‘She was ahead of her time’
Before #MeToo and #ChurchToo—before there even was the Internet—there was Winnipegger Peggy Unruh Regehr. Unruh Regehr, a member of River East Church (a Mennonite Brethren Church of Manitoba congregation) died September 27 last year at the age of 89. She was a pioneer in championing the cause of women in leadership in Mennonite denominations in…
Advocating for change so women can flourish
There’s a meme making the rounds on social media lately that I find telling. It depicts three women and three men lined up for a race. Everything looks equal at the starting line. But look up and the women’s lanes are strewn with obstacles: a wash line, ironing board, stove and so on. The cartoon…
Church growth stretches Ethiopian resources
Challenges accompany the joys of growth as tens of thousands of people new to Ethiopia’s Meserete Kristos Church (MKC) swell the denomination. Now with more than 600,000 participants, the world’s largest Anabaptist conference struggles to train enough pastors, find adequate meeting spaces, and keep vehicles maintained for its teachers, who travel to distant outposts on…
AMBS trains Sudanese-Canadian to make a difference
Thousands of miles from their homeland, a group of about 30 South Sudanese women gathers on Tuesdays in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont. Meeting in each other’s homes, they pray for their war-torn country and its people, share about their lives and study the Bible together. Rebecca Riek, who came to Canada from South Sudan 16 years ago,…
CPT closes Indigenous solidarity team
In order to address a $265,000 deficit, Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) will close its Winnipeg-based Indigenous Peoples Solidarity team at the end of March. While CPT hopes to maintain relationships with its Indigenous partners, three full-time and one half-time positions devoted to the work will end. CPT teams in Columbia, Palestine and Iraqi Kurdistan will…
Voices Together visual art chosen
Visual art for the Voices Together hymnal has been chosen by the Mennonite Worship and Song Committee. The 12 visual art pieces selected will appear in the forthcoming hymnal—including the pew, worship leader, digital app and projection editions. These pieces will be placed throughout Voices Together, inviting worshippers to encounter God creatively in ways that engage…
Remembering Margaret Loewen Reimer
“A student of literature and a Mennonite journalist with a special passion for the arts,” is how Margaret Loewen Reimer introduced herself during a lecture series entitled “Mennonites and the artistic imagination” at Canadian Mennonite Bible College, in Winnipeg, in 1998. That self-introduction rang true back then, and still does as I reflect on Marg’s…
Two countries, one mission on the Korean Peninsula
It has been more than 60 years since the ceasefire that ended the Korean War, but to this day North Korea and South Korea do not have an official peace, and the divide remains great. In the last months of 2018, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Canada executive director Rick Cober Bauman and MCC U.S. executive…
Congolese army officer arrested in U.N. murders case
Michael J. Sharp and fellow U.N. sanctions monitor Zaida Catalán of Sweden were abducted and killed in 2017 in the Kasai region of the Democratic Republic of Congo while monitoring sanctions violations and possible war crimes by the Congolese national army and various militias. The prosecutor overseeing the case told Reuters news agency that Jean de…
Ukrainians witness amid suffering, hope
In a region of Ukraine that thousands of Mennonites left generations ago, two dozen of today’s Mennonite leaders from across Europe gathered for three days of fellowship in October 2018. Hosted by Ukrainian leaders from Mennonite Brethren churches, meetings in the city of Zaporizhzhia included participants from Portugal, Spain, France, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Lithuania…
