.

School for Leadership Training

He is serving as primary resource person for the annual School for Leadership Training being held Jan. 19-22 at Eastern Mennonite Seminary on the theme, “Christians Engaging Cultural Change.”

Hipps will give a public address on “The Spirituality of the Cell Phone,” 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 20 in Lehman Auditorium. The presentation will explore the hidden spirituality of the digital age, the way it shapes community and ways persons can respond.

A “talk back” session with Hipps will follow at 8:30 p.m. in the Common Grounds Coffeehouse in the University Commons. Coffee, tea, hot chocolate will be available at half price along with free brownie bites and cream puffs.

Both events are sponsored by 91短视频 campus ministries and are offered to the community free of charge; donations are welcomed.

For more information, call 540-432-4196.

Ervin R. Stutzman, dean and professor of church ministries at Eastern Mennonite Seminary, will read from his works 5:30 p.m. that day in Martin Chapel of the seminary building at 91短视频.

Dr. Stutzman has written books that relate to his family of origin – Tobias of the Amish and Emma: A Widow Among the Amish.

Stutzman was born into an Amish home as a twin in Kalona, Iowa. After his father’s death in a traffic accident when Stutzman was 3, his mother moved her family to her home community in Hutchinson, Kan. He was baptized into the Center Amish Mennonite Church near Partridge, Kan. He later joined the Yoder Mennonite Church near Yoder, Kan.

Stutzman’s ten-year search to learn more about his entrepreneurial father revealed tangled strands of relationships, woven by Tobias J. Stutzman’s ambition through the fabric of family, church and community. It led to his writing a book, Tobias of the Amish, released by Herald Press of Scottdale, Pa., in 1995.

Stutzman notes that Tobias of the Amish is more than a book about his father – “It’s also the story of a family and faith community struggling with the challenges of a modern world.

“I hope that my story will encourage others to embark on the arduous but deeply-rewarding task of delving into their family lore,” Stutzman states. “Gazing into my father’s face has helped me to see my own.”

Emma, says Stutzman, picks up where Tobias left off.

The book, released by Herald Press in 2007, gives readers a close look at life in an Amish community, and how that society’s beliefs in the mid-20th century governed women.

“This book is about a young mother growing up alone with six children,” notes Stutzman, whose present family includes wife Bonnie and three adult children: daughter Emma and sons Daniel and Benjamin. “It’s also a story of a widow’s journey, from helplessness to independence. It’s a history and a story.”

Stutzman has three additional books published by Herald Press – Being God’s People (1986), Creating Communities of the Kingdom, co-authored with David W. Shenk (1988) and Welcome (1990).

Stutzman earned a BA in Bible and Christian ministries from Cincinnati Bible College, an MA in communication arts from the University of Cincinnati, an MA in religion from Eastern Mennonite Seminary and a PhD in communication from Temple University.

Admission to the program, which includes dinner, is $15, $7 for students. Reservations are required and should be made by noon Friday, Sept. 12, by calling the language and literature department at 540-432-4168 or email: langlit@emu.edu.

A season pass for all four Writers Read programs of the 2008-09 school year is available for $50.

They spoke Aug. 8-9 to about 45 faculty, plus several graduate students, from schools including Kansas’ Bethel and Hesston Colleges, Ohio’s Bluffton University, Indiana’s Goshen College; Canadian Mennonite University, Winnipeg; Conrad Grebel University in Waterloo, Ont., and Mennonite Education Agency (MEA).

Willard Swartley introduces the faculty conference theme with a keynote address on “The World via the Word.” (Photo by Jim Bishop)

“How the logos creates the world is really unanswerable,” said keynoter Willard Swartley, speaking on “The World via the Word.” Dr. Swartley, professor emeritus of New Testament and former dean at the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Ind., was 91短视频’s 2004 alumnus of the year.

Referencing John 1:1-18, he characterized the creation-vs.-evolution debate as irrelevant, declaring God “the enabler” who makes change possible.

‘God’s Created World’

Speaking, in turn, on “The Word via the World,” Doug Graber Neufeld promised, “My forays into theology will be brief and filled with trepidation.”

Yet, Dr. Neufeld, who chairs 91短视频’s biology and chemistry departments, sees spiritual challenges in “what we’re doing to God’s created world.”

Having co-taught 91短视频’s “Green Design” course and served with Mennonite Central Committee in Cambodia, Neufeld recently received a National Science Foundation award for research on drinking water quality. While few minority students are entering scientific fields, he cited positive trends including “citizen science” and “creation care.”

In a roundtable session Mennonite professors reflect on ideas presented in the keynote address for their discipline. (Foreground) Lisa Thimm, Sally Weaver Sommer, Angie Montel, Greta Ann Herin, Jerrel Ross Richer; Background: Bill Eash, Bradley Kauffman, Merrill Krabill, Gerald Mast, Greg Luginbuhl. Photos by Jim Bishop

It was the first annual conference, and first visit to 91短视频, for Bethel’s Lisa Janzen Scott and Kulsum Kapacee.

“The title got my attention,” said Kapacee, a nursing faculty member originally from Kenya. She hoped to “to learn from what is working” at other schools.

Scott, a teacher-educator, enjoyed linking faces to names of colleagues whose publications she’d read.

Ted Grimsrud, 91短视频 professor of theology and peace studies, often talks with non-91短视频 colleagues in his disciplines, but appreciated meeting conferees from other fields.

Ecology and Sustainability

Ryan Sensenig, who teaches biology at Goshen, hoped to find ways that “interdisciplinary faculty can work together in ecology and sustainability.”

Delivering one of the conference’s several short presentations, Sensenig, a 1992 91短视频 graduate, said he wants his teaching to reflect kenosis (receptiveness to God’s will). While he worked in Kenya with grassland ecosystems, Sensenig’s two five-year-olds enjoyed the diversity of plant life.

Back in Kansas, he said they demonstrated kenosis by asking, “Hey, Dad, when can we let our grass grow nice and tall like that?” Sensenig has begun a similar project on the prairie.

Bluffton art professor Gregg Luginbuhl expresses Creation themes through images of mushrooms; masks; the dorsal fin of a fish becoming a headdress. Comparing God’s work to human-made art, he said, “God’s creation is dynamic. My art is static, although it sometimes gains life.”

Vi Dutcher, professor and chair of 91短视频’s language and literature department, described grappling for words to convey empathy. “I have never shared with my students the excruciating nature of writing,” she admitted during audience questioning.

Dr. Dutcher recently submitted a children’s book for publication, titled “The Red Pop Beads” and based on her childhood reactions to the loss of a sister.

The conference included “table group” discussions as well as musical entertainment: “Anabaptist Bestiary Project,” by Bluffton’s Trevor Bechtel. In the project, modeled on the Medieval bestiary tradition, Bechtel saims to celebrate God’s creation by exploring the ways in which God’s creatures reveal God’s will.

91短视频 President Loren Swartzendruber cited today’s campus challenges as increased parental involvement, declining biblical literacy, and society’s de-valuing the life of the mind. He told attendees that in the 1970s, while he was an admissions counselor at then-EMC, someone suggested that all faculty be ordained. Impractical as that may be, Swartzendruber said, teachers do as important work as pastors.

Chris Edwards is a free-lance writer from Harrisonburg.

91短视频’s Study and Training in Effective Pastoral Ministry (STEP) program will hold its second annual graduation at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 24, in the West Bethany Chapel at Landis Homes, 1001 E. Oregon Rd., Lititz, Pa.

University Provost Beryl H. Brubaker will address the graduates on the topic, “Lessons Learned.”

Mark R. Wenger, director of the STEP program, will preside and confer certificates on the seven members of the STEP class of 2008. STEP graduates receive a certificate in pastoral ministry from 91短视频.

The STEP program is intended to train leaders for congregational ministry. Most of the students are bi-vocational pastors without a college degree. The program meets in cohort format, with groups meeting one Saturday a month, September-May for three years.

The commencement service is open to the public.

For more information call Julie Siegfried at (717) 397-5190.

A 1987 91短视频 graduate who is pastor of a growing, multi-ethnic congregation in Philadelphia will be on campus Jan. 18-23 to interact with students and faculty as well as to be a resource speaker for Martin Luther King Jr. observances.

Leonard M. Dow, pastor of Oxford Circle Mennonite Church, will speak in university chapel 10 a.m. Friday, Jan. 18, on the theme, “The Dangerous Call of the Gospel,” based on I Cor. 1:18-25. He plans to reflect on the need for Christian love to be the motivating force for one’s actions that many in the world won’t understand, citing the Apostle Paul and the late Dr. King as examples of “a willingness to be fools for Christ.” The multicultural services praise team will lead the worship service.

Dow will speak at a community worship service 11 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 20, in Martin Chapel of the seminary building. He will speak on the theme, “Afraid Yet Filled With Joy” from Matt. 28:8.

The 91短视频 alumnus will reflect on Martin Luther King Jr. at the weekly “celebration” program 9 p.m. Sunday, also in Martin Chapel.

Dow will reflect on the civil rights leader’s life and legacy 10 a.m. Monday, Jan. 21 in the Campus Center Greeting Hall. He will speak on “A Clear and Present Danger.” The event is open to everyone.

While on campus, Dow will visit classes and interact with multicultural services personnel, the Black Student Union and other campus organizations and student athletes.

Dow, a former banker, joined Oxford Circle Mennonite Church in 1990 and grew into leadership roles there. He was called to pastor there in 1998. He also works with Mennonite Central Committee East Coast in relating to Philadelphia area Mennonite churches.

During his college years, Dow was a basketball standout as a forward for the 91短视频 Royals. He was named to the All-ODAC first team 1983-86, was ODAC Player of the Year in 1985 and holds the all-time men’s scoring record with 2,192 points and all-time leading rebound record with 1,102.

Dow’s wife, Rosalie Rolon-Dow, also a 1987 alumna, is a former member of the 91短视频 board of trustees. She is an associate professor of education at the University of Delaware.

All events are open to the public. For more information, contact 91短视频’s multicultural services office, 540-432-4458.