Lost and found
We love boundaries. These boundaries may help us to define who we are, but they also can lead us to assume we know others based on appearances. Most of the time, if people aren’t like us, we consider them lost. Are you conservative or liberal? Are you pro-life or pro-choice? Are you LGBTQ-affirming or traditional?…
Avoiding avoidance
Do you ever find yourself starting something and not completing it? If so, then you’re familiar with avoidance behaviours. Avoidance is the set of things we do to distract ourselves from the current task—the one that really needs doing. Perhaps your form of avoidance is cleaning your room, going out with friends, looking at social…
In spirit and in truth
It was a rich night of worship as a diverse group of people gathered at the third annual intercultural worship service at Kitchener First Mennonite Church on Oct. 20, 2018. Yoel Masyawong, the regional church’s mission associate and pastor at Grace Lao Mennonite Church, also in Kitchener, guided participants as they feasted on a smorgasbord…
Modern ghosts of a horse-drawn scandal, Part 2
Eight men went to prison, the media gaze moved on, and colony life resumed. But the saga of mass rape in the Bolivian corner of our family of faith is far from over. According to the official version, seven Mennonite men drugged and raped more than 130 women and girls on the Manitoba Colony in…
New identity for Vancouver church
A revitalized sense of mission has led to a change of name for an 81-year-old Vancouver Mennonite congregation. The church formerly known as First United Mennonite Church (often shortened simply to FUMC or 52nd because of its address at 659 E. 52nd Avenue) is now Peace Church on 52nd. Once a large congregation that numbered…
Friendship that sticks
The hard work of some Alberta bees creates a sweet deal for two very different churches. The “Bees for Burkina” project gives people of Foothills Mennonite Church in Calgary a chance to buy local honey, while the profits provide Mennonites in Burkina Faso with financial assistance to build their church. The faith friendship between the…
Bible trivia event generates spirited competition
As people gathered for the Bible Quizzing for Grown-ups event on Sept. 30 at the Huether Hotel in Waterloo, the room buzzed with conversation, but when the quizmasters began reading questions from the Gospel of Luke, the room went quiet. The mood was light-hearted, but definitely competitive as eight teams listened intently and searched their…
‘The more we get to know each other’
Historical experiences of ordinary people living out their faith were shared at a travelogue presentation of Russian Mennonite migrations in Europe and Central Asia. The presentation, co-hosted by Mennonite Heritage Archives and TourMagination on Sept. 13, encouraged people to see travel as a tool to gain deeper understandings of how the unique historical experiences of…
From Kitchener-Waterloo to Kenya
A young woman is impacting the citizens of a community 13,000 kilometres away from her home in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont. Amanda Snyder is the co-founder of Camp Marafiki Pamoja, a health-and-education-based summer camp in Riruta Satellite, a high-poverty area of western Nairobi, Kenya. The camp offers children in the area the opportunity to eat together, sing,…
No Village
After releasing two full-length albums and an EP with experimental alt-rockers Oh Village, musician Scott Currie is striking out on his own. The Abbotsford, B.C. native, who performs under the name Kuri, recently signed a record deal with Nevado Music. “Friends! The waiting is over!” Currie announced on Facebook at the end of September. “I’ve…
