Intersections

John L. Ruth, Salford

As a freshman at Eastern Mennonite College in 1950, I was too immature, and too preoccupied with a girlfriend, to pay much attention when Goshen College Professor Harold Bender came to lecture. I didn’t know he thought that our Franconia Conference “customs and traditions” had “preserved…more nearly the ancient Mennonite forms of worship, doctrine, and church government than any other American district.”

I did get serious a half-year after first hearing Bender when at the age of 20 I was zapped, by casting lots, with an ordination for a mission station at Conshohocken, just outside of Philadelphia. A week later, to my joy, my girlfriend agreed to marry me. Dropping out of college, I got a job at the Mennonite-sponsored Herald Bookstore on Main Street, Souderton. There I found a book by Harold Bender and bought a copy of History of the Mennonites of the Franconia Conference by John C. Wenger. I was intrigued with his take on the meetings of the Franconia Conference, where only ordained men voted.

He wrote that the sessions were “not intended to be inspirational,” but to consider “the problems, needs, and difficulties with which the several congregations are confronted.” I saw that myself, starting at conference 13 years after the Wenger book had appeared. I had to agree that “little is done” at conference to start “constructive projects for the future.” Instead, “If there is any one thing which impresses a visitor…it is the grave concern there manifested lest the church become entangled with the world.”

I had sensed myself that we had a valid tradition of unusually practical obedience to Christ. But was it the whole Gospel? Not according to my experience in mission outreach in Conshohocken, or lively discussions with fellow-student Tony Campolo in our philosophy classes at Eastern Baptist College. Were we Mennonites more concerned with defending the faith than sharing it?

Happily, when I got a copy of what would become known as Bender’s Anabaptist Vision address, I found the threefold banner it lifted – discipleship, mutuality and love – very inspiring. Since those days, Bender’s vision of what our heritage has to offer has not only stood the test of time, but is relevant to the new situations the old conference mentality didn’t address. That is why Chris Nickels, Sandy Drescher-Lehman and Dennis Edwards, in the last three issues of Intersections, could apply the triple motifs to their own work. Discipleship (following Jesus), community (Bender’s old-fashioned word was brotherhood) and love (peace), is indeed how our heritage teaches us to do church.

This is not a trivial or marginal or obsolete vision. Emergent church leader Greg Boyd from Minneapolis spoke at a meeting of Mennonite leaders in Columbus, Ohio, saying that the power of what we call the Anabaptist Vision gave him “goose bumps.” You Mennonites, he testified, have by heritage a vision as current as tomorrow. “People are waking up to the truth that the Kingdom of God looks like Jesus and that the heart of Christianity is simply imitating him.” Chalk one up for “discipleship.”

Boyd continued, “Millions are waking up to the truth that followers of Jesus are called to love the unlovable, serve the oppressed, live in solidarity with the poor, proclaim Good News to the lost and be willing to lay down our lives for our enemies.” Whoa! Non-Mennonites discovering what Bender called “love and nonresistance”? Boyd added, “Multitudes are waking up to the truth that the distinctive mark of the Kingdom is the complete rejection of all hatred and violence.” We have something “distinctive?”

Then comes a real kicker. These multitudes are looking for somebody to share “tribal identity and historical rooting.” In fact, “A central feature of their outlook is ‘the longing to live in a story that is bigger than oneself,’ in other words, “a tradition they can align with.” Looking at our Mennonite fellowship, that sense of a covenant community over time is what gave him goose bumps. “You have this treasure,” he told his Mennonite audience. “Are you going to share it?”

The sometimes tattered “banner over us” as Mennonites bears the noble triple motif: Discipleship, community and love. These are not the invention of Harold Bender, but the practical embodiment of the Kingdom. Let that threefold ensign wave!

Stephen Kriss, Philadelphia Praise Center

It’s an easy flight from Philadelphia to Atlanta, less than two hours with frequent flights between the City of Brotherly Love and Delta Airlines’ main hub at Hartsfield Airport. However, upon landing, I was jarred to remember that I wasn’t in Pennsylvania anymore. Accents are different. Tea is sweeter. Stories of racial justice and struggle surface rapidly in the midst of conversation.

Atlanta is a new city, built as a railroad hub, largely grown up after the Civil War. It’s a sprawling city, seemingly too bustling for a plan. I’ve been in this capital of the New South a few times—for the Olympics, to eat at Hard Rock Café, to walk around in hip and pricey Buckhead, to engage the story of the Civil Rights struggle at the Martin Luther King Center.

This visit was different, I came to Atlanta on assignment—to become acquainted with what’s set to become Franconia Conference’s newest congregation—Atlanta Revival Center, tucked in a business park in the northwest suburbs. Atlanta Revival is part of an emerging network of Indonesian Anabaptist congregations. It’s a church of about 80 people, most of whom came to Atlanta following the political, religious and economic turbulence that jettisoned many Indonesian Christians toward life in the United States to seek peace and prosperity through religious and political asylum.

It’s a long stretch to imagine that the Swiss/German immigrant and farmer foreparents of our Conference would have imagined we’d be here in this glistening and ambling metropolitan area. However, we’re following the path of pursuing Franconia Conference’s people as they move out into the world, up Germantown Pike, up the Skippack Creek, up the Northeast Extension. This is different now though as Indonesian immigrants have migrated mostly to the big cities of the East Coast and are now grafting their future into our long history of migration and settling.

Atlanta Revival Center is a vibrant and committed congregation. Worship is energetic and similar to other Indonesian Christian congregations. Prayer is sincere. Music is passionate and movement is carefully choreographed. Worship flows with ease. There is prayer for persons in the congregation, prayer for local and global situations, recognition of economic struggle. The congregation’s expenditures and receipts are posted on the wall monthly. Worship is a commingling of Bahasa Indonesian and English. The congregation wants to connect with Franconia Conference because of other connections with the Indonesian Anabaptist community in Philadelphia. The church is socio-economically diverse including entrepreneurs, professionals who work at Emory University, persons working in the distribution hubs of Atlanta, and those who work at Chinese restaurants

However, one uniqueness about Atlanta Revival is their commitment to being together. The Sunday morning I visited along with Pastor Ertell Whigham and Beny Krisbianto from Nations Worship Center in Philadelphia, we met again for teaching at 11:30pm in the midst of a driving rainstorm. I led the equipping conversation and we nibbled on a small scale Chinese buffet. I returned back from worship around 2am.

The next day, Pastor Ertell and Beny met with a second offshoot group within the congregation. This group meets at midnight on Mondays. It’s intended to work around the schedule of those persons who work second shift. It proved too taxing to do these services on Sunday nights. The group includes persons who have recently converted from Islam and many who are natives of the island of Sulawesi where Christian/Muslim conflict has been intense over the last decade.

It’s a privilege to introduce this congregation briefly, to begin to build the connections between communities that will be essential to our life together as a conference as we spread up and down the coast, from Vermont to Atlanta, following Christ as we follow our relationships with each other, to bring forth a glimpse of God’s reign together.

Pending the blessing of the delegates at this year’s conference assembly, Atlanta Revival Center will become the largest Mennonite Church USA congregation in Georgia. And the history of our connection as we spread from and through Philadelphia, as immigrants and exiles will continue and manifest once again. May God’s peace and grace be upon us.

Peter Brubaker, Franconia

I met a friend named Samuel Loupe in Asuncion, Paraguay. The funny thing is that he is not from Asuncion, or from Paraguay, or even from South America. He does not speak conversational English, and he does not speak Spanish…so verbal communication between us was not very successful. He and I did not have any mutual friends, and had no particular reason to meet each other except for the fact that God put us in the same dormitory building during the week of “Congreso Mundial Menonita (Mennonite World Conference) 2009 en Asuncion, Paraguay.”

This is how I met him…

Each morning, everyone from the dormitory (called Comite Olimpico, it was normally used as a facility for various sports teams) would meander down to the dining hall for breakfast. It was most natural to sit with my group of American youth and young adult friends that I was traveling with, but I was there at the conference to meet new people. When this smiling African man pointed to the chair beside me and said something or another, I made sure to welcome him to the table, speaking in English or Spanish, and passing him some bread and jam. We spent a bit of time introducing ourselves and trying to figure out which language worked the best between us. This mostly consisted of showing each other our name tags, which had our country of origin and primary language, Samuel Loupe was from Congo-Brazzaville and spoke French.

Of course, it was about this time that I was starting to realize the full extent of my limited ability to communicate at this world conference, even though I am somewhat fluent in the Spanish language. I was thankful for an English-speaking Canadian that was able to fill me in on some of the history of the two Congo nations (The Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo), since he had been a missionary there for several years.

Samuel and I went through the week being friends on a mostly non-verbal basis, and I politely wrote down my email address in his little contact book even though, I hate to admit, I didn’t think we would ever write to each other. At the end of the week, as folks who stayed in El Comite Olimpico were saying goodbye, Samuel gave me a gift. I smiled and thanked him very much for the gift, saying that I was sorry I didn’t have anything to give him in return.

But as I came to full realization of what he had given me, I was left wondering what exactly it was, and, unfortunately, feeling slightly annoyed that I would have to carry this thing around in my baggage through all of the six remaining flights on my trip. I showed my friends, and nobody could figure out exactly what this wicker-basket-like-vase-thing-with-a-round-bottom was supposed to be used for. I started calling it my “useless vase.” I had even joked that I was going to leave it somewhere in Peru.

However, the closer and closer I got to home with it, and the more times I told people about my “useless vase” (since I often carried it in my hand rather than putting it in my luggage, where it might get crushed), the more I came to realize how much purpose this gift had really been given. This gift symbolized a connection that we have with our brothers and sisters in Christ that are scattered all over the world, with different skin color, different cultures, and different languages. Just because I can’t understand somebody does not mean that God does not speak to them, and it does not mean that we cannot be literal friends.

After being home in Pennsylvania for a few weeks, I was surprised to receive an email from Samuel! I am not exactly sure how, but we have been able to exchange a few emails in English since then, and I would like to pass on his prayer requests for his church in their fight against sexual violence, as well as their plans to build a new chapel.

“…I do the course of english and if God let, the day where we will be togather again, we will speak a lot in the lively voice..” – Samuel Loupe, in an email written to me.

May God continue to use the useless vase!

Charlotte Rosenberger, Plains

A highlight of attending Mennonite World Conference in July was to observe firsthand the miracle of the Mennonites in Paraguay.

Months of reading the stories of Mennonite migrations to Paraguay (1927-1947) were etched in my heart and mind before this journey began. Up from the Rubble by Peter and Elfrieda Dyck and Garden in the Wilderness and Like a Mustard Seed by Edgar Stoesz told their stories–groups of refugees from Germany, Russia and Canada with journeys through war and hardships to the only country in the world that would take them– Paraguay. The hardships did not end when they arrived as immigrants in Paraguay. There was typhoid fever, war in the Chaco between Paraguay and Bolivia (1932-35), crop failures from drought, flooding, and grasshoppers.

How did they get through all this? Thousands emigrated back to Canada or Germany or East Paraguay– but most stayed. It was their strength of community and their faith in God that held them together and propelled them forward.

My husband, Henry, remembers as a young child in the 1950’s when some men from the colonies in Paraguay came to Franconia Conference as part of a North American tour to raise money. They needed money for credit to buy farm machinery to tame the “Green Hell”, as the landlocked Chaco wilderness of western Paraguay was nicknamed. They sat at his parents kitchen table, telling their stories.

Now we are privileged to see this miracle with our own eyes. Our Tour ‘Magination bus with Edgar Stoesz as our storyteller traveled west from Asunción, 250 miles on the Trans Chaco highway (which Mennonite Pax participants helped build in the 1960’s), to spend two days in the colonies of Menno and Fernheim and the indigenous village of Yalve Sanga. The landscape is barren and dusty with bottle trees and scrub brush. It is winter. They have had a drought this past season with a poor crop yield.

We attended a Mennonite Brethren joint church service in Filadelphia on Sunday evening, in German, Spanish and indigenous languages. We were told it was the first time they had such a service. We visited schools, museums, a craft expo, retirement community, hospitals, dairy, peanut processing and storage, co-op store––institutions that would look good in our communities.

When the first Mennonite settlers arrived in the Chaco, they weren’t told that indigenous peoples lived there. They learned to know and work with the indigenous tribes, who had no concept of land ownership. Today, indigenous people own land, have their own co-op, schools and hospital, though many work in the colonies. Each ethnic group has preserved their own culture and language in their churches. At first glance, it seemed like segregated communities. We learned, however, that the German people valued their language and culture and felt equally strongly about preserving indigenous language and culture.

The “co-op” in each colony owns the land, builds and runs the institutions, provides health care and community infrastructure. It is the current day example of the early church in Acts. For example, the hospital at Kilometer 81, a thank you gift to Paraguay for giving them a home when there was nowhere else to go, is world renowned in the treatment of leprosy. The facility is funded by the co-op and staffed by many volunteers from the colony providing largely free services.

Planning for this Mennonite World Conference brought together in new ways the eight conferences that participated (German, Spanish, Indigenous). The combined choir of German, Spanish and Indigenous members sang together on the last evening illustrating this coming together in a beautiful way.

The communion service shared together on the last evening brought Anabaptist believers from around the world together with tears of joy. We are brothers and sisters together in Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Paula Marolewski, Perkiomenville

“Grow strong. Stand tall. Bear fruit. Sink your roots!”

That sums up my passion: to help others grow strong in the Lord, stand tall for what they believe, bear good fruit in their life, and sink their roots into the Word of God. It is from this passion that my website, www.SinkYourRoots.com, has come into being.

I have been in love with the written word for as long as I can remember. As early as my teen years, I knew that it was my calling to use my gift of writing to teach others in the faith and to help them “grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ” (II Peter 3:18). Out of this conviction, I took my degree in Creative Writing at Houghton College and never looked back.

Originally, I focused on Christian fiction and wrote two novels, Meditations of a Slave and Wasteland. My goal in both of these works is to address serious issues of Christian faith; including the nature of obedience, the challenge of doubt, and the miracle of redemption. I firmly believe it is vital that we move beyond the shallow waters of triviality into a continually deepening maturity through an intimate knowledge of the Word of God. Fiction is a fantastic way to explore the intersection of life, suffering, theology, and our relationship with the living God.

From there, I moved into developing challenging, in-depth Bible studies, including Good vs. Evil: The Discipline of Discernment and Running the Race: A Look at the Life in Christ from the Book of Romans. Once again, the driving force behind these studies is to help people take hold of the unbelievable riches of the Scriptures and apply them in transformative power to their lives. Only when we understand what the Bible truly says can we believe it and live it in such a way that the Kingdom of God will go forth victoriously in the world.

My most recent work, released this past July, is of an intensely personal nature; it is entitled Fire in My Mind: Personal Insights & Practical Help for Severe Anxiety.

To be truthful, I fought the Lord when he first suggested that I write about my struggle with severe anxiety. But then I thought very carefully. Here’s the unfortunate facts: mental and emotional disorders, including severe anxiety, carry with them a tremendous social stigma. People don’t mind admitting that they have diabetes or cancer, but we don’t want to tell anyone if we have a problem that is located in our mind or brain or emotions.

The result of this social stigma is ignorance: people don’t understand severe anxiety, don’t recognize it, don’t know what to do when they have it, and don’t know how to help others who suffer from it. I personally suffered from severe anxiety for three years before I could put a name to the problem. Then it took me an additional two years to find help and learn tools and techniques to address my anxiety.

To the very core of my being, I want to help others avoid the pain which I experienced. I long to help people recognize severe anxiety. To learn tools to help them cope. To show them the solid foundation of Scripture that they can build their lives on. To enable them to teach their friends and family how to effectively support and encourage them through their journey.

Fire in My Mind is written for this purpose. In it, people can see directly into my mind as I struggled with racing thoughts, shame, fear, irrationality, doubt, anger, exhaustion, and loneliness. They can then find practical tools and techniques to address those issues, theological meditations on Scripture passages, and prayers to help focus their minds on the Lord.

My deep prayer is that Sink Your Roots and the Bible studies, Christian fiction, articles, devotionals, and blog postings that are on it will be used powerfully by the Lord to further his Kingdom. This is my purpose and my passion, and yet, while the writings on Sink Your Roots are from my pen, the ministry involves many, many people. People who pray, who support, who encourage, who spread the word. I humbly hope and pray that you would join with me in prayer that God’s Word would go forth through Sink Your Roots – for those prayers you have my deepest thanks.