{"id":3065,"date":"2016-01-13T11:23:13","date_gmt":"2016-01-13T16:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/?p=3065"},"modified":"2016-05-25T09:13:41","modified_gmt":"2016-05-25T13:13:41","slug":"sale-of-rustic-vacation-home-funds-seminary-scholarships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/2016\/01\/13\/sale-of-rustic-vacation-home-funds-seminary-scholarships\/","title":{"rendered":"Sale of Rustic Vacation Home Funds Seminary Scholarships"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mary

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.<\/p><\/div>\n

Mary Grace Brubaker Shenk<\/strong> learned a lesson early on from her father, who wasn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

John helped his youngest sister through nurse\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe always let me know that I could do whatever I set out to do,\u201d Mary Grace says. \u201cHe was always encouraging to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mary Grace took her father up on his college offer. She stayed only the one year, however, because she was un\u00adcertain what she wanted to do with the rest of her life, and soon after, she married Harold.<\/p>\n

Harold\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 work\u00ading in respiratory therapy and managing a local business.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe enjoyed it very much, and our kids enjoyed it, too, but now none of us live close to it,\u201d Harold says. \u201cWe were get\u00adting there maybe once a year and sometimes not at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

What to do with this memory-filled property? Donate it to help students obtain an education, of course. After their time in Georgia\u2014where each finished an undergraduate degree\u2014Mary Grace and John took a \u201cbreak\u201d and attended Eastern Mennonite Seminary, both graduating in 1988.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Now the proceeds from the sale of that Georgia property will fund an endowed scholarship, helping today\u2019s seminary students embark on their ministry journeys.<\/p>\n

That follows the model Mary Grace saw from her parents, who cared about others\u2019 educational futures as well as their own children\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father really advocated for young men in the congre\u00adgation we were part of when I was a child, Erb Mennonite Church in Lititz, Pennsylvania,\u201d Mary Grace says. \u201cAt 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two of Mary Grace and Harold\u2019s children, Harold K. Shenk ’87, MA ’04 <\/strong>(conflict transformation) and Cindy Shenk ’83 <\/strong>are graduates. Their younger son Doug Shenk <\/strong>was in the class of 1991 (he transferred to Drexel University to study environmental engineering). Grandson Daniel Shenk Moreno ’13 <\/strong>studied international business. Grand\u00addaughter Sara Shenk Moreno ’18 <\/strong>is a social work major with a minor in international development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mary Grace Brubaker Shenk learned a lesson early on from her father, who wasn\u2019t 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\u2019s training, though, and when he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":3168,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[674,6],"tags":[734,724,679,681,680],"class_list":["post-3065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-winter-2015-16","category-magazine","tag-harold-shenk","tag-heritage","tag-mary-grace-brubaker-shenk","tag-scholarship","tag-seminary","issues-fall-winter-2015-16"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3065"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3176,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3065\/revisions\/3176"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}