Grade 10 Imagine students participate in a Zoom call with the Florence Centre in Ukraine. (RJC High School screenshot)
RJC High School runs three grade-based programs that focus on interdisciplinary, cross-curricular thinking:
Chris Huebner, associate professor of theology and philosophy, pictured, and his colleagues found ways to enhance online classroom participation at Canadian Mennonite University during the COVID-19 pandemic. Huebner discovered that teaching from the classroom, where he could employ large displays and multiple cameras, allowed both him and his students to read each other’s faces and body language better than when he taught from behind a laptop. (Canadian Mennonite University photo)
People who arrived on the Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) campus last fall were greeted by singing, soaring not through the windows of the music wing, but from outside. In order to create a safe environment during COVID-19 but still continue voice lessons, CMU scheduled them outside.
Rockway Mennonite Collegiate student council members celebrate in the school parking lot after staging a pie-in-the-face incentive that helped to raise $25,000 for the school’s annual Christmas Food Drive, one way this small school makes a huge impact, according to the student council’s motivational video shown in the food drive kick-off chapel. (Photo by Jo Scott)
Hanneke Isert Bender, co-president of Rockway Mennonite Collegiate’s student council, tosses in the first $20 as she motivates her fellow students to get behind the school’s annual Christmas Food Drive, as a way to ‘put our words and faith into action.’ (Screenshot by Janet Bauman)
The annual Christmas Food Drive at Rockway Mennonite Collegiate is a big deal. It starts in November with a kick-off chapel and fun incentives. Normally, students collect non-perishable food for the House of Friendship, a local organization that provides Christmas food hampers for people living on low income.
Students thank the Mennonite Collegiate Institute’s community members for their generosity. (Photo by Paul Peters)
“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in times of trouble” (Psalm 46:1).
Sarah Johnson, the recipient of the 2020 Distinguished Alumni Award, facing the camera, is pictured speaking to a music class at Conrad Grebel University College, Waterloo, Ont., last year. (Conrad Grebel University College photo)
Danika Warkentin, one of this year’s recipients of the Mennonite Church Alberta student bursary, is a first-year student at Canadian Mennonite University. (Photo credit: Jeannie Willms)
“Ever since I was a little girl, I knew I wanted to attend a Mennonite post-secondary institution,” says Danika Warkentin, one of seven recipients of this year’s Mennonite Church Alberta student bursary.
Staff member Tina Richardson, left, checks in with CBC President Bryan Born prior to attending chapel service. (Photo by Amy Rinner Waddell)
Life at Columbia Bible College (CBC) looks quite different than it did back in mid-March, when classes suddenly ended and students were sent home due to COVID-19. After six months of inactivity, CBC has reopened for in-person classes. Staff were busy over the summer preparing the campus for a safe return, balancing residence life, instructional space, and general community living.
César García, MWC’s general secretary (left) and David Boshart, AMBS's incoming president (right)
Mennonites around the globe yearn for Anabaptist theological education, identity formation and leadership development, but attending an Anabaptist-related college, university or seminary has not been possible for Mennonites in many countries. A new partnership has been designed to respond to this need.
RJC students increasingly come from non-Mennonite families. Rather than seeing this as a problem, principal Ryan Wood sees it as an opportunity. (Photo from RJC’s Facebook page)
Rosthern Junior College has been a steadfast presence in Mennonite education for almost 115 years. However, decreasing enrolment has prompted the school’s administration and board to rethink what the school is all about.
Katrina Steckle, left, is pictured with her first-year Grebel roommate, Madeleine Graham. (Photo courtesy of Katrina Steckle)
My older sister met her best friend at Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, Ont., in 2013. They were paired together as roommates for their first year, and lived together in their second and fourth years as well. I remember my sister coming home from school on the weekends and telling amazing stories about the fun she and her roommate were having at Grebel.
Hannah Larson of Vancouver, Wash., serves with SALT in Siliguri, India, with the West Bengal Voluntary Health Association. (Photo courtesy of Hannah Larson)
In the last few months with Mennonite Central Committee’s Serving and Learning Together program, I have thought often about how we all use stories to communicate. And how sometimes I have found myself wishing I could politely use a bookmark to pause someone’s story when I wasn’t that interested in it.
MCI student body and staff praying for a peer at annual Red Rock retreat. (MCI photo)
I often get asked what draws me to work at a small private Christian school in Gretna, a small rural town in Manitoba. The answer is quite simple: because of the people. It’s not always easy, but I can always find ways to point towards God at work.
Peter (Zach Pearce), left, the White Witch (Ella Hinz), and Aslan (Charlie Krahn) battle for control of the land of Narnia in Menno Simons Christian School’s performance of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe earlier this year. (Menno Simons Christian School photo)
Ella Hinz is pictured in her ‘White Witch’ makeup and costume. (Menno Simons Christian School photo)
Peter (Zach Pearce), left, the White Witch (Ella Hinz), and Aslan (Charlie Krahn) battle for control of the land of Narnia in Menno Simons Christian School’s performance of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe earlier this year. (Menno Simons Christian School photo)
Menno Simons Christian School put on an amazing performance of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe earlier this year.
It’s an adventurous story about four children who find themselves travelling through a frozen land to reach a great lion named Aslan while being hunted by an evil witch.
Workshop participants in Petitcodiac, N.B., reflect on community development ministries by thinking with their hands—and with their whole bodies—as they weave bands of cloth together. (Anabaptist Learning Workshop photo)
Knowledge is truly amazing. When you really know something, it can light you up, it can discombobulate you, it can put you in touch with your body or it can make you feel connected to a much bigger body.
Betty Pries, a conflict management specialist based in Waterloo, Ont., leads an online short course of Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary as a sessional faculty member. (Photo courtesy of BettyPries.ca)
Betty Pries, a conflict management specialist based in Waterloo, Ont., provides mediation, coaching and consulting services for businesses, nonprofit organizations, governments and congregations. For six weeks each year, she also leads an online short course of Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS) as a sessional faculty member.
Sara Wahl, Rebecca Hiller-Ranny and Micah Neufeld take part in a panel discussion on ‘Let’s talk about sex, power and spirituality’ during the evening session for parents and pastors during Rockway Mennonite Collegiate’s Spiritual Emphasis Week, held from Sept 24 to 26. (Photo by Janet Bauman)
Rebecca Hiller-Ranny, a Grade 12 student, affirmed the blunt tone taken to address sex, power and spirituality at her school. “It was so important,” she said. “It was so impactful.”
And Micah Neufeld, in Grade 11, said he was glad for the open communication, noting how it sparked good conversations with his parents.
(Photo courtesy of Facebook.com/CMUwpg)
WINNIPEG—Preliminary fall enrolment numbers at Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) indicate an overall 3 percent increase in students in the university’s undergraduate and graduate degree programs. This increase reflects both headcount and full-time equivalent (FTE) course registrations.
Randy Klassen (clockwise from top left), Donna Kampen Entz, Jeffrey Metcalfe and Eileen Klassen Hamm are the recipients of the CMU 2019 Distinguished Alumni Awards. (Photo courtesy of CMU)
A former teacher dedicated to building relationships with Indigenous peoples, a former Mennonite Church Canada Witness worker invested in intercultural relationships, a long-time pursuer of justice with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), and a priest and canon theologian in the Anglican Church are the recipients of the Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) 2019 Distinguished Alumni Awards.
On Sept. 27, Grebel students, staff and faculty took part in the Global Climate Strike in Waterloo, at which more than 4,000 people gathered for three hours of singing, chanting and speeches. (Conrad Grebel University College photo by Margaret Gissing)
According to the United Nations, “Climate change is the defining issue of our time.”
On Sept. 27, around 80 Grebel students, staff and faculty took part in the Global Climate Strike in Waterloo, at which more than 4,000 people gathered for three hours of singing, chanting and speeches.
Brenda Klassen, a health-care assistant, helps Carolyn Grove-Seely, a resident of Menno Place. (Photo by Rebekah Bielefeld)
Brenda Klassen, a health-care assistant, greets Irv Rempel, a resident of Menno Place. (Photo by Rebekah Bielefeld)
Health-care assistant Frank Bond helps resident Esther Unrau with her walking. (Photo by Rebekah Bielefeld)
The head of a Columbia Bible College diploma program is seeking to prove the value of health-care assistants and help raise up a new generation of them in B.C.
The eight-month program is starting this month and is provincially recognized. According to the Abbotsford college, it will follow an approved curriculum for training and will integrate a Christian perspective.
College Kindergarten students play in the snow during a Kinderforest Day in Goshen (Ind.) College’s Witmer Woods on Jan. 15. (Goshen College photo by Brian Yoder Schlabach)
College Kindergarten students work in Witmer Woods on a fort made from branches during a Kinderforest Day on Jan. 15. (Goshen College photo by Brian Yoder Schlabach)
Teacher Jenna Labash talks to her Kindergarten class during a Kinderforest day in Witmer Woods last September. (Goshen College photo by Brian Yoder Schlabach)
About once a month, 24 students from the Goshen College Laboratory Kindergarten class—a partnership between the college’s education department and Goshen Community Schools—spend the day climbing trees, building shelters and making mud pies in Witmer Woods.
Troy Osborne, Grebel’s dean and associate professor of history, in the classroom. (Conrad Grebel University College photo)
At Conrad Grebel University College, students engage the arts in two ways.
Grade 9 Rockway students Thomas Klassen, left, and Haolin Li repair bicycles at the Working Centre’s Recycle Cycles shop in downtown Kitchener, Ont. (Rockway Mennonite Collegiate photo)
Our journey at Rockway focuses on students developing an ability to lead with compassion when classroom learning is extended so they can live out Christ-centred values, develop empathy and perspective, and serve the community locally and globally. This is the inspiration behind Rockway’s new Students Learning in Community (SLIC) partnerships.
Benjamin and Rianna Isaak-Krauss sit in front of a pocket prairie at Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center’s Rieth Village in Indiana. (Merry Lea photo)
A vision for incorporating sustainability into seminary education came to fruition in the fall of 2018 when two students from Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS) in Elkhart, Ind., joined the Sustainability Leadership Semester at Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center of Goshen (Ind.) College.
Menno Simons Christian School junior-high students pack relief buckets for Mennonite Central Committee Alberta in Calgary. (Menno Simons Christian School photo)
The vision at Menno Simons Christian School to offer “An education for life” challenges us to provide an education that equips children for now and for tomorrow.
