FEATURES
PHOTO PROVIDED
PHOTO PROVIDED
Jeffrey M. Bauman ’07
but unwilling to sacrifice the song. That night, I could almost hear his voice soaring out when the tenors took the melody in “We Shall Walk through the Valley in Peace.” Although we didn’t say so, the weekend was a monument to Jeff, and a monument to each other, to the way our college experiences have shaped the people we have become. Two of us (Laura Neufeld and Amanda Beachy) are pastors, with another (myself ) in seminary. Certainly our decisions to follow this track were at least partially spurred on by the late night and middle of the afternoon theological conversations we had in the Aurora living room or at the Avon kitchen table. (Justin Heinzekehr, also part of our group but not at the reunion, has also recently finished a seminary degree.)
Although we didn’t say so, the weekend was a monument to Jeff, and a monument to each other, to the way our college experiences have shaped the people we have become. Many of us took GC’s “Culture of Service” motto to heart, body and soul, and did voluntary service after graduating. In fact, Kristine Bowman, David Glick and Matthew J. Yoder found long-term jobs at their V.S. placement sites, while Amanda Entz’s service has taken her to LCC International University (formerly Lithuania Christian Fund College). Others have recently finished master’s programs building on the
Avon House
undergraduate work they did at Goshen: Lauren Hall in nursing and public health and Solomon Fenton-Miller in music composition. And others are using the skills and certificates developed at Goshen (and beyond) for work in the “real world”: Andrea Nussbaum in elementary teaching, Angela Taylor in ASL interpreting, and Benjamin L. Yoder in engineering. (Nathan Horner, another member of our group not able to come, works at a computer consulting business.) Being in the same place again was wonderful. We spent parts of three days together in a big building at Crooked Creek Christian Camp. It was almost strange how normal it felt, after five years, to be living together again – to see each other in the morning, to sprawl out over each other on couches, to slide sarcastic comments into the conversation, to eat each other’s wonderful cooking, to bump into each other in the kitchen. Our college years together were not perfect, of course. Like any group of people who live close together, we had drama and disagreement. But this weekend we remembered the good times: pre-May term camping trips, game nights that sometimes lasted until 6 a.m., escapades at the dam, excursions to Chicago, hymn sings in the stairwell and learning to live into who we were becoming. Five years later, we all still have a lot of becoming to do. But it’s good to know that we also still have one another with us on that journey. Anita Hooley Yoder graduated in 2007 with an English major. She lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
Winter 2012-13
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