Steering Committee

A Steering Committee provides basic oversight and administration of MennoPIN. Meet the members.

Bob Atchison is a forester with Kansas State University and a member of Manhattan Mennonite Church, Manhattan Kansas.  He has been engaged in the Israeli-Palestine conflict off and on since 1998 when he served as a delegate on a Christian Peacemaker tour of Israel – Palestine.  He currently chairs the Western District Conference, Israel-Palestine Task Force.

Lydia Brenneman was born in Bethlehem to a Christian Palestinian family. As a youth she witnessed the devastation of the 1967 war, and massive community emigration, she arrived with her family in the United States at the age of 11.  In the United States the family quickly connected with Mennonite communities. A lifelong learner Lydia attended Eastern Mennonite College and received a bachelor’s degree in Biology and from Bowling Green State University, she received MAs in Psychology and School Psychology from Dayton University respectively. She also holds an M in Family Ministry from Winebrenner theological Seminary. In 1990 Lydia, her husband Brice, and two young sons Jonathan and Jameel moved to Beit Jala (near Bethlehem) to serve with MCC. She and Brice were co-director of Hope Secondary School, a boarding school for Palestinian youth, for two years.  Upon return to Ohio, their third son Joseph was born. She has made numerous trips to Palestine for family visits. Lydia and Brice have now led three “Holy Land Trips” with an emphasis on the living stones as well as the historic aspects of the area. The trips exposing life under military occupation and celebrate resilience of peacemaking communities.  These trips include visits to Tent of Nations, Christian Peacemaker Teams in Hebron, and visits in Palestinian homes. Lydia is an active member of Lima Mennonite Church. She serves on the spiritual council and teaches a youth Sunday School class. She is an ordained minister in the Mennonite Church, and works as a chaplain at St. Rita’s Medical Center in Lima, Ohio.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Jonathan Kuttab is a Palestinian attorney, and human rights activist.  He grew up in Jerusalem, studied in the US, graduating from University of Virginia law School, and worked a couple of years at the Wall Street Law firm of Mudge Rose Guthrie & Alexander.  He is a member of the Bar Association in New York, Israel, and Palestine. Mr. Kuttab founded a number of human rights organizations including Al Haq, and the Mandela Institute for Palestinian Prisoners and is the Chairman of the Board of Bethlehem Bible College, and of Holy Land Trust, and is active in many other civil society organizations in Palestine and internationally.  He was the Head of the Legal Committee negotiating the Cairo Agreement of 1994 between Israel and the PLO and has been active in Peace and justice issues for many years.  He is a recognized authority on international law, human rights and Palestinian and Israeli affairs.

Hannah Markey is a Legislative Associate at Mennonite Central Committee’s Washington D.C. office. Her advocacy work focuses on U.S. immigration policy and the Middle East. Hannah has a bachelor’s degree in Global Studies and Rhetoric & Communication from St. Lawrence University and a master’s degree in Arab Studies from Georgetown University. She studied in Jordan and Kenya while an undergraduate student and later interned at the Brookings Institution on the Foreign Policy team. In 2020, she received a U.S. Department of Education Foreign Language and Area Studies Scholarship to continue her study of Modern Standard Arabic. Hannah is committed to personal and professional advocacy on Palestinian human rights, and she is eager to engage the U.S. government on better policies for Palestinian people. 

Joe Roos is a retired pastor in the Mennonite Church USA and was one of the founders of Sojourners magazine and served as its Publisher for 27 years. My first exposure to the suffering of the Palestinian people came with our reporting on the first Intifada and my awareness grew as we continued to cover the occupation. When I went on a Witness Tour with Sabeel in November 2015, I had my first direct exposure to what was happening to Palestinians on the ground. It is an honor to serve on the MennoPIN Steering Committee with so many others dedicated to peace and justice in Palestine. I also serve on the FOSNA Board and Co-Chair the Steering Committee of FOSNA Los Angeles/Orange County.

Rod Stafford is the Lead Pastor of Portland Mennonite Church (Oregon). On a sabbatical in 2013, he spent six weeks in Israel and Palestine where he learned some of the names and stories of what had been to that point only distant political issues. Since then Rod has served on the Education Committee of MennoPIN, where he worked on adapting a study guide for the Kairos Palestine letter. He also served on the writing team for the resolution ‘Seeing Peace in Israel and Palestine’ which was overwhelmingly affirmed by the delegates  of Mennonite Church USA in July 2017.

Dorothy Jean Weaver is Professor Emerita of New Testament at Eastern Mennonite Seminary, Harrisonburg, VA, where she taught from 1984-2018 and has more recently served as an adjunct. Weaver has a PhD from Union Presbyterian Seminary (1987), an MDiv from Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (1977), and a BA from Eastern Mennonite University (1972).  She is a long-term member of the Society of Biblical Literature and the author of Matthew’s Missionary Discourse: A Literary Critical Analysis (Sheffield, 1990; Bloomsbury, 2015) and The Irony of Power: The Politics of God within Matthew’s Narrative (Pickwick Publications, 2017).  On the Middle East front Weaver has spent four sabbatical semesters in Israel/Palestine engaged in writing (Jerusalem: 1996, 2003, 2010) and teaching (Bethlehem: 2000).  Since 1998 she has led or co-led eleven Israel/Palestine study tours (“Places, People, & Prayers”) for Eastern Mennonite Seminary, eight “Nazareth/Bethlehem Work Groups” for Virginia Mennonite Missions (with ongoing plans in place), and an emergency delegation to Bethlehem in 2002, sponsored conjointly by EMU and VMM.  Weaver has likewise done short-term teaching stints for Mennonite Central Committee in Beirut, Lebanon (Near East School of Theology, 1995) and Cairo, Egypt (Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo, 2002).  From 1999-2002 Weaver served on the Christian Peacemaker Teams Steering Committee.  And in 2001 she participated in a CPT delegation to Hebron, Palestine.   Weaver has likewise traveled briefly in Jordan (1995) and Syria (1995, 2010).  Weaver is currently engaged in discussions concerning occasional or short-term retirement postings to Middle East schools.  She is a member of Community Mennonite Church, Harrisonburg, VA, where she ushers, leads singing occasionally, and teaches occasional Sunday School classes.