I enjoy working at GuideSpring and being able to pass on some of the gifts given to me on my journey. My experiences at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) at a crucial time in my life when I was experiencing the trauma of a church conflict was transformational. I received a bachelors in conflict transformation and sociology from EMU and continued my studies in Restorative Justice and Trauma at EMU. I enjoy walking with others in their journeys with conflict and brokenness experienced in community and therefore hoping to repair in community. 

I enjoy meeting with people to help them learn about themselves and their relationships through the lens of the Enneagram. I am a deep listener and able to ask curious non-judgmental questions to help people see themselves and others around them more clearly. I received training through the International Enneagram Association as well as training on trauma and restorative processes. I care deeply about the work of grief and know from personal experience the pain of many losses in my life.

I enjoy greeting and caring for people where they’re at, whether they call or come into the office. People come into the office with the weight of the world. I hope that by coming into the office I am able to help lessen their load and let them know this is a safe space for them to be in and different from the rest of the world. I enjoy helping and caring for the staff in their needs as well. I enjoy trying to do better and learning new ways of hospitality and what that can and does look like. I’m thankful to be here and know you will be too.

I feel called to walk with those who are struggling financially, recognizing the benefits of the numerous supports I have received that others with different life stories have not. I continue to recognize the traumatizing impact of life with a continuous scarcity of resources, including lack of any close community support. As a semi-retired engineer, I seek to provide a big picture overview for clients and GuideSpring, as we look to bring emotional health to an ever-expanding community where everyone’s story is heard and valued. I hope to partner with others in providing a glimpse of the “blessed community” in which I want to participate in.

I have a passion for the mission and vision of GuideSpring. I enjoy offering creative budgeting and administrative support to help provide financial sustainability for the ongoing work of GuideSpring. My deep conviction that God and people are generous, spurs me on in my work and encourages me in my own healing journey.

I love a good story. I see how every single person holds a story inside of them that begs to be listened to and cared about. Stories have always captured me and drawn me in a way that few other things do. My love for listening to people’s stories is born out of my own past and realizing that I also have a story that is unique to me. I have done courses through the Allender Center on story work and family of origin and also done conferences by Adam Young. I enjoy therapeutic approaches to people’s stories and helping people connect present behaviors to past experiences of harm and trauma.

Storywork is a passion of mine. When we are met with kindness and empathy,healing starts to happen and we discover who we are meant to be. We all need someone to enter with us as we remember our stories and experiences. I have taken courses and training through the Allender Center, Adam Young, Give Her Wings Academy and mentoring classes with Gloria Rhodes. I want to shine the light within me to everyone I meet and let them know they matter.

After suppressing my emotions for the first 25-30 years of my life, I’m very interested in learning more about how accepting the full range of emotions can benefit relationships in community settings. I have a longing to encourage people to expand their thinking, because that can help us to be more open to other people’s stories. Acknowledging the legitimacy of other people’s experience seems huge in any form of restorative justice.When I was invited to team up with Katherine as director of Mentoring College it seemed like a good opportunity to have a connection with the Guidespring community and to explore ways that Katherine and I could combine our gifts to contribute to more authentic relationships for us and communities around us.

I have lived my entire life cross-culturally, whether it be mainstream or Old Order or Puerto Rican, atheist, Catholic, or Anabaptist. Marvin and I are raising our children cross-culturally by default. I have spent 18 years in the midwifery world navigating between hospital birth and out-of-hospital birth “plain” community and “mainstream” community. I love sitting in a Mentoring College classroom setting and swapping stories with others who are wondering “how does community really work…successfully?” I, too, want to know how can we really care for each other when we often find we don’t understand each other or even our own selves.

I love connecting with everyone at GuideSpring as I appreciate when people strive to live in a restorative way. I first learned about Restorative Justice and other restorative practices 25 years ago when my husband and I were living in Rochester, NY. Since coming to central PA, my interest in this field has grown, and I’ve been expanding my learning. I want to be part of creating safe spaces for important dialogues and wider conversations using circles and a restorative consciousness. As a retired nurse, it may seem like a stretch to now work in areas of storytelling and community building, but I find joy in creating and holding spaces for difficult conversations, which can happen anywhere!

Restorative team has been hugely helpful in our marriage and really, life in general. As we study the many different lenses through which people see things, it helps us understand so much about conflict and ourselves. Also, learning how our past experiences, whether good or bad, affect our current way of doing things, is tremendously eye opening, thus it’s our desire to walk with others too as they address hard things in life.

I first came to GuideSpring through helping people with mental health issues one on one. When I saw Restorative Justice, I became more interested in working in a group because of some of my family experiences. I was also interested in seeing how Restorative Justice could help with church issues.