Carolyn Holderread Heggen has served on the boards of Hesston (Kan.) College, Mennonite Board of Missions and Mennonite Women. At Albuquerque (N.M.)
Mennonite Church she was a pastoral elder.

At Albany (Ore.) Menno­nite Church she was congregational chair and discernment minister. She did writing and teaching for the church on issues of pastoral boundaries and prevention of and healing from sexual abuse and domestic violence. She helped design the Sister Care program and manual and co-led these workshops here and internationally.

Did you have a woman leader as mentor? How did she help you?

Lois Yake Kenagy took special interest in me when I was a young adult. Although we didn’t call it a mentoring relationship then, that is the role she has played in my life. At a time when the church was debating the appropriateness of women being pastors or teaching men, Lois urged me to get a Ph.D. in theology “because we need women helping us interpret the Bible.” Her encouragement helped me believe I had something to offer the church and a voice that needed to be heard.

Are you mentoring a young woman who may be a church leader?

There are several young women in the United States and abroad with whom I have a mentoring relationship.

If so, how is her experience the same/different from yours?

Young Mennonite women in North America today have more encouragement and opportunity to use their leadership gifts in the church, I find. They also have more role models of women ministers and leaders of our church institutions. However, they still have to discern their gifts and follow their call amid the sometimes confusing dictates of biblical injunctions and diverse understandings of appropriate roles for Christian women and family responsibilities.

What impediments have you faced in becoming a leader?

When called to positions of leadership that would have required a move for our family, there were subtle and not so subtle messages to me that it would be inappropriate and unbiblical to ask my husband to give up his job so that I could follow the call of God and the church. One church leader and friend said, “Giving up what I know you so much want to do and at which you would be so effective may be the most important lesson you ever give the church on gender relations.

When you face challenges as leader, what encourages you?

I have a wise and loving group of friends who sustain me in times of despair, surround me with prayer and practical expressions of love in times of need and have helped me improvise a meaningful life, often around the “edges” of the church. I often reread the Gospels and focus on the way Jesus treated women, children and others without social power or respect. His tender regard and loving compassion for them re-energizes me and reminds me that healing work is godly work.