Biographical

Hello, hello. I am Steve Kimes and I’ve posted a few comments, but I’ve just had the opportunity to join this infamous group, so I figured I’d take the time to write a few paragraphs about me, as an introduction.

First of all, I wasn’t raised Mennonite/Anabaptist. I actually wasn’t raised Christian. I came to the Anabaptist fold via conservative evangelicalism. My career choice was missions, specifically working with the poor in Bangladesh, after a missions trip in Calcutta and Bangladesh for six months. However, God led my wife and I to work with the homeless in Portland, OR instead.

But, since our background was missions, we approached doing homeless ministry from a missions perspective. So we invited the homeless to our home, trying to understand their culture and ways. We try to love them within their culture, rather than bringing them out of their culture, trying to teach and demonstrate how to live for Jesus as a homless and/or mentally ill person rather than just as a middle class person. (more…)

This year has been a year of transitions for me. I’ve moved twice, changed jobs, started graduate school, left graduate school, and watched the path of my life change in ways I never would’ve imagined when the year began. This is how life goes, I guess: we think we have it figured out and new things come along and we find ourselves all over again. In the past year I’ve learned that there’s a difference between job and vocation. I’ve been reminded that no one really has it figured out, no matter how much it appears that way. I’ve come to appreciate–again–the myriad of opportunities I have in my life, and am continually trying to figure out how to make the most of what I’ve been given.

To all of you, wherever you are and whoever you are, young or old, may the coming year be a year of growth, of challenges, of opportunities. As you celebrate the birth of Christ and enter into the new year, may you find yourself discomforted in ways that move you to work for peace in your own life and in the world. May the light of Christ shine within you and among you. May you find God in unexpected places.

I have always been wary about getting involved with internet forums, chat rooms, blogs and the like, but here I am. My name is Tom (or Thomas) Dunn, I am a recent graduate of Bluffton University and am currently the youth pastor at Kidron Mennonite in Kidron, Ohio. I have heard about YAR from a number of different places, but most recently was reminded of it by Becca, who was home and at church a couple of Sundays ago. She said she had some poetry on the site about Mennonite sermons, and since I had just given a Mennonite sermon that particular morning, I thought it would be worth my while to read these poems. I read them, and they are good, but I didn’t stop there. I continued to read through many of the various post on YAR and my interest has been sparked.

As I said earlier, I am still wary about posting things on the internet. I’m not sure if it is just me being old fashioned, or the fear of becoming addicted to this and then getting a my space page, a face book page (I actually do have a facebook page, but my room mate from college set it up), and spend all my time blogging and networking over the web. But even deeper than this, I think I have a fear of my virtual self–who will I be on the pages of YAR? Will I still be Tom Dunn or will I become something I’m not. Will I get caught up in projecting myself as an intellectual, intelligent, educated, open-minded, globally aware young anabaptist radical, or can I just be myself? Is it possible to be yourself on the internet? Well, as you may have gathered since you are currently reading all this over the internet, I have decided to post here on YAR, and spark the beginning of my virtual self.