Hindsight is 20\/20 and often our position when recounting a tale, truth, or impactful life happening. Hindsight allows our story to spin with everything turning out \u201cwell in the end.\u201d There\u2019s a certain comfort knowing that good ultimately triumphs and we emerge victorious.<\/p>\n
Truth be told, much of life is spent in the midst of our journeys. When we interview alumni at homecoming about their experiences and honor their narratives, we typically highlight their successes, accolades, and achievements. But their true success lies in who they are, choices made in the middle, and who they are becoming, much like what we teach here at EMS!<\/p>\n
The three EMS alumni stories in this issue have much to be proud of; they excel in their respective fields, garner respect from their peers, and hold significant positions. Yet, the most noteworthy aspect of their stories may be the struggles they\u2019ve faced and what they did next. In their resilience, they find hope and joy, even amid challenges and painful transitions. Read the highlights summarized by Abigail Cook<\/a>\u2019s interviews with Rolando Santiago<\/a>, Wendy Hochstedler<\/a>, and Everett Brubaker<\/a>. They shared their stories as they are\u2014navigating the middle\u2014and now, more than ever, it\u2019s essential to highlight their resilience and determination in the face of very real challenges that inspire living on. Because life, afterall, is a journey.<\/p>\n Warmly, Paul Leaman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hindsight is 20\/20 and often our position when recounting a tale, truth, or impactful life happening. Hindsight allows our story to spin with everything turning out \u201cwell in the end.\u201d There\u2019s a certain comfort knowing that good ultimately triumphs and we emerge victorious. Truth be told, much of life is spent in the midst of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1080,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"issuem_issue":[42],"issuem_issue_categories":[],"issuem_issue_tags":[],"class_list":["post-1069","article","type-article","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","issuem_issue-fall-2025"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/1069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1069"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/1069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1083,"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/1069\/revisions\/1083"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"issuem_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issuem_issue?post=1069"},{"taxonomy":"issuem_issue_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issuem_issue_categories?post=1069"},{"taxonomy":"issuem_issue_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issuem_issue_tags?post=1069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}