New Voices: By and about young adults

I waited with eager anticipation for the annual conference of the Western District Conference (WDC) July 9-11. I’m among the handful of young adults that attended without a delegate role, and I admit that it’s become one of my favorite weekends of the year. Being a young, Latina, Menno­nite woman among the majority of older, Kansas-raised, Germanic-cultural, Mennonite crowd was such a delight.

During this gathering, cultures met and provided a place for us to share about who we are, what God is doing in our lives and in our churches. We safely moved beyond our own cultural comfort zones and served each other with the diversity of our gifts. In past years, I’ve accepted the spontaneous request to read Scripture, interpret speakers and use my dramatic skills. This affirmation of who I am and my giftedness has given me courage to seek out new ways to use my other gifts.

In previous summers, the conference provided seminars or, as they call them, “learning communities” that participants and delegates can choose. Thanks to an online seminary course I took through Eastern Mennonite Seminary, Harrisonburg, Va., last fall, I planned a “learning community” titled “A New Menno­nite Identity: Latino and Germanic in Conversation.”

I submitted my final project earlier this spring to WDC leaders, and to my surprise, my project was chosen.

Even though my seminary course prepared me to understand my Germanic brothers and sisters’ history and culture, I asked to work with someone who could publically provide the learning community with a balanced perspective. I was blessed to have Clarence Rempel, WDC’s new conference minister, by my side.

Together we led the community, which included Latinos, Germanic and mixed-cultural ancestry Mennonites through a series of small- group brainstorming sessions discussing first their cultural values and second their Anabaptist values.

To encourage you to think about your own cultural values list, I’ll provide here the most common examples from both Germanic and Latino Mennonites. Germanic Mennonites named the following values: hard work, frugality, tradition, family, education, order/structure, faith and ser­vice. Latino Mennonites named family, language, hospitality, food, fiesta, celebration, public image/private homes and faith/religion.

Afterward, we compared the Latino and Germanic Mennonite cultural and faith values and found areas where misunderstandings and confusion can easily occur.

The group saw that even though our Anabaptist values on paper are the same, how we culturally interpret and apply them in our communities can look different.

For example, both groups value church community and church fellowship. But how that plays out is fascinating. According to the sharing within the group, Germanic Mennonites have the custom of arriving before the service begins to have time to build community among their members, and when the service ends, they expect a punctual finish and to be on their way home.

On the other hand, Latino Mennonites gave testimony of how they also value community and its fellowship. But even though they may arrive late to the service, they expect time for fellowship to occur at the conclusion of the service.

You can imagine the frustration this might produce and the judgment that may follow. Even though both groups share the same faith value, each community has found ways to live it out according to their cultural values.

At the end of our time together, Clarence gave a brief overview of U.S.-Germanic Mennonite history as it culminated in Kansas. I presented an introduction into U.S. Latino diversity, the waves of immigration to the United States and finally the history of Latinos in the Mennonite church, which spans close to 80 years.

As the Latino membership continues to grow exponentially within Mennonite Church USA and Germanic Mennonites decline (as demonstrated in Conrad Kanagy’s study), conferences should provide safe places for both groups to learn, laugh and journey together.

Janet Trevino-Elizarraraz is a member of San Antonio Mennonite Church.