From: LancaStir@webtv.net   
      
   Young Mennonites put faith to work in city   
   Agencies benefit from volunteers   
   By Peter Smith   
   psmith@courier-journal.com   
   The Courier-Journal   
       
   Growing up in Henderson, Neb. — population 986 — Lanny Holley often   
   looked out his bedroom window and saw the cornfields of neighbors who,   
   like himself, were white, middle-class families.   
       
   Now living in a former convent in southern Louisville, Holley, 22, looks   
   out his window to see Bosnian or Somali refugees playing soccer.     
   The change is the result of participating in a new program called Urban   
   Corps, organized by three area churches, that gives young adults a   
   year's exposure to the needs of the city and helps them decide how their   
   faith should affect their career choices.   
       
   Each day Holley rides two buses across town to his job at St. Boniface   
   Nativity Academy, where he works as part classroom aide, part cafeteria   
   monitor and part repairman for the private school for underprivileged   
   children near Clarksdale Homes.   
       
   "I have a good family, being raised in a small town where I could be   
   safe," Holley said. "These kids never had that luxury. Seeing the world   
   through their eyes gives you a new perspective."   
       
   That perspective is what Holley and three other young adults from small   
   towns hope to gain from their year in Louisville. All are members of the   
   Mennonite Church USA, which shares historic roots with the Amish but is   
   more integrated into society.   
       
   The Urban Corps participants acknowledge their experiment sounds like   
   some Mennonite version of Fox's "Amish in the City," in which young   
   Amish face the temptations of city life.   
       
   But the four live far from the bright lights of the big city, which   
   would likely be beyond their roughly $250 monthly stipends. Instead,   
   they're getting a view of the city from immigrant enclaves, public   
   housing complexes and nonprofit agencies.   
       
   They are building some semblance of community in their Southside Drive   
   apartment — holding weekly discussions supervised by an Urban Corps   
   staff member, pooling their money for groceries and taking turns making   
   supper.   
       
   But they also lead different work schedules and find, as they discuss   
   issues such as homosexuality or whether all of the Bible is literally   
   true, that they have many of the same disagreements as other Christians.   
       
   "We're all Mennonites, but we're very different — different   
   personalities, different ideas of what it means to be Mennonite," said   
   Emily Beauregard of Paoli, Ind.   
       
   Members of Paoli Mennonite Fellowship — the nearest congregation to   
   Louisville in the Mennonite Church USA — helped launch Urban Corps in   
   cooperation with two congregations here, Jeff Street Baptist Community   
   at Liberty and Harvey Browne Presbyterian Church.   
       
   "This isn't some program to keep young adults in church, but we do   
   believe it's such a vulnerable and volatile time in the development and   
   faith connections," said Phil Mininger, a member of the Paoli   
   congregation and the corps board.   
       
   `A big help´   
       
   The nonprofit sites where the program's participants work get the   
   advantage of having the help of college-educated workers they otherwise   
   couldn't afford to hire.   
       
   "It's been a big help, that's for sure," said Sister Paula   
   Kleine-Kracht, director of Nativity Academy. "You need a lot of people   
   power" with students.   
       
   Members of the two sponsoring Louisville churches got involved through   
   contacts with the Paoli congregation, they said.   
       
   The Louisville project was inspired by a similar Mennonite program in   
   Pittsburgh, Mininger said, adding that many participants have stayed in   
   Pittsburgh to do social work or ministry.   
       
   "Mennonites, who have been historically rural and agrarian people, have   
   been realizing the future of our faith is in the city," he said.   
       
   And for Holley, at least for the present, the city is where he is   
   pursuing his faith.   
       
   Although he has been mistaken for Amish because of his full beard with   
   no mustache — and also mistaken for a Jew and a Muslim and teased as   
   Abraham Lincoln by his students — he actually grew up a Catholic.   
       
   But even around age 10, seeing coverage of the first Persian Gulf war on   
   television, he underwent a "crisis of morals" that led him to become a   
   pacifist.   
       
   He saw a gap between Jesus' commandments on peace and justice and the   
   actual lifestyles of his Catholic — and Mennonite — neighbors.   
       
   But while attending Goshen College, a Mennonite school in Northern   
   Indiana, "I met a lot of friends who really meant what they said. They   
   would do service, they would go protest. Their faith was an eye-opener."   
       
   He studied religion and did an internship with the Paoli congregation,   
   where he was baptized.     
   Out of the comfort zone   
       
   Holley, Beauregard and the two other Urban Corps participants share an   
   apartment at a former convent at the Americana Community Center on   
   Southside Drive.   
       
   The other two, Laura Sommers, 25, and Denae Hershberger, 22, work at the   
   community center, a hub of immigrant activity, where they help arrange   
   building repairs and process requests from groups wanting to use meeting   
   rooms.   
       
   "I wanted to challenge myself, kind of get out of my comfort zone," said   
   Sommers, a native of Goshen, Ind.   
       
   Beauregard's parents helped found the Paoli Mennonite congregation a   
   generation ago, part of a group of medical professionals who brought   
   much-needed care to one of Indiana's poorest counties.   
       
   "Peace and justice has always been the major issue in my church," she   
   said.   
       
   Because the Urban Corps program seeks to place the participants in jobs   
   where they have an interest, Beauregard was able to work with two   
   organizations in nonprofit management — the Center for Non-Profit   
   Excellence and for the Kentucky Theater Project.   
       
   None of the participants say they are certain of their next career   
   steps, but all want to pursue the Mennonite tradition of community   
   service.   
       
   "They say that once you start with nonprofits, you never go anywhere   
   else," said Hershberger, of Baltic, Ohio.   
         
      
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