After conducting interviews with current students in the Middle East in February 2012, reporter Andrew Jenner ’04 contacted alumni from earlier EMU-sponsored trips to the region.

In comparing the responses of current and former students, Jenner found that the “lessons” assimilated during this cross-cultural do deeply influence them, likely for rest of their lives. Of course, the students also bring home innumerable photographs, souvenirs and memories.

“As I reflect back on my experiences, all of my senses are affected,” says Ellie Barnhart ’11, who studied in the Middle East in 2010.

She remembers the taste of Arabic coffee and fresh pita in Nazareth, the fragrant marketplace in Jerusalem’s Old City, and the smell of the sea from a ferry on the Mediterranean. She hears the voices speaking in Arabic, English, Hebrew, Italian, and Greek; she recalls the cold, salty water of the Dead Sea on her skin and the smoothness of freshly polished olive wood in Palestine. She can close her eyes and remember the sunset on Mt. Sinai, and Jews praying at the Western Wall while Muslims knelt for prayer just above them, atop the Temple Mount.

“The experiences from the trip continue to impact me, whether I am reading my Bible, listening to the news, or even just talking with a friend over coffee,” says Barnhart, now working as a nurse in Salem, Oregon. “Sometimes it is in the most unexpected moments when one of my senses is triggered, and I am taken back to the Middle East.”

Thoughts and reflections collected from a dozen alumni of the Middle East cross-cultural over the decades reveal six major ways in which the trip influenced their lives.

1. Gaining better understanding of the Bible and insights into its relevance.

“Being in the Middle East made reading Scripture much more real,” says Ruth Ellen Dandurand ’10. “Now when I read the Bible, I not only have a picture in my mind of what and where it took place but also a deeper understanding of all the realities of each lesson. Each detail the Lord had written in his book was intentional to serve a certain purpose, to give a certain picture that sometimes is only possible to see clearly in the right circumstances of place, heart, mind, and culture.”

Eric Trinka ’07says the trip gave him exciting opportunities to “re-examine the Word of God in its geographic and historical contexts.” Trinka, who relinquished his job as a middle school geography teacher in Harrisonburg (Va.) to enroll at Eastern Mennonite Seminary in the fall of 2012, has returned to Israel and Palestine four times with a Virginia Mennonite Missions program.

In that role, Trinka worked to create a “curriculum for participants interested in studying the life of Jesus in the context of the first century while applying what they learn to the modern Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”

“Each of these opportunities has exposed me to a wealth of information and experiences that have continued to nudge me in the direction of New Testament studies and a career in place-based, Biblical education,” he says.

2. Experiencing challenges to one’s faith.

An epiphany struck Rus Pyle ’03 as he lagged behind the rest of his group on Mt. Zion one day. “I came away with an understanding … that faith is something real and special and it can be crucial and central to our well-being. The power of belief can heal us in ways where other avenues may fall short.”

Bess Moser ’08 had the opposite reaction: “I was lost in the turmoil of the Holy Land…. Someone had flipped the light switch; there was darkness all around. Rage, anger, and confusion had consumed me….

“I had seen acres and acres of olive tree stumps and could hardly restrain myself from screaming. I had shed countless tears. I had stood on a hillside looking at a settlement and understood in my own heart what drives people to violence and deep hatred. I felt the weight of the world and its suffering on my shoulders.”

Moser says she wonders if she will regain the sense of hope and faith she lost as a result of what she saw in the Middle East.

Ruth Ellen Dandurand ’10 initially experienced a similar loss of faith, wondering if prayer had any power to make things better. “The Jews and Muslims and Arab Christians there pray! They pray all the time. You can see them praying when they’re walking down the street or kneeling on the floor in their shops or with their families .… But being there and experiencing just a small taste of what they have to live with all the time – so little has changed.”

After learning about the mistrust and violence that linger in the Middle East despite so many prayers, Dandurand was left with “an almost complete disbelief in the power of prayer.”

“Thankfully God has since healed that part of my faith and I have no doubt that He will continuously walk with us in the joys and trials of life.”

Ed Nyce ’86, media and education coordinator for Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), recalls the way his experience illustrated lessons he’d learned growing up and in classes at EMU. As an example, he cites “the commitment to stand with the marginalized, to be ‘for’ the poor or disenfranchised without being ‘against’ anyone as a person created and loved by God, in the midst of working and struggling for change that challenges injustice.”

“I had a chance to see that in action in the West Bank through Palestinian, Israeli, MCC and other peacemakers we met. Such encounters stayed with me as I did peace work and further study after my EMU years.”

3. Maintaining lifelong ties to people and places from that time.

“[There’s] no better way to learn to live in a community than living with the same people for three months,” says Tanya Charles Shenk ’93, a nurse in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Joelle Hackney ’07, MA ’10 (conflict transformation), still treasures the relationships she built with her classmates on the trip, “most of whom remain dear, lifelong friends.”

“It has been almost 10 years since my trip and I still feel a deep connection to that part of the world,” says Rebekah Kratz Brubaker ’04, a social worker in Harrisonburg. “I find myself listening more intently when I hear news on the radio or television related to the Palestinian and Israeli conflict.”

Ben Stauffer ’01 says his reading choices reflect his Middle East sojourn. “I was going through some books in the last month and found Elias Chacour’s Blood Brothersand started to read it again. Many things I saw and learned about came back to me as I was reading. The people and issues of the Middle East will always have a special place in my heart.”

4. Grasping the complexity of multiple viewpoints in conflicts.

“[The cross-cultural] really opened my perspective on the world’s complex issues such as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” says Ben Stauffer ’01, of North Lawrence, New York.

Jill Stoltzfus ’91 agrees: “From visiting an utterly miserable refugee camp in the Gaza strip to attending a Shabbat dinner at the home of a strongly pro-Israel Jewish family … I learned for the first time in my life how something can be viewed so differently depending on who’s doing the viewing.” Stoltzfus is now the director of the research institute at St. Luke’s University Health Network in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

David Landis ’04, co-founder of the Jesus Trail in Israel, says his cross-cultural experience made clear the importance of “determining context within situations that seem black and white.” (.)

5. Becoming passionate about cross-cultural exchange.

“I learned how to be passionate about the world and its people. Before cross-cultural I knew little about the rest of the world and even less about the Middle East,” says Ruth Ellen Dandurand ’10. “I recognize the world now as one divided community that is in dire need of the love of Jesus to make it whole again.”

“[For me], the trip solidified the value of cross-cultural education, and that’s inspired us to stay involved,” says Anna Dintaman ’05 Landis, who helped develop the Jesus Trail with her husband, David, after her experience as a student on the cross-cultural in 2004. The two have since hosted recent EMU student groups on the 40-mile trail in Galilee and co-authored Hiking the Jesus Trail.

At times, the trip has also given participants a taste of the intolerance that persists in the Middle East, says Jill Stoltzfus ’91, whose heritage is Jewish on her mother’s side. “The fact that some Palestinian kids threw stones at me while I was walking in Old City Jerusalem one afternoon hammered home my Jewishness in a way nothing else did while I was in the Middle East. I experienced, if only briefly, what it must feel like to be hated so intensely by an entire group of people.”

The diversity of the people she encountered in the Middle East left a deep impression on Joelle Hackney ’07, MA ’10 (conflict transformation). Ones that stand out in her mind include a doctor’s assistant at the clinic who cared for her during an illness; a Palestinian woman left mute after her home had been destroyed four times; a young Israeli sniper, recently released from service and shaken by his experiences; the Israeli woman who reminded her of her mother and had lost her son in a bus bombing; the teenage Palestinian, born and raised in a refugee camp, dreaming of his grandparents’ land he had never seen; the man at the falafel stand who told her, almost at the point of tears, “Thank you so much for being here. Please, when you go home, tell the people in your country, tell your Mr. Bush, what is happening here.”

While attached to an IV in a Palestinian clinic when she was sick, a doctor told Hackney something that has remained with her since: Don’t be too quick to judge people.

“I had a hard time understanding exactly what he meant, until later in the cross-cultural,” she says. Then she met a rabbi who offered similar advice: Be careful to not make either side a victim or an aggressor in your mind.

“I began to see how desperately those working for peace, for a different way, were trying to break out of systemic identities of victimhood, persecution, and violence, imposed upon them by the outside world and also from within their own cultures,” Hackney continues. “They were desperately seeking an opportunity to re-narrate their own futures, to break a cycle of justification for violence and for hatred of ‘the Other.’” Hackney is the program coordinator at the Staunton (Va.) Creative Community Fund.

6. Shifting direction in life and career.

After finishing his studies at EMU, Rus Pyle ’03 entered the mental health field and now is a licensed mental health counselor in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Pyle works with an agency that uses meditation to address emotional conflict and addictive behavior.

“We work with an underserved and often ignored population: ex-offenders on probation and parole,” Pyle says. “This integration of spirituality, existentialism, application, and service to a marginalized community, all began while on the cross-cultural, and studying at EMU. Time and time again, I have looked back on the understandings and goals [that] began during my time in the Middle East not only with a sense of fondness, but a with a sense that my studies at EMU could not have been complete without them.

Ben Stauffer ’01, now working on his family’s dairy farm in New York, traces his decision to volunteer with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) to his cross-cultural. “I realized how rich we are here in the U.S. and I was definitely uncomfortable with that,” he says. “I [went] to Brazil for three years to help build cisterns for catching rain water.”

Ruth Ellen Dandurand ’10’s desire to do long-term missionary work intensified during her experience in the Middle East. “Over the last two years, I have continually asked Him for the opportunity to use me somewhere else in the world. And in January the ball started rolling for a year of missionary service in Guinea-Bissau through Eastern Mennonite Missions that, Lord willing, will start in August, 2012. So far there has been a great deal of peace and answers to prayers as He leads me on this incredible journey that began as a child and took form during my experience in the Middle East.”

“I can trace my time with MCC back to that experience [on cross-cultural],” says Ed Nyce ’86, who worked for the organization in Bethlehem and Amman, Jordan, from 1999 to 2007. Several MCC volunteers in the region when he was a student played a significant role in his trip, he says. Nyce later helped facilitate trips for the EMU cross-culturals that happened while he was with MCC.

“My EMU cross-cultural semester, other EMU courses, additional work and study experiences, and MCC assignments have all combined with other factors to help shape my worldview, and led to the many questions that are always banging around inside of me,” Nyce says. “What does it mean to love neighbor and enemy, or two neighbors, when what is experienced as love by one is not automatically understood as love by the other? How does one succeed in standing with that person or group who is disempowered, perhaps especially when my own country plays a significant role in the conflict as it does there, without standing against the humanity of the one in power, yet also without dropping the ball on the need to address real power issues?”

— By Andrew Jenner ’04. Read about his conflicted reactions to his 2002 Middle East cross-cultural.

Tension between Israelis and Palestinians was quickly escalating when Linford Stutzman ’84 (Seminary ’90) traveled to the Middle East in the summer of 2000 to prepare for his first turn leading EMU’s to the region. By the time he and his wife, Janet Stutzman (Seminary ’91), arrived with the group in early 2001, the second Palestinian Intifada, marked by frequent violence between the two sides, had begun; the group heard nightly gunfire during its stay that winter in the West Bank.

Looking back more than a decade later, the Stutzmans say it’s amazing EMU let the Middle East cross-cultural continue through that time of upheaval. It was a decision that paid off, however, as it led to deeper relationships with the program’s partners in the region, who remember and admire EMU’s commitment to cross-cultural education through thick and thin. EMU was the only American university that didn’t cancel programs with several of these partner institutions.

“Jesus doesn’t invite us to a life of not taking risks,” says Linford, a professorin the Bible and religion department. “Faith is made for risk-taking. The whole Biblical story is one of leaving behind the ‘safe.’ This [trip] is a metaphor for life and faith.”

The Stutzmans, who lived through the 1973 Yom Kippur War while working as independent volunteers in Israel, emphasize that risk-taking doesn’t equate to recklessness, and that careful planning for contingencies is a part of each of the trips to the Middle East that they’ve led.

“We’ve gone into it with our eyes wide open … our agreement with EMU was that we would work with our local [contacts] and make safety decisions based on that,” says Janet, director of alumni and parent relations at EMU from 1991 until 2004.

And so, through the first Palestinian Intifada in the late ’80s and early ’90s, the tense months before the Gulf War in 1991, the second Intifada early in the new millennium, and the Arab Spring and new talk of war between Israel and Iran over the past two years, the trip has continued uninterrupted since Willard and Mary Swartley led the first Middle East cross-cultural in the spring of 1975.In doing so, Janet and Linford say, students experience the volatile nature of day-to-day life in the Middle East, while learning valuable lessons about interdependence, self-reliance and the value of taking wise risks throughout their lives. Since 2001, the Stutzmans have led eight cross-culturals to the Middle East (on two occasions, when Janet’s work in Harrisonburg prevented her from being along for the whole trip, their son, David Stutzman ’00, filled in as a co-leader).

“We are risk-takers,” agrees Beth Aracena, director of cross-cultural programs at EMU from 2006 to the end of the 2011-12 school year. “I think students learn the most when there are risks, and they’re challenged to stretch themselves.”

Throughout the planning process as well as the trips, Aracena has worked closely with the Stutzmans and the university administration to monitor developments in the region and, if necessary, change plans when certain risks no longer seem wise. One recent example of this is EMU’s decision to scratch a previously planned visit to Syria from the itinerary for its 2013 Middle East trip (the Stutzmans led a smaller-than-usual group there for the first time in the spring of 2011).

Aracena describes Linford and Janet as “an absolutely phenomenal pair,” constantly tweaking and improving the itinerary to keep the trip new and on the cutting edge.

The wisdom and obvious enthusiasm the Stutzmans bring to their roles as leaders has endeared them to each new group of students they take to the Middle East.

“They taught us throughout the trip how to be resourceful and successful travelers,” says Ellen Roth ’13, a member of the 2012 Middle East cross-cultural. “[And] they were there to talk with us to help us through all the tough questions we were confronted with even if there wasn’t a direct answer.”

Roth also admires the way the Stutzmans, who call themselves best friends in addition to husband and wife, interacted. They finish each other’s sentences, and they interrupt one another as they tell stories because they both tell certain parts better,

“They are such complementary leaders,” she said.

Anna Dintaman ’05 Landis, who went on cross-cultural to the Middle East in 2004, says “they amazingly don’t lose their sense of humor even after three months on the road.”

According to the International Institute for Education, just 1.8 percent of American students studying abroad in 2009-2010 went to the Middle East. With EMU’s long academic ties to this region infrequently visited by American university students, the Middle East cross-cultural has developed into a special niche program for the university and its students, Aracena says. Because of high student interest in the trip, the Stutzmans have been leading it each spring in recent years.

“It is just an exceptional learning opportunity for our students,” Aracena says.

Outreach to students’ families is another important aspect of making the trip successful; the Stutzmans and Aracena have regularly responded to questions and concerns from worried parents. Talking with them about the careful planning and collaboration with Palestinian and Israeli partners throughout the trip usually allays parents’ fears. Unfamiliar risks (say, studying abroad in a place typically associated with ominous headlines) often are scarier than familiar risks (e.g. driving to the airport) the Stutzmans say, even when, in fact, statistics show that the drive to the airport is the far riskier undertaking.

As parents learn more about the trip, they often say they wish they could have a similar opportunity to visit the Middle East. The Stutzmans – who have also spent nearly every summer since 2004 retracing Paul’s Mediterranean travels together by sailboat – need little encouragement to plan new adventures, and so, in the summer of 2011, they led 14EMU parents and alumni on a unique “parents cross-cultural.” On that trip, they compressed the usual itinerary into a 16-day tour of Israel and Palestine, affording Linford and Janet yet another opportunity to teach others about the people and places they’ve come to love over the years.

Leading the cross-cultural “is a privilege,” says Linford, adding that leading the trip is the most rewarding aspect of his work with undergraduates at EMU. “It never gets old.”

Each new group has its own personality, the Stutzmans say, and each student returns home with a changed view of God, of the world, and of themselves. By having agreed to lead the Middle East cross-cultural each spring through at least 2015, Janet and Linford will continue influencing dozens more EMU undergrads over the next several years by exposing them to the conflicts and contradictions, as well as determined hopes for a better future, that exist throughout the region.

Perhaps most formative, they say, is the fact that EMU students on the trip interact with and learn from people who hold wildly divergent views on religion, politics, security, justice and other issues of fundamental significance. At the same time, the students’ immersion in day-to-day life in the region leads to deeper, human connections with the people they encounter.

“I think it’s a lesson that our students are learning in life – that even though you disagree with people, you can be respectful and you can be friends,” says Janet. “There are so many of our young adults who are going on to do amazing things, and I feel that it’s so neat to be a part of that.”

—Andrew Jenner

The wish came true in the fall of 2002, when Landis and 29 other students left for a semester of study and travel in the Middle East. It was the second time he’d ever been out of North America, the first being a post-high school choir trip to Europe.

That particular cross-cultural occurred during a tense time; the second Palestinian Intifada was continuing its violence, and the United States was preparing to go to war in Iraq. It was an intense, complicated experience, Landis said; the months of travel in a region of intense and clashing cultural, political and religious dynamics provided an educational opportunity unlike any he’d ever had.

“That became a lot more fascinating than some of the learning I was doing in school,” he told Crossroads. “We were not just students, [and] we were not just touring. We were travelers who were learning. It’s a totally different perspective than you see most people traveling with.”

During a week-long period of free travel that fall, Landis and three others from the trip hiked a section of the 600-mile-long Israel National Trail. The brief taste of life on the trail, in a place so full of confusing and enthralling and full of things to see and learn, only whet his appetite for more.

Aware of EMU’s record for producing graduates who succeed at medical school, Landis had intended to end up as a physician when he enrolled in EMU, but the semester-long experience abroad put a wrinkle in his schedule. It meant he was going to need an extra year between college and medical school to finish all his entrance requirements. But rather than taking his MCATs and working on med-school applications after graduation, he found himself planning a year-long, four-continent, round-the-world trip with Eric Kennel ’04, a close friend of Landis who’d been with him on the cross-cultural.

By the time they left, it had become clear to Landis that he wasn’t going to med school after all. He was more interested in the possibilities of travel as a unique way of learning and serving, much like he’d first experienced on his cross-cultural.

“After this trip, I really have no idea where I’ll be,” wrote Landis, on the website he and Kennel created to document their trip. “I’m hoping that this journey will provide insight into the many possibilities … and point me toward a certain direction for the future.”

While planning to hike the entire Israel National Trail during the year of travel, Landis befriended an Israeli hiking enthusiast named Maoz Inon, who later opened a hostel. The relationship turned out to be the future direction Landis was looking for. By 2007, the two began mapping and marking the Jesus Trail, a new 40-mile hiking route through the Galilee. The next year, Anna Dintaman ’05 Landis joined them (she and David married in 2010).

Today, the Landises have published a guidebook to the trail, which hosts thousands of visitors – including the EMU Middle East cross-cultural group – each year who come to retrace some of Jesus’ travels during his ministry.

“It’s amazing to see something [like this] that started with a learning experience at EMU,” said Landis. “Everything is kind of connected back to the cross-cultural, to that one week of hiking on free travel.”

With the Jesus Trail well-established, David and Anna – a member of the 2004 Middle East cross-cultural group – are focusing on other projects through their company, Village to Village press, which they founded to publish the tour guide they wrote for the Jesus Trail. In late 2012, they will release a guidebook to the Camino de Santiago, a route in northern Spain used by pilgrims to visit the traditional burial site of St. James. In the future, the two have several other ideas in the works, all of them promoting thoughtful, open-minded travel as a way of learning and change.

“It’s not just about how to get from point A to point B, it’s about having a meaningful, well-rounded experience along the way,” Landis said.

— Andrew Jenner