wfn.org | NA is service location for Germans

[Beth Hawn]

Microsoft Mail v3.0 (MAPI 1.0 Transport) IPM.Microsoft Mail.Note
To:  'Worldwide Faith News'
Date: 1998-07-08 14:27
Priority: 3
Message ID: 3ED09CC83A16D211AAB0006008075ABF
Conversation ID: NA is service location for Germans

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July 8, 1998
Mennonite Board of Missions
Beth Hawn
219-294-7523
<NEWS@MBM.org>

North America is a service location for many young Germans

KNOB NOSTER, Mo. (GCMC/MBM)--Like many other young couples, Candy Gunsch
and Thomas Vierus met and married while at university. And like many   
college
students, they wanted an overseas experience after graduation, so they
applied to Mennonite service agencies.

But their story differs from that of the majority of Mennonite- related
volunteers. Candy--pronounced "Sandy"--comes from East Berlin and Thomas
from the Black Forest region of Germany. They met while studying at
Friedensau, a university run by their denomination, Seventh Day   
Adventist.
Thomas served as an Adventist pastor before he went for more education;   
he now
has the German equivalent of a masters in theology and Candy the parallel   
to a
masters in social work.

"We had a friend at Friedensau who knew about Christliche Dienste," Candy   

says, "and she gave us the address." Thomas was looking into   
opportunities
with Mennonite Central Committee that didn't seem to be working out, so   
they
wrote to the German organization, whose name translates as "Christian
Service."

The couple is now in Mennonite Voluntary Service in Richmond, Va., where
Candy is working to build up the volunteer program at Wilson Inn, a   
transition
house for women and children trying to leave abusive situations, and   
Thomas
is volunteer coordinator at Sacred Heart Center, a community center in   
one of
Richmond's poorest neighborhoods. MVS is a program of the Commission on   
Home
Ministries of the General Conference Mennonite Church and Mennonite Board   

of Missions of the Mennonite Church.

Thomas and Candy are two of seven total volunteers who came into MVS from   

Germany in the last year. Manuela Geiser and Barbara Hahm are part of the   

Seattle MVS unit; Jochen Ricken, St. Louis unit; Eva Fellmann,   
Hutchinson,
Kan., unit; and Heiko Adams, Wichita, Kan., unit (Adams plans to spend
another year in MVS, but in Seattle).

Kristen Mayhue, MVS personnel director, is the contact person for
volunteers coming into MVS from Germany. "We've always taken volunteers
through Christliche Dienste," she says. "There are two reasons for a more   

recent increase: adding an organization, Eirene; and the closing of   
Eastern
Mennonite Missions' voluntary service program, which took a lot of German   

volunteers."

Both Christliche Dienste and Eirene are Anabaptist-related organizations
that place volunteers overseas. Christliche Dienste was begun in 1987,
spurred by the 1984 Mennonite World Conference Assembly in Strasbourg,
France. After the assembly, peace and mission agencies supported by the
Mennonite churches in Germany decided they wanted an organization that
would be able to link members of Mennonite congregations with suitable
voluntary service placements. However, today fewer than 40 percent of
Christliche Dienste volunteers come from Mennonite backgrounds; the other
60 percent or so come from Protestant groups including Baptists,
Pentecostals and Free Evangelicals.

Eirene was founded in 1957 by the Historic Peace Churches (Mennonite and   
   

Brethren), the International Fellowship of Reconciliation and European
Christians actively involved in the movement for nonviolence. Eirene (the   

word is Greek for "peace") places volunteers from other parts of Europe   
as
well as Germany, including the Netherlands, France and Switzerland.

Staff for Christliche Dienste and Eirene do all the processing and some
orientation for volunteers who come to MVS, although they also go through   

regular MVS orientation. MVS provides the German volunteers with   
stipends,
room and board but they or their organization cover most of the cost of   
their
travel to and from the service assignment.

"We only take German volunteers who come to us through Christliche   
Dienste
or Eirene," says Mayhue. "Even if someone applies to us on their own, we   
tell
them to go through one of those two organizations. If a potential   
volunteer is
in line with who Christliche Dienste or Eirene is, they're probably in   
line
with who we are."

Over the years, the Mennonite voluntary service programs have tended to   
draw
from Germany 18- and 19-year-old males working off their alternative
service requirements--young German men are required to serve two years in
the military or an approved alternative service placement. But Mayhue   
says
they are beginning to see more older volunteers, both women who are not
required to serve and men who have already done their alternative service   

but want to do another service assignment.

This is partly because MVS itself has changed-younger volunteers, just   
out
of high school, are now directed to the Service Adventure program. But   
more
Germans are doing voluntary service, she says.

"I'm not sure why this is, but I read somewhere that because German young   

people have been so thoroughly educated about Hitler, that more of them   
than
ever are rejecting the military."

Thomas and Candy gave some additional reasons. "I wanted a cross-cultural   

experience," he says. "And I'm taking a sabbatical from pastoring."

"I wanted to learn English and be in another country," says Candy, whose
facility  with the language makes it hard to believe she knew very little   
when
she arrived in Richmond last January.  "And we wanted to know another   
circle
of the church."

                   * * *
Melanie Zuercher is News Service editor for the General Conference
Mennonite Church.