NORTH NEWTON, Kan. — Charles Epp, professor of public affairs and administration at the University of Kansas, came back to his alma mater, Bethel College,
Zook, an Amish man from New Holland, Pa., likely never expected to hear a language spoken predominately in Amish communities so far from home — and from a black man. Brown, an African-American Mennonite from Hesston, quickly revealed that the two men share religious historical Anabaptist ties. Though the simple greeting exhausted Brown’s Pennsylvania Dutch, it led to a friendship and sharing of worlds — that of the Amish, Mennonite and African-American cultures.
The violence hit home for the small Mennonite Brethren congregation a couple of years ago when a neighborhood house was hit by gunfire in a gang altercation. The home belonged to the parents of a young woman in the church family and shook up the congregation.
Taylor Dwyer-Zeman, Katerina Friesen and Sandra Stevens participated in the Nov. 21-22 march on the Stewart Detention . . .
