Mosaic Mennonites

Missional - Intercultural - Formational

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Visioning for the Hard Work of Leadership 

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by Rose Bender Cook

Being an effective leader is hard work. Healthy leaders with integrity, humility, courage, and vision seem rare. In our current political arena, power conflicts and personal agendas prevent collaboration and creative problem-solving. In our congregations, conferences, and denomination, we have similar challenges. It’s a difficult time to lead. Leaders need our prayers.   

This year, I started the Doctor of Ministry (D.Min) in Leadership program at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS). Initially, I spent time assessing my strengths and weaknesses and realized I have blind spots I don’t even recognize yet. As I look back over 13 years as a pastor at Whitehall (PA) and reflect on my new position at Mosaic, I am humbled. This is sacred work. I want to be effective, but even more, I want to be faithful. 

Scripture teaches us much about leadership. I am convicted when I read about Moses’ workaholism, over-functioning, and lack of time with family which had to be corrected by his father-in-law (Exodus 18). I identify with Elijah’s repeated narrative that he was the only one left to do God’s work (1 Kings 19). I am challenged by Esther’s courage to be a voice for her people at great personal risk (Esther 8). I am inspired by Peter’s willingness to adapt when he witnessed the outpouring of the Spirit at Cornelius’ home (Acts 10).

Then, there is Jesus. His times of prayer grounded him so that he wasn’t swayed by the pressure of the crowd (Mark 1: 35-39). He was focused on the plan of the Father, and yet flexible, stopping to raise the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7) and healing the daughter of the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7).    

As a part of the D.Min program, I was asked to develop a vision statement for my leadership growth.  After prayer, discernment, and some fear and trembling, I submitted this: 

To be grounded, gracious, and Spirit-led–opening space for everyone to take their place at God’s table.   

Each part of that vision invites me to growth and into spaces that are uncomfortable. I wonder if I can live up to this call. Will I apply the discipline it takes to stay grounded? Will I grow in joyful patience and generous love so I can be truly gracious? Will I surrender my ego and agenda to follow the Spirit’s prompting?  

Will I be able to imagine the big table of God (Luke 13: 29-30; 14:21-23) which looks different from the table I would set? How will I clear space for those who have no power to share their voice? How do I welcome others as Christ has welcomed me? (Romans 15:7) How do I love the stranger, the enemy, as well as the brother or sister who comes from a different theological perspective than I do?   

There are plenty of times where it seems easier to throw in the towel on this leadership journey.  According to the scriptures, I am in good company. But I serve a God who is faithful, who always provides what is needed to live into the call we’ve been given.  

I pray for discernment as I listen to the Spirit and for the courage to obey. As I relate to other leaders and those in my care, I want to be loving, tender-hearted, and humble (1 Peter 3:8). This is God’s church, God’s table, God’s mission, and I have been invited to join. Instead of relying on my own leadership abilities, I will trust fully in the One who began this good work and will bring it to completion (Phil 1:6).   

Rose Bender Cook

Rose Bender Cook is the Leadership Minister for Formation and the Mosaic Institute Director. She is also a pastor at Whitehall (PA) Mennonite Church.

Naked Ash Wednesday 

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by Gary Alloway

Over the past two years, Redemption (our church) has hosted a book club at the local brewery. We have discussed everything from Flannery O’Conner to Walter Wink, trying to engage with books that give people wider perspectives on faith. And since our local brewery is called Naked Brewery, book club is affectionately known as Naked Book Club (*clothes required*).   

Part of the reason the book club has worked is because we have been hosted by Crystal the Bartender. Crystal loves us. Crystal is for us. Crystal has become a personal friend. Crystal is our best evangelist for the book club. Crystal wouldn’t call herself a Christian, but she is our person of peace, that weird person Jesus speaks about in Luke 10, who will apparently receive you indefinitely when you go out on mission.  

So when Ash Wednesday came around this year and we had a scheduling conflict at our church building, we asked Crystal if we could have the service at the brewery. She got excited about it and said “Sure!” And thus was born the first ever Naked Ash Wednesday.   

Crystal, a bartender at Naked Brewery, and a “person of peace” for Redemption Church of Bristol. Photos provided by Gary Alloway.

It should be said, Naked Brewery is in a 19th-century building in Bristol and like many old Bristol buildings, the basement is about as spooky as can be. Ceilings are low, river stones protrude from the walls, weird nooks lead you into darkened corners. It is a perfect place for an Ash Wednesday service. It is a perfect place to remember your mortality. We invited people to come early for a last beer before Lent. And then we remembered that we have come from dust and to dust we shall return. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. 

Participants in the Naked Ash Wednesday service led by Redemption Church of Bristol, at the Naked Brewery.
Participants in the Naked Ash Wednesday service led by Redemption Church of Bristol, at the Naked Brewery.
Participants in the Naked Ash Wednesday service led by Redemption Church of Bristol, at the Naked Brewery.

As we emerged from the basement, Crystal asked, “Do you have any ashes left? You might need to get everyone up here?” We gave ashes to a few people and probably could have given them to more. Honestly, our sheepishness was more the limitation than any sort of hostility to our presence there. It seems that the longstanding symbols of the church still have meaning and resonance in an age of secularism.

As we packed up, Crystal was anxious to know how the service went and excited to hear of its success. And then she gave us another indefinite invitation: “What about next year? You guys want to do it again? Should we book this as an annual tradition?” 

Jesus tells us that when we find the person of peace, don’t move around. Stay put and be present to the work of God in that place. So it sounds like we are on the hook for next year.  It sounds like this was the first of many Naked Ash Wednesdays.   

Gary Alloway

Gary Alloway is a pastor and church planter of Redemption Church of Bristol (PA), which is a Mosaic Partner in Ministry and was founded in 2009.  Gary serves with his wife, Susan, and his children, Augie (9) and Rosey (7), who deeply love pretzel dogs from the Bristol Amish Market.  Gary has a passion for Philadelphia sports, crossword puzzles, and for seeing broken people connect to the amazing love of God. 

I did not feel worthy: the call of Pastor Fernando Loyola (Centro de Alabanza) 

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by Fernando Loyola

Transcribed and translated by Andrés Castillo

In my father’s room I stumbled across a Bible passage: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Mat 5:8). I did not consider myself pure in heart—on the contrary, in those days I was an alcoholic and had been abusing my authority as a policeman. I began to cry. 

In this context, in Mexico, I received my call. I was neither a Christian nor did I know what it meant to read the Bible. 

One day, the desire to follow Christ came to me, but I didn’t know where to start. I told my mother, who simply responded, “you already follow Christ.” While it was true that my family was Catholic, I knew that even drug traffickers in my country aligned with the Catholic faith. I replied, “I feel like there is more to following Christ.” 

One day my older brother introduced me to Kirk Hanger, a Mennonite missionary, and through him I learned about the gospel. I started going to church, where I met my wife, Letty. I began studying and became a teacher. Although I still didn’t understand what it meant to follow Christ, I wasn’t drinking, and things were going better for me. 

Unfortunately, the increased salary of the new job influenced me, and I relapsed. I stopped going to church and my wife’s leadership role was taken away. I began to be mentally and verbally abusive to her, which caused her to leave me and take our two daughters with her. I reacted by doing what I knew best: I drank. 

I was ready to let myself die, so much so that I ended up with alcohol poisoning and my sister, a nurse, aided me in recovery. The Lord reminded me of something I had once said: “God, I know You exist, but I want to live my life my way.” 

I went to a rehabilitation center. During my time there, I felt that the Lord was calling me to go to the United States. I knew my wife, Letty, was there and while I was finishing my rehabilitation program, she called me and invited me to come reunite with her. 

Despite the possible dangers, I believed it was what I should do. “Don’t the United States belong to me?” God asked me. The next day I started the journey and managed to get to Denver, where my wife lived. This call really was from God. 

In Denver, Letty and I went to church, worked, and lived “the American dream.” One day through Kirk Hanger my wife received a call to go to Philadelphia. I was helping her there when we suddenly received a call; Aldo Siahaan from Philadelphia Praise Center (PPC) was looking for a pastor who could help engage the Hispanic community. 

Shortly after accepting PPC’s invitation, people began to call me “pastor.” I did not feel worthy. I prayed, “God, confirm this call, and may there be no shortage of food in my house.” 

We now live a few minutes’ walk from Centro de Alabanza’s new building, which is undergoing renovations. I am studying at Anabaptist Mennonite Bible Seminary (AMBS). Some members of the church are studying with the Anabaptist Bible Institute (IBA) and with the Hispanic Anabaptist Bible Seminary (SeBAH) and my wife and I lead Bible studies. 

We have two daughters: Fernanda, 22, who supports with praise by playing the piano; and Daniela, 19, who is studying law. My hobbies are watching movies based on real events with my wife and reading about Biblical topics. 

Hatching Compassion 

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by Sharon Hernandez, Editorial Content Specialist, Everence

Editor’s Note: This year, Everence will honor Ivan and Evelyn Moyer, Leon and Karen Moyer, and Eileen and Jeryl Knechel with their National Journey Award. The Moyers were longtime members of the former Rocky Ridge (Quakertown, PA) congregation. An Everence Journey Award honors people who live out the faithful stewardship of their God-given gifts. The presentation will take place at Quakertown (PA) Christian School on March 24, 2024 at 4pm. 

The original, longer version of this article first appeared on Everence’s Everyday Stewardship. 

Ernest and Verna Moyer started their business, Moyer’s Chicks, in Quakertown, Pa., in 1946. Through their business and their lifestyle, they instilled in their children – Ivan, Leon and Eileen – lifelong values of generosity, humility and compassion.

Their story is one of generosity and love across family, community and the world at large, spanning decades and impacting generations.

Siblings Ivan, Eileen and Leon at the hatchery their parents, Ernest and Verna Moyer, built outside of Quakertown, Pa. Photo published on Everence’s Everyday Stewardship.

While still in their late teens, Ernest and Verna began assisting with a small Mennonite mission station outside Quakertown, an hour north of Philadelphia, initiated in part by Verna’s older brother Linford Hackman.

They married in 1936 and Ivan was born two years later. As their commitment to this mission work intensified, they and other like-minded Mennonite families decided to move there to start a new community infused with a gospel-centric lifestyle.

Within a year of returning home from a Civilian Public Service assignment, Ernest bought some land, built a home for his family and started his hatchery business. He famously made his first delivery of chicks in his 1941 Oldsmobile sedan during a snowstorm in January 1947.

Unbeknownst even to Ernest at the time, the hatchery would become so much more than a lucrative business, it would be a means for helping his community and missionaries abroad.

In 1950 Ernest became the lay pastor of the Rocky Ridge Mennonite Mission and continued in this pastoral role into the late 1980s. In 1951 he also cofounded Quakertown Christian School, at which he served as board chair in its early years.

“It is not an overstatement to say that the Moyer family embodies the biblical idea of stewardship.” said Franco Salvatori, Everence Stewardship Consultant and pastor of Rocky Ridge from 2010-2020. The Moyers were no strangers to trying new programs to help communities, and the family regularly engaged in mission work across the country and abroad.

In 1953, Ernest connected with Mennonite missionaries in Puerto Rico and began a partnership in which Moyer’s Chicks shipped them about 500 chicks every other week to eventually 10,000 weekly.

Ernest also flew to Puerto Rico about four times a year to assist with agricultural and community development projects – and, eventually, opened a satellite hatchery on the island in 1960, which continued on into the 1980s. 

It was no surprise, then, that giving would be second nature for their children. To them, sharing of their time and resources with the community and the world around them was all they knew, said Leon Moyer. In time, Ivan, Leon and Eileen also would pass these values to their children. 

None of Ernest’s children felt obligated to return to the hatchery after going to school – Leon lived abroad for many years in Haiti and Bolivia, involved in mission work – but ultimately, they all returned to the family business. 

Under the direction of a new generation of Moyers, the business continued finding ways to give back. Nowadays the family – having sold the hatchery and retiring in 2020 – is still active in the community, serving on boards and continuing their volunteer work in other ways. Ivan meets with a local group of community leaders from around the world. Leon and his wife help immigrants settle in the community. And Eileen and Jeryl donate hours of time and machinery work at Spruce Lake Retreat, a Christian retreat center and camp in northeast Pennsylvania. 

An Act of Civil Disobedience

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By Tori Jones Long, Salford (Harleysville, PA) congregation 

Tori Jones Long reflects on why she participated in an act of civil disobedience that led to her arrest during the Jan. 16 Mennonite Action demonstration for a ceasefire. Republished with permission from MC USA. 

On Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024, I was arrested with 134 other Mennonites by Capitol Police for demonstrating inside the Cannon House Office Building in Washington D.C. The group that was arrested inside the building was supported by a group of 200 Mennonites and allies demonstrating outside. Many more were with us in spirit and virtually. Mennonite Action organized our peaceful demonstrations, and hundreds of us travelled to Washington from across the U.S. We were calling for our elected officials to support a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, a release of all hostages, and an end to the occupation of Palestine. 

Capitol Hill police arrest 135 Mennonites in the Cannon office building of the Capitol. Photo provided by Mennonite Action. 

We made our voices heard in a quintessentially Mennonite way – through hymn singing. We gathered in the rotunda of the Cannon building, unfurled banners that read, “Let Gaza Live,” “Free All Hostages,” “Mennonites for a Ceasefire” and “Send Food Not Bombs.”

The Capitol police were quick to snatch our banners and arrest our song leaders, wading into the center of our encircled bodies to grab them. They must have thought or hoped that without our initial song leaders, we would fall silent. But we sang, and we sang, and we sang. 

New leaders would emerge as the group in the middle dwindled, but the design of the rotunda was to our advantage. Those who were already arrested wrapped around the perimeter and continued to carry the songs coming from the middle. Reverberating throughout the building was a unified voice, singing songs of lament, hope and liberation. The words echoed off the literal walls of power. Eventually, we were all arrested and put in zip-tie handcuffs, but still we sang, and we sang, and we sang. 

We were split up and shuffled around the building in smaller arrest groups, and we sang, and we sang, and we sang. 

We were invasively searched, had our belongings taken and were made to wait, and we sang, and we sang, and we sang. 

My arrest group only stopped singing when we were loaded into transport vans and taken offsite for processing. Hymns and liberation songs rang through the halls of power for hours, until every one of us was removed. 

Why I participated

I had multiple motivations for participating in this act of civil disobedience. One was the words of Seth Malone and Sarah Funkhouser, who are directing Mennonite Central Committee’s Palestine-Israel-Jordan program. Several weeks ago, they wrote, “We ask for your action in this moment. Do not let this government rest from your letters, calls and protests. We cannot be complicit nor complacent in this moment – now is the time to act.” Their words continue to ring in my ears. 

Tori Jones Long is seen at center wearing a kaffiyeh. Photo provided by Mennonite Action.

I had been calling, emailing, faxing, posting online, signing petitions, donating money, demonstrating, and organizing legislative visits for months. All I could show for that hard work was dissatisfying form responses from my elected officials. 

Despite pressure from so many, the U.S. continues to send billions of dollars in military aid to Israel and rejects any accountability measures to ensure that the money is used in accordance with human rights and U.S. laws. These are my tax dollars at work. The blank checks to Israel make Jewish, Israeli, Muslim, and Arab peoples in the region and around the world less safe. More bombs and munitions are not the answer. 

Civil disobedience seemed like the next step and the least a self-identifying peacemaker could do. 

To work for peace is at the core of who I am, particularly because I identify as a Mennonite. Jesus calls me to oppose oppression and violence, especially state-sanctioned violence. As the apostle John wrote, “to not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” 

I am grateful for the many ways that Mennonites pray with their feet and value community, mutual aid and service. 

I am also deeply troubled. Christians have been largely silent. Most ceasefire and Palestine solidarity actions have been primarily led by Jewish and Muslim people. To participate with Mennonite Action on Jan. 16 was to continue our long history of peacemaking in and solidarity with Palestine and to stand publicly stand against the rising tide of Christan Zionism and nationalism. I participated in the hope that other Christians would be inspired to act for peace. 

I believe in a liberating Christ, who calls us very clearly to love our neighbor and to care for the orphan, widow and foreigner among us. To be in alignment with my faith and the teachings of Jesus is to be brave and bold. It is to grieve and hope, to act in a way that honors the truth that all life is precious, and that all people are made in the image of our loving creator. It is to dream of and usher in a new world, as we face the inhumanity of our current one.  

Tori Jones Long

Tori Jones Long (she/her) is a local organizer for Mennonite Action in Bucks and Montgomery, PA counties and an active member of Salford Mennonite (Harleysville, PA). Tori navigates life with her husband, Zach, and spends her time spoiling her two dogs, Frank and Eddie, and enjoying small-town life.

Not Your Typical Mennonite: A Take on Violence 

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by Andrés Castillo

I remember my first Judo Club practice at West Chester University. Its demanding drills would eventually lead to throwing, sweeping, and wrestling other students on blue mats.  

A semester of Kickboxing Club left me similarly realizing I had never known how to properly throw a punch or kick before—let alone at another person. 

Within a couple of years, I was regularly feeling invigorated following my weekly Jiu Jitsu* or Muay Thai† classes. 

In my teens, much to my parents’ dismay, I began listening to rock and metal music. In 2021, I would be invited to my first ever hardcore‡ music show. I witnessed a brutal karate dance floor accompanied by loud, fast music. I even clumsily attempted to participate by throwing myself at friends and flailing my limbs around. 

These days, I attend a couple shows each month to continue perfecting the art of karate dancing known as moshing, and I play in two hardcore bands. 

If you are slightly horrified at this point, I will admit this to you: as someone who identifies as Mennonite, these activities are fun for me, and I now consider them a big part of my personality.  

Andrés Castillo (right) playing guitar with his band at a show in Phoenixville, PA. Photo provided by Andrés Castillo.

I cannot explain why I signed up to try martial arts during college. And although I always had a special connection to music, I never imagined myself physically participating in it with such zeal. I had never been athletic, aggressive, competitive, or a dancer.  

Sometimes I question my newfound joys. Do I like violence? 

Growing up, I knew of my poppop’s prowess in badminton and tennis. I also knew of his and my nana’s involvement in the Vietnam War as peacemakers. As missionaries teaching English, they stared violence calmy and dutifully in the face. 

My grandparents enjoy hearing about my hobbies, but I sometimes wonder how they can connect with a grandson who enjoys “violent” activities. Expressing my interest in such things at church or family functions sometimes raises eyebrows. “Where’s the nonviolence in that?” some ask. 

The Confession of Faith In a Mennonite Perspective tells us that, “Although God created a peaceable world, humanity chose the way of unrighteousness and violence.”  

Have I chosen the way of unrighteousness and violence? 

The confession continues to say, “[Mennonites] witness to all people that violence is not the will of God. We witness against all forms of violence, including war among nations, hostility among races and classes…and capital punishment.”  

Andrés Castillo (left) practicing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu with a friend in Conshohocken, PA. Photo provided by Andrés Castillo.

My insider opinion is that martial arts classes are a place of personal strengthening and friendship where pride is frowned upon; hardcore shows provide a place to let out stress in a controlled-chaos environment. These are consensual activities, and I doubt they will lead me toward a love of true violence and unrighteousness. 

I reflect on a conversation with Juan Marrero of Crossroads Community Center (Philadelphia, PA). Part of Crossroads’ enrichment activities for youth involve boxing. Juan sees boxing as an empowering activity that discourages young people from defaulting to gun violence and has been used to resolve lethal situations in his neighborhood. 

I challenge you to discover what unorthodox pastimes exist in your community and the purposes they serve for those who partake in them. Was your pastor in a punk band? Is Mosaic Executive Minister Steve Kriss a “gym bro”? As we seek to celebrate differences within Mosaic, it is worth discovering what more of them are. 

*Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, a grappling art popularized in the 90s 
†Thai Kickboxing 
‡Hardcore is a music scene/style originating in the 80s, but has often been used as an ambiguous term 

Andrés Castillo

Andrés Castillo is the Intercultural Communication Associate for the Conference. Andrés lives in Philadelphia, PA, and currently attends Methacton Mennonite Church. He loves trying new food, learning languages, playing music, and exploring new places.

The End of Youth Ministry? 

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by Michelle Curtis

I don’t like to read books alone. So when Brooke Martin, Pastor of Youth & Community Formation for Mosaic Conference, invited me to join a book study group for The End of Youth Ministry? by Andrew Root, I jumped at the chance.  

The book study group, comprised of youth Pastors and leaders, gathered around back porches and youth rooms to discuss a few chapters every other week. We lamented the difficulties of leading youth ministries in 2023. We shared how much we love our youth and how much we want them to know Jesus’ love. We waded through the philosophical parts of the book, trying to make sense of how they apply to middle schoolers.  

Some of the biggest takeaways felt like both “aha!” moments and also a reminder that youth ministry should not be different than any other ministry in pointing people to the core of our faith. We, with Paul, proclaim Christ and him crucified. Root’s writings challenged us to help youth walk toward the cross, not away from it.  

© Andrew Root

Instead of focusing primarily on fun, Root told how walking with youth toward the suffering they see and experience can help us all to see our stories as part of Jesus’ story of death and resurrection. When we walk toward suffering together, we can start to see and name how God brings new life out our death experiences. The whole book is based on how a youth group was transformed by the experience of gathering together in a hospital waiting room when one of their members almost died. There they had an opportunity to hear stories of how God brought life out of death in the lives of two adults in their church.  

Among our book study group of youth pastors and directors, I was the only one whose job title didn’t formally include youth or faith formation. I serve as co-Pastor of Ambler Mennonite Church along with my husband, Jacob, and we’ve shared the role of starting a monthly youth group over the last few years.  

Sometimes I feel jealous of churches with the staff and size to gather their youth together every Sunday and Wednesday. But I’ve realized that one of the gifts of our small church is that we are intergenerational by necessity. When we put together boxes of food for our neighbors each December, we intentionally invite the youth, but the whole church has to come together to make it work. We’re too small to do otherwise.  

When my parents were in youth group, it was their whole social network. They had activities most days of the week. Instead of longing for that past, Root encourages us to understand what has shifted over the last few decades. Instead of trying to compete with all the extracurriculars filling the lives of our youth, Root encourages us to see clearly what youth ministry is for: joy. It’s for helping youth to experience the joy in community that grows out of walking through suffering together and seeing how God brings life out of death.  

We’re all still chewing on the book’s implications for each of our ministries. I’m thinking more about how to walk with our youth toward the cross, and how to help them find themselves in God’s story.  

Youth Groups completing various challenges during the Mission Impossible event at Souderton (PA) Mennonite in September 2023. Photo provided by Brooke Martin. 

To be clear, Root is not advocating that we do away with fun. He ends the book in a Dairy Queen with ice cream and friendship. In that spirit, we ended our book study with coffee and Yum-Yum donuts, celebrating the relationships that we’ve built through these weeks together.  

Michelle Curtis

Michelle Christian Curtis is co-pastor of Ambler (PA) Mennonite Church with her husband, Jacob.

Bearing Witness to the Lives of Neighbors We’ve Lost

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by Pat Freed, Zion congregation

A Memorial to the Lost, comprised of around 90 shirts representing the lives lost to gun violence in Montgomery County in the past five years, on Zion Mennonite’s campus. Photo by Alice Wolfgang.

At the corner of Cherry Lane and Front Street in Souderton, PA, there are about 90 colorful T-shirts waving in the breeze. They bear witness to deaths by gun violence in Montgomery County over the last five years. Each shirt tells the name, age, and date of death of someone dearly loved and continually mourned by their families and friends. 

Zion (Souderton, PA) Mennonite has partnered with Heeding God’s Call to End Gun Violence, an organization that focuses on faith communities as a key group in helping to solve the problem of gun violence. Our intention in hosting a Memorial to the Lost on the Zion campus is to raise awareness and inspire action to end this epidemic of gun violence. 

Our youth group participated in making the T-shirts, and they found the simple act of writing on the shirts to be personal and powerful. The names belong to real people who were our neighbors. We pray that God will take our efforts and make an incredible difference in our community and everywhere. 

In 2023, the Salford (Harleysville, PA) and Plains (Hatfield, PA) congregations also held Memorials to the Lost honoring the lives of those who had died because of gun violence locally. 

Members of the Zion youth group write on the colorful shirts that are a part of the Memorial to the Lost. Photo by Mike Ford.
Participants installed the T-shirts for the Memorial and offered prayers for those who’ve died and their loved ones on a rainy Sunday. Photo by Mike Ford.

As a follow up to this installation, Zion, along with other local churches, will be hosting a Gun Violence Awareness Walk in Souderton on Sunday, April 21, 2024. We will walk through town as witnesses for peace and change. At the end of the walk, participants will sign letters to their lawmakers to encourage them to implement more common-sense gun laws. All are welcome to walk and pray together to heed God’s call to end gun violence. 

Patrice Freed

Patrice Freed grew up at Zion Mennonite (Souderton, PA) and still worships there. She’s a grandmother to nine and loves the outdoors and working for peace and justice.