By Mary E. Klassen
Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary

	AMBS dedicated its library and campus center April 26. The new building, housing the library, bookstore and gallery, is the first theological library to register with the United States Green Building Council and was built following standards of LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. The library contains 115,000 books and encompasses 20,000 square feet. The bookstore carries 3,000 titles, and serves as a resource for Herald Press, Pandora Press and Cascadia books. — Photo by Mary E. Klassen/AMBS

“Our hope is in God” was the theme for the events which began with commemorating AMBS’s beginnings in 1958. Dedication of the seminary’s new library and renovated campus center culminated the celebration.

About 250 people gathered in the seminary chapel for the start of the dedication service on Saturday afternoon. Ron Guengerich, pastor of Silverwood Mennonite Church in Goshen and member of the AMBS board, introduced the reading of Psalm 103 as the call to worship, “I hope in our service today we can bless the Lord and celebrate the miracle that is not ours but that God has given us to pass on.”

Nelson Kraybill, AMBS president, noted that before construction on the new building began, “the best theological collection of books anywhere in Anabaptist institutions was in a windowless underground basement, with no ground floor above it.”

He enumerated many goals that were met by the project as the new library and bookstore freed space for other uses: faculty offices, the Institute of Mennonite Studies, Church Leadership Center offices and a larger lounge. The library also answered the need for a computer lab because computers and easy access to electronic resources were included within the library.

Kraybill also acknowledged the contributions of Eileen Saner, librarian, who—after initial plans had been drawn up and fund-raising had begun—came to the seminary’s administrative team with a new proposal.

“She asked how we could even think of building a library that’s not green,” Kraybill said. She asked, “Isn’t this part of our theology? If we are going to talk about peace between nations and between peoples, why wouldn’t AMBS be committed to peace with God’s creation?”

As a result, the AMBS project is believed to be the first theological library to register with the United States Green Building Council, following Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, criteria. Actual LEED certification will come in future after an assessment of the building’s green features.

To meet the goal of sustainability, the building has a geothermal ground-source heating and cooling system; it uses no natural gas. Other features include triple-pane windows, efficient insulation, north-facing clerestory windows that allow natural light into the building and photocells that control lighting according to how much natural light is available.

Building materials from the region were used as much as possible to reduce the need for transporting them. For example, the 7,041 feet of board trim were crafted by Don Steider, the seminary’s director of maintenance, using cherry trees harvested nearby. Rain gardens and prairie grasses around the building will help restore rain water to the underground aquifer and reduce the need for mowing parts of the 40-acre campus.

The dedication service included acknowledging donors to the project. As the worshippers processed through the building for prayers of blessing, a bas relief sculpture of bookshelves was revealed. In this sculpture and corresponding panels designed by John Mishler of Goshen, all donors are recognized by name.

At the service the seminary also invited participants to make contributions to SEMILLA, the Latin American Anabaptist seminary in Guatemala. SEMILLA hopes to increase its own library and set up regional libraries in Honduras and Nicaragua.

This dedication service came five months before of the 50-year anniversary of the dedication of AMBS campus buildings in September 1958. Over those 50 years, Goshen Biblical Seminary, initially located on the Goshen College campus, and Mennonite Biblical Seminary, relocated from Chicago, came together into one seminary on the Elkhart campus. Storytelling, photo displays, a hymn sing led by Mary K. Oyer and Rebecca Slough, a banquet and an evening worship service marked that history. In addition, the choirs of Canadian Mennonite University and Conrad Grebel University College provided a concert as part of the festivities.

At the anniversary worship service, alumni from each of the five decades of AMBS history shared about the importance of AMBS in their ministry. Leonard Wiebe, Gary and Lydia Harder, Janet Breneman, Karl Koop and Cyneatha Millsaps reflected on what campus life and study were like or what had been most meaningful to them.

Breneman, who earned a master of divinity in 1986, said: “The reverence for the Scriptures is the holy ground on which I walk. The saints with whom I learned still fill me.”

Cyneatha Millsaps, who anticipates receiving a master of divinity degree in the May 2008 commencement service, said, “AMBS is the lighthouse that guided me home.”

Now on the pastoral team of Community Mennonite Church in Markham, Ill., Millsaps grew up in the neighborhood north of the campus in the community near Fellowship of Hope, a Mennonite congregation.

She used to walk by the campus without realizing “the very people who nurtured me spiritually came from this place,” she said. “I thank God for helping me find my way home.”

The Anabaptist Colloquium, a group of historians and other scholars, held its annual meetings on the AMBS campus. In one of its sessions, Walter Klaassen and William Klassen were honored for their life-long research and writing about Pilgram Marpeck and their biography of Marpeck scheduled to be released by Herald Press later this year.