An advocate for the marginalized
Cindy Eschliman
By Emily Enders Odom
Associate, Mission Communications
General Assembly Mission Council
Raised Presbyterian in a small church in rural Kansas that did not have enough critical mass for a youth program, Cindy Eschliman felt left out.
"Because I got the message that it was not important enough to have a youth group for one kid," Eschliman says, "my parents were open to my trying the other youth programs in our community."
After having participated in a Missouri Synod Lutheran Church youth group in middle school and a Mennonite youth group in high school, Eschliman entered the Presbyterian-related Hastings College in Hastings, Neb., with a desire to reconnect with her Presbyterian roots.
"I wanted to get involved more; I wanted to be a leader," she says.
David McCarthy, the chaplain at Hastings - who would later become Eschliman's advisor and professor - soon made that happen.
"He opened the door to so many opportunities on a local and national level," Eschliman says. "Attending the 218th General Assembly (2008) as a Young Adult Advisory Delegate and later participating in the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women raised my awareness of how diverse the church is and how often people are excluded from having a voice. As I pursue the sense of call I have felt since high school, I want to be an advocate for people who are marginalized."
One of the many ways in which McCarthy encouraged Eschliman's call to ministry was by getting her involved in the Presbyterian Student Advocacy Leadership Team (PSALT), a national team of college students and adults that advocates for college ministry by helping Presbyterian young people transition from high school to college by connecting them to local congregations or ministries in their college community. PSALT also works to assist PC(USA) congregations to become more attractive and available to college students in their community as well as their members who are away pursuing a college education.
"Even though my home church didn't have a place for me, I pushed my way in," says Eschliman. "My college chaplain helped to pull me in with lots of opportunities, including serving as a pulpit supply at various churches in the community. He's still one of the first people I go to today for advice."
In 2009, Eschliman became a member of the Coordinating Committee of the National Network of Presbyterian College Women (NNPCW), for which she currently serves as co-moderator.
Eschliman said that being a part of NNPCW helped her to realize that everyone deserves to have a voice and to have someone looking after them. "Even if they are only one person," she says, "they are a child of God."
"Gandhi had it right," she continues. "We need to be the change we want to see in the world. I need a community to help lead me and to help call me into accountability. NNPCW has given me that opportunity."
Having graduated from Hastings in May 2011, Eschliman is currently a candidate for an M.Div. and a master's degree in social work in a dual-degree program offered by Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary and the University of Texas. Upon completion of her degrees in May 2015, she hopes to serve a church in a pastoral care capacity, including work in prison ministry, mental health and
sex therapy from within the church.
"In the church there are always people standing on the outside who need to be invited in," she says. "Often the people we leave out are those with mental health issues and the incarcerated. It's important that we hear their stories and help them know that we always have hope because it is God who gives it."
