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News archive
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| Javanese Mennonites visit Mennonite Church USA Great Plains office |
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Four representatives from Gereja Injili Tanah Jawa (Javanese Mennonite Church) visited the Mennonite Church USA Great Plains office in Newton, Kan., Nov. 17. The group’s stop in Newton was part of a one-month tour of the United States to meet and network with North American Mennontie church leaders to strengthen and increase avenues of exchange and mutual learning. From left, Teguh Sayogo, Adi Walujo, Moses Susila and Suprijadi present executive director for Mennonite Church USA Jim Schrag, center, with a woven wall hanging. The Javanese Mennonite Church is a large body in Indonesia with about 43,000 members, and its history goes back more than 150 years. Photo by Marathana Prothro.
November 30, 2006 |
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| Executive Leadership names director of Intercultural Relations |
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Iris de León-Hartshorn |
NEWTON, Kan.Mennonite Church USA Executive Leadership announces Iris de León-Hartshorn will begin work as its director of Intercultural Relations effective Jan. 18, 2007.
de León-Hartshorn will be called to the following: serve as an advocate for Racial/Ethnic people in all parts of Mennonite Church USA; work for equitable access to church resources for Racial/Ethnic people; work for the inclusion of Racial/Ethnic people in leadership positions and offer their gifts throughout the broader church; and, alongside the executive director, help lead churchwide efforts to become an anti-racist church.
“I am excited to begin my work with Mennonite Church USA. I have a vision for a church that is inclusive and values everyone’s gifts,” de León-Hartshorn says. “My work will be to find ways where Racial/Ethnic people are woven into the very fabric of the wider church and help shape the church to be richer and vibrant in order to follow the call of Jesus faithfully.”
de León-Hartshorn has served as Peace and Justice Ministries director for Mennonite Central Committee, U.S., where she was responsible for the oversight of the Peace and Justice program of MCC U.S. for 10 years. Prior to that, she spent 10 years at Houston (Texas) Mennonite Church, where she was ordained by Western District and South Central conferences and served in various roles, including one year as co-pastor. She also has worked as hospice and hospital chaplain and special events coordinator for Houston Habitat for Humanity.
“Iris will bring a commitment to all parts of the church to her work and she already has a broad network of relationships from which to build,” said Ron Byler, associate executive director for Mennonite Church USA. “Iris will help us serve all of the cultural groups who are a part of Mennonite Church USA.”
de León-Hartshorn is committed to building an anti-racist church, which is one of Mennonite Church USA’s top priorities. According to those who have worked with Iris closely, she will approach this work “with careful observation and information-gathering to gain solid understanding, intentional efforts at relationship building, and a collaborative style of work that addresses systemic issues in a strategic way.”
de León-Hartshorn has a master’s degree in conflict transformation and peacebuilding from Eastern Mennonite Seminary and will work from Lancaster, Pa., at least for the first several years and will be traveling throughout the church in her new role. She will begin her work by attending the Executive Board meeting in Meridian, Miss., in January 2007.
de León-Hartshorn succeeds Kenyetta Aduma Twine, Hampton, Va., who served in this role since the formation of Mennonite Church USA in 2002.
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| Families appreciate Gather ’Round’s church-home connections |
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NEWTON, Kan.Mennonite families are responding positively to the new Sunday school curriculum, Gather ’Round: Hearing and Sharing God’s Good News,
launched this fall in the United States and Canada.
Strong affirmation has been expressed for new products that help connect church with home, and content that brings Christian education to the forefront of congregational life. The Talkabout, a quarterly take-home item designed to sit on each family’s dining table, has received especially high praise.
“Gather ’Round definitely has the right idea,” said Alan Giornavco, a member of James Street Mennonite Church in Lancaster, Pa. “Extending Sunday school lessons into family devotion and activities and providing resources to talk about the same faith topics across the ages, makes a real difference. As a parent, I know the pop-up Talkabout has earned a much more prominent place in our household this quarter than a simple printed piece would have.”
The Talkabout’s design is unique each quarter. The fall design was a 14-sided piece that popped up out of an envelope. For winter, the Talkabout is a page-a-day, tear-off calendar.
Some congregations are ordering Talkabouts for every family in their churchnot just those with school-aged children. Salford Mennonite Church in Salford, Pa., held a special dedication service for the Talkabouts, to help teach everyone about Gather ’Round.
“My kids are grown, but I really appreciated it,” said Debbie Freed, a member at Salford. “I like how Gather ’Round involves your whole family. It’s not just a Sunday morning thing.”
At another church, one young girl asked her father for an extra Talkabout to take with her to her mother’s home, so she would be able to use it wherever she was staying.
Gather ’Round is a project of Mennonite Publishing Network, the publishing agency of Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church Canada, and Brethren Press, publisher for Church of the Brethren.
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| Left to right: Erin, Addie, Amy, Eli, Austin, and Ken Regier, of First Mennonite Church, Newton, Kansas. The Talkabout, a tabletop resource for families, encourages faith talk at home. |
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| Conference Resource Advocates connect people to resources |
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By Kathy Weaver Wenger
NEWTON, Kan. (MPN)Just over a year ago, Faith & Life Resources, a division of Mennonite Publishing Network (MPN), was asked to work with Mennonite Church USA area conferences to designate a person from each area conference to help increase the visibility of Mennonite resources. Some of the advocates include this role in their conference staff position, but most are volunteers.
Conference Resource Advocates are called to help busy leaders who often find themselves glancing through a myriad of pamphlets that come their way. With the help of these advocates, churchwide leadership is hopeful that an increasing number of Mennonites will find their way to the vast array of resources from Mennonite Church USA’s churchwide ministries (Mennonite Education Agency, Mennonite Mission Network, MMA, Mennonite Publishing Network and Executive Leadership). In addition, the advocates also are able to share feedback with agencies and those responsible for creating resources so they can continue to meet users’ needs.
Meet Dolores Bauman, an active advocate from Illinois Mennonite Conference. After retiring as the director of a local library, Dolores was looking for a new challenge. The call from her conference administrator resonated with her love of books and the church, as well as her gifts.
With a “yes” Dolores jumped in, soaking up the training for the new Gather ’Round curriculum.
“I was impressed,” she says, “at the dedication and expertise of the writers and editors. Bringing that information with brochures and kits to education committees and Sunday school teachers in the Illinois Conference was deeply rewarding. I learned to know many new people and my church community has expanded beyond the Mennonite Church of Normal.”
As a resource advocate, Dolores does more than work with Gather ’Round and display Mennonite materials at conferences. She stays informed on the latest resources from throughout Mennonite Church USA. When she heard a pastor within her conference was looking for some resources to use with counseling a couple before marriage, she steered him toward MennoSource (OneSource), an online listing of resources found on the Mennonite Church USA (and Mennonite Church USA agencies’) Web site. Here was Tom Kauffman’s article, “Premarital Counseling Questionnaire” and it was free!
Dolores says it’s easy to promote Mennonite materials. As people hear God’s word, it is important for them to bring an Anabaptist perspective to living out biblical principles. It’s like a ripple effect that motivates her for her service as a Conference Resource Advocate: in the daily challenge of bringing shalom to others and growing in our relationship with Christ, we need all the help and encouragement we can get, and as individuals are more faithful, so is their church, their conference and their denomination.
The work of the Conference Resource Advocates is still new. Each year, these advocates will attend an event that helps them learn what resources are available and how to use them. They will also share with the Mennonite Church USA agencies what they have been hearing from their congregations which may impact the work of these agencies.
Dolores Bauman hopes that her ministry as a Conference Resource Advocate has a small part in enabling the members of the Illinois Mennonite Conference to, “increase our vision to follow Jesus Christ more faithfully, grow as communities of grace, joy and peace and to live as people of healing and hope.”
Those interested in accessing their Conference Resource Advocate should get in touch with their area conference office or leaders and request contact information for their advocate. To find contact information for your area conference, visit the Mennonite Church USA online directory at www.MennoniteUSA.org by clicking on “Online Directory” or refer to the print version of the Mennonite Church USA 2007 Directory.
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| Commentary: Coming home from conflict |
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By Susan Mark Landis
PeaceSigns, July 19, 2006
A friend of mine, a nurse, lives on a dangerous S-curve and has run to help with over 100 accidents, more than a few fatal, in the past 20 years. She recently sat by a baby whose heart was still beating but who died soon after. The scene replays itself repeatedly in her mind as she wonders if she might have done something differently to save the girl’s life. She copes by calling the Ohio Department of Transportation, begging that blinking lights and warning words be put on the road to prevent further death; by praying for the mother/driver and by reviewing her first aid skills and keeping gloves and other supplies on hand.
About the same time as the accident, I read of a Marine who helped remove bodies of dead Iraqi civilians from a house where some of his fellow Marines had gone on a rampage. The body of a young girl he removed was horribly mutilated. The news report said that he is receiving intensive counseling, unable to deal with the experience. His comrades earlier appear to have been unable to deal with the stress of combat.
I have talked to people with post-traumatic stress disorder, which about one in eight returning Iraq combat personnel have. We don’t have statistics for 10 years after duty in this current war, which is when most Vietnam vets were diagnosed. However, according to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, about 30 percent of people who spend time in war zones (not just the combatants, but also the civilians) eventually experience PTSD, and up to an additional 25 percent have partial PTSD. [1]
I’ve seen how PTSD robs these folks of their ability to live productive lives, to maintain relationships, to get a full night of sleep. When in a room, they must sit facing the door, they have trouble focusing on the conversation, experience memory loss and their bodies move constantly from nervousness.
“God has not designed us to do the horrible things war asks us to do and stay normal,” says Conrad Moore, a Marine veteran. “Every war there has ever been, people come home damaged, even if they are on the ‘winning’ side. Different wars have given different names to this damagebattle fatigue, shell shock and now post-traumatic stress disorder. But the issue is a spiritual issue. There is nothing natural about violence.”
Perhaps God’s commandment to not kill comes from a knowledge none of the rest of us can claim. God created the human psyche, which appears about half the time unable to handle the horrors of war, of mutilated bodies. Sadly, some horrors seem unavoidable, as in car accidents, but others can be avoided, as in a decision to use violence to resolve conflict. Seems humans just can’t have a good war. Seems God knows that.
PTSD is caused by more than war and suffered by more than combatants. Peacemakers in war zones also suffer from PTSD, as do women who have been raped, children who have been repeatedly abused. About eight percent of a general population have experienced PTSD at some time. But the research that has been done is usually by governments as they treat their veterans.
So what is the relationship between my friend, who keeps flashing back to the baby she sat by during her last moments and the soldier who flashes back to removing the small girl’s body? I’m not a clinician, so I hesitate to draw conclusions. But I have to wondermy friend has done all she can to alleviate suffering on her road, including convincing the Ohio Department of Transportation to post a flashing WARNING! sign, yet still feels horror and guilt. She’ll get over itshe has beforeand she’ll continue working to make the road safer. But the Marine can’t work to improve safety for Iraqi civilians. Maybe one of the reasons why some military veterans heal only after they go back to the country of their combat is because they also have to help stop the suffering. Maybe God knows that we heal by helping others, especially those whom we have hurt.
If humans can’t handle war, there must be a better wayand there is. God showed us, through Christ’s death on the cross, that the change of human hearts comes only through self-sacrificing, suffering love, not through violence. Moore adds, “The church has just GOT to take the luster, the cute veneer, off war.” Perhaps the same love we have for humans that leads us to offer salvation to our neighbors should also lead us to save them from the living hell of combat.
For more information from veterans, including message boards by people living with people who have PTSD visit www.iraqwarveterans.org/ptsd.htm |
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