Jen Shenk
Host
Jen Shenk is the campus pastor at Goshen College. An ordained minister in the Mennonite Church, Jen has training in deep listening and has always enjoyed connecting with all types of people beyond a surface level. As the host of the podcast, she believes it is a profound gift to both give and receive gratitude for the impact someone has had on our lives. The list of gratitude letters she could write is long and rich– to her parents, her husband and three sons, her friends, and her dog Max, who reminds her to play, take naps, live in the present moment, and get outside for a walk.
Duane Stoltzfus
Executive producer
Duane Stoltzfus taught communication and journalism at Goshen College from 2000 to 2026. Before that, he worked as a journalist, beginning at The Brooklyn Paper and ending at The New York Times, with two newspaper stops in New Jersey in between. He owes letters of thanks to many people, including his wife and daughters, his parents, a teacher at P.S. 122 in the Bronx, a psychotherapist from the Alfred Adler Institute, colleagues at Goshen College and several neighbors. His to-do list at The Gratitude Letters just keeps growing.
Courtney Dobrzykowski
Community engagement and events manager
Courtney Dobrzykowski is a storyteller whose career has spanned many fields. She was the founding editor of Heartland News, a weekly publication serving Marshall County, Nappanee, and Wakarusa, before transitioning into roles with community organizations and in secondary education. She is passionate about connecting people, sharing meaningful stories and proving that a well-timed (and sometimes terrible) pun can be just as powerful as the right words.
Alex Dugger
Creative Technologist
Alex Dugger has spent more than twenty years where the arts meet technology. He is as much at home building digital tools for nonprofits as he is running sound at Goshen Theater. Whether he is behind a camera, at a mixing console, or on a laptop, he thinks storytelling is the best tool we have for reaching one another. He owes letters of thanks to a religious studies professor at Bluffton University who challenged his assumptions, a mentor at Haiku Learning who let him stumble and grow, and an audio engineer who took the time to invest in him. He is glad to be telling stories of thanks, faith, hope, and justice, believing gratitude itself builds community.
Yebu Ji
Senior Producer
Yebu Ji is a bilingual audio producer. She moved to Goshen from New York and has worked in podcasts since 2019, as an audio journalist in both China and the United States. She owes thanks to many: to everyone willing to lend an ear to a story told in sound alone; to those who still believe in the resilient bonds between people; to the fact that human beings can sometimes understand one another without words. She thanks Kaitlin Prest, whose show The Heart drew her into the world of audio storytelling. And most of all, she thanks her mother, in China, who made everything she does now possible.
Melissa Troyer
Marketing manager
Melissa Troyer served for a decade as director of marketing and communications for Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart. Prior to that, she was the founder, president and editor-in-chief of inMiddlebury magazine and the founder and president of Harmony Marketing in Middlebury. She’s grateful for the beloved storytellers in her life and for a book she received at the birth of her firstborn, called You Raise What You Praise. Because it’s never too late – and always a good time – to thank folks young and old, new and long-cherished, for their wonderful presence in this world.