Tag Archives: Mennonite Central Committee

Helping people do good work better

On his Messiah College application in the early ‘80s, LeVon Smoker checked computer science as his major (with a pen—the online application being years in the future) “on a whim,” he recalls. “Computers were new, I thought it would be fun, and not a lot of people would be doing it.” Since his graduation in ...More

Former president Mumaw was “father” of Pleasant View

In the late 1960s, not long after John R. Mumaw had completed nearly two decades as EMU’s fourth president (1948-1965), he began to devote more attention to his concern for people with intellectual disabilities. This had been close to his heart since his great-nephew, Chester, was born with Down syndrome. Then moderator of the Virginia Mennonite Conference, ...More

CJP leader Daryl Byler nurtures Iran-EMU relationship

J. Daryl Byler’s 11th trip to Iran marks the culmination of nearly a quarter-century of bridge-building efforts between North American Mennonites and Iranians. Byler, who is executive director of EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP), last visited Iran in 2009, before Iran severely restricted visas for visitors from the United States and Canada for ...More

Finding Her Voice

In Selfless Fundraising MADELINE BENDER ’93 is the singer, the patron, the inspiration, for rallying members of the opera world to support the Global Family program of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). To those who follow opera, Madeline is known as leading lady Violetta in “La Traviata” with the Vancouver Opera. Or as Eurydice in the ...More

He Gave His Life

By Valerie Neff Newitt Glen Lapp, BSN, RN, gave his life to the service of others — literally. Lapp packed his nursing skills and his Mennonite-inspired commitment to a peaceful world and journeyed to Afghanistan in October 2008. Working for the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), Akron, Pennsylvania, he helped to provide eye care and other ...More

Weaver-Zercher Lends Talents to New Edition

Writer-editor Valerie Weaver-Zercher ’94 is behind the newly revised and updated edition of Living More with Less (Herald Press, 2010). Doris Janzen Longacre, author of the bestselling More-with-Less Cookbook (over 900,000 sold since 1976), wrote Living More with Less as a practical guide for simple, sustainable, and healthy living. Longacre died of cancer on Nov. ...More