EMU: community called to hope

In his spring convocation address, President Loren Swartzendruber asked students and faculty to cling to the hope that lies within the Christian amidst a world suffering immense pain and grief.

"Is it possible to find hope in a world where raging tsunamis roar into villages and, in a matter of short minutes, snuff out the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent victims?" he asked. "Is hope just a mirage?"

He said that hope can be found in community, and that true community must be nurtured even when things are going well. "It's very difficult, if not impossible, to find true community only after one faces a crisis," he said.

In the words of Amitai Etzioni, George Washington University sociologist, "authentic community must include both genuine bonds of affection and shared moral values." He said that these shared moral values at EMU come from our understanding of what it means to be followers of Jesus.

Reminding his listeners that they are also part of a larger global community, he asked the departing cross-cultural groups to come forward as he led a prayer for those affected by the tsunami in Asia.

The two groups were departing for semester-long study/service terms, one in New Zealand and Fiji and one in Guatemala and Bolivia. Twenty-one students are participating in the latter, led by professor Douglas Hertzler and his wife Jodi-Beth. There are 31 students participating in the New Zealand cross-cultural, which is led by professor Vernon E. Jantzi and his wife Dorothy. Both groups have since arrived safely after their flights from Dulles International Airport.

A copy of Swartzendruber's speech can be found at http://www.emu.edu/president. Updated information about the cross-cultural groups will be posted at http://www.emu.edu/crosscultural/current-programs.html.