Jessica Griggs (Mennonite Church USA)
ELKHART, Ind. (Mennonite Church USA) — The Women’s Leadership Steering Committee of the Mennonite Church USA recently said goodbye to two of its founding members, Linda Gehman-Peachy and Erica Littlewolf, after more than a decade of service. The group, which works to empower Mennonite women in leadership roles, particularly centering the voices of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) women, began meeting in 2012 after a 2009 church-wide audit revealed a decline in the number of women in leadership roles in the Mennonite Church. Gehman-Peachy and Littlewolf were among the first women asked to join the committee, and while other members have come and gone, Gehman-Peachy and Littlewolf have remained consistent members since its inception.
During their time on the WiL Steering Committee, Gehman-Peachy and Littlewolf participated in a variety of committee-wide initiatives, including developing anti-patriarchal curriculum, Laboring for Integrity, and organizing the 2014, 2016, and 2018 “Women in Theology” conferences.
“Linda has been involved in the WiL project since its inception. “And Erica has helped shape our mission and direction,” said Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz, denominational peace and justice pastor at MC USA and current WiL staff member, “and their historical knowledge of women’s leadership work has been invaluable to our ongoing work to support women in leadership positions and address systemic issues of patriarchy and white supremacy within the church.”
Linda Gehman Peachey
Linda Gehman Peachey is a freelance writer who previously worked for the Mennonite Central Committee as director of women’s advocacy and co-director of peace and justice ministries. She lives in Lancaster and attends Blossom Hill Mennonite Church.
Gehman-Peachy said she often served as the group’s historian. As one of the first women to join the steering committee, she had firsthand experience with much of the group’s history, and she saw WiL as an extension of her work in women’s advocacy at MCC, so it made sense for her to preserve the history. Gehman-Peachy also said the relationships she built while working at MCC were beneficial to the group.
Gehman-Peachy said her vision for WiL was born out of her “experiences of sexism within the church and the marginalization that women feel as though they are not full members.” Gehman-Peachy said she wanted to “address some of those realities, but also continue to address issues of violence and silence that women experience.” “Spiritually, the church has not been a nurturing space for women to develop healthy relationships with God, themselves and others,” she lamented.
“I had the opportunity to co-teach a 10-week online course using the Laboring Toward Wholeness curriculum. Linda Gamer Peachy “We’ve been doing a lot of different things during the pandemic,” said Sue Park Herr, director of race/ethnic engagement for MC USA and a current member of the WiL steering committee.Linda “She has built on her previous experience leading MCC’s women’s advocacy efforts to continue to expand our work helping churches read the Bible from an Anabaptist woman’s perspective. I have always valued her intelligent yet humble approach to leadership, and I will truly miss her when she leaves the Steering Committee.”
“Working with this group as part of the Women’s Leadership Steering Committee has been one of the most meaningful and fulfilling experiences I’ve had at the Church,” Gehman-Peachy said. “It energized us and created a space for us to address difficult issues. It also modeled a new way of working and being together as a mixed group of women of color and white women.”
Erica Littlewolf
Erica Littlewolf is of Northern Cheyenne and Sioux-Tai tribes and currently lives on Northern Cheyenne land in southeastern Montana. In addition to serving on the WiL Steering Committee, she is active in the MCC Central States Native American Vision Circle. She grew up attending White River Cheyenne Mennonite Church.
Littlewolf said she believes she was initially asked to join the group to represent both younger women (she was in her early 30s when the group was first established) and Indigenous women.
“I felt a responsibility as a person to represent not only my community and my local church, but my tribe, and to represent Native people in general as best I could,” Littlewolf said.
In addition to representing young Indigenous Mennonite women, Littlewolf said she felt her greatest contribution to the group was representing single, divorced, and childless women, because she was the only one on the committee who fit that demographic. When the group’s conversation turned to children, she said, she sometimes had to draw attention to the fact that she was being left out, reminding members that even in a group that is very focused on diversity, “it’s human to leave people out.”
“Erika was an important critical voice for WiL and brought her perspective as an Indigenous woman, and I have always appreciated her focus on defining the language we speak so we can build a shared vocabulary to have the conversations we need to have,” Parkher said. “I will miss her wisdom, wit, and laughter.”
Each month, the committee meets for a two-hour conference call, with the first hour dedicated to catching up and checking in with each other. Littlewolf said this shared time has given the women on the committee a space to speak openly and build deeper connections in the midst of isolation, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Budget-permitting, the steering committee meets once a year in person, usually with all the women staying in an Airbnb and cooking a meal together. Both women remember the gatherings fondly, and say they gave them a chance to connect and bond more than the monthly check-in calls ever could.
“I think this committee was a lot of fun. If working to end patriarchy and sexism is fun, this was fun,” Littlewolf said. “And that was mostly because of who I worked with. I didn’t feel like I was the only one doing something, I could see that other people were doing their part too. Everyone else was just saying they were busy. No, this was a group of people I could really trust.”
The WiL Steering Committee is made up of 5-6 women, mostly BIPOC, in addition to one representative from MC USA staff. The Steering Committee currently consists of Shannon Dycus, Katerina Gea, Sue Park-Hur, Bonita Rockingham, Abby Endashaw, Lynette Madrigal, and staff member Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz. More information on WiL activities and Steering Committee members can be found here.
Mennonite Church USA is an Anabaptist Christian denomination formed in 2002 by the merger of the Mennonite Church and the Mennonite General Conference Church. Members of this historic peace church seek to follow Jesus by rejecting violence and resisting injustice. MC USA A new commitment We express a commitment shared among diverse believers: to follow Jesus, to bear witness to God’s peace, and to experience the transformation of the Holy Spirit. Mennonite
MC USA Women in Leadership works to dismantle patriarchy in MC USA by empowering women to live God’s calling on their lives, develop their capacities, and contribute their wisdom to congregations, local conferences, agencies, and organizations.
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