Growing up as a mixed-race Mennonite has not always been easy. Thankfully, in this course I have had the opportunity to share some of my anxieties about being a minority in the church. This summer, I had the opportunity to share stories of another woman of color in the play "Heavenly Voices."
Goshen College professor Pat Lehman and her colleague, Linda Christophel, took about six years to gather stories of Mennonite Women of color around the country. After the stories were collected, Pat put them together and turned them into an ethnographic drama--this just means that everything that was said on stage were the actual words of the women.
I played a woman named Vernelle Briddelle, a 50-something African-American woman from North Carolina. Vernelle's story is shaped around some unfortunate and intense mishaps she has experienced--this includes being arrested for doing crack, losing her first child, and some of her negative experiences with inmates in prison.
This group of women first performed this play in Phoenix, Arizona this summer at the Mennonite Conference, and lucky for me, Vernelle was actually able to attend! Memorizing lines by myself was so so tedious and boring but to have Vernelle sitting front and center in Phoenix was an absolute honor. As the one performing her story, I can only imagine the emotions she was feeling as she heard her story being shared aloud in front of a predominantly white audience. As she broke down and wept for most of her story, I began to realize the power that lives in story-telling. The combination of Vernelle's reaction, the audience's reaction, as well as the audience's willingness to receive these stories made for an ideal environment. The best word that I can come up with is sacred. It was almost as if there was a sense of holiness in the room as we each took our turns telling these stories.
Since being a part of this play, I feel that I can read the poems, essays, and other pieces of literature from the Mennonite tradition and from them take away something different than the average reader. These authors are putting their life into their works--their struggles, and come-to-Jesus moments, and triumphs, and memories. And we, as readers, need to be willing to open ourselves up to receive these stories.
Dominique, this is beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing this story with us. How amazing to be portraying Verdelle's story in front of her, and what a gift you gave her. Sacred seems a good way to describe this. It's exciting to hear that this experience has helped you to become more open to the other stories in Mennonite lit. I totally agree that the stories of mixed race and non-white Mennonites need to be told.
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