Jackson and Katrina (Lehman) Maust have been rescue squad members since they were ��ݮ���� undergraduates six years ago.

The pagers connecting them to Harrisonburg-Rockingham County emergency dispatch are never far from their side – especially on Friday nights, and even more so when that Friday night happens to be both Halloween and the beginning of Homecoming Weekend at James Madison University.

Such a cosmic coincidence often makes pagers crackle with incoming calls and the all-volunteer crew at the Harrisonburg Rescue Squad (HRS) busy in response.

In times like that, the Mausts – Jackson is a physical therapist and Katie an emergency room nurse – come to lend their capable hands.

“Sometimes I think about what normal people do on a Saturday night,” Katie said. “We sometimes end up helping the rescue squad. In situations like that, I think it’s easier that the two of us share that common commitment and that common interest.”

Helping people in need, and walking with them through those times, is a calling to the Mausts, and in their work, they are sustained by their faith, their family and friends, their colleagues, and each other.

“Both of my jobs are high stress, intense places to work where sometimes horrible, awful things happen,” says Katie. “You see very raw human emotion and the human experience right there in front of you. It’s a gift to experience those things, but it’s also a challenge, too. It’s a way that we serve God, being with people and walking through.”

Growing at EMU and in the community

Both Jackson and Katie became involved at the rescue squad while undergraduates at EMU (the two had met as freshmen, but started dating as seniors). Jackson, a major from Michigan, was interested in physical therapy. Katie, from Ohio, was also a biology major interested in healthcare.

Their majors and pre-professional interests required clinical exposure and contact hours, but both Jackson and Katie fulfilled that requirement before volunteering with the squad. They joined together to gain more experience, but not with an equal sense of certainty, Jackson recalled.

“I didn’t think of myself as someone who would have any interest in high stress, emergency situations,” he said.

While he may not have had any interest, he certainly had plenty of experience in high stress situations: as a three-year starting goalkeeper on the Royals soccer team, Maust had more than 225 career saves to his name. Blocking a goal, though, is a minor and simplistic act compared to saving a life. Yet Jackson eventually found a calling, thanks to the rigorous training and the strong support network provided by HRS.

“This agency does a great job of preparing you and training you,” Jackson said, adding that the squad’s trainers teach not only medical skills, but provide emotional support as well. “It’s not a natural thing to be able to do some of the things we do and see some of the things we see and then move on. Coping is something you learn. It’s not something you naturally know how to do.”

After graduation, he and Katie stayed in Harrisonburg for a year. That time solidified their commitment – both to volunteering in medical services and to each other.

The couple married in 2011 in Columbus, Ohio, where Jackson was working on a doctorate in physical therapy at The Ohio State University, and Katie, who was accepted to medical school but decided not to pursue the profession, was completing a second bachelor’s degree in an accelerated nursing program at Capital University. They also volunteered with a small one-ambulance squad in Columbus. (For comparison, Harrisonburg has nine.)

Coming back to Harrisonburg

Fast-forward to Harrisonburg in 2014, and a similar life, carrying pagers and running calls for the rescue squad, but to this new era, add full-time careers, a warm and wide circle of friends, and a growing sense of rootedness to Harrisonburg.

Now Katie, 28, and Jackson, 27, are seasoned members among the 160 volunteers. From its headquarters on Reservoir Street, R40 responds to approximately 8,000 calls per year.

The couple has taken on mentoring, training and supervisorial responsibilities. Katie was recently voted to a one-year term on the board of directors and also sits on the training committee.

Jackson serves as one of three fleet maintenance officers and also one of four deputy chiefs (each chief is in charge of the squad’s operations on a rotating four-week schedule). He is one of a small group of volunteers certified to drive the squad truck and operate its heavy equipment at accident scenes requiring extrication equipment.

These responsibilities are in addition to the minimal 48 hours a month of shift work required of all members. Shifts vary from six hours on the weekdays to 12 hours on the weekends. When Katie and Jackson work a shift, they usually fill the role of duty officer, or shift supervisor –��assessing calls and determining which crews will be sent.

“There’s a lot of people who pour themselves into this place,” Katie said, “far beyond the minimal requirements.”

“Once you get involved with the agency and care about it, you get involved,” Jackson added. “That’s one way we stay volunteer. All the members put in their hours and a lot more.”

Spending so many hours at the rescue squad, and working together in traumatic situations, builds strong bonds, Katie said. “You go through a lot together, and you have fun, too. That’s a huge part of what brings us back.”

As college students, Katie and Jackson appreciated that volunteering with the rescue squad got them out of the Park View community and into greater Harrisonburg. Learning the city’s street names and meeting people who lived and worked on those streets connected them more deeply with their adopted home.

But with rootedness comes a different perception, Jackson says. “This work does not discriminate. We end up in every type of house and business and out in the street. You appreciate different parts of the city. When we moved back indefinitely with no plans to leave, it feels a lot different …this place is a lot more mine than it used to be.”

When driving through Harrisonburg, Katie says the city and its residents evoke “intimate” memories. “I think, ‘I’ve been there and I’ve been there. I’ve been in that office and in that school.’ I’ve been in people’s homes. It feels like a privilege to be the person someone calls when they need help and they open the door and say come in. You see things no one else will see.”

The couple admits to sometimes feeling exhausted by their busy schedules and stressful jobs.

That’s when they head outside for some biking, running, or gardening. Jackson plays upright bass with , a close-knit group (some of whom are fellow EMU grads). Their faith community at also sustains them.

Katie says that each shift always brings affirmation for both her and for their commitment as a couple to this special kind of service. “Seeing it as a calling and an opportunity to serve gives this a different meaning than something we’re signed up to do and we should keep doing because we’ve been doing it a long time.”

“Is this where we still feel like God’s calling us to be?” she asks.

The answer is yes.

Many EMU alumni volunteer with Harrisonburg Rescue Squad, including Steve Higgins `03, Jordan Good `09, Courtney French `10, Noel Johns `13, Christina Dickerson `14, John Bethune `14, Sara Rieman `14, and Andrew Kniss `14.�� Current student volunteers include graduate students Matthew Tieszen `10 and Mavis Britwum (both in the ); undergraduates Evan Roth and Hannah Weaver, class of 2016; and Emily Foltz, accelerated second degree student.

Gift Thrift, and its used-book enterprise, Booksavers of Virginia, and adjacent Artisans’ Hope gift shop (all three in a small shopping strip an easy walk from EMU) function as charitable enterprises that benefit the relief and development work of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), says Debra Glick King ’77, ’12, general manager of the three. The businesses operate largely with volunteer labor, about 200 men and women these days.

Of the MCC thrift shops in 18 states and five Canadian provinces, Gift & Thrift is the only one in Virginia.

When the store opened on North Main Street in 1982, its first manager, Norman H. Kreider ’60, worked on a volunteer basis, as did the co-managers for the next 12 years: his wife, Dorothy Lehman Kreider ’54, and Marjorie Guengerich (wife of the late EMU administrator Paul Guengerich). Norman Kreider “often engineered remodeling projects” before the Kreiders left to operate Rolling Hills Antique Mall, which they have since sold, says Dorothy. Remarking on Gift & Thrift’s current facility, she adds, “It’s hard to believe the store is what it is now.”

Jordan Good ’09, a who handles furniture and electronics at Gift & Thrift, says, “It’s great working at a place where personal values meet organizational values.” Staff and volunteers sometimes do minor repairs on donated items, but Good would like donors to know that repairs make more sense for well-constructed wood furniture than for electronic items.

Artisans’ Hope��is one of two stores in Harrisonburg that enables customers to “give twice” by shopping at Fair Trade stores.

Early MCC thrift stores featured “self help crafts” corners with creative gift items from developing nations, committed to fair compensation. Locally, that’s become the mission for two similar stores – Artisans’ Hope and Ten Thousand Villages.

“We try to work together” in referrals and searches, says King.

Artisans’ Hope, she explains, is an “alliance” store of Ten Thousand Villages, operating independently under Gift & Thrift’s umbrella to support Fair Trade organizations and goals.

Fair Trade certification, according to the Fair Trade Federation, requires “fair wages, cooperative workplaces, consumer education, environmental sustainability, financial and technical support, respect for cultural identity, and public accountability.”

King has observed more businesses in the for-profit sector carrying fair trade merchandise in response to the increase in customers who want to make socially responsible purchases.

King came from Lancaster County, Pa., to attend EMU in the late 1970s. Here she met her future husband Dave King ’76 (today EMU’s director of athletics). After graduating as a , she taught school in Pennsylvania until the couple returned to Harrisonburg when Dave took the job at EMU in 2005. Their three children have all graduated from EMU, where King earned an MBA recently to enhance her ability to manage the three charity-focused stores. She likes nonprofit work, but feels “I could be in any business and live out my values and be profitable.”

The store has expanded its clothing inventory. “I love the atmosphere of change for the better, not change for change’s sake,” King adds.

Roy Heatwole ’64, one of many volunteers, enjoys meeting people over the cash register at Artisans’ Hope. He taught at EMC, 1965-67, prior to a civil service career.

Ten Thousand Villages��has grown from the trunk of founder Edna Ruth Byler’s car soon after World War II to nearly 400 stores, including five in Virginia. The Harrisonburg outlet, celebrating its 21st year, began as “International Impressions” and became Ten Thousand Villages when the Villages network adopted that name in 1996, says director Valerie Showalter Weaver ’76. The store moved from the Dayton Farmers Market to the historic district of Harrisonburg in February 2011.

Weaver, from Waynesboro, studied social work at EMU and then worked in social services until she and Greg Weaver ’76 started their family. When, after volunteering at Ten Thousand Villages, she was hired 15 years ago to manage the store, she expected it to be a short-term job, but now she has no plans to leave a business she has grown to love. Kara Miller ’07 also started as a volunteer but is now on staff as volunteer coordinator.

Kelly Brewer Dean ’10, a hospital nurse and Villages volunteer, enjoys telling customers about Fair Trade’s “gifts that give twice.” As a first-year student in a work-study position at Artisans’ Hope, she “fell in love” with the products and mission. Then during her 2008 Middle East cross-cultural, she met one of the olive wood artisans and his wife. Touched by their pride in their work and its benefit to their family, she recalls the moment as “humbling and joyful.”

Kenneth D. Brunk, a volunteer and a board member of the local Villages store, agrees, “I am quite passionate about the huge difference it makes for craftspeople around the world.” He considers every hour volunteered “a direct gift to some friend I have never met who needs to market his or her skill to support their family.”

Ten Thousand Villages is not “eaten up with bureaucracy and process,” as are some NGOs and aid organizations, adds Brunk, who attended EMU in the late 1960s and early 1970s and then did rural development work in East Africa.

��Tried and True is co-managed by Deb Rissler Layman ’86, a business administration major who grew up in her family’s local grocery. “Working with people and things comes easily,” she says.

Layman’s shop is one of two thrift shops in Harrisonburg managed by EMU grads. No problem ­– “the more thrift stores, the better,” Layman says. “Each shop has its own personality.”

Deb and Ken Layman ’80 raised their family while job-sharing – managing Crowded Closet in Iowa City, a shop benefiting MCC; then, managing and expanding Harrisonburg’s Gift and Thrift store from 1996 to 2005. Eventually, wanting to try a different set-up, they opened Tried and True Thrift Shop across town.

The Laymans’ store features silent antique auctions and Ken’s nature-photo cards. Profits totaling $80,000 have supported the Church of the Brethren Global Food Crisis Fund and MCC’s Generations at Risk HIV/AIDS Fund.

The Mennonite Relief Sale has claimed the energies of David Mininger ’74 each October since the mid-1970s. The Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale features hand-sewn quilts sold at auction, handmade crafts, goods baked by volunteers, and freshly prepared breakfasts and lunches. At first the event was named Augusta Relief Sale and held at Augusta ExpoLand. In its formative period, 1967-1974, this fundraiser occurred on a farm owned by the late Paul Wenger ’27.

For the last 18 years, while earning his living in insurance in Waynesboro (Va.), Mininger has been the grounds chair, in charge of set up and tear down. In 1999, Mininger and his fellow volunteers, most of them members of area Mennonite churches, followed the event when it moved to the Rockingham County Fairgrounds, where it has been a popular annual attraction ever since.

Homemade donuts are a major attraction. Lois Wenger ’76, heads the popular donut-production operation.

Dave says his wife, Marian Leaman Mininger ’74, each year “aims to make about 25 pies and a variety of other baked goods such as cookies, cakes and breads” for the sale. “She is hesitant to state amounts, not wanting to brag or set a precedent. Baking is just something she enjoys doing.” Marian was one of nearly 1,000 volunteers for the 47th Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale in 2013.

Phil Helmuth ’76, EMU’s executive director of development, chaired the Virginia Relief Sale for a total of seven years, handing off his leadership role in 2010, though he remains a rank-and-file volunteer. He also served as MCC’s coordinator of the organization’s overall North America Relief Sale efforts from 1997 to 2002. During that tenure, 11 new sales in the United States and Canada were added.

North America Relief Sale Coordinator Les Gustafson-Zook said that MCC received $5.45 million from the 46 MCC sales in the United States and Canada in 2013. The Virginia event raised $262,788.

Publicity for the sale is organized by Lisa Bergey Lehman, a 2003 business administration major, who in her paid job is marketing manager for Park View Federal Credit Union.

Sale chairman Dave Rush ’99, a Harrisonburg High School math teacher who has worked with the sale for nine years, notes that for many volunteers, it’s “a big reunion.”

Rush calls the sale “community building at its finest. I may not be working with MCC in another country, but I can do a small part to support the work of those who do.”

— Chris Edwards

Gift & Thrift, and its used-book enterprise, Booksavers of Virginia, and adjacent Artisans’ Hope gift shop (all three in a small shopping strip an easy walk from EMU) function as charitable enterprises that benefit the relief and development work of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), says Debra Glick King ’77, MBA ’12, general manager of the three. The businesses operate largely with volunteer labor, about 200 men and women these days.

Of the MCC thrift shops in 18 states and five Canadian provinces, Gift & Thrift is the only one in Virginia.

When the store opened on North Main Street in 1982, its first manager, Norman H. Kreider ’60, worked on a volunteer basis, as did the co-managers for the next 12 years: his wife, Dorothy Lehman Kreider ’54, and Marjorie Guengerich (wife of the late EMU administrator Paul Guengerich). Norman Kreider “often engineered remodeling projects” before the Kreiders left to operate Rolling Hills Antique Mall, which they have since sold, says Dorothy. Remarking on Gift & Thrift’s current facility, she adds, “It’s hard to believe the store is what it is now.”

Jordan Good ’09, a psychology major who handles furniture and electronics at Gift & Thrift, says, “It’s great working at a place where personal values meet organizational values.” Staff and volunteers sometimes do minor repairs on donated items, but Good would like donors to know that repairs make more sense for well-constructed wood furniture than for electronic items.

Artisans’ Hope is one of two stores in Harrisonburg that enables customers to “give twice” by shopping at Fair Trade stores.

Early MCC thrift stores featured “self help crafts” corners with creative gift items from developing nations, committed to fair compensation. Locally, that’s become the mission for two similar stores – Artisans’ Hope and Ten Thousand Villages.

“We try to work together” in referrals and searches, says King.

Artisans’ Hope, she explains, is an “alliance” store of Ten Thousand Villages, operating independently under Gift & Thrift’s umbrella to support Fair Trade organizations and goals.

Fair Trade certification, according to the Fair Trade Federation, requires “fair wages, cooperative workplaces, consumer education, environmental sustainability, financial and technical support, respect for cultural identity, and public accountability.”

King has observed more businesses in the for-profit sector carrying fair trade merchandise in response to the increase in customers who want to make socially responsible purchases.

King came from Lancaster County, Pa., to attend EMU in the late 1970s. Here she met her future husband Dave King ’76 (today EMU’s director of athletics). After graduating as a biology major, she taught school in Pennsylvania until the couple returned to Harrisonburg when Dave took the job at EMU in 2005. Their three children have all graduated from EMU, where King earned an MBA recently to enhance her ability to manage the three charity-focused stores. She likes nonprofit work, but feels “I could be in any business and live out my values and be profitable.”

The store has expanded its clothing inventory. “I love the atmosphere of change for the better, not change for change’s sake,” King adds.

Roy Heatwole ’64, one of many volunteers, enjoys meeting people over the cash register at Artisans’ Hope. He taught mathematics at EMC, 1965-67, prior to a civil service career.

Ten Thousand Villages has grown from the trunk of founder Edna Ruth Byler’s car soon after World War II to nearly 400 stores, including five in Virginia. The Harrisonburg outlet, celebrating its 21st year, began as “International Impressions” and became Ten Thousand Villages when the Villages network adopted that name in 1996, says director Valerie Showalter Weaver ’76. The store moved from the Dayton Farmers Market to the historic district of Harrisonburg in February 2011.

Weaver, from Waynesboro, studied social work at EMU and then worked in social services until she and Greg Weaver ’76 started their family. When, after volunteering at Ten Thousand Villages, she was hired 15 years ago to manage the store, she expected it to be a short-term job, but now she has no plans to leave a business she has grown to love. Kara Miller ’07 also started as a volunteer but is now on staff as volunteer coordinator.

Kelly Brewer Dean ’10, a hospital nurse and Villages volunteer, enjoys telling customers about Fair Trade’s “gifts that give twice.” As a first-year student in a work-study position at Artisans’ Hope, she “fell in love” with the products and mission. Then during her 2008 Middle East cross-cultural, she met one of the olive wood artisans and his wife. Touched by their pride in their work and its benefit to their family, she recalls the moment as “humbling and joyful.”

Kenneth D. Brunk, a volunteer and a board member of the local Villages store, agrees, “I am quite passionate about the huge difference it makes for craftspeople around the world.” He considers every hour volunteered “a direct gift to some friend I have never met who needs to market his or her skill to support their family.”

Ten Thousand Villages is not “eaten up with bureaucracy and process,” as are some NGOs and aid organizations, adds Brunk, who attended EMU in the late 1960s and early 1970s and then did rural development work in East Africa.

Tried and True is co-managed by Deb Rissler Layman ’86, a business administration major who grew up in her family’s local grocery. “Working with people and things comes easily,” she says.

Layman’s shop is one of two thrift shops in Harrisonburg managed by EMU grads. No problem ­– “the more thrift stores, the better,” Layman says. “Each shop has its own personality.”

Deb and Ken Layman ’80 raised their family while job-sharing – managing Crowded Closet in Iowa City, a shop benefiting MCC; then, managing and expanding Harrisonburg’s Gift and Thrift store from 1996 to 2005. Eventually, wanting to try a different set-up, they opened Tried and True Thrift Shop across town.

The Laymans’ store features silent antique auctions and Ken’s nature-photo cards. Profits totaling $80,000 have supported the Church of the Brethren Global Food Crisis Fund and MCC’s Generations at Risk HIV/AIDS Fund.

The Mennonite relief sale has claimed the energies of David Mininger ’74 each October since the mid-1970s. The Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale features hand-sewn quilts sold at auction, handmade crafts, goods baked by volunteers, and freshly prepared breakfasts and lunches. At first the event was named Augusta Relief Sale and held at Augusta ExpoLand. In its formative period, 1967-1974, this fundraiser occurred on a farm owned by the late Paul Wenger ’27.

For the last 18 years, while earning his living in insurance in Waynesboro (Va.), Mininger has been the grounds chair, in charge of set up and tear down. In 1999, Mininger and his fellow volunteers, most of them members of area Mennonite churches, followed the event when it moved to the Rockingham County Fairgrounds, where it has been a popular annual attraction ever since.

Homemade donuts are a major attraction. Lois Wenger ’76, heads the popular donut-production operation.

Dave says his wife, Marian Leaman Mininger ’74, each year “aims to make about 25 pies and a variety of other baked goods such as cookies, cakes and breads” for the sale. “She is hesitant to state amounts, not wanting to brag or set a precedent. Baking is just something she enjoys doing.” Marian was one of nearly 1,000 volunteers for the 47th Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale in 2013.

Phil Helmuth ’76, EMU’s executive director of development, chaired the Virginia Relief Sale for a total of seven years, handing off his leadership role in 2010, though he remains a rank-and-file volunteer. He also served as MCC’s coordinator of the organization’s overall North America Relief Sale efforts from 1997 to 2002. During that tenure, 11 new sales in the United States and Canada were added.

North America Relief Sale Coordinator Les Gustafson-Zook said that MCC received $5.45 million from the 46 MCC sales in the United States and Canada in 2013. The Virginia event raised $262,788.

Publicity for the sale is organized by Lisa Bergey Lehman, a 2003 business administration major, who in her paid job is marketing manager for Park View Federal Credit Union.

Sale chairman Dave Rush ’99, a Harrisonburg High School math teacher who has worked with the sale for nine years, notes that for many volunteers, it’s “a big reunion.”

Rush calls the sale “community building at its finest. I may not be working with MCC in another country, but I can do a small part to support the work of those who do.”

— Chris Edwards

Emily Derstine, a JPCS major at EMU, with her supervisor, Kirk Hanger, an EMU 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 EMU students.

Two EMU students will intern with congregations in the Midwest:

• John Tyson, a sophomore at EMU and a member at Souderton (PA) Mennonite congregation, will intern at Christ Community Church in Des Moines, Iowa;
• EMU 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 EMU 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.