Melissa Stehman of Manheim, Pa., was a trekker on EMM's 2017 Peru Trek for PROMESA. Along with nine other hikers, Melissa trekked 61 miles over five days, sometimes climbing higher than 16,000 feet above sea level. The purpose? Raising funds to build a new school for Peruvian Mennonite K-12 students! Here are Melissa's memories from the trip.

Over the past seven years, I've met inspiring, resilient, kind, hilarious, hospitable, hard-working friends who all have one thing in common: they've come to North America as refugees. 

At the beginning of 2017, Zachary Ranck served as a mission intern for three months at a rural Guatemalan orphanage called Manos de Compasión ("Hands of Compassion").

After a total of 26 years serving with EMM in Maine, Guatemala, and Belize, Phyllis Groff and her husband Galen have retired this year. Here, Phyllis looks back on the missionary journey that spans over four decades of her life.

“While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:10–13).

Lancaster City has recently become known as “America’s refugee capital,” following a report by the BBC which said that Lancaster takes in 20 times more refugees per capita than the rest of the U.S. Meet Barbara Witmer, one Lancaster City resident whose longstanding commitment to refugee resettlement has affected hundreds of lives.