19th Annual Bible and Religion Missions Banquet

On Tuesday, October 30, 2018, a record-breaking 72 students attended the 19th annual Missions Banquet, which is sponsored by the Bible and Religion Department and supported by Career Networks of Goshen College. Goshen faculty and administrators in attendance included Gwen Gustafson-Zook, Paul Keim, Keith Graber Miller, Regina Shands Stoltzfus, Gilberto Perez, Kathy Meyer Reimer and Dan Koop Liechty. The event is for faculty and guests who have devoted significant periods of their careers to missions or who have significant international experience to gather with Mennonite Mission Network and Mennonite Central Committee workers to meet with students to talk about their futures. Following a chicken curry meal, the group reconvened in a theater seating arrangement to put their questions to Mennonite Mission Network workers Rod and Lynda Hollinger-Janzen, Mike and Teresa Sherrill, and Steve and Dorothy Wiebe-Johnson as well as MCC workers Rebecca Burkholder, Blaine Derstine, Adam Graber Roth and Juan Sebastian Pancheco Luzano. Sharon Norton and Peter Graber of MMN also attended the banquet. Students questions ranged from philosophical questions about doing missions with cultural sensitivity to practical questions about raising a family abroad.  At the end of the discussion, missions workers invited students to begin a conversation with representatives from MMN and MCC about their future pointing out that such conversations were where all of the presenters began the journey that led them to be able to share at the Mission Banquet.