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Mennonite Church USA examines educational opportunities

Elaine Moyer and Steve Bustos work at a table group session during the recent Education Opportunities Summit Feb. 19 to 21 in Los Angeles. Summit participants included representatives from educational institutions of all levels and area conference, constituency group, churchwide ministry and constituency group leaders. Moyer represented Christopher Dock Mennonite High School in Lansdale, Pa., and Bustos represented MMA. Photo by Marathana Prothro

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – “God’s going to do a brand new thing. God’s strength, power and desire will bring it about; I pray that we will be able to receive it.” Addie Banks, a pastoral leader from New York City and Mennonite Church USA Executive Board member, shared this vision with participants during the recent Education Opportunities Summit in Los Angeles.

Mennonite Education Agency collaborated with Mennonite Mission Network and Mennonite Church USA Intercultural Relations to sponsor the Feb. 19 to 21 event, with the aim of addressing the education needs of Racial/Ethnic and urban church members. It was the second event in the denomination’s Urban and Racial/Ethnic Education Initiative.

Summit participants (including representatives from educational institutions of all levels and area conference, constituency group and urban leaders) decided together on the next step – an Education Opportunities Task Force to articulate a holistic education vision for urban and Racial/Ethnic members of Mennonite Church USA. The Education Agency was asked to commission the task force this summer and provide annual updates on its work.

Mennonite Church USA uses the term “Racial/Ethnic” to refer to those who have been underrepresented or excluded because of race/ethnicity. The term generally includes African-American, Hispanic, Asian and Native American people, among others.

“People should care about this because, ultimately, it’s an issue of being the kind of faithful community that God wants us to be,” said Mennonite Education Agency executive director Carlos Romero. “And it’s not about a one-way flow of resources; it’s about different parts learning to give to each other.”

Romero said many people within Mennonite Church USA are aware that the needs exist, but it’s necessary to establish priorities. “As a small denomination we cannot do it all. Together, we need to determine what needs to focus on.” He named increasing the number of Mennonite Racial/Ethnic and urban students in the church’s schools as one such focus.

Jim Schrag, executive director of Mennonite Church USA, said just and equitable access to education is part of its agenda as an anti-racist and missional denomination. Moderator Roy Williams, who pastors a Florida congregation, added, “We are determined that Anabaptist education is an expectation and not an exception for our youth.”

As they worked together, summit participants focused on three themes: accessibility, trust and leadership. Future work will include assessing the needs of Racial/Ethnic and urban Mennonites, developing partnerships and increasing leadership capacity.

They also encouraged people throughout Mennonite Church USA to begin or continue their own grassroots efforts to increase accessibility to education for urban dwellers and Racial/Ethnic people and share information about these efforts with Mennonite Education Agency.

Rosalind E. Andreas, chair of the MEA Board of Directors, said she marveled at “the talent, creativity, gifts, dedication and hard work that is being done to live out God’s purpose. My hope is that as we continue this journey we will start with a celebration of all the entrepreneurial activity that is still alive.”

“I feel that we are moving in the right direction,” Romero said. “This summit was a catalyst to move us forward with our missional effort to create education opportunities for all of Mennonite Church USA.”

Commentary: Issue of healthcare access hits close to home for this doctor

Dr. Glen E. Miller

I can remember when economic depression ruled the day and I was a 12-year-old boy who wore hand-me-down clothes. I was aware of the scarcity of money, which was tempered by my large and loving family. Back then, I was an avid reader and found a book that shaped my life, Dr. York, Hill Doctor, and continues to motivate me today.

In this book, Dr. York left his comfortable lifestyle to serve the people in the hills of Eastern Kentucky. They were people who lived in fear and superstition, and they suffered daily because they didn’t have access to healthcare. After my first reading, I picked the book up and read through it again. It was then I decided I wanted to be like Dr. York.

I grew up, got married, had children, and spent many hours preparing for a career in the medical field. I’ve now realized my dream of being a doctor. In my two years of voluntary service as a doctor in Haiti, I saw poverty and deprivation, and despite seeing up to 125 patients per day, I realized it was never enough. I saw similar circumstances in Egypt and India as well.

Many are not surprised to hear of a lack of healthcare access in developing countries, which is why we support ministries that provide much-needed healthcare to people who otherwise would go without or suffer from unnecessary disease and illness. However, we are facing a serious healthcare access issue in the United States, the richest country in the world, and many of us have been left wondering how we can make a difference for our brothers and sisters who live next door and across the street – maybe even the people who sit next to us in the pew at church.

I’ve seen the results of a lack of access to healthcare in other parts of the world, and in my mind, the people who lack healthcare access in this country are indistinguishable from their fellow sufferers in developing countries.

Our system is built on employer-supplied health insurance. Yet 46 million people have no insurance and struggle to realize the benefits of the otherwise best system of healthcare in the world. These people make difficult choices between food and medicine. Their teeth are rotting because they can’t afford dental care. These people often ignore the early symptoms of disease until it’s too late because they don’t have money to go to the doctor. In the United States, the underinsured are economically better off than the uninsured but are similarly struggling. Forty-five percent of all personal bankruptcies are related to the cost of medical bills.

I’m passionate about helping people find access to healthcare. It’s why I’m working to help the people of Mennonite Church USA figure out how it can prevent stories like the following from happening to the people in our communities.

Twenty five years after I worked in voluntary service in Haiti, I was asked to go to a hospital in Egypt to teach medical students and staff. My coming was advertised in the local papers, and people traveled long distances to receive medical consultation. I distinctly remember one incident where a man and his son came to see me. They made the long journey from their village to Cairo, where I was, on rutted roads.

As was typical in many village families, the son had been identified as one with the potential to lift his family out of poverty, and scarce family resources were diverted to assure his education. I only needed a cursory look to know the son had been ill for a long time. He was jaundiced, and his bloated stomach resembled a six-month pregnancy. While working to determine the history of how the illness developed, I discovered the boy had a shrunken liver, his spleen was significantly larger than it should have been and a large amount of fluid had accumulated in his abdomen.

Throughout the examination, I was acutely aware of the look of high hope and expectancy on the father’s face. Increasingly, I dreaded the moment of telling the father there was nothing I could do for his son. I shared the devastating news as gently as possible, and as my words were translated, I can still see his face fall apart as his hope was crushed in an instant. It was a struggle to maintain my professional decorum when all I wanted to do was cry with him.

This boy’s life was destroyed by a small parasite that lives in the snails of Egyptian canals and enters swimmers’ and bathers’ bodies before doing its nasty work. Over the years, the parasite did its work on the boy’s internal organs and sentenced him to an early death. It could have all been prevented with early treatment of his parasitic infection.

Fast forward to a Sunday afternoon in Calcutta, India, in 1994: I answer a knock on the door to find a man in his 30s, rail-thin and dressed in clean but ragged clothes. Twisting his cap, he apologizes for bothering me. His rattling cough verifies what he tells me, that he has tuberculosis. He tells me he has no money to take his TB medicine and no money to feed his children. He says if I can give him 200 rupees (about $6), he can start a new job as a security guard the next day and have his first work in many weeks. With the money, he planned to buy a uniform because without the uniform he couldn’t get the job. I gave him the money and never heard from him again.

This man in India has a lot more in common with people in your community than you may think.

The Charlotte 2005 Delegate Assembly asked Mennonite Church USA to focus on the problem of healthcare access during the next two years. As we consider this issue, I’m suggesting that the process be three-fold. We first need to open our eyes and become aware that many of our neighbors lack adequate access to healthcare. Second, by knowing first-hand the suffering caused by the lack of access, we will feel their pain and, finally, our third step will be for us to be moved to action.

This sequence of awareness, compassion and action represents my personal experience of access to healthcare around the world. In the next months, as our congregations, institutions and business community focus on the issue of healthcare access, I believe a similar process will serve us well. I am confident that we, as Mennonite Church USA, can become aware of the suffering around us, be moved to compassion and take action to affirm “this is not acceptable.” Photo available.

Dr. Glen E. Miller recently was appointed by Mennonite Church USA to lead the focus on healthcare access in the two years following Charlotte 2005. Information on how multiple parts of Mennonite Church USA – including congregations, area conferences and institutions, among others – are addressing the healthcare access issue is available on a developing Web site, www.MennoniteUSA.org/healthcare.

New managing editor appointed for Leader magazine

June Mears Driedger

WATERLOO, Ont./SCOTTDALE, Pa.—Faith & Life Resources, a division of Mennonite Publishing Network, is pleased to announce the appointment of June Mears Driedger to the position of managing editor for Leader magazine.

Leader is a quarterly periodical designed to equip pastors and lay leaders within Mennonite Church Canada and Mennonite Church USA. Since its inception three years ago this position has been held by Byron Rempel Burkholder, who continues on staff with Faith & Life Resources as editor for Rejoice!

For June Mears Driedger, this position combines her gifts of editing and writing with several years of pastoral experience. At present, she serves as pastor of the Michigan State Mennonite Fellowship in East Lansing, Michigan. She has a MA in Journalism and Public Affairs and a Master of Theological Studies – Christian Spirituality from Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary. During the 1990s she edited Urban Connections for the former Mennonite Board of Missions and has done freelance editing and writing. She served on pastoral teams at Pasadena Mennonite Church in California and College Mennonite Church in Indiana.

In her position as managing editor, which begins immediately, June will work closely with senior editor, Richard Kauffman, and the Leader Editorial Committee, which has representation from pastors, lay leaders, and denominational staff from both Mennonite Church Canada and Mennonite Church USA.