Her experience reflects the new ways and new places that education takes place these days for EMU students, including , , grant-funded research and practicums, and being part of a cohort at a site to which EMU faculty come for classes.

Enns, from Winnipeg, Canada, lived in the nation’s capital at . While taking two courses at the center, she worked at , an interfaith coalition that seeks to end anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. As an intern with the organization, she used her experience as co-editor of , EMU’s student newspaper, to produce a bi-weekly newsletter, compile fact sheets, and otherwise pitch in on the group’s various initiatives.

An internship through EMU’s Washington center is more than just a taste of real-world work and an opportunity to develop contacts, ideas, and credentials for life after college. It’s also a launching point for deeper examination of the relationship between faith, values, and career.

“How do we as Mennonites engage the state, and how much do we build our alternative systems?” asked Enns, whose great-grandparents were part of the mass migration of Mennonites from Russia to North America during the turbulent years after the Bolshevik Revolution.

What relationship, exactly, should a person of faith hold toward advocacy in a secular environment, she wonders. Doesn’t faith like hers, one that prescribes action on behalf of “the least among us,” require this sort of entanglement with the wider world? But does this very entanglement with the wider world undermine the foundations of her faith?

Enns doesn’t have answers to her questions yet, but she knows she would like to continue doing faith-based advocacy after she graduates this spring. In fact, her plans at this point are to join .

During her four-year career at EMU, Enns took advantage of other non-traditional ways of learning.

Soon after she arrived on campus as a first-year student, she took an optional field trip with her Restorative Justice and Trauma class to a penitentiary, where she participated in three days of a Quaker-developed “Alternatives to Violence Program” with inmates.

In her sophomore year, Enns satisfied EMU’s cross-cultural requirement by creating her own semester-long study experience in the African nation of Chad, where her parents were serving with .

For 10 weeks between her junior and senior years, Enns was part of a offered at EMU that gives college students a chance to be an intern, mentored by a pastor, in a congregational  setting. Her assignment was at .

EMU offers a variety of other new ways and places for students to pursue their education.

More and more graduate students are taking their courses online, usually studying from their homes. The was the first unit at EMU to offer distance learning, and now most of EMU’s also offer courses online.

Nurses who are studying for a master’s degree in nursing leadership and management don’t have to come to campus very often (or to .).  The program is designed for working nurses who need to maintain family commitments and remain on the job. Jeanette Nisly ’96, for example, is and raising two children with her Guatemalan husband.

Sometimes the students are surprised to see that online learning actually offers more interaction with class members and professors than a traditional classroom. A faculty advisor provides ongoing support for students and helps with logistics, technology questions, and other issues. Students also receive support from staff, graduate writing tutors, and library staff.

Other non-traditional learning opportunities at EMU:

• , which offers a mix of study through the annual Summer Peacebuilding Institute at EMU and experiences in the students’ home countries. The first group, in 2012, included 12 women from Africa and the South Pacific. They were selected from more than 100 applications. Funds for the program are provided by USAID and the German development organization, EED/Bread for the World.

• . The latest example, announced in February, is a $20,000 grant from the United Service Foundation that will send eight undergraduates to foreign locations (Colombia and Iran in 2013), supervised by an EMU-linked mentor. The grants are for peacebuilding and development majors, who are required to complete off-campus practicums.

• . Many of the students enrolled in EMU’s programs run from Lancaster, Pa., don’t actually go to classes at the center’s facility in a business park. Students in the pastoral studies program, for example, attend classes this spring at Lancaster Mennonite Conference offices or sites in Philadelphia, Hatfield, and Morgantown. The three-year program, called , is for new pastors or prospective pastors.

• Taking trauma courses all over the world. In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, established a program to help community leaders deal with the trauma of disasters and conflict. Called , the program has trained more than 7,000 people worldwide. The training seminars take place at EMU, across the United States, and all over the world in places like Lebanon, Haiti, and Mexico.

The second Sunday of May. May 13, 2012. International Mothers Day. A day to thank the women who bore us and raised us. A day of celebration.

I have noticed Mother’s Day come and go several times. I pride myself on never forgetting the culturally mandatory, and always rewarding, phone call to my mother, even when she is across the globe. Often I call my grandmother and single aunt as well – they too have been mothers in my life.

This year, however, I was struck by how Mother’s Day, with its focus on gift giving and flowers designed both to empower the economy and praise feminine domesticity, losses sight of the character of mothering.

I celebrated Mother’s Day with “The House of Peace,” a church community run through Fourth Street Community Fellowship () for the impoverished and homeless of inner city Washington D.C. In honor of the occasion, Reverend Sang Jin Choi asked members to share testimonies about their mothers in place of a message.

As I reflected on my own mother – the wonderful woman who, along with my father, raised my two siblings and me, cared for us, encouraged us, loved us, and inspired us, and who I was looking forward to calling that afternoon – I listened to stories of other mothers from this community. Some of them were strong women, mothers who struggled with alcoholism and abusive husbands and persevered, mothers who fought racial prejudice to put food on the table, mothers who cared for all the children in the neighborhood. And other mothers, mothers who never said I love you, who were weighed down by their circumstances and unable to continue caring for their children, grandmothers who raised their grandchildren when mothers left or died. Each story, personal and heart wrenching, was received with applause and tears.

In response, Rev. Choi compared a mother’s unconditional love to God’s love; a mother’s caring embrace to the image of God’s wings of protection around us; a mother’s drive to provide for her children with God’s promise to care for the world. I reflected on the stories of those who had never felt their mother’s love, never been surrounded by their mother’s caring embrace, never been cared for or provided for by their mother.

At the end of the service, Rev. Choi asked all the mothers to gather at the front of the room for a photo. When I did not stand to join them, a man sitting near me asked if I was not a mother. I answered with a smile and a shake of my head. His response: “You better get working on that.”

Honestly, I was taken aback. I am 20 years old, just finished with my junior year at college, nowhere near ready to have children – if I ever do decide to.  And then I began to reflect. “You better get working on that.” Working on being a mother? What does it mean to be working at motherhood? To work at being a mother? To work at mothering?

An older woman sat me down on Saturday “for a little love time.” Holding my hand, she encouraged me to have faith, to trust God, and not become discouraged when I could not see the answer to my problems. She gave me a few hugs before moving on. I had never met her before.

At church on Sunday, one elderly woman offered encouragement to all the young black men. In front of the whole congregation, she encouraged them, in the difficult world in which they live, to make healthy, good decisions on behalf of their communities. And then she commanded the rest of us present to do the same, whenever we encountered a young man.

Another woman, younger, known to the community as Deaconess Paula, encouraged people to be advocates to those in power instead of fighting within the community. On this day for “mothers of the past, current mothers, and mothers of the future,” the Deaconess encouraged the whole community to make change happen. “Here’s to us. Because it’s a long road, a very long road, and I don’t want to see us fighting each other no more. I want us to make this a better place for our children.”

For me, these were all examples of mothering. Women dedicated to encouraging, inspiring, and nurturing those around them, regardless of blood relation.  In a community where sometimes biological mothers are not up to the task of raising children, others take on the responsibility of embracing, of providing, and of reflecting God’s unconditional love to everyone around them.

The man sitting next to me during the service was right. In honor of Mother’s Day, the style of mothering I saw demonstrated by women is this community is something I “better get working on.”

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 DĂ­az-Castro, “A Christian, Democratic Immigrant Witness & Participation Today”
• Mariah Elliott, “Are You Who You Say You Are?”
• Taylor Waidelich, “Restoring Justice to Educational Discipline”

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 .