“Even though I am only an intern, the congregation looks at me as a part of the pastoral team … they want me, as well, to not just be able to speak about being Christ-centered, but also live Christ-centered. It is eye-opening to see the pastoral role up close and in real time.”

Justin Odom

Six ��ݮ���� students are exploring church ministry this summer through internship placements that are offering them “amazing” experiences.

Seniors Luke Hertzler, Justin Odom and Mia Swartley are participating in the Ministry Inquiry Program (MIP), a partnership with Mennonite Church USA, completing tasks from across the spectrum of ministerial responsibilities and learning from the church leaders they are shadowing.

More than 300 EMU students have participated in MIP, a partnership of the student’s respective Mennonite college, home and host congregations and conferences, and Mennonite Church USA. Students receive a $500 stipend for living expenses from the host congregation, and, at the end of the program, a scholarship of up to $2,000 toward tuition costs at a Mennonite college or seminary for the next academic year, said , MIP director and instructor of at EMU.

Students interested in ministry within other denominations are also supported, said Schrock-Hurst. This summer, senior Victoria Barnes, junior Anna Cahill and 2019 graduate Fred Flores are also interning at Divine Unity Community Church (DUCC) in Harrisonburg, Virginia. 

Seeing ministry ‘up close and in real time’

In his MIP placement at Ripple Mennonite Church in Allentown and Whitehall Mennonite Church in Whitehall, Pennsylvania, Hertzler has tried many things: 

“I’ve preached, led Sunday school, led music, been to meetings, hung out with the youth, worked at the community center, worked in the garden, provided pastoral care, and done many other tasks,” he said. “But the task that I’ve claimed as my number one goal is to observe. I’ve learned so much from the pastors, just by watching them and their encounters with others.”

A Bible, religion and theology major from Harrisonburg, Virginia, Hertzler said that being attentive means finding wisdom: “I learned compassion and thoughtfulness from the little boy who offered me part of his supper when I hadn’t received mine yet. I learned silence and stillness from the older gentleman sitting on the bench. I learned courage and passion from the fiery mother who shared with me stories of miracles in her life that could have only been from God.”

Odom, a Biblical studies major with music performance and political studies minors from Williamsburg, Virginia, said that interning at Park View Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg has “challenged me spiritually.” He has helped with administrative duties, attended business meetings, accompanied pastors on visitations, completed assigned readings and more.

“Even though I am only an intern, the congregation looks at me as apart of the pastoral team,” he said. “I can see that they want me, as well, to not just be able to speak about being Christ-centered, but also live Christ-centered. It is eye-opening to see the pastoral role up close and in real time.”

And Swartley, at Witmer Heights Mennonite Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, has helped with many aspects of church ministry, an experience that has taught her that “there is a lot more to church ministry than I realized.”

“Since I am with a Mennonite Church I have also been learning about our history and how that affects us today,” the social work major from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, said. “Overall this experience is amazing and I am thankful that I decided to follow that nudge I felt back in March to sign up for this program.”

Additional summer ministry internships

The three additional students completing summer ministry internships are also diving in. 

Barnes reflected on a day that her fellow interns and church staff from DUCC traveled for a service at another church, an experience that “was a stretch in faith and in my own abilities,” she said. “I am so grateful to have had that, to rely on God’s provision of strength, and to be obedient in what I was tasked with by my leaders as a way to glorify God.”

From Wiesbaden, Germany, Barnes is majoring in organizational leadership and minoring in environmental sustainability and psychology. She plans to work in full-time ministry with a focus on hospitality and relationship building. 

Her internship has exposed her to more than just the behind-the-scenes aspects of church work such as delegating responsibilities and balancing a schedule. 

“It’s been so wonderful to learn from my supervisors about making sure that your life is consistent regardless of what environment you’re in,” she said. “I’ve been able to understand their passions behind what they do, and what God has placed on their hearts.”

Flores, who majored in international business and is from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, is also at DUCC, where he leads a men’s small group, coordinates a large group fellowship of college students, and oversees finances of Valley Every Nation, DUCC’s college ministry chapter of Every Nation Ministries.

“I am getting to know more about who God is, which also is guiding me to know who I am in Him,” he said. “I have surrendered my life to Him, having faith He will provide my necessities. Maturing spiritually in the Word has challenged me to realize that it is the source of truth and light in a world that needs Jesus.”

Living in community is important, he said: “We are not meant to do this by ourselves.”

Such partnership means accepting differences, said Cahill, a psychology and writing studies double major from Staunton, Virginia. 

“My experience with many different leaders has allowed me to understand how valuable differences are within the operations of the church,” she said. “I grew up in a different church, so there are some new or different aspects of Christianity at Divine Unity that I still need to learn more about. This challenge has given me the opportunity to grow more open minded and interested in the differences that divide denominations.”

MIP Endowed Scholarship Fund

The Showalter Ministry Inquiry Program Endowed Scholarship Fund was created by EMU alumni Stuart and Shirley Showalter to help strengthen the program.

The Showalters have served as professors and administrators at Goshen College and EMU for almost four decades and appreciate the value of experiential education. They have encouraged many students to participate in MIP and similar programs over the years; many of these program alumni are now serving in the ministry and with other church-related agencies.

“MIP provides excellent opportunities for college students to test the fit between their talents and a call to a possible vocation in pastoral ministry,” Stuart Showalter said. “We endorse first-hand experience with a congregation as a way for students to learn more about their leadership gifts while also contributing to the congregations they serve.”

Click here to support MIP with a contribution to the Showalter Ministry Inquiry Program Endowed Scholarship Fund.

welcomed students, faculty, staff and guests with a summary of the summer’s events on the national, denominational and local levels, situating these events as sources of fear, unrest and anxiety, as well as of grace and hope.

“Our aspiration is to be a university community that embodies these signs of hope, nurtures their development, and provides an alternative to the fear, ignorance and violence that drives so much of human society,” he said. “We aspire to be an engaged community of learning that is bound together by love – the love of learning, the love for God as revealed in Jesus Christ, and a love for each other.”

President , who will after 13 years at EMU, gave his final convocation speech, sharing his dreams for the future: “These are the dreams I have for you and my grandchildren: to serve as co-creators with God for a more sustainable world in which all God’s people can flourish, to be sustained by a faith that is grounded in hope not fear, and to be energized by an insatiable thirst for discovery and knowledge, not for ourselves but for the good of the world.”

He pointed to tangible actualizations of sustainability on the campus itself that he could already share with his

grandchildren: the recently revived by the student-run Sustainable Food Initiative, a new set to begin this fall, and the .

And in speaking to all in the community who mentor and support each other, Swartzendruber observed that too often Christians fall into argument or dissent, and are not exemplars of Jesus’ commandments: “love God with heart, soul, mind and strength, and our neighbors as ourselves.”

In a fitting intergenerational tribute, Swartzendruber was introduced by Student Government Association co-presidents Hanna Heishman and Rachel Schrock, and then promptly turned to introductions of honored guests and members of the EMU community.

Those present included former presidents and ; and , former interim president, as well as Shirley Showalter, former president of Goshen College, and Laban Peachey, former president of Hesston College who was also a professor and dean at EMU.

The event concluded with a sending of the China cross-cultural group and the traditional “Shenandoah Welcome,” during which the campus community forms two rows and new students walk between the clapping crowd to the sounds of traditional bluegrass music.

But executives at , the publishing branch of Harrisonburg-based Mennomedia, believe they’ve tapped into the next genre in Anabaptist literature: the memoir.

They’ve been on a mission to publish such novels, which is why they backed books such as Harrisonburg actor ‘ book, 2012 title “Laughter Is Sacred Space,” and Friendly City-based author ‘s 2013 memoir, titled “Blush,” last year. And that’s why the publisher has picked up ‘s latest book, “Bonnet Strings: An Amish Woman’s Ties to Two Worlds.”

“I’m thinking that the next phase or the next genre might be those of us who have lived the life or are living the life of Amish or Mennonite writing our own story,” Furlong said.

“There’s been so much out there about the Amish that’s just so false. I’m thinking it’s time for the true stories to come out.”

Saloma’s Story

Furlong, 56, left the security of her Amish community in Ohio at the age of 20. She headed for Burlington, a city she had only been introduced to in her history books, and secured her dream job as a waitress at a Pizza Hut.

“The first book [`Why I Left the Amish’] basically takes the reader to the point where I left the Amish for the first time,” Furlong explained. ” `Bonnet Strings’ picks up pretty much where that one left off.”

While she was in Burlington, Furlong made plans to enroll in college courses and met David, the man she would later marry, whom she began dating in the winter of 1978.

But it wasn’t long before a vanload of her family and friends showed up unannounced at her front door, with full intent of returning her to the Amish community.

“I basically did not want to find out what would happen if I resisted,” she said, explaining that she then returned to her hometown for almost three years before she left again.

“In the meantime, David did not give up wanting to communicate with me,” she added.

When she did leave the community again, it was David who picked her up in his truck. A year and a half later, the two married.

“The book is basically a story about being torn between my two worlds, but it contains a love story, as well,” Furlong said. “It basically leaves off when David and I got married.”

David wrote three of the book’s chapters and joins his wife during her presentations of the novel. The couple will return to ��ݮ���� to discuss the book March 25; Furlong first came to the university to discuss “Why I Left The Amish” in March 2013.

This year, the event will take place at 4 p.m. in the Strite conference room, 105, in the Campus Center at EMU. , another author who has been published by Herald Press, will introduce Furlong.

A Speedy Process

Amy Gingerich, editorial director for Herald Press, was so convinced that “Bonnet Strings” would be the perfect installment in the publisher’s string of Anabaptist memoirs that she fast-tracked the process of buying Furlong’s book.

Last July, on a Friday evening, Showalter mentioned to Gingerich that Furlong was planning to self-publish the memoir; by Sunday, Gingerich had set up a time to talk with the now western Massachusetts-based author.

“Typically, we kind of dance around with an offer for a few weeks,” Gingerich explained. “But I was really excited about this book. I said to Saloma. … `I want to get this thing sewed up Monday.’ ”

However, there was a slight complicating factor.

Gingerich was nine months pregnant and expecting her baby that Thursday.

“By Thursday, which was my due date, [Furlong] signed,” Gingerich said, laughing. “I went into labor Thursday night.”

Furlong then wrote the second half of her novel during September.

“I saw a lot of beautiful autumn days go by my window,” she jokes now.

The book was released Feb. 3, the day before a documentary featuring Furlong aired on PBS American Experience, called “The Amish Shunned.” She also had a lead role in a film simply titled “The Amish,” produced by the same company in 2012.

Gingerich explained the new novel’s universal appeal this way: “Whether or not you grew up Amish, I think all of us have to deal with questions of belonging.”

For more information on Furlong and “Bonnet Strings,” visit or .

Courtesy of the Daily News Record, March 22, 2014

“I think it might have been on Youtube that I first saw `On the Good Ship Lollipop,’ ” Showalter admitted from the comfort of her Harrisonburg home last week, letting out an infectious chuckle.

With an easy smile and a certain strength in eloquence, Showalter is a woman who seems comfortable in her own skin.

Her mother wanted a Shirley Temple doll since she was very young and had always hoped for a sister, so when she became pregnant with Showalter, it only seemed natural to call her “Shirley.”

“I became both the doll she never had and the sister she always wanted,” Showalter said.

Now 65, Showalter grew up in a “plain” Mennonite community in Lancaster, Pa. – an upbringing that restricted her from what she calls the “glittery things of the world.”

Her first book, which was released Sept. 19, explains the first portion of the headpiece-wearing Mennonite girl’s journey from the family farm to becoming a college president and foundation executive.

Although Showalter has made strides over the years, the rosy-cheeked portrait of her younger self on the cover of “,” looks very familiar.

But that’s the point: Showalter’s message is not to run from “blush” – which she describes as the questioning naivety she developed in her uncomfortable position between the church and the world – but to embrace it.

“When we learn to embrace our blush and let go of our ego and not fight those things … but rather relax into them, then we can learn and grow and come home to ourselves,” she said.

The past as a child in Lancaster

If there’s a spectrum of religious stringency, Showalter grew up living somewhere along the middle of it.

She didn’t have to wear ankle-length dresses over black stockings, but her skirts couldn’t be too short, and jeans were absolutely out of the question.

Her hair had to be long enough to pin into a neat bun on the back of her head and then covered, although that gauzy headpiece wasn’t as conservative – read: large – as some of the ones spotted in local areas, such as Dayton, today.

“Until I went to bed that night, I [would] wear that all day long,” she explained.

She could listen to the radio at home, but she was forbidden from watching television. Dancing also fell into the forbidden category, as well as movies, although she did go with her parents to see “The Sound of Music” when she was 16.

“I happened to have been born at the edge of a great transformation that was taking place in the church, and these requirements … all have changed,” she added. “I wore a covering to public high school and my sister – who’s seven years younger – did not.”

Showalter was the first in her family in another regard. When she decided to attend then-Eastern Mennonite College, she was the first person to pursue higher education on both sides of her family, which have been in America for 10 generations.

Some of the reasoning behind that lies in the nature of the Mennonite culture in which she was raised, the near certainty that boys would become farmers and that girls would head straight for marriage, Showalter explained.”But there was also question marks and suspicion,” she said. “Would college alienate a young person from the church, from their family?”

Despite some skepticism, her parents didn’t stand in her way and quietly encouraged her in the form of financial aid and transport to and from Harrisonburg.

That’s where the book ends, but Showalter’s real story was only just beginning.

“I’ve left the book at a point where it could be picked up again, but I haven’t made any decisions yet about the next stage,” she said.

The past in the larger world

A sequel to “Blush” would likely include the story of Showalter’s journey to in Goshen, Ind., where she became the first female president of the institution.

The story goes like this: After majoring in at what is now ��ݮ����, Showalter taught at from 1970-72.

She then moved to pursue her master’s degree at the University of Texas at Austin, along with her husband, , whom she met at her alma mater.

After emerging from Austin in 1980 with a PhD in American Civilization, Showalter taught English at Goshen College for several years. In 1996, she was named the 14th president of the college. Eight years later, she moved to Kalamazoo, Mich., to join the Fetzer Institute as the vice president of programs.

Showalter, who still considers herself a Mennonite, is now a full-time writer and blogger who also teaches an honors course about writing memoirs – a process she’s now intimately familiar with – at none other than EMU.

The future

On Sept. 19, Showalter started a three-week-long book tour at in Lititz, Pa.

At 7 p.m., Sept. 25, at EMU’s Martin Chapel, she will perform with local actor . The event will be a book launch for Showalter and a book re-launch for Swartz, whose memoir, “,” has gained a new cover.

The following afternoon, at 3:30 p.m., Sept. 26, Showalter will perform a short reading of “Blush” in an event sponsored by . It will be held at the university’s Campus Center.

Showalter will then head to Archbold, Ohio, then to Goshen and Kalamazoo for book signings.

“It’s actually like having eight weddings in five states over three weeks,” she joked.

If nothing else, she wants her readers to take home this message: “I learned that being naive was a great gift,” she said. “For a long time, I kind of fought it. … I feared my naivete, but I learned that it was actually a great gift. It meant that I was always starting over. I was always in beginner’s mind, and [that’s] a wonderful place to be.

“It’s a great learning place, and so what I thought was an obstacle sometimes growing up actually turned out to be a great gift.”

Article courtesy Daily News Record, Sept. 21, 2013, with minor edits by EMU’s editors.