Faculty, staff and fellow students nominated the recipients, who were cited for their “significant and verifiable impact” on the university and on student life; for their contributions to developing the institution’s positive image; for substantial contributions to the Harrisonburg/Rockingham County area and beyond; for their high academic and social standing; and their embodiment of EMU’s shared values of Christian discipleship, community, service and .

They wore gold and blue cords as they graduated on Sunday, April 28.

Blue represents strength of conviction that one person can help to create a better institution or community. Gold represents the love of spirit and yearning toward creating a better university environment or community.

2013 recipients

• Nels Akerson, a biology degree recipient from Harrisonburg, Va.
• Michael Allen, a liberal arts degree recipient from Fork Union, Va.
• Jossimar Diaz-Castro, a philosophy and theology degree recipient from Harrisonburg, Va.
• Ryan Eshleman, a philosophy and theoogy and biology degree recipient from Harrisonburg, Va.
• Darian Harnish, an accounting degree recipient from Manheim, Pa.
• Josh Kanagy, a psychology degree recipient from Harrisonburg, Va.
• Julia Schmidt, a history degree recipient from Pandora, Ohio.
• Hannah Schrock, a biology degree recipient from Kalona, Ia.
• Kelley Schroder, a music degree recipient from Leesburg, Va.
• James Souder, an environmental sustainability degree recipient from Harrisonburg, Va.

Emily Harnish, a senior from Strasburg, Pa., won first place with her speech, “Lessons from the hymnal in an election season.” In her speech, Harnish explains her anger over the non-peaceful manner of politics during the 2012 election and how the hymn, “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence,” made her think about peace in a new way.

“When I remember that my citizenship is in heaven, I am able to look past disagreements about politics,” said Harnish.

“When I take seriously the hymn’s command to give Christ all reverence and honor, I am able to move closer to living in peaceful relationships with my neighbors. This first stanza helped me understand that peacebuilding requires humility, that humans have limits, and that peace and wholeness come from something outside of humanity. It reminded me to keep silence, to be slow to speak, and slow to become angry.”

As a first-place winner, she will receive a cash prize and entry in the bi-national competition with winners from other Mennonite colleges and universities in the United States and Canada.

Rebekah Enns, a senior from Winnipeg, Manitoba, was one of two runners-up with her speech, “Language as Lived Reality: Developing a Discourse of Peace.” Enns discussed the power of words to “legitimize and delegitimize violence and to build societies of peace.”

“At least 43 percent of American Muslims undergo some form of discrimination or violence because of their religion every year. And while they only make up one percent of the American public, American Muslims are victims of 13 percent of hate crimes in the U.S.

“Through discourse, we, us, everyday people have the power to create systems of peace.”

Josh Kanagy, a senior from Timberville, Va., was the other runner-up with his speech, “Molding Peace Within: Reflections of a Recovering Workaholic.” Kanagy restructured his daily schedule to match his priorities, “refraining from responsibilities that overwhelmed me.”

“There’s nothing heroic about suffering alone. As illustrated by Thomas Merton, ‘This is about more than self-care, this is about molding yourself and your environment to support your capacity to thrive.'”

Kanagy urged those in attendance to, “Seek your passion, your freely chosen task.”

C. Henry Smith Oratorical Contest

The annual oratorical event, open to students in Mennonite and Brethren in Christ universities and colleges in Canada and the United States, is administered by Peace and Justice Ministries of U.S.

Each speaker applied the Christian peace position to a contemporary concern in an 8-10 minute address.

The contest was established in 1974 in honor of the late C. Henry Smith, a Mennonite historian and professor at Goshen College and Bluffton University.

Other 2013 contestants

• Corben Boshart, “Seeking Unity in the Mennonite Church”
• James Souder, “Redistributing Food, An Opportunity for Peace”
• Jossimar Díaz-Castro, “A Christian, Democratic Immigrant Witness & Participation Today”
• Mariah Elliott, “Are You Who You Say You Are?”
• Taylor Waidelich, “Restoring Justice to Educational Discipline”

A Guadalajaran woman crossing the border from Mexico into Arizona, Marcela is one of four immigrant characters Hartzler created using a combination of her training as both a playwright and immigration lawyer, in “No Rooster in the Desert.”

The play is fictional – based on fieldwork and research into real events – but tells a story familiar to thousands of immigrants crossing into the United States each year.

Last year, the Department of Homeland Security apprehended more than 640,000 foreign nationals; 76 percent native to Mexico, according to a 2011 enforcement actions report.

“One of the things I set out to do was not write a depressing immigration play,” said Hartzler, an EMU `94 graduate, from her Arizona home. “To make the characters real and accessible … [some people] view immigrants as either stately victims or law-breaking thieves. I wanted to present them not as … extreme but really human people.”

From stacks of immigrant interviews and her years working in Arizona with detainees, Hartzler premiered, “No Roosters in the Desert,” in Mexico City in 2010.

A Real Story

By then, Catalina Castro and her children were already long gone.

Jossimar Diaz-Castro arrived at the cafe, kissed his mother on the cheek and slid into the booth beside her. She poured a cup of tea for him, and they started to remember.

Catalina was a single mother in Mexico City, separated from her children’s father and working at all-night diners to make ends meet.

“I was working so hard in my country … but it’s very difficult for girls,” she recalled. Slowly, she was saving money to build a safe home for her growing family. The father of her children had bribed the authorities to evade paying child support, and the married women in her community looked on Catalina’s life with paranoia and suspicion.

They held hope for a stable home, but Catalina was tired.

“Frustrated?” Jossimar said.

“And just tired, too,” she continued. The memory etched her face. “My kids cried for me, and I was at the restaurant working all night … ”

Eight-year-old Jossimar and his baby sister spent many Mexico City nights alone. “It was a traumatic experience for me,” he said. “I don’t think about it, to tell you the truth, but it did instill in me an instinct of fear: Fearful of darkness, of ghostly potential creatures … which developed into something more broad, a fear of the world.”

One wouldn’t guess the now high-achieving senior, an honors student in theology and philosophy at EMU, carries a childhood that narrowly missed his mother’s violent stalkers, his father’s substance abuse and eventually led him to the floor of a packed van.

Crossing Over

Catalina had lost everything in fleeing from an abusive relationship, but her brother in Atlanta, Ga., seemed to have the solution.

She sold everything and borrowed money for the trip. “And we started to travel.”

Holding her children tightly to her chest for one night in a van, then walking in the desert for two days, Catalina finally crossed into the United States.

Along with a crowd of immigrants, mostly men, they jumped into a van to make the last leg of the journey into Houston.

Jossimar hid on the floor. Her daughter was given sedatives to stay quiet for the 12-hour ride. “At that point, I said, I want to come back … I felt so, so bad,” Catalina said.

The American dream became a nightmare. “You think once you’re in the U.S., it’s all good,” she said. “But you don’t speak the language, know nothing, can’t drive … ”

Jossimar cried to return to his homeland. The boy fell into a depression. “I said, `I love you but now I can’t give you anything,’ ” she remembers. “I want to have you with me, but in this situation there’s no saving you, there’s no life here.”

Nightmare Becomes Dream

The young mother made the choice to send Jossimar back to live with his father. She called the man; here, her heart breaks again. “I love my son but in this situation – this really hard situation – he needs you,” she told him over the phone.

Soon after, her daughter fell ill. Doctors told her that, without proper health care she could die. Catalina made another phone call, to her mother.

“Life is more difficult here,” she remembers crying. Her mother had a coldly realistic reply: If you don’t come with money, don’t come back.

Sending her daughter back to Mexico was the final thread snapping; she’d lost everything in an attempt to gain a better life. “I felt like a bad mom, so I never stopped working,” she said. Money earned from her three jobs was sent to Mexico, and to pay back debt to her brother.

After a long pursuit by a seemingly respectable Puerto Rican man, Catalina married. He then turned ugly.

“The big reason my mom endured being with this man, despite the deep abuse he was inflicting upon her, was that there was a legal process of documentation in the works,” Jossimar explained, his arm around her shoulder.

When the abuse became too much, Catalina ran. It was only a matter of time before he found her; at the point of a gun, he heaped on more unspeakable abuse, until the police saved her.

Now, the documentation process took a new direction: a case of domestic violence, not marital union.

Catalina called Jossimar in Mexico with the news: In six months, their four-year nightmare would end, and they’d be granted documentation.

Brand New World

“This country gave me opportunity,” Catalina said, the tea now cold and the dessert cake eaten. “We passed hard times, but I found God here.” She smiled describing their life now: an honorable husband, a stable job that brought them to Harrisonburg four years ago, two smart, successful children and two more sons.

“I see my all mother’s work being fruitful,” Jossimar said. “We see life much sweeter, and look forward to better things.”

Courtesy Daily News Record, Oct. 27, 2012

Funded in part by Mennonite Church USA, the MIP gives students an opportunity to explore their gifts for ministry and to test their possible calling to longer term service work for the church.

“The opportunity for students to test their gifts and to be mentored by seasoned pastors is truly invaluable,” said , instructor in the and director of MIP at EMU.

“The insights that these students then bring back to the classrooms in the fall greatly enrich the learning environment on campus”

Participating students

• Erika Bollman, a second-year student in and a member of Emmaus Christian Fellowship in Boise, Id., will intern at in Philadelphia, Pa. Bollman will work with an inner city congregation that worships in three languages: English, Spanish and Indonesian.
• Jossimar Diaz-Castro, a junior major and a member of the Early Church in Harrisonburg, Va., will intern with Iglesia Discipular Anabaptista in Harrisonburg. Diaz-Castro has the opportunity to “go deeper into the areas of teaching, preaching and working with the youth,” said Schrock-Hurst.
• Rebekah Enns, a junior , and major and member of River East Mennonite-Brethern Church in Winnipeg, Manitoba, will intern at Fourth Street Community Church in Washington, D.C. Enns will be working with the homeless population, providing meals and legal counseling. In addition, Enns will host youth groups from suburban Korean congregations who come to the city for an immersion experience.
• Rose Jantzi, a sophomore major and member of Iglesia Discipular Anabautista and Harrisonburg Mennonite Church, will intern with Highland Retreat in Bergton, Va., serving as staff chaplain and Christian nurture coordinator. Jantzi will be involved with pastoral care, teaching and worship planning with both staff and campers.
• Joel Nofziger, a junior and major and member of Pilgrims Mennonite Church in Akron, Pa., will intern with the Washington Community Fellowship Center in Washington, D.C. Nofziger will be working with a multi-denominational evangelical congregation affiliated with the Virginia Conference of the Mennonite Church located near the Capitol.

Hands-on experience

At the completion of their 11-week placement, students in the MIP program receive stipends towards their continuing education at a Mennonite college. In addition to Mennonite Church USA, funds come from EMU, the host congregation and conference, and the student’s sending congregation and conference.

“The MIP program is a win-win for the denomination, local congregations, students, participating colleges and for the broader church,” said Schrock-Hurst.

This summer, Mennonite Church USA anticipates having over 20 students in the MIP program from five Mennonite colleges participating in the program.

For more information on the Ministry Inquiry Program visit .

Each speaker applied the Christian peace position to a contemporary concern in an 8-10 minute address of 1,500 words or less.

Jessica Sarriot, a senior peacebuilding and Development major originally from Paris, France, took first place with her speech, “Hold on, Together.” Her speech examined the difficulties persons have in hearing each other,
often springing from a disparate sense of urgency and priority, and what needs to happen for genuine communication to occur.

“No matter their age, stance on war, mental health or the Establishment, people are brought together by their willingness to be moved, physically and figuratively, by the cry of another. When we do that, when we live
awake and responsive to others, seeing allies and opportunities, taking mad leaps at the light barely seen through the darkness, we are rewarded,”  Sarriott declared.

Jossimar Diaz-Castro, a sophomore philosophy and theology major from Mexico City, Mexico was first runner-up with his speech, “Unwanted Aliens: the Jewish and Hispanic Story.” Drawing on similarities between the Jewish people of Bible times and contemporary society, he urged his audience to “develop relationships with your Hispanic brothers and sisters. Invite them and visit each others’ congregations and set your tables for them.”

Megan Brauckmann, a senior peacebuilding and development major from Baltimore, Md., was second runner-up with her speech, “An Embodied Faith.”

“Being the body of Christ means allowing the model of the incarnation to challenge us radically to an embodied faith, a faith that wrestles with what the incarnation of the Word of God means and the role of the body in our theology – a faith that approaches each person barefoot, encountering holy ground,” Bruackmann stated.

As first-place winner, Ms. Sarriott receives a cash prize and entry in the bi-national competition with winners from other Mennonite-related colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. The bi-national winner will be announced in late September/early October.

Following graduation this spring, Sarriott plans to join nine other people in SEED, a two-year peacebuilding program in Colombia with Mennonite Central Committee.

The annual oratorical event, open to students in Mennonite and Brethren in Christ universities and colleges in Canada and the United States, is administered by Peace and Justice Ministries of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) U.S.

The contest was established in 1974 in honor of the late C. Henry Smith, a Mennonite historian and professor at Goshen College and Bluffton University.