 Good afternoon. Welcome to April's third Thursday event. I'm Janine Bertie Johnson, alumni director. And I welcome all of you who've joined us today. Just a couple of housekeeping details before we get started. I'd love to have you introduce yourselves in the chat. If you would do that and please mark. If you have a technical concern at any point during the webinar, you can send a chat message to AMBS webinar. And if you have a question or comment for Mary Ann, we ask that you use the Q&A feature at the bottom of your screen. You can find that by hovering over the bottom there. And I'll be watching for those questions and I'll be happy to answer them. If you have a technical concern at any point during the webinar, and I'll be watching for those questions and comments, and I will then send those to Mary Ann. Please note that the webinar, including questions is being recorded. Turning now to our conversation. Mary Ann Weber is director of enrollment for the seminary. She began working at AMBS in 2019 as admissions counselor and director of student services. And in summer of 2022, she became the director of the admissions team. Mary Ann graduated from Eastern Mennonite University in 1989 with a degree in early childhood education and taught school in Los Angeles through Mennonite voluntary service. And then also in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania. She also served in the Philippines with Mennonite Central Committee from 1995 to 98. And worked in the resource library of Lancaster Mennonite Conference from 98 to 2001. Then she came to AMBS where she earned a master of arts in Christian formation degree in 2003. Following seminary, she served as MCC Great Lakes human resources coordinator from 2003 to 2010. And Menomedia as managing editor for curriculum from 2010 to 17. Mary Ann will start by answering several questions I've given to her. And after that we'll have time for your questions and comments as well. Mary Ann, thanks for joining us today. What would you like to tell us about yourself as an introduction? Well, this was kind of difficult because there's so many things I could say. But I thought I'll just start here. I've been in Indiana just for a couple of decades. And I arrived to study at AMBS, as Janine mentioned. And I earned my master's in Christian formation. At that time, there was also a concentration. So I did the Christian education concentration. And I'll share more about that later. I now live in Goshen with my husband, Gerald. We attend Benton Mennonite Church. And I serve on the pastoral leadership team there. And I've been there for a long time. A fun fact between the two of us, Gerald and I have studied and or worked at nine different Mennonite schools. It's kind of like we embody Mennonite education agency in our household. We're both readers. So if you visit us at home, you might be kind of bored. We sit in our recliners. We read during the evening. And sometimes we might even shake it up and sit on the sofa to read. But we're in the same genres. And so it's not like we talk about our reading very much. In addition to reading, though, we do play games. We work on projects around the house. We recently redid the deck in the back of the house. So we're planning to get it ready to use as the weather gets warmer and we're having fun doing that. Every fall I plant lots of bulbs. I just surprised myself every spring to see what's coming up. And so next to our new deck is an amazing assortment of red tulips and yellow daffodils kind of all mingled together. And it looks really pretty. I've forgotten I had done that. And I noticed them a few days ago and it's just a beautiful color combination. So I'm quite pleased with that. This coming fall, I think I need more crocus bulbs in the front yard. I didn't have quite enough this spring. So that'll give me something to work at. Gerald and I, we have one cat. She's almost 18 years old. She's named Miranda. We got her from a farm when she was a kitchen from Gerald's uncle's farm. We also got a litter mate. But that cat died about a year and a half ago because we're readers. We named them after Shakespeare characters Beatrice and Miranda. And I don't know if you know of any Shakespeare plays well enough, but Miranda is a character in the tempest. And if you know anything about her character, we think that Miranda, our cat, really embodies her namesake quite well. And she still runs and jumps around. So even though she's 18 years old, it feels like she'll be with us for quite some time. Thank you. And another question I like to ask people is, can you tell us about a time when you experienced God or God's presence in a special way? This is another question. Yeah. And this was another question that how do I filter through what I will say, because there's so many, so many ways that I've experienced God in powerful ways. But I just thought of something that's happening right now. And it happens every year in Northern Indiana. I experienced God in a powerful way. And I think that's what I would say as spring happens, especially here. And as I drive to and from work, as I walk around our neighborhood, the parks, I just see the lovely sights. I hear the sounds that are springtime. The trees, they're budding. They're looking gorgeous. The flowers are coming up. The colors are bright. The grass is green. The sky is even more blue. Birds are singing. And I think that our God is not just a creator, but a creative creator. And this particular spring is especially meaningful. We lost my mother-in-law at the beginning of March. She was just a few weeks shy of her 96th birthday. She had a good life and a good death as deaths go. But as we grieve, I'm just thankful for her life, the relationship we had. And when the spring happens, just the sights, the sounds all around me, it reminds me there is hope. There's life. And there's a God who surrounds us and holds us and loves us deeply. And it's a beautiful world. And here's something I think about. Knowing that we're created in the image of this creative creator gives me lots to think about. What does that mean for me and my life as I go about my tasks? They're just a motivator to me as I think about my relationship with God, with other people and the world around me. And I've lived in places where there wasn't a change of seasons as we experience in Indiana per se, more like maybe a sunny season and a rainy season. Temperatures were warm. I was okay with that. I'm not a cold weather person. And I never once missed the change of seasons from warmer temperatures to colder ones. But now that I live where there are four seasons, the early springtime is such a treat for me. It's just the promise of good things to come. It's the promise of life. And I'm just grateful. Indeed. And I'm curious what attracted you to come to AMBS as a student? Yeah, so I'm originally from Pennsylvania and I took a rather unique route to get to AMBS as a student. After college, I wanted to do something other than return home. And honestly, I could think of nothing more than what is now a voluntary service. I just didn't know what other options would be. And so I signed up. As an education major, I went to teach at a Christian school run by a Mennonite church in Inglewood, California. It's just right outside of South, South Central Los Angeles. It's just about a block from South Central LA. So coming to orientation for voluntary service was the first time I was ever in Elkhart. It was the house along Prairie Street that Mennonite Board of Missions at that time had. And that's where our orientation was held. And every day we'd have meetings and we go on these excursions. In this white 15 passenger van, you know the type. One day we drove by AMBS. It's the first time I had seen the seminary. I mean, keep in mind I had no idea I would ever be back in the area. So I'm going around Elkhart. And I'm going to be back in Elkhart. I've just been going around Elkhart. And I'm going to be back in Elkhart. I'm in Elkhart on Elkhart Avenue. And the leader of the program pointed out the seminary. And she made this comment in jest. That single women who are in BS either get married or go to seminary afterward. And having never considered seminary prior to this. that. Up to that point, I thought all I had wanted to do was teach school. But I also wanted to do some other things and Jeanine told you about some of those things. And all of those experiences just made me determined to go to seminary and I did. And so 12 years after that experience in the BS orientation, I came to AMBS. And I found people who had similar experiences to mine. I found people who were able to help me process things that I had experienced. And I found theological insights. I found talking points for these experiences. It was just a very formative time for me, a personal highlight for sure. When I was at seminary, I majored in Christian formation because I had been a school teacher. And I had also taught Sunday school and Bible school for years. I had started teaching Sunday school when I was 14 and hindsight, I just don't know of churches, allowing 14 year olds to teach Sunday school, but I so badly wanted to teach. I think I begged them to allow me to teach Sunday school and I finally gave in. And then I also taught Bible school. And so with those experiences, it felt like the Christian formation degree and the concentration of Christian education would fit well with my skillset. But I had no idea what I would do upon graduation. And so I worked for MCC again, then for menomedia. And I returned to AMBS almost five years ago, as Jeanine said, versus an admissions counselor. Then when the previous director retired, I became the director of enrollment. When I was, you know, and I think about my time as a student quite a bit, because when I was a student, I just found the learning community to be one of encouragement and care. And I find that true today, even though many years have passed, there's a new whole new section has been built onto the seminary buildings, new teaching faculty, different students, but I still find this to be a very caring community. And certainly, you know, this was formative to me when I was a student. It's formative to me now. And in my role, I'm just delighted to have a role that helps people also experience the formation that happens through seminary studies. Even as I, you know, talk about seminary to others, I always think about how casually it was mentioned to me. We never know how our words will impact someone or where it will lead them. And we also don't know if it will take 12 years for them to get there. So a part of my role is encouraging others to step into this amazing experience that is AMBS. Yes, it truly is a mystery how those little seeds germinate, grow, sometimes take a while to come above ground, but the roots are growing there. We don't even see it. So you already kind of answered the question I was going to ask about how you came back, were there particular things when you saw the job description posted that you thought, oh, that sounds like something that would be interesting to me? Absolutely. When I saw the job description, as I already said, AMBS was so informative to me. When I saw the job description initially, I was like, wow, now I get to actually be paid for telling people about AMBS. I mean, I've been telling people all along about AMBS and how wonderful it is to be a student there and have tried to encourage people to study here. And so when I saw this job description, it just resonated with me because it just would allow me to share the good news of AMBS with others in a more formal way. And I really enjoy that. I've just met so many wonderful people along the way. I've had such good conversations and it's exciting to be here. So tell us a little bit about your role. What are the kinds of things you're doing in a daily basis, a weekly basis, a monthly basis? Just what does the director of enrollment have on their plate? You know, I think the director of enrollment, the job is just to ensure that AMBS continues to have students. And that happens in many varied ways. The landscape, it's just different than when I was a student. Of course, that was over 20 years ago. When I was a student, everyone needed to study on campus. And because I was living in Pennsylvania, I had to move to campus so that it could study. People had to live on campus or close enough to campus that they could commute. And so a highlight was getting to know other students in a personal way. Certainly the professors, the other employees at AMBS. I just appreciated being immersed in the seminary experience. And I really enjoyed the invigorating conversations. The whole time was just invaluable to me. But in more recent years, AMBS students can study where they live as they study online. And noticing a trend that instead of going to seminary and then determining next steps in ministry, many of our students are already involved in ministry or with agencies, and they're already pastoring, they're already leading agencies, and they want seminary studies to enhance what they're already doing. So a challenge for the enrollment department is connecting with leaders and pastors to help identify people with whom they serve who would benefit from a seminary education. And to do that, we also encourage prospective students to try class as a guest student. Usually it's an online class to see if they resonate with seminary. And many times our guest students then do apply for admission. More recent trend is the work of AMBS around the world. So we have learning cohorts in Ethiopia and in South Korea. All of the applications for those folks do go through the enrollment department. Additionally, we have just in the last year started a Spanish language graduate certificate program. Now we need to work with translators to process the Korean and Spanish applications in Ethiopia. English is used. So there's no translation needed there, but there's different layers of complexity to these processes. And I am just amazed and gratified to read applicant files just to learn about their calls to ministry, how they believe in AMBS education will serve them well. And in more recent years, we've also had more international students study on campus than we had previously. Sometimes the application process is a challenge. We do have to navigate cultural expectations and differences. And so this is yet another layer of complexity. But again, I'm just always amazed and gratified to read applicant files. I do believe AMBS just continues to attract quality applicants. They're motivated by their love for God and their desire to be part of the bigger world, whatever that might mean. I noticed a trend, particularly with international students who study on campus, the masters in theology and peace studies is a big draw. In their application process, they share about conflicts in their home communities and their home countries. And they share how they believe what they learned at AMBS will help them to better address these conflicts. It's just very humbling for me to read these essays, to be privileged to know these stories, to realize that AMBS has a role to play in the larger happenings in the world around us. But just to give you an idea of other functions within the department, we also work with financial aid, scholarships, student loans. And not only do we work with applicants before they get here, but also when they arrive, we have student services is housed in this department as well. So to give you an idea of what happens with student services, using the example of international students, it means that we would help our students get health insurance policies. We help them enroll their children in local schools if they bring their families. We help them establish bank accounts and we address other basic needs. This past year, student services also provided a resourcing event with some speakers to share with students about mental health issues and challenges students should be aware of. Another thing that we did along with campus ministries, we sponsored conversations between the students and President David Bushart, another conversation between students and our academic dean, Beverly Lapp. So there's just many ways that our office is involved with student functions prior to them arriving at AMBS as students and also while they're here. Fortunately, the Enrollment Department just has a very caring and thoughtful team and we just work really hard to meet applicant and student needs. Yeah, for full disclosure here, I have to claim this is a part of, I'm a part of this department and it's a lively and fun group. We laugh a lot in our meetings. I really enjoy that. But right now has been a really busy time in the admissions team. Can you explain why this time of the year is just kind of frantic at points. It does feel that way at times. Yes, frantic is a good word. Yeah, so it has to do with people wanting to start their studies in August, just a few months away. So we have scholarship application deadlines of March 15. So it is important that's that applicants apply prior to them and get their scholarship applications in. And then there's always the scholarship committee that needs to meet and determine scholarship awards. And then we have to let the applicants know what their award is going to be. For us applicants, things are a little trickier this year. We do. You may have heard in the news about some FAFSA issues with the US government loan student loans. So we are figuring out workarounds. Fortunately, we have a small student body who would take advantage of student loans. And in that way, we're able to develop workarounds. We are just aware and empathetic to learning institutions that have thousands of students and the extra work that this would place on them because the financial aid applications and student loan applications just are not working well this year. So this is a busy time of year when we think of applications, when we think of scholarships and financial aid. And even as we do that, we're still getting applications. We're still getting communicating with people who want to start this summer, who want to maybe start a year from now. And so at one time, when I began my job, I kept thinking there's got to be a downtime. Not really. I know this is not it. But maybe October, not quite sure. Well, another factor with maybe you can say something about how many students hope to come from somewhere else in the world to Elkhart. And what percentage of those make it through like getting all their materials together that they have to turn in? And then what percentage of those can collect enough money to be able to come so that we can give them the papers they need to apply for a visa. And then there's another cut there in terms of the number of people who go for a visa appointment and can actually receive a visa to come. Can you describe a bit of how big of a group we start with for how many students actually arrive on campus? And what happens to the students who aren't able to get a visa? That's a lot of questions. We talk about an enrollment funnel. Okay. So if we have a funnel at the top or all the people who might consider it at the bottom are the ones who actually arrive. Okay. So when we talk about international students and to just define that these are students outside US and Canada and students who are not planning to join the cohorts that are in country or wanting to do online studies through AMBS. So these are folks who want to study on campus. And many times as I mentioned that theology and peace studies is a big draw. So when we look at this funnel at the top within the past year, now I don't have the numbers exactly in front of me. So don't quote me. These are estimates. Within the past year, we have maybe had 140 people start filling out applications for admissions. Okay. That doesn't mean they will get very far. Some of them fill in their name, their address, and we are in communication with everyone who starts an application. Some of them, they don't follow up. And so those who actually complete an application estimating in the last year, maybe about 50 of those completed actually completed their application. That means they finished filling out their form. But we're not done yet because we also need transcripts from their undergraduate and graduate schools. If they have done that, we also need to collect their references. And we have three references for each student. We also need to get adequate essays or paragraphs as we now call them. We ask our applicants three questions that they need to write responses to. And so to complete an application file, we need to get all of those items as well. So in the past year, approximately 30 people completed their application file. So you can see already how this funnel is narrowing down. Most, not all of them, as we read through, as we have conversations, sometimes I'll do a Zoom conversation or Google Meet conversation with applicants, as the Admission Committee gathers information. Not all of them are accepted as students, but most are. Then they need to apply for scholarships and after scholarships, they will receive a cost of attendance. And this gives them an estimate of what funds they will need for their seminary education here at AMBS for one year. And we make it clear that they can expect this each year, this type of cost each year. It is then the applicant who needs to provide proof of that funding and also needs to have 50% of that funding here on their AMBS account. When we have 50% of that funds here on their AMBS account and we have proof of funding, which is promissory notes, bank statements, things like that, then we turn information over to our registrar, who works with the Department of Homeland Security to create accounts for these applicants to say that they are eligible for their student visa interviews at the U.S. Embassy. Having money, proving that they have funds, is a DHS requirement. So we are following DHS standards by doing that. Now, of those, those are funnels narrowing even further, I believe we had 12 who could provide proof of funding. Of and so they went for student visas. Of those, three were able to get their visas and arrive on campus this past year. So it is an arduous process. We so value the participation of our international student body here on campus. Our lives, our classes are so much more full because of it. But there are many hoops to go through. There are many hurdles to cross. And it's just not for the faint of heart. And I'm so thankful. Each time an international student arrives, I just breathe a sigh of relief that they are here. As far as those up higher in the funnel, as I mentioned, some don't really follow through with completing the application. Some realize financially this isn't going to work and might want to switch to online studies. It at least eliminates the cost of living here. And the flight and that kind of thing, their transportation back and forth. But we are just thankful for the ones who are able to be here. Yeah, it is quite a process. Now the board, the ambious board starts meeting today. And tomorrow you're going to give them a report as one of the members of the ad cabinet. Are there particular things you haven't talked about yet that you want to share with the alumni about maybe things you're going to share in your board report? Yeah, several things. I think alumni would be good for alumni to know. And that is that in my board report, there's a handy little graph so that our board can see the upward trajectory of our enrollment. And that for the last number of years, our enrollment is going up. And when I say enrollment going up, I mean all of the people who study in our academic programs around the world. So when you come to campus, you might notice fewer students actually on campus than what there had been a number of years ago. That's because we have people from around the world who are ambious students studying. And I am hoping and praying that that number continues to go up this next year. It's actually very exciting to look at that graph. I'm sorry I don't have that here for you to put up. And just to know that there are people who want to study at ambious is really gratifying. I will also with the board. So with the board I'm sharing that chart. I'm sharing some numbers. I'm also going to share a little bit about an enrollment strategic plan that the enrollment team has been working on and the enrollment team consists of Janine who's with us on this webinar and also our colleague Teresa. The three of us have been meeting regularly with Betty Priest from Creighton-Sin Co. Betty lives in Ontario. She was actually a student. We overlapped as students a little bit at ambious. Now she has a consulting agency so she knows ambious well and our enrollment is focusing on getting young adults to study on campus. So whether that means they move to campus and live in our apartments as some of you many of you have already done or that means they live in the area and they study on campus. We want to make a concerted effort over the next five years to work at student engagement for young adults. Now we developed five priorities. We developed goals. We developed all kinds of things and so I'm going to share some of that with the with the board. And what's interesting is in March just last month I was in an ATS conference. So that's the Association of Theological Schools of which ambious is a part. And this conference I talked to people from other seminaries. What are they doing? You know it's just a great networking time to get lots of good ideas. And this idea that we're working to try to get younger adults to campus is something that it feels like some other seminaries have kind of already given up on. Many of them are just you know going by way of everything's happening online. Not really trying to bring students to campus at all anymore. Because as I had mentioned earlier students are already involved in ministry. They're already pastoring and doing so many things. Maybe they're too busy to move here or you know what are the dynamics here? We want to take a look at that. As Janine and Teresa and I started we realized we need to first do research on young adults. None of us are young adult age. So we're doing our research. We also that he also pointed out and we're also trying to process this. That when we started to start I'm sorry when we start a strategic plan we should expect to fail. There should be parts that we know aren't going to work. And if something doesn't fail she emphasized it means we're not trying hard enough. This is a big lesson for the three of us because none of us like to fail. But you know what I'm getting ready and I'm getting ready to fail and I'm kind of looking forward to it because I want to try hard and I'm really excited about this plan. So I'll be sharing that with the board tomorrow afternoon. And I also heard her say it's not just how hard we try but whether we're being edgy enough or daring enough. So I really I also really was struck by that and appreciate that. One more question for you from me and then we have some questions coming in from the alumni who've joined us. You might have already said some of this as well but what's a dream that you have for AMBS? Yeah so a dream is that AMBS continues to be a place that impacts the global church and communities particularly with peace theology that's what we're kind of known for. AMBS students they study here they have a lot to offer and they can affect their communities in some pretty amazing ways and if our students practice what they learn their congregations and communities will just be changed for the better. So I continue to believe in our students. I continue to believe that they want to make a difference in the world. I continue to believe that they will see their time at AMBS as a way to do that. And so my dream just to sum it up is that students will be persistent in making the world a better place. That's great. All right we have two questions that have come in already and invite the rest of you if you want to make a comment or ask a question to go ahead and use the Q&A function. I'm going to start with the one that seems a little bit easier to answer. Randall Miller who once had your role asks what presence does enrollment have for recruiting in Canada and do we still use binational language in describing AMBS? Thanks Randy. Yeah thanks Randy. I was pretty sure you would join today and so it's good to have you here. Randy was the one in my role when I became a student. He's the one who processed my files and first person I met when I arrived on campus and took me on the campus tour. So we do have a staff who is in Canada. We're now thinking because of our strategic enrollment plan as ways we can do further cooperation together. We do talk about AMBS as a binational seminary. So we do continue to use that language and we are definitely supported by the denominations of MC Canada and MCUSA. One example of that is a conference that some young adults are planning in British Columbia this summer and they have invited young adults from across Canada and the US but it'll be mostly Canadians to join them to talk about issues of faith that are alive for them now and they asked about having a speaker for me AMBS and we're sending one of our faculty members. We're helping him to be able to be part of that so that our presence is very evident to those young adults who gather for that conference. So that's just an example. Naon Serato has asked what have you learned or seen about Christian formation and from I think he's asking about from the perspective of the different backgrounds of our students that come and are you surprised by how some of them view God and then how does this idea that God is a creative God? How does that help us to teach international students to experience God in the North American context and how does creativity work into all of that? So it's a very complex question, very thoughtful one Naon and thank you so much for that. Yeah Naon thanks for that question and I'm not sure I'm going to do justice with your answer but I'd love to talk about this with you more. I know you're just across the parking lot sometimes so it would be good to to check in with each other and have a larger conversation particularly when we think internationally we do have to be aware of just cultural and differences and the different perceptions and assumptions we bring to conversations and to our studies and Christian formation for me might mean something different than it means for someone who's studying elsewhere. I think in terms of how my faith is formed I think in terms of my relationship with God I think in terms of as as I mentioned earlier as you picked up on this creative creator kind of thing and I recognize that sometimes that is a very North American kind of way of looking at it because I have the time and I have the resources to be able to think those thoughts and have those conversations and I recognize not all of our students have that. So it is important that when our teaching faculty teach that they are able to adapt things. In Korea for example in South Korea with our program we do send some of our professors there they do have to work with translators as they teach but we've also tapped into professors who are from South Korea so that they can also incorporate the appropriate theology into their studies and that makes me feel good about those types of things even in our graduate certificate in the Spanish language. We're using Spanish speakers to teach those courses many of them are from outside of the US or many some of them are from outside of the US so they also bring those differing perspectives. I think that's very important particularly as we think about Christian formation and what I notice with students here on campus what happens with our international students also happens with me when I was a student also happens with our students who are from the US or from Canada and that is our world just expands what we thought we knew what we thought we understood there's another way of looking at that there's another way of being there's another way of growing and developing our faiths and our Christianity and our spirituality that maybe we hadn't thought about before so I would like to think that happens for all of our students and I think that's kind of an expect I think it should be an expectation for students when they arrive here that things will change but they will see things differently and they will be different people because of their studies so I don't know if that really answers your question now but I appreciate it. Yes and it's it's a question for the whole community it's about the identity of AMBS are there any other questions we have time for one more if I don't see one real quick here I'm going to go ahead and ask another question but so my final question to you and then depending on how long it takes you maybe there'll be one more that shows up in the Q&A but is there anything that has really surprised you I'm thinking particularly of um like why is the chaplaincy program the MDiv Connect specifically chaplaincy program like so um attractive right now but maybe you have other things in mind that you'd like to say something about what's surprising you in your role well I'll run with that one for now um um we offer a master of divinity chaplaincy degree we're noticing over the last year or two maybe three there's more students are interested in that degree than say MDiv pastoral ministries now we can probably make some assumptions about that chaplaincy is certainly an excellent way to do ministry for people who are called to ministry it's a difficult ministry and god bless people who are doing it because we need chaplains we also need congregational ministers right so is the perception that congregations are kind of in difficult conversations right now that maybe people don't want to be involved in and so being a chaplain is another great way to be uh ministering and to be a pastor I don't really know the dynamics of that but what I do hear from our denominations MCUSA MC Canada is that we need pastors right congregations need pastors and so I would love if you think about who those next generation of pastors could be and if it takes them 12 years to get to seminary so be it but uh that was it is surprising to see kind of the trends of seminary studies and what they involve and who's interested when maybe in another year or two we'll have a lot of people wanting to do the pastoral ministry track that would be great well and that's a great way to end our time together thank you so much Marianne for answering these questions um I pointed out in the alumni newsletter this week that I'd like you all to join this experiment the five word experiment have you ever considered seminary if you can say that to five people and plant those seeds we don't know what's going to come of that but I tried it a week ago in church I was visiting a church and I said to the person who was worship leader have you ever considered seminary and they said yes and it turned out she didn't know that she could study from her home in another state so do ask people that question have you ever considered seminary name the gifts that you're seeing you know that alumni are the biggest influences of our of the students who come um or pastors those those people who tap people on the shoulder and thanks also for your financial support you'll also read in the alumni newsletter that we have a special alumni voices campaign happening this week and part of next week this is uh part of the end of our uh campaign that we've been going at for over a year now um it's a chance to end this campaign in a really strong way with a lot of alumni participation so send in a story of a um an AMBS uh offering that has happened for you since you left seminary whether that's a pastors and leaders event or a workshop that you did an online course one of the small groups we offer all of those things you can see more about that in the information I sent you and remember to stay connected through um taking these offerings from the church leadership center and also if you want to audit a class at AMBS as a grad you can do that for a great rate just let us know if there's a class that you see that you'd like to be part of um in this this summer term or in the fall next month on May 16 our third thursday conversation will feature david miller who is teaching uh in in journey but in the church leadership center as a whole but particularly he's going to be speaking about journey international the groups of people that we have around the world who are working at the non-degree uh training for pastoral ministry thanks to all of you who joined us today and thanks also to student christian nowe who provided the technical support for this webinar this concludes today's third thursday i hope you have a wonderful weekend bye