Since the majority of the students in the two-year-old program are headed to careers in healthcare, it makes sense that the first scholar-in-residence would be a healthcare provider, said program director Roman Miller, PhD.

Longacher retired in February 2013 and moved with his wife Constance to Harrisonburg, where they live near the 91����Ƶ campus. In his part-time volunteer role with the biomedicine program, he will advise the professors and consult with students on their research projects. Longacher will serve a two-year term, with the possibility of renewal.

Longacher will also lead a consulting biomedicine team that will be set up this fall. It will be comprised of experts in the healthcare field.

“This is a big deal to have clinical expertise on our leadership team,” said Miller. “We were looking for a physician or other healthcare provider with connections to Virginia’s hospitals, medical schools and healthcare leaders as well as the ability to wisely guide us in further development of our program.”

Miller, who is ���ѱ�’s longtime director of the , is himself the graduate of a biomedicine program. He earned his PhD in biomedical science at Kent State University in Ohio. A member of ���ѱ�’s faculty for 29 years, Miller is the Endowed Professor of Biology.

“Our master’s in biomedicine is a good way to get into the healthcare field, whether as an administrator, teacher or healthcare provider,” said Miller. In some cases, like his own, it will mean further study after 91����Ƶ at the doctoral level.

Many of the current biomedicine students at 91����Ƶ did not pursue majors in college that would lead to health-care careers but decided later that’s what they wanted. Fewer than half of the current students came directly from undergraduate studies in college.

Following his undergraduate work at 91����Ƶ, Longacher, from Newport News, Virginia, went to the Medical College of Virginia (now part of Virginia Commonwealth University) in Richmond. After an internship at a hospital in Pennsylvania, he served as a general practitioner in Appalachia under . He returned to Richmond for a residency in internal medicine and gastroenterology.

Next came three years at a clinic in Indiana, before Longacher settled in Richmond to focus on gastroenterology – dealing with the digestive system – at the McGuire Clinic, later renamed Virginia Physicians.

For most of his career in Richmond, Longacher was also a clinical professor of internal medicine at VCU. He mentored students at his clinic as well as teaching at the McGuire Veterans Administration Medical Center. A member of , Longacher related to some 50 Mennonite medical students at VCU over the years.

Longacher has been involved in a variety of leadership roles in his denomination, including two terms as moderator of . He served as president of and is completing a term this summer as president of its successor organization, .

“I’m looking forward to working with the other members of the advisory group to share our insights and help provide input from our experience,” Longacher said.

Addressing a well-filled Lehman Auditorium on Jan. 17, professor traced ���ѱ�’s history from the early 1940s and the first admission of black students, through the 1960s, when visiting black Mennonite activists challenged the white Mennonite community to raise their voices against racial inequality.

Before an even larger crowd on Jan. 20, professor (an expert on history and mission) spoke of the impact of King on the nation – indeed the world – but stressed that “we’ve domesticated him,” making him “palatable to our own image, our own dreams,” rather than responding to his call to address the “structural issues behind poverty.”

Both speakers shared a common theme: the dangers of adulation.

King’s posthumous transformation from man to superhero is “dangerous,” Sawin said, because such moral leaders are not “giants,” but regular people “who stumbled and wandered and worried as they strove to make a better world.”

“Take the first step”

Instead of comparing ourselves to King’s outsized image and yielding to feelings of fear and inadequacy, Sawin suggested following the example of King and those in the Eastern Mennonite community who struggled for integration: “Take the first step in faith,” Sawin said, quoting King. “You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step.”

91����Ƶ’s predecessor, Eastern Mennonite College, took its first steps toward desegregation, in defiance of local and state law, in the late 1940s. This change was not without controversy within the Mennonite community: though EMC became the first historically white college in Virginia to reverse its racial policy and accept a black student in 1948, the did not lift its strictures on integrated worship, including shared communion, foot-washing, and the kiss of brotherhood, until 1955.

Facing social, financial and academic obstacles (including overt and covert racism), the first six black students did not stay to complete their degrees, based on Sawin’s search of EMC records. Local resident Peggy Webb was urged to head to for her first two years of college, before 91����Ƶ belatedly let her enroll in 1950-51 and earn a degree in 1954. Her tenacity was surely influenced by her mother, Roberta Webb, a teacher and member of Broad Street Mennonite Church, who was a strong advocate of racial equality.

By the mid-1950s and 1960s, a handful of Mennonites – some from Eastern Mennonite, including Titus W. Bender ’57 – were active in the civil rights movement. (Bender, a professor emeritus who resides in Harrisonburg, spoke during chapel earlier in the week of his experiences as a pastor in the 1960s working on racial reconciliation efforts in Mississippi.) But while Mennonites were strong critics of the Vietnam War, their silence on civil rights eventually prompted King to level criticism. “Where have you Mennonites been?” he asked one church leader.

Prodded into action by the Hardings

The EMC community was eventually prompted into further action by African-American Mennonite activists Vincent and Rosemarie Harding (Vincent will speak on campus in February). During two visits to EMC in 1962 and 1963, the couple concluded that most white Mennonites were not aware of the effects of segregation. They challenged those who were aware to set aside their strict non-resistance practices to advocate for racial equality. In response, two professors formed an integrated committee that became largely responsible for the desegregation of Harrisonburg’s schools and hotels. Other Mennonite efforts followed, including attention to the subject by the official, and very popular, radio program of the Mennonite Church, “The Mennonite Hour.”

In his Monday chapel talk, Evans brought the discussion into the present by elaborating on Sawin’s suggestion that King’s image has been burnished, the jagged edges smoothed by the passage of time and the nation’s collective memory. King has been heavily memorialized – in the names of streets, schools and community centers; with larger-than-life statues; and in simplistic lessons for schoolchildren, said Evans. King is one of three Americans to be honored with a federal holiday. But these symbolic gestures have made him “less than the revolutionary he was.”

“By domesticating him, we’ve made him too big to imitate and perhaps too nice to matter,” Evans said. “Too many of us forget that though, today, King is revered, yesterday he was reviled.”

Motivated by divine discontent

Considered a Communist and an agitator, King was critical of white supremacy, economic exploitation, racial oppression, and worldwide violence. Though he advocated non-violence and passive resistance, King confronted white America with “anger, discontent, and maladjustment”– all qualities that Evans pointed out are removed from today’s popular image of King.

The collective memory of our nation has forever linked King to his famous “I Have a Dream” speech delivered in August 1963 at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Yet the qualities required to be a dreamer, Evans said, are those of the perpetually dissatisfied, what King himself described as the “divine discontent.” These qualities made King a towering force of energy, charisma and inspiration, but they also made him dangerous – and eventually led to his death.

To best honor King, Evans said, see him as who he was: as the revolutionary thinker expressing the anger of moral outrage, as a man of normal stature rather than the moral giant, as a culpable human with faults and excesses, and as the perpetual dreamer unsatisfied with the inequities of the world.

And to best honor King, “do not let the memory of a giant King comfort us more than the history of this small man. We can’t be content with the domestication of MLK or what he stood for. Be maladjusted. Be divinely discontented” about social and economic inequalities here in our own community, Evans said. “For if we are truly to walk in the way of Martin Luther King Jr., the missionary, we must be willing to walk as he walked.”

For more information about the history of African Americans at 91����Ƶ, see these stories and podcast:

Much pain, one big gain, from being an African American student at 91����Ƶ in 1962-63

“Take the First Step in Faith: A History of Inclusion at 91����Ƶ” – podcast featuring Mark Metzler Sawin

Slashcheva emigrated from Kazakhstan to the United States with her family at age 5. She started kindergarten in Harrisonburg, Va., with no knowledge of English. Thanks to an English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teacher, though, she got off to a good start.

“The ESL teacher engaged in my siblings’ and my lives well beyond the classroom,” Slashcheva says, “equipping us with the skills and motivation to succeed and excel in academics even as immigrant children.”

Ten years later Slashcheva was the valedictorian of her graduating class at Turner Ashby High School. At age 16? Yes, she had just finished her sophomore year, but she had acquired two years’ worth of credits by taking classes on the side at Blue Ridge Community College.

That fall of 2009 she planned to follow her older sister who had earned a at 91����Ƶ. “Nursing seemed like an attainable goal for an immigrant child,” she says, “and I was fascinated with science and passionate about serving others.”

But two weeks before starting college, Slashcheva went to a dentist’s office with her father to interpret for him. Dr. Dave Kenee was impressed with her and challenged her to consider a career in dentistry. Within a few weeks, she was shadowing Kenee at his practice and had transitioned into a at 91����Ƶ.

Slashcheva was in a hurry to get started in her life’s work. It took her only 2½ years to get through 91����Ƶ, by taking summer classes and applying previous college credits from Blue Ridge. And she was already building her résumé. While at 91����Ƶ she worked in the university’s , volunteered at , and traveled to Lithuania for three months as part of .

She found time to continue her interest in music by playing flute in and directing the choir at her church, .

Slashcheva looked for a dental school that shared ���ѱ�’s emphasis on service. She won a competitive scholarship to dental school from the federal government’s , which pays her entire tuition bill as well as a monthly stipend. She chose Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.

So how did Slashcheva spend her time between graduating from 91����Ƶ in December 2011 and entering VCU in August 2012? Take a break and leisurely prepare for dental school? No, she went on a four-month mission trip under the . She worked in dentistry and oral health in Honduras and Peru. “That developed my fascination for public health,” she says.

At age 19, Slashcheva entered the VCU School of Dentistry, plunging into her studies as well as student clubs and professional organizations. Her growing résumé now includes president of and nearby Medical College of Virginia (now with over 300 student members), director of tEEEth talk Community Education Workshops, founder/president of Special Care Interest Group, student leader of Christian Medical and Dental Association, and graduate teaching assistant for undergraduate students who are about her age.

Some of Slashcheva’s professors question why she is so involved in service programs at a time when she should be focusing on her professional development as a dentist. “But I want to be a Christian who happens to be a dentist—and not the other way around,” she says. “I learned that at 91����Ƶ.” She also learned to integrate faith and science.

Slashcheva is active at , where she is the music coordinator and a delegate to .

What’s next for the future Slashcheva when she graduates from VCU in 2016? “As a National Health Service Corps dental scholar, I have committed to practicing dentistry in an underserved area for four years at the start of my career,” she says. The commitment can be deferred, however, if she wants to seek specialty training. At this point she is thinking about post-graduate study in dental public health and geriatric dentistry.

A long résumé is not Slashcheva’s goal. But she is determined to surpass boundaries that were considered insurmountable. And she is driven to pursue a life of service that comes from her Christian family upbringing in a disadvantaged immigrant community.

“Early in my immigrant life, I realized that I may never completely assimilate into my surroundings,” says Slashcheva. “So I found it necessary to choose between being inferior or being extraordinary among my peers.”

Though the setup isn’t immediately indicative of a church service, that’s what makes The Table different.

The service, which started as week night get-togethers around town seven or eight years ago, has transformed into a regular Sunday morning gathering where individuals meet in a space to worship God in a creative and meaningful way. It’s a smaller group comprised of typically 25 to 30 people.

Although The Table is connected to and , the service hosts a variety of denominations every week.

Kris Shank Zehr, who started attending The Table not long after it was founded, says it was a new and refreshing experience.

One of the aspects about The Table that Shank Zehr enjoys the most is being a part of a smaller group and sitting in a ring among her fellow attendees.

The idea of sitting in circled chairs is done so everyone can see all present. Shank Zehr said that this creates “more meaningful interaction” where everyone can sit and “[engage] each other and the texts together.”

There is no appointed pastor at The Table, so the founding principle is the concept of “multiple voices,” , director of admissions at Eastern Mennonite Seminary and participant of The Table, said.

Sitting in a circle encourages participation, creating an open and inviting space where people can learn from one another and freely ask questions.

“I think [sitting in a circle] reflects the shared leadership model,” , assistant professor of Preaching and Practical Theology at Eastern Mennonite Seminary and fellow participant, said. “Leadership can come from anywhere around the circle and not from one particular spot.”

Daniel Miller, an Eastern Mennonite Seminary student who attends The Table, values how the service encourages everyone to share and lead as each individual deems appropriate.

“I appreciate that it asks something of everyone that attends. You become a participant, you’re not just a passive attender,” he said.

He referred to the adage, “you get out what you put into something,” explaining that “In the case of The Table, you get out a lot more if you put in a lot and you’re invited to put in a lot.”

Amstutz agreed. “When someone is up front, you’re paying a lot of attention to that person.

“I think [sharing leadership roles] does help us pay attention to each other more broadly, she said. “It really is a communal idea.”

Lectionary keeps group on track

Although services at The Table are typically “informal,” according to Amstutz, they do use a Lectionary, which is a book of designated portions of scripture that runs in a three-year cycle. The group chose to do so as it requires covering a variety of scripture, even the “hard ones,” Amstutz explained. And because each attendee is invited to share and lead as the group collectively sits in a circle, the floor is always open for questions and discussion.

In all that it does, The Table strives to do so creatively, even when it comes to approaching scripture. The group engages texts in different ways than just through a sermon – meaning that no two Sunday mornings are the same. The scripture designated for a Sunday service is complemented by some sort of creative activity, such as a skit, artist rendering, or even a children’s story.

“[Service is] always somehow original, [and] allows us to engage with more learning styles than just auditory,” Miller explained. “So, if you’re more artistic or musical or you want to talk to people or you just want to be silent – there’s so many more ways of engaging each other.”

Although there is no designated pastor, there is a Leadership Team, which Amstutz facilitates. Other members, including Shank Zehr, Sancken and Miller, take turns planning services.

Sancken explained that the focus on creativity originates with a creative God.

“We understand God as dynamic, as changing, as moving, as reaching out to connect with us in a variety of ways. A God who is a creator, who has created diversely and so there are a lot of ways that we can reflect that in our worship,” Sancken said.

Shank Zehr encouraged a reflection in the word “creative,” which at its root has the word create – a reminder of the Creator Himself.

Come for the diversity

Amstutz encourages anyone who visits The Table to come multiple Sundays because of the diversity in services, but one Sunday activity can be expected: The Table concludes service with a shared meal.

“Jesus shared meals with his friends; clearly eating was a part of Jesus’ ministry,” Shank Zehr explained. “That’s an integral part of how The Table started and what we continue: sharing in communion and for the noon meal after worship.”

“It’s been one of the things that holds us together, a place where we can connect with each other; a chance for us to be together in an informal way,” she added.

Another integral part of The Table is making sure the group creates a hospitable environment and maintains a flexible outlook, Shank Zehr said.

“From the beginning, one of the founders would say to us: If someone has energy for a particular task or project or aspect of church life, let’s do it; if someone doesn’t have energy, it is not sustainable and we let it go,” she said.

The Table strives to remain a group that isn’t too heavily focused on a five-year plan, but they are focused on listening to where God wants them to be.

In addition to planning services, the Leadership Team also deals with administrative details of The Table and “thinking about the mission and the vision and who [they] are and where [they’re] going,” Amstutz explained.

“What we’ve been talking a little bit about is really just making sure we’re listening to what God is telling us, where God is moving for us,” she said of the team’s goals, adding that “God is in some ways a mystery,” so they can’t know exactly where The Table will be heading.

What they do know for sure is that The Table is a welcoming place for anyone.

“If you’re looking for relationships and deeper connections, that’s something that’s provided at a church like this.” Sancken said.

“It might be really different than what people are used to,” Shank Zehr added. “It’s a small group, it’s very informal, it’s intimate but it might be surprisingly refreshing.”

Courtesy Daily News Record, Nov. 9, 2013

Kauffman has extensive local and international mission experience serving most recently as VMM global ministries director and advancement associate since 2011. A seven-member search committee of members began their work in June 2013, and recommended Kauffman to the VMM Board.

Phyllis Miller, chair of the VMM Board states, “We are delighted with Aaron’s selection as president. His unanimous selection by the Board indicates a trust level in his leadership along with a proven track record as global ministries director. We are grateful to God for this servant leader he has given us to lead VMM for this next period of time.”

Kauffman will follow Loren Horst, who has served since 2002 as VMM president. Loren and his wife, Earlene, will be considering future VMM mission assignments after he concludes his current role on December 31, 2013. He states, “I am very pleased with the selection of Aaron Kauffman. Aaron is relationally warm, missiologically sound, and administratively competent. He combines mission passion with a deep faith in Jesus and love for the entire church. Aaron’s mission experience and proven leadership have prepared him well for this additional responsibility. I offer my full and prayerful support.”

Growing up in Pennsylvania, and attending , Mountville, Pa., Kauffman recounts learning a mission-minded way of living through the congregation’s refugee ministry, active youth group and mentoring relationships with church members, including mission leader, David Shenk of . As a result, he eagerly participated in local and international short-term mission experiences while a high-school and college student.

After completing a bachelor of arts in at 91����Ƶ (91����Ƶ), he finished a MA in TESOL and bilingual education at Georgetown University in 2003. Following two years as an ESL teacher in , he and his wife Laura were jointly appointed by VMM and and served from 2005-2008 in La Mesa, Colombia, as church youth group leaders, members of a church planting team, and as a teacher and a nurse, respectively, at the local Mennonite school.

Upon returning to Harrisonburg, Va., to attend seminary, he became curriculum coordinator of the at 91����Ƶ while also teaching university courses in language instruction and methodology. He completed a in 2012. He has since taught undergraduate courses in as adjunct professor at 91����Ƶ.

Upon his selection, Kauffman notes, “It is truly an honor to be asked to serve Virginia Mennonite Missions in this way. With God’s help and the church’s prayerful support, I look forward to continuing VMM’s legacy of faithful witness to the good news of Jesus Christ. It is an exciting time to be part of what God is doing around the world through the church.”

Aaron and Laura Kauffman are members of , Broadway, Va., a congregation of Virginia Mennonite Conference. They have four children, Abigail, 8, Sophie, 6, Asher, 3, and David, 3 months. Laura Michelle Souder Kauffman completed a at 91����Ƶ in 2002 and has worked as a maternal health nurse. She is currently a member of a VMM Ministry Support Team and a stay-at-home mother. Their parents are Paul and Donna Souder, Harrisonburg, Va. and Dennis and Rose Kauffman, Lancaster, Pa.

Virginia Mennonite Missions was formed in 1919, with headquarters in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Now with a budget of $2.5 million, its mission is to invite people to faithful living in Jesus Christ by forming and enabling congregations and individuals to continue God’s reconciling work in the world. Approximately 75 persons serve in 16 countries including the United States in the areas of disciple-making and church planting, education, leadership development, deaf ministry, refugee ministry and urban ministry.

Article courtesy Virginia Mennonite Missions, Oct. 21, 2013

Among the family’s favorites were the autobiographical children’s books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. “It was delightful,” Lois recalls. “Three generations together. … I still like to read to others.”

Books. Lois Bowman has been immersed in them for 50 years at 91����Ƶ.

In 1963, Lois began working in ���ѱ�’s , plus doing some language teaching. She’s remained in the library ever since, now directing it. At 77, she is the most senior member of the school’s faculty and staff – in length of service and in age.

Library visitors might guess that Lois belongs to a branch of the Mennonites that is more conservative, less modern, than most of the Mennonites employed at 91����Ƶ. She is never seen at work in slacks – or without sleeves covering her upper arms and a prayer veil over her pinned-back hair.

Raised in a conservative Mennonite family

Her appearance does offer clues to her background. Lois was raised in a conservative Mennonite family. Lois’s beloved mother wore a cape dress until she died in 1991. Wade, whom Lois married in 1962, liked for Lois to maintain the tradition of wearing the covering, though he himself dispensed with wearing the traditional “plain coat” as a young adult.��

Since affiliating with (a rural church west of 91����Ƶ) as a teenager, Lois has kept her membership with that congregation over the decades, though she has not been in its pews for many years. In 2002 Morning View withdrew from – with which 91����Ƶ has close connections ­– and helped form a network of conservative churches called .

Yet it would be misleading to draw conclusions based on Lois’s church background and clothing. Lois actually worships at the Oak Lea chapel within . “I started going to Oak Lea when Father was living there – he died in 1987 – and I just kept on.” The services at Oak Lea are led ecumenically by two Mennonite pastors, who regularly invite ministers from other denominations to preach.

It’s a place where instrumental music is welcomed each Sunday – Lois plays the organ there twice a month –– in contrast to Morning View, where Sunday morning worship typically features a cappella singing in four-part harmony.

It’s also a place where Lois is likely the only worshiper on a typical Sunday morning to be wearing a prayer covering. She’s also likely the only worshiper who spends her off hours engaged in vigorous exercising, doing her own lawn and garden work, plus bicycling for miles at a time almost every day.

Avid bicyclist, defying stereotypes

This year, for the second year in a row, , for which she’s logged 776 miles since May 1, the first day of the contest (it ends Sept. 30). Until 2011, when she had back surgery, she often hiked and camped in Shenandoah National Park.

Lois has always belied stereotypes ­–­ or defied them.

She grew up with her hair in pigtails, wearing home-sewn dresses and jumpers. But she wasn’t living in a conservative Mennonite enclave for much of her childhood. She had this appearance while attending a public school in a Maryland suburb of Washington D.C. until she was 12 – her father was working in that area, first in construction and then in a paint store.

When he moved the family back to Harrisonburg in the late 1940s, they settled in a white-frame house with a large front porch on an acre fronting Chicago Ave., two blocks from what was then Eastern Mennonite College. (The house still stands, though the large garden area in the back is now occupied by the Red Bud apartment complex.)

Lois’s mother initially earned pocket money selling Stanley Home Products and then, back in Harrisonburg, working for a Christian book distributor. From these earnings she paid for Lois’s piano lessons. (Lois’s father drove a milk-delivery truck after they settled near EMC.)

In her late teens, Lois started taking violin lessons with James Harman, owner of Harman School of Music, who taught music at area colleges and did public performances, such as playing violin with the orchestra that accompanied local silent movies in the 1920s.

By the time Lois entered EMC to study modern language education in 1956, she had added the violin to her musical repertoire. In recent years, Lois began playing fiddle in local jams of old-time music.

Off to Harvard on full scholarship!

After graduating from EMC in 1960 with a German major and education minor, Lois worked half time in the historical library and half time in the president’s office, where President John Mumaw encouraged her to apply for a scholarship to Harvard through the Council for the Advancement of Small Colleges in which he was active.

On her application, she said she wanted to study German ­– it was part of her Mennonite heritage, after all (her mother grew up speaking Pennsylvania Dutch). Lois didn’t expect to garner one of the five scholarships offered that year for women graduates of small colleges across the nation. “I was dating Wade at the time and graduate school was not a top priority.” But when she got the scholarship, “I had to go.” After her first year at Harvard, she and Wade married and he joined her in Cambridge, Mass.

With a master’s degree in hand, Lois returned to EMC in 1963, where she taught German and Latin and worked in the historical library, which was then in the area where the dining hall now sits in Northlawn. Until the mid-1960s, as Lois recalls, EMC female faculty members were required to wear cape dresses, obliging Lois to forgo the skirts and blouses she sported at Harvard.

In the spring of 1964, when she was visibly pregnant, Lois looked into a mirror, didn’t like how her cape dress was fitting, and said “enough.” To this day, she typically wears skirts and blouses, unless she is mowing the lawn or running a weed eater, hiking in rough areas, or doing other activities where leg protection is clearly needed.

“My Bible says that widows and orphans are to be taken care of,” says Lois in her forthright manner. “I’m a widow, so I am helping to take care of myself by dressing with my safety in mind.”

Stellar credentials, but still deferring to a male academic

As classes in Latin and German were phased out, Lois came to spend all her time in the library, beginning around 1970, when construction of the new Sadie Hartzler Library was underway.

Lois explains that a significant portion of the historical library’s collection of 40,000 books was selected by Irvin B. Horst, an EMC church history professor who moved to the Netherlands in 1967 to teach Mennonite history at the University of Amsterdam. From the 1940s until his death in 2011, Horst collected Anabaptist-themed books, many from the Netherlands. (The Menno Simons Historical Library is named for a former Catholic priest, a Dutchman, who led the Anabaptist/Mennonite movement in the Netherlands in the 16^th century.)��

In 1987 Lois earned a second master’s degree ­– this time in library science from The Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. Her focus was rare books, giving her the skills to care for the library’s collection of aging materials. She is able to curate books that are in German, French, Latin and Dutch.

Despite her stellar academic credentials, Lois said she did not second-guess Irvin B. Horst. He held a doctorate and was an expert in Mennonite history. He was a man. She was a woman. “His decisions impacted everything we did,” says Lois. The impact was mostly good, but Lois is now ready to assert herself on one matter. “We have too much Erasmus stuff. Irvine had us subscribe to the complete works of Erasmus in its definitive Latin form.” The first 36 volumes of Erasmus (additional volumes keep being published) occupy more than three shelves in one corner of the library.

“Nobody has ever used even one of these volumes,” Lois says. “The old boy network was so strong, we [women librarians] pretty well did what they told us to do,” though she hastens to add that Horst treated women respectfully. It just didn’t feel appropriate to question his judgment.

In 1990 EMC asked Lois to take over as head librarian of the historical library upon the retirement of her supervisor, Grace Showalter, on June 30. It was a date that Showalter did not reach. She unexpectedly died during her last week and was buried on June 30.

Lois’s close colleague today is Cathy Baugh, who works three-fourths time. Lois also supervises two student assistants.

When Lois herself retires in June 2014, she plans to remain in the house on Mt. Clinton Pike where she has lived since 1964. She’ll have lots to occupy her: enjoying her two grandchildren and many nieces and nephews, playing fiddle, organ and piano, bicycling, ham radio, word games like Scrabble, retreating to her cabin at Singers Glen, and church activities at Oak Lea. Plus she plans to return to the library as an enthusiastic volunteer.

VMRC, neighboring 91����Ƶ (91����Ƶ) on the northeast, has a $20 million annual budget, 400 employees, and 750 residents in a wide range of homes and other accommodations.

Trumbo is perhaps best known for directing the transition in 2010 of R from Cantrell Avenue in downtown Harrisonburg to a new 660,000-square-foot facility at the eastern edge of the city.

After the hospital move, Trumbo served as RMH’s acting director of perioperative services (surgery and all the services surrounding it). For 20 years before the move, she was director of RMH Home Healthcare.

Trumbo went to work at RMH as a registered nurse after her graduation from 91����Ƶ as a major. She also holds a master of business administration degree from James Madison University.

Over the years, Trumbo has been active in leadership roles with the , , , , , and ElderAlliance. Currently she chairs the and serves as an associate trustee on the 91����Ƶ board of trustees.

“Judith has the financial astuteness, strategic planning experience, knowledge of our industry, and strong communication skills to lead VMRC,” said Sheryl (King) Wyse ‘68, chair of the board of directors. “In addition, Judith is well respected throughout the Harrisonburg and Rockingham County communities for her professional and volunteer leadership contributions.”

Yoder is wrapping up 13 years as president of VMRC, where he strengthened the organization’s financial health and enhanced its culture of innovation and quality. Under his leadership, VMRC added Woodland Park, , , Transitional Care, and Outpatient Rehabilitation Services.

Yoder became president of VMRC in 1999 after being vice president for global ministries at (now Mennonite Mission Network) in Elkhart, Ind. Before that he served the as regional representative for in India, Bangladesh and Nepal.

As an 91����Ƶ student, Yoder was a major. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh in public and international affairs. Yoder said hopes to stay engaged on a part-time basis as a consultant in the field of international development.

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.

“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.”

Lars Akerson and Jonathan Spicher are well aware of the major challenge, risk and unknowns facing them, but they feel confident that they’ll persevere "with God’s protection and the support of family and friends."

A large group of well-wishers stood in the cold rain Tuesday morning, Jan. 6, as Akerson, 22, of Harrisonburg, and Spicher, 20, of Lancaster, Pa., left Virginia Mennonite Conference headquarters in Park View, pointing their 27-speed touring bikes southward. Six months and some 8,500 miles later, they hope to arrive in Asuncion, Paraguay, to attend two global church meetings.

The 15th Mennonite World Conference Assembly, set for July 13-19 in Asuncion, is expected to draw upwards of 7,500 people from North and South America, Europe and other nations. The event will be preceded by a Global Youth Summit, July 10-12. The first such gathering was held in 2003 in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, and attracted more than 220 young adults from 28 countries. Akerson hopes that many more will attend this time.

It’s an adventure, certainly, but more than that the pair will seek to raise funds to help more young adults from other countries to attend the youth summit.

They’ll also engage individuals, Anabaptist churches and larger groups along the way, do much listening to others’ concerns and vision for the church, but they also anticipate doing service projects as they arise in keeping with the focus of the youth summit, "Service: Live the Difference."

They also worked with persons at Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), Akron, Pa., and with Mennonite Church conferences in setting up contacts along their route.

Lars Akerson (l.) and Jonathan Spicher ready their bike equipment before departing. Photo by Lindsey Roeschley

Akerson graduated from 91����Ƶ the spring of 2008, a double major in mathematics and liberal arts with a minor in Spanish. He was one of 10 recipients of 91����Ƶ’s "Cords of Distinction" recognition for significant contributions to the school and broader community.

Spicher plans to return to 91����Ƶ this fall as a senior biology/premed major. His biking venture will fulfill the school’s cross-cultural requirement, and he’ll receive additional credits for independent study related to the trek.

The first segment of the journey will include stops in Durham, N.C., and at Jubilee Partners in Comer, Ga. They’ll travel through Alabama, Louisiana and Texas and cross into Mexico, through Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and finally, Paraguay.

They’ve invited persons to join them for sections of the ride, for a few miles or several days.

They hope to spend time interacting with the 91����Ƶ cross-cultural spring semester seminar group whose time in Guatemala will coincide with the men’s travels. They’ll also visit MCC workers in various locations and Conservative Mennonite Conference personnel in Ecuador.

Asked about the weather uncertainties and risk and safety factors of this major trek across two continents, Akerson and Spicher gave knowing looks and remained silent awhile before responding.

"Our main concern is the last leg of the trip," Akerson said. "We’ll spend much of the last two months biking in elevations up to 14,000 feet above sea level."

"We will be vulnerable, but we’re relying on persons’ hospitality and intentionally depending on God and others for safety and protection," Spicher stated. "We’ve done some planning for contingencies but can’t anticipate everything that could happen along the way."

Akerson and Spicher mount their bikes as they head out of Harrisonburg. Photo by Lindsey Roeschley

Nancy Heisey, chair of the Bible and religion department at 91����Ƶ and president of Mennonite World Conference, called the pair’s impending venture both "exciting and scary."

"I admire the amount of energy Lars and Jonathan are putting into this journey," Dr. Heisey said, "but even more, I’m pleased that they are demonstrating a commitment to spiritual growth as well as the significant contribution they want to make to other young adults around the world."

The pair has set up an interactive web site () where they will provide regular updates of their journey with personal reflections, stories and photos. Anyone who wants to contribute to the fund-raising effort can do so at the same site.

"We hope that our journey will encourage and add to an intercultural conversation about discerning and living Christ’s call with integrity," said Akerson.

Added Spicher: "Biking together is a great relationship-building endeavor. I’m excited to have this opportunity for two-way learning with brothers and sisters and for spiritual growth."

Two experts in Anabaptist studies have collaborated on the first scholarly examination of pacifism during the Civil War.

“Mennonites, Amish and the American Civil War,” by James O. Lehman of Harrisonburg and Steven M. Nolt of Goshen, Ind., describes the various strategies used by the sectarian religious groups in responding to the North-South conflict and the effects of war on these communities.

Lehman is librarian emeritus at 91����Ƶ, archivist for Virginia Mennonite Conference and the author of nine congregational histories and a book on 20th century Mennonite revivalism.

Steven M. Nolt, professor of history at Goshen (Ind.) College and coauthor of two books on Amish faith and life

Nolt is professor of history at Goshen (Ind.) College and coauthor of two books on Amish faith and life, both published by Johns Hopkins University Press.

Bloodiest War in American History

Integrating the most recent Civil War scholarship with little-known primary sources and new information from Pennsylvania and Virginia to Illinois and Iowa, Lehman and Nolt provide a definitive account of the Anabaptist experience during the bloodiest war in American history with 620,000 dead and over a million maimed and wounded.

The authors focus on moral dilemmas Mennonites and Amish faced that that tested the very core of their faith: How to oppose both slavery and the war to end it? How to remain outside the conflict without entering the American mainstream to secure legal conscientious objector status.

The book serves as a good reminder that not all churches immersed themselves in super-charged patriotism for either the Confederacy or the Union.

“The book is an easy read, with lots of arresting stories of faith under test,” said Albert N. Keim, professor emeritus of history at 91����Ƶ. “Its amazingly thorough research makes the book convincing. After reading it, I was convinced I had just acquired an accurate understanding of my forbears response to the Civil War,” he added.

The 376-page hardback book, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, is available for $39.95 at leading bookstores and at www.amazon.com.

Auctioneer H.L. Wenger of Harrisonburg calls for bids on Brownie and Gladys Driver’s Log Cabin Cross quilted wall hanging, a duplicate of one the sisters made earlier that was given to Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Photo by Jim Bishop

A 21″ by 31″ quilted wall hanging, “Log Cabin Cross,” the sisters made this summer to donate to the relief sale instead was purchased by 91����Ƶ as a gift to Rev. Desmond Tutu. The Anglican Archbishop was in Harrisonburg on Sept. 21 – the International Day of Peace – to receive an award from the Gandhi Center for Global Nonviolence at James Madison University in recognition of his peacemaking work in his native South Africa.

91����Ƶ President Loren Swartzendruber and other 91����Ƶ officials participated in a tree-planting ceremony at the Gandhi Center earlier that day and gave the Nobel Laureate the Drivers’ handmade wall hanging.

The $500 91����Ƶ paid for the piece was donated to , the worldwide relief and service agency based in Akron, Pa.

Back to Work

In a two-week period immediately following, the Driver sisters fashioned a second identical Log Cabin Cross wall hanging that went for $525 during Saturday’s auction.

The Driver sisters, residents of Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community, have created paintings, quilts, comforters and wall hangings to donate to the sale every year since the event began in 1967. “It’s something we can do,” Gladys Driver said. “We’d feel like something was missing if we didn’t participate in this way.”

This year’s sale raised $310,000 in gross receipts for Mennonite Central Committee, nearly identical to last year’s sale.

‘Penny Power’ Project

These funds include approximately $21,835 for the “Penny Power” project, initiated in 2001, in which area congregations and other groups collect coins and currency in large water jugs for weeks or months and bring their containers to the sale for sorting and tabulating.

The “Penny Power” funds will be divided equally between MCC and . MCC’s portion will be used to minister to AIDS orphans and vulnerable children in 11 countries. VMBM will use its portion to support the ministry of Micah, Adam and Isaiah Riddle, children of missionaries Chris and Melody Riddle in Italy.

An auction of handmade quilts, wall hangings, knotted comforters and afghans, artwork and wooden handcrafted items accounted for $120,000 of the total funds raised.

$1,000 or More

Around 19 items went for $1,000 or more.

A wall hanging designed and pieced by Carmen Wyse of Community Mennonite Church and quilted by Grace Mumaw of Lindale Mennonite Church that was made from feed sacks of the 1930s and 1940s went for $6,100.

A 13th edition of the “Harmonia Sacra” songbook created by Joseph Funk and published in 1869 went for $1,200.

There’s no glazed expression for first-year 91����Ƶ student Ingrid Johnson, one of many volunteers in the homemade donut operation. The process started at midnight, and persons worked three-hour shifts in making 15,000 of the confectionery delights. Photo by Jim Bishop

Again this year the venue included such popular food items as 15,000 homemade glazed donuts, 150 gallons of Brunswick stew made on the premises by members of Springdale and Mt. View Mennonite churches in Augusta County, 3,000 barbecued chicken halves, homemade potato chips and apple butter and cider.

Live Radio Broadcast

The sale opened with a Friday afternoon two-hour live radio broadcast called “Down Home Shenandoah” on radio station WSIG, 96.9 FM. Using music and storytelling, the program sought to interpret the history and culture of the various Mennonite groups in the central Valley area. The broadcast ended with the audience joining in singing “606” (now #118 in the Brethren-Mennonite hymnal), “Praise God from Whom all Blessings Flow.”

“This was an experiment of sorts, an attempt to bring back ‘old-time radio’ that you seldom hear anymore while trying to relate some of the area Mennonites’ church’s distinctives and traditions,” said Hal Dubois, co-host of the show.

“The sale auction seemed a bit different this year in that there weren’t a lot of ‘big ticket’ items, said Marvin Nisly, relief sale chair. “No quilt went for more than $4,000, yet at the same time the auction generated almost the same amount as last year.

Nisly thought the unseasonably warm weather helped draw “a larger than usual crowd,” adding: “I’m always amazed at the way everything comes together [at the sale] and the amount of good will that is generated as people support this relief effort.”

The Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale is held annually on the first Saturday in October. It began on the Wenger farm near Waynesboro and expanded to Augusta Expoland in 1974. The sale moved to the Rockingham County Fairgrounds in 1999.

Emily Derstine, a JPCS major at 91����Ƶ, with her supervisor, Kirk Hanger, an 91����Ƶ alumnus, at Nueva Esperanza/New Hope Fellowship in suburban Washington, D.C.

A record-setting 10 students have begun internships with congregations through Franconia Mennonite Conference as part of Mennonite Church USA‘s (MIP). The group includes three 91����Ƶ students.

Two 91����Ƶ students will intern with congregations in the Midwest:

• John Tyson, a sophomore at 91����Ƶ and a member at Souderton (PA) Mennonite congregation, will intern at Christ Community Church in Des Moines, Iowa;
• 91����Ƶ sophomore Jordan Good, a member of Bally Mennonite congregation, will spend 11 weeks with the Walnut Hill congregation in Goshen, Ind.

Emily Derstine of Plains Mennonite congregation, Lansdale, Pa., an 91����Ƶ sophomore, will spend her summer in suburban Washington, D.C. with Nueva Esperanza/New Hope Fellowship, a “Partner in Mission” congregation with Franconia Conference.

Hands-on Experience

The Ministry Inquiry Program is an 11-week internship traditionally available to any student attending a Mennonite college. Students interested in a specific area of ministry – usually, but not limited to, pastoral ministry – gain hands-on experience by working alongside a supervisor in their respective discipline.

The inquiry program is offered year-round but is most popular in the summer, and all participants are given a stipend for their work.

This year, through a grant from Eastern Mennonite Seminary, three Franconia Conference students attending non-Mennonite institutions will participate in MIP.

• Tim Moyer, a sophomore at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia from the Blooming Glen (PA) congregation;
• Felicia Moore, member at New Beginnings Community Church in Bristol, Pa., who is in her second year at Indiana University of Pennsylvania;
• Philadelphia Praise Center attendee and first-year Penn State University student, Andrew Liemon.

Moyer will work with Franconia Mennonite Conference, while Moore and Liemon will assist with ministries at their home congregations.

Several students will work with congregations on the East coast:

• Jessica Cassel, a sophomore at Bluffton University, will work in youth ministry at her home congregation, Souderton (PA) Mennonite;
• Peter Koontz, a member at Assembly Mennonite and Goshen College junior from Elkhart, Ind., will intern with Oxford Circle congregation in Philadelphia.
• Mercy Oyana, a Goshen College sophomore from West Philadelphia Mennonite Fellowship, will work alongside managers at Spruce Lake Camp in the Pocono Mountains.
• Krista Ehst, a Goshen College junior and member at Perkasie (PA) Mennonite congregation, will work alongside Tim Moyer at Franconia Conference headquarters in Souderton.

All participants are beginning their work at the end of May and will finish towards the beginning of August. Eight of the students are college sophomores.

Daniel B. Suter, professor emeritus of and developer of the at 91����Ƶ, died Dec. 24, 2006, at Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community where he was a resident. He was 86.

Dr. Suter joined the science department at 91����Ƶ in 1948 and eventually became head of the biology department and pre-med advisor. He retired in 1985.

, completed in 1967, was named after Suter “in recognition of his leadership in the development of the school’s science/pre-medical program and his influence among students during his teaching years.”

Doctor of the Year

During his tenure, 91����Ƶ students had an acceptance rate of more than 85 percent into medical, dental and veterinary schools, well above the national average of 40-50 percent. He was named “Doctor of the Year” in 1985 by the Mennonite Medical Association and the Mennonite Nurses’ Association.

The board of trustees of 91����Ƶ established the Dr. Daniel B. Suter Endowed Biology Chair on Sept. 19, 1986 in honor of his distinguished teaching career and “contributions to academic excellence and the highest standards of personal and spiritual maturity in the .”

Dr. Roman J. Miller, who joined the 91����Ƶ faculty in 1985, was named first appointee to the Suter Chair.

“When I arrived at 91����Ƶ as an associate professor of biology, Dr. Suter was gracious and helpful as I began teaching some courses that he had taught and assumed premedical advising responsibilities in a program that he had largely developed,” Dr. Miller said. “Through his excellence in teaching and carefulness in advising students, Dr. Suter created a legacy of influential premedical training.”

Dr. Daniel B. Suter and wife Grace at Daniel’s 80th birthday party, April 2000, in the Suter Science Center.

Servant of the Church

Suter was ordained a minister in Virginia Mennonite Conference in 1951 and served as pastor of Gospel Hill Mennonite Church and later Weavers Mennonite Church in Rockingham County. He also served the broader church as a visiting minister and teacher. He spoke in many settings on the harmful effects of alcohol use and abuse on the body and on “the biology of aging.”

He served as secretary of Virginia Mennonite Board of Missions and as a board member of both Mennonite Broadcasts, Inc. (now Mennonite Media) and VMRC.

Suter was a skilled woodworker and strong advocate of church music, promoting singing from the “Harmonia Sacra,” a songbook edited and first published by Joseph Funk of Singers Glen, Va., in 1832.

Suter was a graduate of Eastern Mennonite High School, Eastern Mennonite College, Bridgewater College, Vanderbilt University and the Medical College of Virginia, where he received a Ph.D. in neuroanatomy in 1963.

Divine Placement

91����Ƶ President Loren Swartzendruber noted that Suter was offered a faculty position at UVa. at three times the salary that 91����Ƶ had paid him. Suter felt compelled to return to 91����Ƶ because “I believed that’s where the Lord wanted me to be.”

Asked if he had any regrets, his response was “No, not really, although it was difficult at times. I’m grateful when I think about the more than 300 physicians, dentists, and other health care workers who are serving all over the world that I helped to train.”

He married the former Grace Fisher on June 23, 1941, who preceded him in death on Dec. 8, 2003. He is survived by two daughters, two sons, one sister, six grandchildren, five great-grandchildren and many nieces and nephews.

A memorial service was held Dec. 29, 2006 at Strite Auditorium of VMRC, with internment at Weavers Mennonite Church cemetery.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Daniel B. Suter Endowed Chair at 91����Ƶ, 1200 Park Rd., Harrisonburg, VA 22802 or online at or by phoning (800) 368-3383.

Former 91����Ƶ faculty member Roy D. Roth, of Eugene, Ore., died Dec. 15, 2005 at age 84.

In 1972, after receiving a master of church music degree from the University of Oregon, Roth joined the music department at 91����Ƶ, where he taught and directed choirs until 1977. He then became associate professor of church music at Eastern Mennonite Seminary and directed the seminary choir until 1986.

During his tenure, Roth developed and coordinated the Shenandoah Valley Hymn Festival held the third Sunday of November each year on campus, co-sponsored by 91����Ƶ and Virginia Mennonite Conference.

During this same time period, Roth was minister of music and pastor of the elderly at Harrisonburg Mennonite Church. He returned to Oregon in 1989.

Roth received degrees from Goshen (Ind.) College in 1942 and 1945 and graduated from Princeton (N.J.) Theological Seminary in 1947.

Ordained in 1944, he was a minister and then became president of Hesston (Kan.) College, 1951-59. From there, he served a pastorate near Siletz, Ore.

On Aug. 28, 1945, he married Carolyn Byler, who survives. Also surviving are four children, a sister, six grandchildren and one great-grandson.

A memorial celebration was held Dec. 21, 2005 at Wesley United Methodist Church, Eugene, Ore.