Mennonite Weekly Review

PANDORA, Ohio — When Patricia Burdette began to serve on the Mennonite Women USA board of directors four years ago, she had no idea she was helping to guide the staff she would someday join as editor.

Burdette, a retired English professor and former professional in public relations and financial development, replaces Laurie Oswald Robinson as MW USA editor May 15.

She will work from her home in Pandora, where she lives with her husband, Rob, transitional pastor at Grace Mennonite Church.

Burdette chaired MW USA’s editorial advisory council, was part of a team that shaped the redesigned timbrel magazine in 2007, and worked on the yearly Bible study guide, commissioned by MW USA and Canadian Women in Mission.

She is the writer of the Bible study guide for 2008, Your Treasure, Your Heart: Women and the Stewardship of Money.

Burdette’s vocational history includes teaching rhetoric, American Indian literature and composition, most recently at Bluffton (Ohio) University. She has a doctorate in American Indian peace studies from Union Institute.

She will edit timbrel, work with the Bible study guide, do other writing and editing and work on special projects with Rhoda Keener, MW USA executive director.

Burdette was a financial development and public relations professional until the birth of her fourth child. As she and her husband searched for a deeper walk with God, they began voluntary service and discovered the Mennonites.

Burdette and her family served with Mennonite Central Committee Canada in Saskatchewan for six years before serving among the Oglala Lakota on the Pine Ridge Reservation with MCC U.S. for six years. Burdette is an American Indian of Creek, Shawnee and Eastern Cherokee descent.

She and her husband and daughter were rebaptized into the Mennonite church in Saskatoon, Sask.

“We started with MCC as Presbyterians,” Burdette said. “During MCC, we began attending Mennonite churches and felt this was what we had looked for many years but never really could find.”

For all the vocations Burdette has fulfilled, she considers motherhood the most significant and joyful. She has five adult children and nine grandchildren.