Hannah Mack Lapp ’66, MA ’98
Harrisonburg, Virginia
Hannah Mack Lapp was the wife of the president of EMU when she applied in 1995 to be one of the first students admitted to the not-yet-accredited conflict transformation program.
In her application essay, she pointed out “there is conflict everywhere” and mentioned the numerous places where she could use mediation and conflict transformation skills: her role as an informal diplomat for EMU alongside husband Joseph Lapp, president from 1987 to 2003; her involvement in her church; her service as a board member for the local Salvation Army; and her assistance to newly settled foreigners in Harrisonburg.
Through CTP, she wrote in her application essay, she wished “to continue to learn what it means to ‘act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God.’”
In the spring of 1998, Hannah did her CTP practicum in Palestine with WI’AM, a conflict resolution center founded by Zoughbi al-Zoughbi, an alumnus of EMU’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute. (This organization was one of two recipients of the 2010 World Vision International Peace Prize.)
Upon her return from Palestine, she continued to live up to her Myers-Briggs Type of “practical harmonizer and worker-with-people” by serving as a public relations assistant in the EMU president’s office. When her husband stepped down from the presidency in 2003, she shifted to work with elderly people at the Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community.
These days Hannah continues to welcome neighbors and friends with food and fellowship. She also provides a welcoming, restful harbor for her middle-school-aged granddaughters. Peace, Hannah believes, begins within one’s own self and home.