RJC music teacher wins national award
Adelle Sawatzky has a new piece of hardware to put on her desk at RJC High School in Rosthern, Saskatchewan. In early November, the 27-year-old from Kindersley, Saskatchewan, won the 2024 Builders Award for Newer Teachers from the Canadian Music Educators’ Association. “A lot of times [awards recognize] lifetime achievement so it is an encouraging…
Working groups on climate and Indigenous relations hold retreat
Twenty-five people involved in climate and Indigenous relations working groups within Mennonite Church Canada regional churches, as well as people from related organizations, gathered at Wilderness Edge Retreat and Conference Centre in Pinawa, Manitoba, from October 4-6, to discuss their work and hopes. The retreat was led by MC Canada’s climate action coordinator Sandy Plett,…
Call for prayer amid violence in Burkina Faso
The following update and prayer request was sent by Siaka Traoré to Tany Warkentin of Mennonite Church Canada on August 30. Traoré is the Mennonite World Conference regional representative for Central and West Africa as well as a long-time church leader in Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso is going through a dark period in this second…
Public and protests pressure decision-makers in the war against Gaza
Following community pressure, in early July, the University of Waterloo (UW) in Waterloo, Ontario, dropped all legal charges against a group of students and concerned community members who were calling on the university to divest of any company that supports Israel as the war against Gaza continues. Occupy UW is part of a significant movement…
Flooding displaces 200,000 in Kenya
“Unprecedented and devastating” flooding in Eastern Africa has caused the displacement of 235,000 people in just five days, according to a UN report. Countries most affected include Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Ethiopia and Tanzania. In total, the UN estimates 637,000 people are affected, including tens of thousands of refugees. Over 200 people have died. In…
Palestinian MCC partner providing relief amid devastation of Gaza
The first thing they said was “Can you help us help?” recalls Sarah Funkhouser, who, together with her husband, Seth Malone, is Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) representative for Jordan, Palestine and Israel. MCC staff were reaching out to MCC partners in Gaza to see if they were safe in the wake of days of bombing…
MDS responding to Carstairs tornado
Elisa Humphreys was sitting on her couch in her home in Carstairs, Alberta, when she got the emergency alert about the tornado. It was July 1 and Humphreys, 63, who manages Clothing for a Cause—a ministry that recycles clothing and household textiles to provide financial assistance to non-profit partners in Canada and in the developing…
MoM 100: A final post
I like telling stories. And I like trains. So when organizers of the “Memories of Migration: Russlaender 100 Tour” asked if I would join the cross-country train tour as a reporter, it wasn’t a hard decision to make. Yes! Through the tour, which ran from July 6-24—I was on the first and third legs—I was…
MoM 100: Tour’s first leg comes to an end
And that’s it: The first leg of “Memories of Migration: Russlaender Tour 100” is over. From July 6-11, 60 people travelled by train and bus from Quebec City to Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, getting to know each other, sharing stories and learning more about the journeys taken by their ancestors 100 years ago. Laureen Harder-Gissing points to…
Train tour prepares to leave the station
One hundred years ago, the first of 21,000 Mennonites who left the Soviet Union boarded a train in Quebec City for new lives across the country. On July 6 some of their descendants and others will replicate that journey when they board a train for a trip that will go all the way from Quebec…
