Mary Grace Shenk, class of ’62, MDiv ’88, and husband Harold, MDiv ’88, recently funded an endowed scholarship for seminary students with proceeds from the sale of a property in Georgia. After years of pastoring in the Atlanta area, the couple now reside in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
Mary Grace Brubaker Shenk learned a lesson early on from her father, who wasn’t allowed to attend high school while growing up in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Like most of his siblings, John Brubaker had to stay home to help on the family farm.
John helped his youngest sister through nurse’s training, though, and when he had his own children, he made it clear that they would finish high school. He even said he would pay for their first year at Eastern Mennonite College.
“He always let me know that I could do whatever I set out to do,” Mary Grace says. “He was always encouraging to me.”
Mary Grace took her father up on his college offer. She stayed only the one year, however, because she was uncertain what she wanted to do with the rest of her life, and soon after, she married Harold.
Harold’s mother, Margaret, had been a bit of a pioneer, too, one of the few Mennonites in her generation to attend high school in the Lampeter-Strasburg area of Lancaster County. She became involved with Christian education and helped to form Manheim Christian Day School.
She passed on that passion for education, and all of her children graduated from Lancaster Mennonite High School. Harold, the youngest, attended Elizabethtown College, but like Mary Grace, dropped out amid uncertainty about his career direction.
Mary Grace and Harold instead chose voluntary service and went to work for Eastern Mennonite Missions, helping to plant a church in the Atlanta area and staying there for 25 years. Harold eventually became a pastor while also working in respiratory therapy and managing a local business.
As a getaway, they purchased a rustic cabin on 15.9 acres in northern Georgia, near the Blue Ridge Mountains. They used the property for family gatherings and vacations as well as for church retreats and youth events.
“We enjoyed it very much, and our kids enjoyed it, too, but now none of us live close to it,” Harold says. “We were getting there maybe once a year and sometimes not at all.”
What to do with this memory-filled property? Donate it to help students obtain an education, of course. After their time in Georgia—where each finished an undergraduate degree—Mary Grace and John took a “break” and attended Eastern Mennonite Seminary, both graduating in 1988.
They went on to become co-pastors in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and then Hagerstown, Maryland, before retiring in 2006 and eventually moving back home to Lancaster County.
Now the proceeds from the sale of that Georgia property will fund an endowed scholarship, helping today’s seminary students embark on their ministry journeys.
That follows the model Mary Grace saw from her parents, who cared about others’ educational futures as well as their own children’s.
“My father really advocated for young men in the congregation we were part of when I was a child, Erb Mennonite Church in Lititz, Pennsylvania,” Mary Grace says. “At least three people from the church told me that my parents not only encouraged them to attend college but also offered to help financially. All three of them attended EMC.”
Two of Mary Grace and Harold’s children, Harold K. Shenk ’87, MA ’04 (conflict transformation) and Cindy Shenk ’83 are graduates. Their younger son Doug Shenk was in the class of 1991 (he transferred to Drexel University to study environmental engineering). Grandson Daniel Shenk Moreno ’13 studied international business. Granddaughter Sara Shenk Moreno ’18 is a social work major with a minor in international development.