Bruce and Mary Bradshaw
Bruce Bradshaw has dedicated most of his professional life to Christian Service. He grew up in Massachusetts, where he graduated from Bridgewater State College in Bridgewater, Massachusetts in 1979 with a degree in Communication Arts. He became attracted to Anabaptist theology while studying at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, from where he graduated in 1982. He joined Washington Community Fellowship, a Mennonite Church in Washington, D.C., in 1984, after serving as the youth and young adult pastor at the Oxon Hill United Methodist Church for one year. Bruce also studied Business Management at Harvard University and received a certificate representing 36 semester hours of graduate study in 1982.
Bruce and his wife, Mary, served in Somalia with Eastern Mennonite Mission (EMM) from 1985 to 1987, where Bruce taught Economics at the Technical Teacher’s College in Mogadishu and Mary served as a health educator. They also supported the Christian Fellowship in that country through teaching, preaching and discipleship. After serving EMM, Bruce served as a program officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development in Northwest Somalia until 1988. The Bradshaw family left Somalia at the beginning of the civil war in that country.
After returning to the U.S., Bruce worked in the research and development division of World Vision International, Monrovia, California, for 12 years. His primary responsibilities included educating and training international staff of World Vision to design and manage community development programs in about 40 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. He also served as an adjunct professor of missions at Fuller Theological Seminary from 1996 to 2000. While living in California, Bruce and Mary participated in Peace Mennonite Fellowship, a house church of Anabaptists in Claremont, California, where Bruce served as preacher, teacher, administrator and moderator.
For the past three years, Bruce has taught Economics and Business at Bethel and Hesston Colleges. While at Bethel, he participated in the annual meetings of the Inter-Collegiate Peace Fellowship, and presented papers on Economics and Anabaptist theology during conferences at Mennonite Central Committee, Bluffton College and Eastern Mennonite University. Bruce also wrote Bridging the Gap: Evangelism, Development and Shalom and Change Across Cultures: A Narrative Approach to Social Transformation, which was cited by Missiology, a journal for international missions as one of the most significant books of 2002.
Bruce and Mary have been married for 24 years, and have three children: Ellen, who attends Eastern Mennonite University, Amy, a sophomore at Newton High School, and Phillip, who is in 8th grade at Santa Fe Middle School. Mary teaches English to Speakers of Other Languages at Newton High School and at Hesston College.
Bruce has a variety of recreational interests. He enjoyed home repair and woodworking when his family lived in California, and he has renewed his interest in golf while living in Kansas. His favorite sports teams are the ones on which his students or parishioners play. His children play in his favorite bands and orchestras.