Volume 14, Number 7
CMU cyclists to pedal for foreign student aid
A team of five cyclists, made up of Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) faculty members and alumni will race from Vancouver to Winnipeg in pursuit of ultra-marathon cyclist Arvid Loewen, to raise money for international student financial assistance and international practicums.
Combines called back to Winkler for another world-record harvest attempt
Four years after Winkler hosted more than a hundred combines in an attempt to set a record for harvesting 65 hectares, the rural southern Manitoba community is at it again. On Aug. 7, World Harvest for Kids 2010 hopes to bring together more than twice as many combines to harvest 97 hectares and hopefully set a record this time.
New book gives greater voice to minority Reformation traditions
André Gingerich Stoner, director of interchurch relations for Mennonite Church U.S.A., left, talks with Walter Sawatsky, who has recently edited a book of proceedings from consultations that brought together representatives of Reformation movements in Europe.
Walter Sawatsky, professor of church history and mission at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS), has edited proceedings of two ecumenical consultations in a newly released book, Prophetic and Renewal Movements: The Prague Consultations, published by the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC).
Church may be ‘on to something’
It’s been six months since Whitewater Mennonite Church in Boissevain, Man., laid aside its committee work, to rest, read Scripture, and engage in prayer and fellowship with one another as part of the congregation’s year-long “Sabbath rest.”
New residence hall to be built at CBC
An artist’s rendering of the new Columbia Bible College residence, anticipated to cost $3.5 million.
Fundraising for a new residence hall, estimated to cost $3.5 million, is underway at Columbia Bible College (CBC).
‘Little by little there will be change’
Gene Stoltzfus
Gene Stoltzfus talks with Shia women in Najef, Iraq. The women were pleading for help in finding missing relatives.
Gene Stoltzfus, the founding director of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), died of a heart attack in Fort Frances, Ont., while bicycling near his home on the first spring-like day of the year. He is survived by wife Dorothy Friesen and many peacemakers who stand on the broad shoulders of his 70 years of creative action.
Celebrating abilities
Bonnie Sawatzky, a member of Peace Mennonite Church, Richmond, B.C., was the first to carry the Paralympic torch upon its arrival in Vancouver. She is pictured with her supporters and Leon, her service dog.
When Bonnie Sawatzky rolled her wheelchair down the student union plaza hill just after lighting the Paralympic torch at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver last month, she remembers a crowd of people surrounding her. “Go, Bonnie, go!” they yelled.
Counting the cost of retirement
Are you somewhat jealous of your teacher friends, who, in their early 50s, are already counting the days, only a few years away, when they can say goodbye to their day job while enjoying a full pension? Do you wonder how your circumstances will ever make retiring possible?
Putting the cat to sleep
Recently I took my sick cat to the vet, who diagnosed him as having a significant tumour lodged in his intestines. That explained the odd behaviour we’d observed, like him using the breadbox for a bed and the bathtub for a toilet. There were other signs of distress, including loss of weight and difficulties walking.
For discussion
1. What have been some of the more effective and less effective ways that you have heard Scripture read during worship? What are the advantages and disadvantages of reading longer passages? What are the advantages and disadvantages of using a wide variety of people in reading Scripture?
Making the Word in worship come alive
Worshippers at the Zion Church of the Messiah near Gabarone, Botswana, are asked to read Scripture “on the spot,” according to photographer Dan Dyck.
How much of your worship service is spent reading and hearing Scripture? 10 percent? 15 percent? More? Less?
Words are powerful
Speech seems to be on the public mind these days.
As I write this, much of the Canadian press and Ottawa University seem to be in a spat over the sanctity of free speech springing from the invitation, then the cancelling, of right-wing American pundit Ann Coulter, who was to speak to the students.
