Five recently appointed workers, all under the age of 30, significantly lower the average age of Mennonite Mission Network overseas personnel, 51 years in 2012. Sharon Norton, personnel counselor and recruiter for international ministries, hopes the percentage of young people entering international missions will continue to rise in the coming years. Last year, Mission Network supported 165 international workers and 100 partner organizations in 57 countries.
Three of the new workers, Brad Graber, Brenna Steury Graber and Alyssa Rodriguez, are plugging into long-term ministries. In January, Graber and Steury Graber, a husband-and-wife team, began as youth workers in France. As they serve the three Mennonite congregations around Paris, they will strengthen the connections Janie and Neal Blough, long-term workers, have nurtured for more than 30 years.
Alyssa Rodriguez, a member of First Mennonite Church in Iowa City, is serving with Quito Mennonite Church in Ecuador. She said she felt called to this location after participating in last year’s fellowship and learning tour through Central Plains Mennonite Conference. Along with Central Plains, Mennonite Mission Network and the Colombia Mennonite Church participate in the Ecuador Partnership that began in 1998. The partnership aims to provide theological education and leadership opportunities to churches in Ecuador, as well as to develop new Mennonite churches.
Alyssa Rodriguez began a Mennonite Mission Network assignment this year serving with the Quito Mennonite Church in Ecuador.Download full-resolution image.
“It gives me joy to see Ecuadorians and Colombians involved in church work and to see them take so much ownership in it,” Rodriguez said. “I witness their faith through their dedication to the many ministries.”
Rodriguez’s work includes the church’s youth group, peace education workshops, and Vida Juvenil, a new organization that strives to prevent teenage pregnancy and to support teenagers who are pregnant. Since Rodriguez only started her term in March, she is still discovering what her role will be in the community.
“It is hard to predict where God is leading me at such an early stage,” Rodriguez said. “I hope I can provide a listening ear and be a light to the people here in whatever way that might mean.”
The other couple, Justin Shenk and Valerie Showalter, are serving with a new partnership in the United Kingdom. They are the first long-term Mission Network personnel at Clapton Park United Reformed Church in London. They hope to strengthen the church’s connection with the Anabaptist Network UK, a Mission Network partner.
“The diverse community in which we operate is passionate about hospitality, energetic in social witness, and engages in vibrant worship,” Showalter said.
These five new workers are the first from Mission Network to participate in a yearlong orientation course called Cross-Cultural Discipleship, administered online through the Biblical Lands Educational Seminars and Service (BLESS) program of Eastern Mennonite Seminary in Harrisonburg, Va.
Justin Shenk and Valerie Showalter began a Mennonite Mission Network assignment this year partnering with Clapton Park United Reformed Church in London, United Kingdom. Download full-resolution image.
Linford Stutzman, creator of the BLESS program and professor at Eastern Mennonite University, designed the class to facilitate graduate-level learning for mission workers during their assignment. As a mission worker who took graduate courses during his assignments, Stutzman believes it is important to join missional experience and seminary study.
“The learning experience was significantly more intense and relevant on the mission assignment than the classes I took in the USA before and after the assignment,” Stutzman said. “I dreamed of making educational opportunities more available to mission workers some day.”
Stutzman fulfilled that dream through the Cross-Cultural Discipleship course, which is the only online BLESS offering. Taught by Matthew Krabill, a doctoral student at Fuller Theological Seminary, the course uses web-based tools to provide feedback on assignments and to encourage the students to discuss with each other.
“With the almost universal access to the Internet, and with modern instructional technology, cross-cultural mission workers can participate in a graduate-level learning during their assignment,” Stutzman said. “In doing so, they take advantage of the ideal discipleship learning environment.”
For Rodriguez, the class has helped her connect with other workers and prepare for the dynamics of cross-cultural ministry.
“A great benefit of the class has been to hear from classmates who have been on their terms for much longer than I have,” Rodriguez said. “While our contexts may be different, our experiences of being disciples in new environments is something we can all relate to.”
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Mennonite Mission Network, the mission agency of Mennonite Church USA, leads, mobilizes and equips the church to participate in holistic witness to Jesus Christ in a broken world. Media may contact news@mennonitemission.net
