Conscientious (tax) objectors
Like other Canadians, every year Ernie and Charlotte Wiens file their taxes. Unlike others in Canada, the La Salle, Man. farming couple doesn’t send the federal government everything it says they owe—the part that violates their conscience. For Ernie, 72, and Charlotte, 69, that’s the estimated 10 percent of Canada’s budget spent on the military.…
Watch: The art of guitar-making
Phil Campbell-Enns, associate pastor at Bethel Mennonite Church in Winnipeg, has a unique hobby: building guitars. In the two-minute video below, Campbell-Enns takes viewers into his workshop for a quick look at how he does it. Campbell-Enns, whose original music has been featured at Mennonite Church Canada assemblies and youth gatherings, says that being a luthier has…
Rudy Wiebe honoured with CMU Pax Award
Fifty-seven years ago, a young Mennonite author published a book that turned the Canadian Mennonite world upside down. That author was Rudy Wiebe, and the book was Peace Shall Destroy Many, the first novel written in English by a Mennonite about Mennonites in Canada. The book, which offered an honest and pointed portrait of Mennonite…
Rudy Wiebe on Omar Khadr, Miriam Toews, MB Herald and more
During a recent interview focusing on his debut novel and recent CMU Pax Award, acclaimed Mennonite writer Rudy Wiebe spoke on a variety of topics, including Omar Khadr, Miriam Toews, the western Canadian Indigenous story and the MB Herald. Here’s what he had to say. Peace Shall Destroy Many. First book leads to unexpected friendship One unexpected result…
Women without limits
It’s a hot, humid morning, and Maria Elena Algarañaz de Masabi is working at a booth displaying brightly coloured handicrafts for sale. She carefully lays out cloth purses and drawstring bags and hangs up knit children’s clothes. Masabi is president of Mujeres sin Limites (Women Without Limits), an artisan collective in Montero, a city in…
Women’s literacy grows churches, communities
ELKHART, Indiana – In the past two years, more than 260 literacy teachers have been trained in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Now, they are helping 2,560 others learn to read and write in more than 100 locations. Most of the new readers are women and girls. Women leaders in the three Mennonite denominations…
Ten years after ‘Points of View’
On April 3, 2009, southern Manitoba-based folk group the Other Brothers released Points of View. Recorded in the studio at Mennonite Church Manitoba, the album earned critical acclaim—CBC dubbed them “the Simon and Garfunkel of the Prairies”—and a small but loyal following. Made up at the time of Chris Neufeld and Donovan Giesbrecht, the group’s…
‘Vice’ director Adam McKay talks about Mennonites on popular podcast
Filmmaker Adam McKay recently revealed that when he was growing up, he attended a Mennonite church for a time. During his appearance on the March 20 episode of the podcast You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes, the writer-director shared that after his mother became a Christian, they attended a number of different churches. “She…
Mennonite World Conference general secretary relocates
General secretary César García and executive assistant Sandra Báez Rojas of Mennonite World Conference (MWC) have relocated to Canada as of last month to work out of the Kitchener, Ont., office. Given the demands on the general secretary to connect with Anabaptist churches around the world and to represent global Anabaptists among other Christian world…
Renowned peacebuilder receives award
Internationally renowned peacebuilder John Paul Lederach, who has committed his life and work to nonviolent approaches to conflict for more than 40 years, has been awarded the 36th Niwano Peace Foundation Peace Prize. Lederach, currently a senior fellow at Humanity United, is a co-founder and the first director of the Eastern Mennonite University’s (EMU) Center…
