Seventeen of the 28 in the group flew in from as far as California and Texas to talk about their experiences and how the semester changed their lives. Some of the experiences were difficult, especially in the French-speaking West African country where they spent the second part of the spring term of 1994. Other experiences were exhilarating.

The group gathered during , Oct. 10-12, at the home of their faculty leaders, Carroll and Nancy Yoder. The conversation time, which went late into the night, was preceded by a pig roast next door at the home of Joel Yoder, the leaders’ son and a member of the 1994 group. The reunion included seven spouses and more than 20 children.

Carroll Yoder, a former French professor who retired about 10 years ago, recalled a night in an Ivory Coast village when the EMU students were sitting around a fire under the starry skies. “This sure ain’t Nebraska,” said Brant Burkey, who grew up in Nebraska. Replied Kacey Bowers (now Raines) from West Virginia, swiping at the insects flying around her: “But it feels a bit like West Virginia!”

The students recalled the homes they were assigned to, sometimes with no running water and electricity – and sharing a bed with one of the family’s children.

“When you go through challenges, it makes you stronger,” said Ben Bolanos. Added Jo Wenger Fisher: “Shared experiences, especially in the face of adversity, drew us close together as a group.” Anne Charbeneau Zapanta said she had to “dig deep within herself” and that processing her experiences with her close-knit group helped a lot.

Katrina Wyse recalled vividly the night her host mother walked to a nearby clinic to give birth to a baby and then walked home before dawn with her new child. Maybe there is a connection, she said, but now she is a physician herself, delivering babies.

One student gave credit to the cross-cultural semester for the fact that he now devotes his life to Africa. Mark Schroeder is vice president of Africa analysis for in Austin, Texas. said the unforgettable experience “still permeates my life 20 years later.”

The reunion group surprised the Yoders by announcing they were donating over $2,300 in the Yoders’ honor to the .

Highlights of the weekend

This year’s Homecoming and Family Weekend also included reunions for all graduating classes ending in “4” and “9,” starting with 1964. Graduates from before that time, called “jubilee alumni,” met together for a reception and program.

EMU recognized three outstanding alumni during the weekend:

• . A pioneer in helping children with autism, he is longtime director of an autism clinic in Richmond, Virginia, and a clinical professor of psychiatry at Virginia Commonwealth University. He earned two master’s degrees and then a PhD in psychology from Virginia Tech University.

• . His lifetime of Christian service included 10 years in Saigon during the Vietnam War, refugee work in Thailand and Honduras, pastoring churches, and victim-offender reconciliation. He has a master’s degree in religious education from New York University.

• . Working as a hospital nurse, she quickly earned promotions, including director of the 150-employee emergency department at Aultman Hospital in Canton, Ohio. She has master’s degrees in both nursing and business administration from Case Western University.

EMU inducted two 2004 graduates into the Athletics Hall of Honor – Ellie Lind Holsopple in women’s soccer and Kristin Moyer Vasey in field hockey.

Other weekend events included a donor –appreciation banquet for 375 guests, a one-man theatrical presentation of C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, an organ concert by recently-retired professor John Fast, a Sunday-morning worship service, an art exhibit opening, four intercollegiate games, tours of two renovated facilities, a panel discussion of retired science faculty, and departmental programs.

of Homecoming and Family Weekend events

Yet when Sensenig tells one of his favorite stories of victim-offender reconciliation, the setting is only a few short miles from his boyhood home. He waits in a farm lane, sitting on the open tailgate of a beat-up pickup truck. With him is the man from whom a four-wheeler was stolen and wrecked. “The guy won’t show,” says the victim to Sensenig, a volunteer facilitator with the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, .

“After a long nervous wait, the young man finally arrived on his motorbike to face his victim,” says Sensenig. “The fact that he came, his willingness to appear, broke the cycle of anger and retribution. The meeting ended with the victim offering to ask his boss to take the offender on as a stone-mason apprentice. This kind of genuine reconciliation happened over and over.”

The Center recently named Sensenig as their Volunteer of the Year. Since 2003 he had accepted responsibility for over 64 incidents, for which he often succeeds in bringing the victim and the offender together to make things right.

To make things right and bridge the divide between people is a theme that runs through Sensenig’s years of service. Ten of those years were in Saigon, Vietnam, from 1963 to 1973, “living in the middle of a conflict involving massive violence by our own country, while trying to grow into and live out a gospel of peace and nonviolence,” he says.

There he and his young family, along with Mennonite co-workers, were involved in church-building and relief service, marked by “deep fellowship, debate, prayer, sadness, and learning together. We are much enriched by our Vietnamese sisters and brothers who joined us on the journey.”

Of his years in the crucible of war, Sensenig says, “One of my temptations is the subtle way our all-too-human belief in ‘redemptive violence’ can sneak up on me, imagining that war can bring security. I have gradually forgotten how awful war is, awful to its core.” But when he does remember, “the tears still come.”

During his midlife decades, Sensenig worked to repair the wounds and displacements of war. He served with in their refugee resettlement program, first with Vietnamese refugees, then with those escaping the violence of Central America.

His mastery of the difficult Vietnamese language has opened many doors, including the practical service of interpreting in medical, school and court settings. His commitment to the Vietnamese community in the Lancaster area runs deep, where he serves informally as a counselor, mediator and pastor. “I am fascinated by the very different religious development of the great Asian cultures and the understandings that Christian faith can bring to and learn from that context.”

After graduating in 1960 from EMU with a degree in and , Sensenig and his wife Doris moved to New York City where he received a master’s degree in religious education from New York University. During his college years he served at a YPCA church in Mount Jackson, Virginia; while at NYU he assisted at the small Mennonite churches in Harlem and the Bronx. He co-pastored for many years until his retirement in 2003.

For Don’s wife, Doris ’60, even more telling than these public roles are his behind-the-scenes activities – volunteering in preschool Sunday School classes; washing windows for church spring cleaning; taking service workers to and from the airport; helping mentally challenged people with paperwork, appointments or other needs; washing the dishes each evening. “These ‘smaller’ unpaid actions indicate a servant’s heart to me,” she says.

Sensenig will be honored with the Distinguished Service award during Homecoming and Family Weekend 2014 at EMU, Oct. 10-12. Celebrations include: class reunions for years ending in “4” and “9”; community picnic on Saturday, Oct. 11, for all members of the EMU community; sporting events; !

Young Alumnus of the Year award: