By Jessica Griggs for Mennonite Church USA
ELKHART, Ind. (Mennonite Church USA) — Mennonite Church USA presented Tina Schlabach and Abby Endashaw with the 2024 MC USA Bring the Peace award. Each year, the denomination names two peacemakers as the recipients of the award: a Legacy Peacemaker, who has demonstrated a life-long passion for peace and justice work, and a Young Peacemaker, who is a young adult or teenager who has already established their devotion to peacemaking. The award is sponsored by MC USA’s Church Peace Tax Fund.
Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz, MC USA’s denominational minister for peace and justice, said, “This award is a way to honor individuals whose commitment to peace has been inspiring and transformative through their tireless efforts, as they’ve worked for peace and justice within their communities.”
Each spring, pastors, conference ministers and other faith leaders from across MC USA send Bring the Peace nominations to the MC USA Peace and Justice department. This year, after the nominees were identified, a committee of previous Bring the Peace award recipients chose the winners.
Legacy Peacemaker: Tina Schlabach
Tina Schlabach has co-pastored Shalom Mennonite Fellowship in Tucson, Arizona, for almost a decade. She previously pastored at Waterford Mennonite Church in Goshen, Indiana, and has served as a hospital chaplain, spiritual director and teacher. Her peace and justice efforts focus on aiding refugee and migrant women to find safety and stability once they cross the U.S.-Mexico border. And recently, she was instrumental in founding Casa Cardo, a community home for asylum-seeking women and their children.
“Tina has been, and is, a gift to her church and the larger community, through her work as co-pastor of Shalom Mennonite, and as she has walked alongside immigrant families who are homeless and vulnerable, as they cross the border,” said Stutzman Amstutz. “She has been key in providing safe haven, not only physically but also spiritually, as she witnesses with compassion to families. Tina has also worked to change and stop immigration policy from using oppressive structures, such as for-profit immigration prisons.”
In the 1980s, Schlabach volunteered with Jubilee Partners, a Christian community in Comer, Georgia, where she first learned about how U.S. military and economic interventions in Latin America have led to impoverished and dangerous environments for the countries’ inhabitants. Many people from these Latin American countries have flocked to the United States to seek asylum, and Schlabach has devoted herself to building a faith community where immigrants can experience healing and feel safe and loved.
“In the ecosystem of peace and justice work, I see myself as one who hopes to bring healing through accompaniment, and, with others, through creating beloved community out of situations of isolation,” Schlabach said.
Now working in Tucson, Schlabach, with others, has established a community visitation program at the Eloy Detention Center, which is a for-profit detention center that contracts with the U.S. government to imprison immigrants who are in the process of appealing their deportation orders. This ministry focuses on visiting with the immigrants in the detention center and hearing their stories, as well as advocating for them.
In 2022, Schlabach, and other leaders associated with the visitation program, began working with another organization, Thistle Farms, to create a home for asylum-seeking women and their children. Earlier this year, they opened Casa Cardo, which provides housing for up to five asylum-seeking women and their children for a period of two years, while the families establish their lives in the United States. In this ministry, Schlabach and her associates support these families through trauma healing and various physical, mental, social and legal needs.
“One of the most transformative experiences is to be a faith community with others who are different from us and to really take care of one another, listen to one another, learn about God from one another,” said Schlabach. “Getting in close with those who are imprisoned — simply for fighting for a chance to stay in the U.S. — and with those who need a place to live with support, while they heal and rebuild their lives, is one way to walk closely with Jesus.”
Young Peacemaker: Abby Endashaw
Abby Endashaw
Photo by: Lancaster Global Shapers
Abby Endashaw serves as the national coordinator for Mennonite Central Committee’s Summer Service Program, which helps young adults of color develop their leadership skills through the lenses of service and justice. She also works as a therapist and is an Intercultural Development Inventory Qualified Administrator.
“Abby is a peace educator and capacity builder, as well as a therapist, who works with individuals and couples,” said Stutzman Amstutz. “She recently joined the Women in Leadership Steering Committee, and her compassion is already evident in our conversations. I appreciated her facilitation of the Youth & Young Adult Climate Summit at MennoCon23. I am grateful for her capacity and passion, as she works within our churches.”
Endashaw approaches peace and justice work through helping people understand their role in their families, communities and the world, which she does through therapy, IDI administration and peace education.
“My peacebuilding work really deals with the self before engaging with systems,” said Endashaw. “Uncovering our biases, healing our traumas and discovering our internal motivations sets the foundation for us to live as wholehearted, peace-building members of our communities. I am eager to see us achieve a world that is more peaceful and more just for us all — in our families, places of work and communities.”
Along with walking alongside BIPOC young adults as they build community-centered leadership skills in MCC’s Summer Service Program, which she herself participated in as a youth, Endashaw is also involved in antiracism education and grant-administration to local partners involved in peace and justice work. She is also involved in creating MCC’s forthcoming anti-imperialism curriculum.
Donating to the MC USA’s Church Peace Tax Fund is one way to join with MC USA in peacebuilding. The Church Peace Tax Fund:
- Provides funding for educational programs that address militarism and promote living out ways of peace.
- Allocates a $300 annual grant for the Bring the Peace award, which honors Mennonite young adult and legacy peacemakers who are actively engaged in resisting war and promoting peace in their congregations and communities.
- Annually recognizes faith leaders in MC USA who are committed to resisting war and promoting peace.
- Provides grant opportunities to support war tax resisters, through already established alternative funds.
- Supports the work of Peaceful Options for Training & Careers (POTC).
To donate to the Church Peace Tax Fund, visit the MC USA Bring the Peace giving page and write “Church Peace Tax Fund” in the Note field. Alternatively, donors may write a check, payable to Mennonite Church USA, and send it to 718 N. Main St., Newton, KS 67114. Please designate “Church Peace Tax Fund” on the memo line.
MC USA’s Bring the Peace initiative calls individuals and congregations to extend peace in their communities. It is also a prayer, inviting God to bring the peace that expands our capacity for empathy, compassion and love, while actively seeking to dismantle oppression and violence.
For more information on MC USA’s peacebuilding efforts, click here.
Mennonite Church USA is an Anabaptist Christian denomination, founded in 2002, and a recognized peace church. Members seek to follow Jesus by rejecting violence and resisting injustice. MC USA’s Renewed Commitments state the following shared commitments among its diverse body of believers: to follow Jesus, witness to God’s peace and experience the transformation of the Holy Spirit. MC USA is comprised of 15 area conferences and more than 460 congregations across the United States. MC USA is part of Mennonite World Conference, a global faith family that includes churches in 60 countries