Myanmar on the Move
When I originally told friends and family of my intention to travel with my family to Myanmar, I was challenged with the idea of a known global-crisis country as a travel destination. However, we were completely removed from any threat of the Rohingya genocide crisis in the northwest of the country. Our experience was in…
‘More significant than my age’
Five years ago, Thomas Coldwell knew very little about Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). Today, he’s the executive director of MCC Alberta. “I’ve been told multiple times, ‘Be yourself in this role,’ so that’s what I’m trying to do,” he said via Skype from his office in Calgary last month, three weeks after starting the job.…
More than a label
For Steph Chandler Burns of Kitchener, Ont., talking about her faith journey means talking about coming out as a queer individual. “I am a bisexual woman and I am a woman created in God’s image, and knowing those two things alongside each other has taught me a lot about who I am in God,” she…
The blood of modern-day martyrs
It was the Christian apologist Tertullian in AD 197 who first wrote, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” As he watched Christians killed in the bloody entertainment of colosseums and in summary legal procedures, he saw the church grow. Sixteenth-century Anabaptists echoed that quote as the cost of following Jesus…
Challenges and excitement
Calvin Quan was “happily surprised” by the positive spirit and efficiency of the first meeting of Mennonite Church Canada’s new Joint Council. “There was a strong sense of collaboration and shared agenda [among regional representatives],” said MC Canada’s moderator of the two days of meetings held on Dec. 8 and 9, 2017. Both Quan and…
Introducing the new Joint Council of MC Canada
On Dec. 7 and 8, 2017, the new Joint Council of Mennonite Church Canada met for this first time. (See a follow-up to those meetings here.) Following the re-structuring of MC Canada and its regional churches, this group replaces the former General Board and commissions. The Joint Council is made up of a moderator and…
A renovated Westgate welcomes students back home
They say it takes a village to raise a child. For Westgate Mennonite Collegiate, it takes a village to not only raise its 300 students, but also to complete a $10.3-million redevelopment project. Westgate, a private school located in Winnipeg, finished renovating its building just in time for the 2017-18 school year. Among the school’s…
‘Choose something to do’
“There’s no such thing as a natural disaster,” according to Bruce Guenther. But Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Canada’s disaster response director wasn’t in denial. Guenther was the featured speaker at MCC Saskatchewan’s encounter and annual general meeting, held at Cornerstone Church in Saskatoon on Nov. 4, 2017. “Disasters are caused by people’s vulnerability to disaster,”…
The quiet labours of a Low German translator
Ed Zacharias started with Exodus, translating word by word into Low German (Plautdietsch). For a decade he worked at it, sometimes with institutional backing, sometimes as a volunteer hunkered in his home office, relying on help from interested Wycliffe personnel and a loose network of Low German promoters. He was motivated by a love of…
Door-to-door on the colonies
While some might see Low German as the arcane language of people stuck in the past, Jehovah’s Witnesses have embraced it. For years, they have dedicated considerable energy to learning the language, translating materials and reaching out to Low German-speaking peoples. They have a centre in Blumenau, a Mennonite community in Mexico’s Chihuahua state, and…
