Mennonite Weekly Review

NORTH NEWTON, Kan. — The final two chapels at Bethel College this year followed tradition in centering on favorite hymns and reflections on Bethel. In other ways, the Wednesday morning institution changed considerably.

Kenyan students — from left, Mirriam Barasa, Lynnet Maidhi, Violet Karani, Esther Waithero and Jane Njagi — lead singing during a chapel service at Bethel College. — Photo by Vada Snider/Bethel College

Amy Barker, campus pastor, gave a group of students major responsibility for planning and carrying out chapel.

“I laid out the dates for traditional chapels, such as favorite hymns and Ash Wednesday,” she said. “Then I said, ‘How would you like to fill in the rest?’ ”

The students agreed to lead some of the other chapels.

“Within the chapel committee this year, there were people with a lot of spiritual gifts that were willing to share them, but I also believe that there are many more students out there with more gifts to offer,” said Maya Kehr, sophomore from Goshen, Ind.

“While I don’t feel that the style of worship changed much after students took control — mainly because the majority of the committee came from similar Mennonite backgrounds that favor a certain type of worship — because it was student-led, students were inherently more involved.”

Greg Shelly, junior from Lenexa, said his vision for chapel is to blend new and traditional elements.

“With the new planning, we are trying to incorporate more members of the body so we together can function as a whole here at Bethel,” he said.

Several dramatic situations this school year gave chapel a different feel as well. Freshman Lindsay Geisler had struggled with cancer her last year in high school. Sunita Pudasaini, a junior, and Brittany Voth, a sophomore, were each involved in potentially life-threatening car accidents around Thanksgiving. Lynnet Maidhi, a junior from Kenya, went home at Christmas to visit her family and got caught in post-election violence.

Kehr remembers a chapel she helped plan when Voth and another student who had been in a car accident shared their “death to life” stories during the Easter season.