Church. He currently is a Bible and social studies instructor at Christopher Dock Mennonite High School. Gilberto Pérez Jr. ‘94, Goshen, Ind., has joined the faculty team at Goshen College as associate professor of social work. Karen Parker ‘94 Komara, Harrisonburg, Va., was one of 24 teachers in the Rockingham County School system who received the Rockingham County Teacher of the Year Award. She teaches fifth grade at Pleasant Valley Elementary School. Additonally, Karen, an 18-year Rockingham County Schools veteran, was selected as one of two teachers to receive the Lucy F. Simms Educators of the Year award at a reception on June 7, 2012. Joseph Day ‘95, Fife, Wash., was one of three selected to be Teacher of the Month for October by the Rotary Club of Renton. This marks his 13th year of teaching math at Nelsen Middle School in Renton, Wash. Michael Shank ‘96, MA ‘05 (conflict transformation), Washington D.C., former vice president for the Institute for Economics and Peace, was featured in a news conference on the findings of the 2012 Global Peace Index and Positive Peace Index at the Center for Strategic and International Studies headquarters in Washington D.C. on June 12, 2012. He explained how these tools, which measure negative and positive peace, respectively, can be used to assess nation-state resilience and risk, as well as monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of foreign aid, development projects and U.S. interventions. Michael has since left the Institute for Economics and Peace in order to rejoin U.S. Congressman Michael Honda on Capitol Hill. Michael is Honda’s communications director and senior policy advisor. Philip (Phil) Zapanta ‘96, Lorton, Va., was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves and continues to be an assistant professor of surgery, associate otolaryngology residency program director, and co-director of the Medical Education Fellowship at the George Washington University School of Medicine. He is married to Anne Charbeneau ’97 (see her entry below). Rebecca H. Kauffman ‘96, Goshen Ind., graduated on May 26, 2012 with a master of divinity degree from Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Ind. She began as co-pastor of Paoli Mennonite Fellowship this past summer. Andrew Dyck, MA ‘96 (church leadership), Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada, is writing a PhD dissertation about Mennonite Brethren (MB) spirituality and contemplative influences. For the past five years, he has worked part time in pastoral ministry, teaching, and as the executive secretary for the MB historical commission.
Anne Charbeneau ‘97 Zapanta, has sung back up for several musical artists, including Bruce Springsteen during the 2008 Presidential Inauguration. She also sang with Kid Rock and Garth Brooks at an event celebrating George H.W. Bush’s Points of Light Institute at which Presidents Carter, Clinton, and Bush were in attendance. She is married to Phil Zapanta ’96 (see his entry above). Amanda Shipe ‘97, Washington, D.C., founder and CEO of Mind Your Body Oasis, a certified Pilates instructer, and a registered yoga teacher, announced the opening of her new business, Mind Your Body Oasis, in Crystal City, Va. Landon Miller ‘97 and Jennifer Linder ‘98, Manheim, Pa., returned from a three-year MCC stint in Tanta, Egypt, in June. While there, Jen served as an English teacher and support person who trained Egyptian teachers at a school run by the Coptic Evangelical Church. Landon taught English to adults at the Orthodox church. Since their return, Jen has found employment as the director of Children’s Ministries at Blossom Hill Mennonite Church in Lancaster and Landon as a foster care caseworker for COBYS Family Services. Elizabeth Beachy ‘99 Hansen, Marietta, Ga., a professional playwright and screenwriter, attended the opening weekend of Jordan’s Stormy Banks at EMU’s MainStage Theater. Her script, the story of Anabaptists in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War, was produced by CrossRoads Valley Brethren Mennonite Heritage Center and EMU on June 1-17, 2012.
2000-09
Reuben Miller ‘00, Charlottesville, Va., works in maintenance and groundskeeping at Walnut Creek Park in North Garden, Va. He plays the violin in the University of Virginia Klezmer Ensemble, performing European and American Yiddish music. Reuben also is the fiddler in Ragged Mountain String Band, which recently released their first album of old-time Appalachian music through ShakeALegRecords. His wife, Holly Scott ‘02, is finishing her PhD in history from American University.
David Stutzman ‘00, Bammental, Germany, along with his wife, Rebekka, and son, Immanuel, will be serving a three-year term in Germany with tranSend through a partnership with the Bammental Mennonite Church and the South German Mennonite Conference. They will provide part-time pastoral leadership at Bammental and work to promote mission, vision and young adult leadership in the conference. Christopher Clymer Kurtz ‘00, Linville, Va., along with Maria Clymer Kurtz ‘00 and Craig Zook, have released a new album titled “Arms Uncrossed” by the Clymer Kurtz Band. The album traces vulnerability, love, regret, and the
Front, from left: Hibo Mohamed Kheyre, Nura Ahmed Mohamed, Khadija Isse Fara’adde, and Janice Jenner. Back, from left: Gloria Rhodes, Fatuma Aden Ahmed, Maryan Abdullahi Hassan, and Suli Abdi Guhad.
Peace Profs Go to Women in Somaliland Six of the women who planned to study at EMU in the summer of 2012 in the brand-new Women’s Peacebuilding Leadership Program (WPLP) were unable to enter the United States. So program director Janice Jenner and professors Jayne Docherty and Gloria Rhodes took the program to Somaliland to reach the excluded women in the fall of 2012. The United States government denied entry to the six (two each from Kenya, Somalia and Somaliland). This was ironic, given that a federal agency, USAID, was paying for their training. The stated reason for exclusion was that the women might overstay their visas, says Jenner. That allegation “was more upsetting to them than that they were denied visas,” adds Jenner, who found all six women “completely committed to their countries.” The women, ages mid-20s to early 40s, included peacebuilding-organization workers, an educational journalist, and a trauma-healing counselor. Some had been war refugees as children – a history belying the ebullient smiles in photos showing them with their American instructors, all wearing Somali clothing. Jenner, Rhodes and Docherty devoted two weeks in September and October – amid a busy semester on EMU’s Harrisonburg, Va., campus – to teach the women in Hargeisa, Somaliland’s capital. Docherty explains that WPLP is designed to create a network of women peace leaders within a specific country or region, who can “relate to one another as ‘lost sisters from the same clan,’” while helping transform their region’s conflicts. Somaliland is a self-declared, but internationally unrecognized, state that broke off from northern Somalia to form its own parliamentary government in 1991. It enjoys more stability than Somalia, which has struggled to establish a viable government. The first stage of the women’s program – initially conducted for 12 other women at EMU’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI) in May and June – consisted of two six-day courses. The 12 program participants on campus in mid-2012 came from Liberia, the South Pacific and Somalia. Before her death in a 2011 accident, former SPI student and teacher Dekha Ibrahim Abdi had advocated for a women’s program, while master’s degree alumna and Nobel laureate Leymah Gbowee served as a major inspiration. — Chris Edwards www.emu.edu | crossroads | 57