Volume 14, Number 6
Cherish this magazine
Over the past six years, I’ve had the great privilege of serving on the board of Canadian Mennonite Publishing Service (CMPS), overseer of this magazine. It’s time now to say goodbye. By the time you read this, the annual meetings of CMPS will have been held in Abbotsford, B.C., and a new board chair will have been elected.
Experiencing the Chaco through Paraguay Primeval
Paul Dueck plays the Paraguayan harp during the prelude to Paraguay Primeval.
The standing-room-only audience in the Conrad Grebel University College chapel on March 3 listened to street sounds (cars, voices, music), Spanish voices shift into aboriginal ones, German voices, and modern and traditional worship music, while slides of Asunción, Paraguay, morphed into the South American countryside.
‘Signs of solidarity’ among victims of Chile earthquake
On the morning of Feb. 27 a one-minute earthquake left nearly 300 dead and a half-million homes destroyed. Power cuts, blocked roads and collapsed communications services made it difficult to answer such desperate questions as, “Where is my family?” and, “How are my friends, my brothers and sisters of the church?”
Quick connections after quake in Chile
Omar Cortés Gaibur, Mennonite Church Canada Witness Associate in Santiago, survived the Feb. 27 earthquake.
Within minutes of hearing midday news reports on Feb. 27 of a magnitude 8.8 earthquake that had occurred earlier that day in Chile, Tim Froese had sent an e-mail alert to all Mennonite Church Canada staff.
MC Manitoba records slight deficit
Tom Seals, Mennonite Church Manitoba treasurer, reported that donations from congregations in 2009 were down by 3.4 percent, or $23,442. Although the congregational giving budget had been decreased from the year before, it still meant giving was 2.8 percent less than budgeted.
MC Manitoba churches urged to get their youths ‘Outtatown’
Delegates frequently called for times of prayer as they discerned new directions for the future of MC Manitoba at the annual delegate sessions in Winnipeg in February.
Although much of last month’s Mennonite Church Manitoba annual delegates sessions was concerned with the area church’s camping ministries (see “Camping issues top MC Manitoba delegate session,” March 8, page 31), the event ended with an ambitious challenge from Glenlea Mennonite Church to the other 49 congregations.
‘Breath of Life’ for MC Saskatchewan
Patti Friesen, left, and Erna Funk ham it up during a report on Rosthern Mennonite Nursing Home at this year’s MC Saskatchewan annual delegate sessions.
Saskatchewan delegates took a step into the future during their annual delegate sessions at the end of February, when they accepted a new congregation into their midst and moved to take action on an MC Canada proposal passed last summer.
From ‘exhortation to incarnation’ in witness
Alan Kreider, keynote speaker at this year’s Mennonite Church Saskatchewan annual delegate sessions, helped participants overcome obstacles to witnessing to their faith in Christ in a multicultural and multi-faith world.
Freed from some of the Mennonite ethnic restraints of the past, some 50 pastors from Mennonite Church Saskatchewan attending the annual delegate sessions last month conversed with Alan Kreider about how they could move from “exhortation to incarnation” in helping their members give testimony to their Christian experience in a postmodern world.
Quake hits close to home
Arisnel and Syvelie Mesidor are together at last in their Winnipeg home after a frightening separation. She was a victim of the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti, while he was studying at Canadian Mennonite University, Winnipeg.
Jan. 12 was a day like no other for Arisnel Mesidor. On this day, Haiti, his homeland—and the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere—was devastated by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake.
Convert . . . or die
It’s quite unfashionable these days to think people should change their minds. This is a strange thought that, well, needs to change.
Pondering dissent from popular films
Warning: Part A below uses evangelical language. If you are sensitive to harsh judgments, please skip ahead to Part B for a gentle conclusion.
New directions in Manitoba
At the recent annual gathering of Mennonite Church Manitoba, the talk was about new directions. It seems the search for new ways of organizing ourselves is in the air everywhere. Our connections to each other as congregations seem to be fraying, we value our independence in ever greater measure, and see less and less need to support and depend on each other.
For discussion
1. How does your congregation commemorate the pain of the cross and celebrate the joy of Easter? What do you find most meaningful? Peter J. Dyck describes a papier-maché drama that he experienced in Poland. How would that drama be received at your church?
Victory through Christ
The late Peter J. Dyck
“Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”
(Paul, in I Corinthians 15:57).
Easter is the most joyous holiday on our calendar. Nature decorates the landscape with colourful flowers, birds sing and women display their new dresses. The cynics say it is only an annual spring fashion show.
On the road to Emmaus
“Supper at Emmaus” by Caravaggio (1601). National Gallery of London, England.
On that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about 11 kilometres from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them, but they were kept from recognizing him.
