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Quito Mennonites pray and work for peace
Ana (not her real name), came to Ecuador from Medellin, Colombia, in 2016 after escaping from paramilitaries who had taken and kept her hostage for two years. She was subjected to various kinds of abuse and violence, the result of which was pregnancy. In addition, she was forced to commit a number of crimes. Although…
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Mennonite Historical Bulletin now online
The entire run of the Mennonite Historical Bulletin is now available online. Over the summer, the Mennonite Church USA Archives collaborated with Goshen College’s Mennonite Historical Library and the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary to digitize and publish every issue through the Internet Archive, as part of the Digital Mennonite Periodicals project. Digital Mennonite Periodicals is…
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Supporting alternate rites of passage for African girls
Ana Laizer is a grade nine student in Longido, Tanzania, and she dreams of going to university to become a successful businesswoman. For many girls Laizer’s age, this dream might never become reality. Access to education isn’t just limited by school fees and uniforms, but also by cultural expectations that girls stop attending after grade…
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Anti-racism is a ‘lifelong pursuit’
“It’s taken us four hundred years to get to here,” said Drew Hart at Rockway Mennonite Collegiate’s 2017 Spiritual Emphasis Week, held over three days in late September 2017. The assistant professor of theology at Messiah College, a private Christian college founded in 1909 by the Brethren in Christ Church, in Mechanicsburg, Pa., was speaking…
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MCC responds to Irma’s devastation in Caribbean
Haiti Osa Jonmarits and his family were awakened in the middle of the night as water rushed into their mud-and-stone house on the mountains of La Chapelle, Haiti, and covered them in their beds. The flash flooding came from Hurricane Irma, a Category 5 hurricane that passed to the north of Haiti on Sept. 7.…
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Viewpoint: Why we change hymn texts
Should hymns be sung in their original form or should they be updated? This is a more complicated question than it may seem. Take “Be Thou My Vision,” for instance. Hymnal Companion discusses three versions of this song: the Old Irish poem from the eighth century, a 1905 English translation, and a later “versified” or…
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Annual relief festival raises $1 million
More than 20,000 people attended the annual Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) British Columbia Festival for World Relief over two days in mid-September at the Abbotsford TRADEX, helping to raise more than $1 million to support MCC’s relief, development and peace work locally and around the world. The annual Bread of Life auction, which raises funds…
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Mennonite helps Lutherans commemorate the Reformation
Serving communion at the 16th Biennial Convention of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) was a profoundly humbling experience for Willard Metzger. “I felt as though I was surrounded by a huge cloud of Anabaptist witnesses from the past,” says Mennonite Church Canada’s executive director. The significance of that statement is deeply rooted in…
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General Board confession
As the General Board of Mennonite Church Canada anticipates potential change following the Special Assembly, we are reminded of things done, and not done. We are deeply aware of weakness and strength. We are aware of successes and failures. We are aware that the journey is not over, and significant challenges remain. We want to…
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Great Day of Singing planned for October 22
A 16-page sampler of the new Mennonite worship and song collection is available for free congregational download. Called the “Great Day of Singing,” the sampler is designed as a resource to plan worship for October 22, 2017. This one-day event is planned by the Mennonite Worship and Song Committee as a way for individuals and…
