In this issue:

People of God’s Peace

Strategic Priorities

A Snapshot of Holy Week

CMC Prison Reentry Ministry

New Member Profiles

Summer Events 2019

College Mennonite Church Spring 2019

Welcome, Anne Marie Weaver! Anne Marie Weaver did not grow up in a musical family. Until she started teaching herself to play piano at age nine, ballet lessons and singing in church provided the strongest musical influences in her life. She studied music and English at Goshen College (’03), however, and now, after two subse-quent graduate degrees (MM and PhD), she has developed a career as a music historian, pianist, and piano teacher.

Congregational song is still a core part of her musical identity. She believes that music is not just entertain-ment, but a profound act of worship and service that strengthens the church and brings us as individuals closer to God. As a lifelong Mennonite, she inherited a deep love for a capella hymnody, but her musico-logical interests inspire her to explore music of all different styles. She looks forward to discovering CMC’s favorite songs and teaching us a few new ones! She is a song leader and pianist, and her husband Jeffery, who works as an accountant, is also a pianist and organist.

When she is not playing piano or teaching, Anne Marie is likely to be at home with her children, James (age 7) and Andrew (2½). She also has two cats and enjoys gardening and quilting. After many years in Ohio and New York, the Weavers are happy to live on Jeffery’s family’s dairy farm west of Goshen, and the boys love riding tractors and watching the Guern-sey cows.

—Anne Marie Weaver

2 SING! Spring 2019

We worship together

Every Sunday

9:15 a.m. – Songs for Gathering

9:25 a.m. – Worship Broadcast

Radio: WGCS 91.1 FM: the Globe

Online: www.collegemennonite.org

Greencroft Communities: Ch. 13

9:30 a.m. – Worship service

Interpretation in Spanish and, on

request, American Sign Language

11 a.m. – Fellowship and Christian

education classes for all ages

Pastoral Team Phil Waite, Pastoral Team Leader & Worship

Daniel Yoder, Christian Formation – youth

Pamela Yoder, Pastoral Care

Talashia Keim Yoder, Family Ministry

David Maldonado, Outreach

Madeline Maldonado, Outreach

Rex Brake, Pastor of Deaf Christian Fellowship

Luis Tapia, Guest Pastor

College Mennonite Church is a welcoming congregation of Mennonite Church USA, an Anabaptist community

of believers.

To learn more go to: www.collegemennonite.org

www.mennoniteusa.org

People of God’s Peace

Thirty years ago, an environmental movement bubbled up in the Philippines. I had a front row seat since I was working with tribal people on southern Mindanao island. Extractive industries such as mining, logging, and plantation (monoculture) farming had decimated the landscape. The local climate had changed due largely to deforestation, and a flood/drought cycle became the norm.

A few people became wealthy from this extractive economy, many of whom had never set foot in the Philippines. Many people had livelihoods destroyed. Many were forced out of their traditional communities into cities, where they became squatters and slum dwellers. It is safe to say that this is not peace. This is not what God desires for creation. As our climate changes, the people most impacted are the people least seen and heard—those living far away on marginal land and those who have yet to be born. This summer in worship, we will name this injustice, confess our complicity in it, and renew our commitment to be people of God’s peace.

—Phil Waite

SING! Spring 2019 3

Strategic Priority #1 states “We will embrace diversity and improve our practices related to welcoming and actively including and inviting others into our physical space and spiritual community.”

One of the goals for priority #1 is “transforming our physical space to be more welcoming and to promote relationships and a sense of belonging.” As the pic-tures show, we are building community and promot-ing welcome and care for others and for the earth.

Where Are We Going as a Congregation? What Is God’s Dream for the Future of CMC?

Composting Scavenging Snacks

Benefit Concert

for

Caleb Gunawan

Exploring Nature

Dandelion Trumpet

Learning Sessions

Thank You God Stamp

Creation Care Retreat

4 SING! Spring 2019

Continued on next page

A SNAPSHOT OF HOLY WEEK

Palm Sunday

Maundy Thursday

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Easter Sunday

6 SING! Spring 2019

We have been talking about transformation during this Easter season, particularly during children’s time in worship. We have used the image of the caterpillar-to-butterfly journey as a way of transformation into new life. This also seems an appropriate image as we consider College Mennonite Reentry Ministry. We are in a time of transformation and waiting—waiting to see just what new form this ministry will take over the next months and years. Though we are giving a flexible structure to this ministry and certainly have short-term and long-term goals for its growth and development, the process of getting there is new and mysterious. It takes faith, patience, and much hard work. Picture the caterpillar shedding its outer layer and legs and enclosing itself into a chrysalis. The work does not stop, though—much is happening in the shelter of the chrysalis. The Holy Spirit has been bringing to our doors people who need accompaniment and support. Those directly involved in reentry ministry are seeking to listen care-fully to the Spirit’s calling and partner with. Again, faith, patience, hard work, and prayer are needed. Commu-nity is needed—community to band together to live out this important calling, a welcoming community for such persons to join. We have been blessed and challenged as a congregation over the last few decades in what it means to relate to those who are imprisoned. There are surprises and challenges and many lessons to be learned. There are anticipated obstacles with reentry: finding good, safe, affordable housing; barriers to employment; financial commitments; and more. There are also surprises along the way, many positive, such as new and supportive relationships, with just as many negative surprises, such as the realities of long-standing relationships of negative influence or the challenges of substance abuse history. Due to the high need for this ministry and the com-plexity of this work, Marie Clements was asked to give leadership and coordination to our collective work in reentry ministry and to form a new way forward. Marie has a unique perspective with her own reentry journey, as well as a deep passion to help our community to help others. Marie is involved in the Elkhart County Reentry Initiative, works with a team from Center for Community Justice that is developing a reentry simula-

tion process, and is connecting with other churches and community members involved or interested in reentry work. Marie is building a reentry leadership team here at CMC, as well as a volunteer team.

Just as these groups were beginning to form, a young woman named Stacy, whom we were planning to invite into our reentry process, was granted a modification to her sentence and arrived about two years earlier than antici-pated. Things had to move into high gear in order to welcome her into the Goshen and CMC community. June Yoder and Marie led the way,

along with many others, to try to make a smoother path for Stacy’s transition. The CMC Reentry Ministry com-mitted six months of free housing, assistance with basic necessities and house arrest and probation fees, as well as giving counsel, support, prayer, and helping to find gainful employment and other opportunities toward independence. There were many bumps in the road with Stacy’s dreams, often moving in a direction different from the many volunteers working alongside her. Even so, Stacy is now living independently, has steady work, and is finding her way one day at a time. It is not an easy journey, but the Holy Spirit knows that we perhaps gave her more of a chance for a success-ful and encouraging reentry than if she had needed to forge her way all on her own. Before Stacy, persons who had circles of reentry support from CMC have had either family or friendship connections within the con-gregation, so our work with her brought us into new territory. This most recent experience, as well as previous ones, have taught us important lessons, such as the partnering with other organizations, such as Oaklawn, Maple City Health, Center for Healing and Hope, and more to tend to areas where they hold expertise. In addition, it is important that we build greater awareness within the congregation and Go-shen community, as well as to build our funding so that we can continue to sustain and grow reentry support. This humbling and complex ministry requires much discernment, patience, and compassion. We invite your constant prayers in this new and mysterious adventure. Join us in our hope as we are, all of us, reentrant or not, each being transformed and renewed in Christ-likeness day-by-day. Thanks be to God.

—Pamela Yoder

CMC Prison Reentry Ministry Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is free-

dom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though re-flected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. —2 Corinthians 3:17-18

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We both grew up in the Goshen-Middlebury area, but did not meet until later in life. Phil was a teacher at Elim Bible Institute in Altona, Manitoba, and Julie was pursuing a varied career as a social worker, Youth with a Mission volunteer, and Essenhaus waitress when we were married in 1986. We soon set off for Ghana as workers with Mennonite Board of Missions, teaching pastors of African Indigenous Churches at the Good News Training Institute (1988-92). Returning to Canada, we became co-pastors at two Ontario churches—Zurich Mennonite (1993-1997), and Hamilton Mennonite (1997-2004). Then, feeling again the call to serve the church internationally, we accepted an assignment with Mennonite Partners in China (2004-2013). We taught English at two Chinese universities—Chongqing Medical University in the megalopolis of Chongqing and Sichuan University of Arts and Science in the smaller city of Dazhou. During our nine wonderful China years, several of our students became “godchildren”--especially meaningful as we have no children of our own. We have made three trips back to China to visit our “kids” and many other friends. We thought we might retire in Canada, but have ended up back in Goshen in part due to College Mennonite Church. In 2015, Julie purchased a vacation condo here, so that she could “have more Goshen time.” We lived in it in January 2016 and

attended CMC, where we found an unusually warm and inviting group of people. We said, “We think we could feel at home in Goshen. Let’s move back.” So in August 2016 we did. We joined CMC only this past March because we first did two other things after our move—a year of voluntary service at Eastern Mennonite University and a year as interim pastors at Bonneyville Mennonite Church. These days Julie enjoys being part of several spiritual direction and reading groups, and Phil has been teaching in Goshen College’s English as a New Language program. We look forward to learning to know more CMC folk, and to contributing to the ministries of this gifted congregation.

—Philip and Julie Bender

New Member Profiles

Philip and Julie Bender

8 SING! Spring 2019

Sing! is a publication of College Mennonite Church. Send inquiries to communications@collegemennonite.org. Marie Clements, Managing Editor Don Garber, Copy Editor Photographers include Dottie Kauffmann, Rex Hooley, Marie Clements, Higinio Luna, Pamela Yoder

COLLEGE MENNONITE CHURCH 1900 S Main St. Goshen IN 46526-5218

Office hours: 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Mon.–Thurs. Phone: (574) 535-7262 E-mail: cmc@collegemennonite.org Web site: www.collegemennonite.org

Summer Events 2019

June

June 10-14 Vacation Bible School (register to volunteer or attend at www.collegemennonite.org)

June 30 Final day of 2018-19 Sunday school year

June 30-July 6 Mennonite Church USA convention in Kansas City

July (no Sunday school)

July 7, 11:00-11:45 a.m. Convention Sharing

Learn about the convention from the youth and delegates who attended.

Child supervision provided on playground for those who wish to attend convention sharing.

July 14, 11:00-11:45 Jokes and Snacks

Third annual open-mic joke-sharing, emceed by Phil Waite.

Bring a finger food snack.

Prepare your favorite (non-sexist, non-racist, appropriate) joke to share!

July 21, 11:00-12:00 Bike Ride

Ride a trail with your church family.

July 28, 11:00-11:45 Games on the Lawn

Bring your favorite lawn game to the front lawn and get some friends to play it with you!

Or bring a lawn chair and watch the fun!

August (Anabaptist Learning Month)

Planning teams are working on prepar-ing our second annual month of learn-ing about distinctives of Anabaptist faith, this year focusing on the theme of “Reconciliation: with God, Ourselves, Creation, and Others.” While the 2019-2020 Sunday school year doesn’t officially begin until September, there will be programming during the Sunday school hour for children, youth, and adults.

August 4: Reconciliation with God

August 11: Reconciliation with Ourselves

August 18: Reconciliation with Creation (Celebration Sunday)

Outdoor worship service (at the church)

Post-worship experiential learning

Potluck lunch

August 25: Reconciliation with Others

August 30-September 1: Creation Care Retreat at Friedenswald (sign up at www.collegemennonite .org)

September 1, 2019-20: Sunday school year begins

11:40 Blessing for teachers and children in the Memorial Garden (all are invited to attend).

-—Talashia Keim Yoder

Summer brings its own rhythm to our church family life. It’s a less programmed part of our church year, a time for trying new things and making room for hospitality. As you step into summer, here are some dates to keep in mind!