<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
EMU’s 2020 Alumni Award recipients will be honored during the <\/em>Oct. 16-18<\/em> Homecoming and Family Weekend. Read about Alum of the Year Luke Gascho ’74<\/a> <\/strong>and Young Alum Lyubov Slashcheva ’11<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Susan and Stan Godshall, EMU\u2019s Distinguished Service Award recipients, have devoted years of their lives to medical and missions work in the United States and in Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The couple, who met at EMC, first went to Tanzania in 1978 for a service term with Eastern Mennonite Missions<\/a> (EMM). Soon after arriving with their three young children, they found it was a \u201creal eye-opener to the limitations of medical services in rural Tanzania at that time,\u201d Susan recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stan is a family doctor, but in Shirati, \u201cIf emergency surgery was needed. I had to perform it,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He wrote a letter to his friend, the CEO of Lancaster General Hospital in Pennsylvania, about the hardships they and the community faced. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThen in December, we get some mail \u2026 and there\u2019s an article in the Lancaster newspaper, the first thing I read, saying that Thanksgiving is going to be Christmas for Dr. Godshall in Africa!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The hospital CEO had mailed a copy of Stan\u2019s letter to his 3,000 employees. The letter alone raised $25,000 for the Shirati hospital. When the Godshalls left after 15 months, medical services were increased so that Stan \u2013 previously the lone doctor on the team \u2013 was replaced by four <\/em>doctors: two Tanzanians and two expatriates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The family returned several times over the years, and continued to fundraise when stateside. Stan even set up a ham radio connection to stay in touch with their Tanzanian friends before email was available. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShirati has always been at the back of my mind, and at the front of my mind,\u201d Stan says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1996, Susan was chosen as EMM\u2019s representative to Africa, the first woman in that role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was satisfying and challenging work,\u201d Susan says. She interacted with Mennonite churches and mission personnel in Eastern Africa, listening to understand the needs of those communities and discerning how to assist their efforts in church development, education, health work, and training church leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both Stan and Susan grew up in rural Pennsylvania \u2013 Susan in Lancaster County, Stan in Harleysville \u2013 in families that emphasized service as an expression of Christian faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Susan recalls her mother quilting for Mennonite Central Committee<\/a> projects and her parents opening their home to people who needed a place to stay. Her older brother, Robert Weaver \u201862,<\/strong> spent two and a half years in Germany and Algeria with the MCC PAX program as a conscientious objector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHis letters to our family described new places and people and introduced me to overseas service,\u201d says Susan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stan\u2019s family was also involved in service work \u2013 one of his sisters, Miriam<\/strong>, went to Puerto Rico to volunteer as a nurse in 1960, and served there as a midwife for 57 years at Hospital Aibonito. His other sister, Lourene Bender \u201861<\/strong>, and her husband, pastor Nevin Bender \u201861 SEM \u201863<\/strong>, served in Vermont. And his father was a member of the founding board of Christopher Dock Mennonite Mennonite High School, now known as Dock Mennonite Academy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere was a general ambience of service in the 1950s Mennonite church,\u201d Stan recalls. \u201cAnd service was a central theme during our experiences at EMC.\u201d But perhaps the biggest push for him happened when he was 14, and his father was in the hospital, seriously ill with sepsis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI remember sitting on a straw bale in the barn, crying,\u201d Stan says. He told God that if his father recovered, he would become a missionary doctor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His father recovered, and Stan made good on that promise. Although Stan points out that the majority of his 40-year medical career was spent in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, at a family health center alongside doctors Kenneth Brubaker<\/strong> and the late R. Clair Weaver \u201866<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The trio had established the health center together to allow breaks for mission work. In reality, that was hard to coordinate, but they did accommodate Stan and his family spending five years abroad over three different stints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to working in Africa, Susan taught Spanish and English as a Second Language, did administrative work at EMM and Mennonite Central Committee, and raised their three children. She also served on the EMU Board of Directors for 12 years, and was the chair for six years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Susan later trained as a chaplain at the Philhaven Behavioral Health Hospital<\/a>. \u201cListening to persons in crisis felt like walking on holy ground,\u201d Susan says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The pair now live in Harrisonburg, and say one of the highlights \u201cis relating to the families of our three children\u201d \u2013 they have 10 grandchildren in Harrisonburg and Georgia. They love singing, too; in fact, they met while singing in choir at then-Eastern Mennonite College, \u201cand we\u2019ve enjoyed singing together ever since,\u201d Susan says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Until the outbreak of COVID-19 caused them to stay home, the Godshalls were still serving their community \u2013 Susan at the Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community<\/a>, and Stan at the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Free Clinic<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reflecting back on their lives, Susan says that, when you make a work or service commitment, you don\u2019t always know what you\u2019ll be called on to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOne of my goals was to be attentive to do what I could do, and look to God and others to provide for what I couldn\u2019t do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Service-oriented beginnings<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Stateside careers<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Golden years<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n