Spring rolls and wedding cake
Peter Nguyen and Kim Bui received an anniversary gift on August 10 that they never got at their wedding 40 years ago: a church ceremony with a marriage licence.
Peter Nguyen and Kim Bui received an anniversary gift on August 10 that they never got at their wedding 40 years ago: a church ceremony with a marriage licence.
In “Differently gifted,” Will Braun discusses the high emotional stakes related to the closure of facilities for people with intellectual disabilities. Here are more items he collected.
The Freedom Tour trailer
"I don't want to remember it,” Hugo Unruh says of the grim spring day in 1972. He and his wife at the time, pulled into the 40-hectare complex an hour west of Winnipeg that then housed 1,000 people with intellectual disabilities with Nick, their 13-year-old son.
Beige cement walls intersect with light green shag carpet. The smell of sugar and over-brewed yet weak coffee mingles with bits of conversation and the clink of spoons on ceramic church mugs.
As your advocate for children in the life of the church, I continually encourage others to offer child-friendly worship services. Assembly 2014 worship planners offered a fine example of doing just that by inviting children to help out with the closing service on July 3, and making them feel at home.
On a perfectly lovely summer day last month, I joined a couple hundred people for a worship service on the edges of a wheat field. The crop on the field is dedicated to the work of the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. Each year, individual farmers from Catholic, Lutheran and Mennonite churches join with local seed, fertilizer and insurance businesses to produce a crop.
Back in 2011, I met with an elderly person to assist her with will and estate planning. “Maggie’s” intentions were to name a couple of friends as executors and give her entire estate to a lone surviving family member with whom she didn’t have much contact.
In the spring of 1985, Coke decided to change the recipe of its flagship beverage for the first time in 99 years. The intensity of consumer rejection was unprece-dented. Protesters took to the streets.
Camp programs were in full swing alongside Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) hammers at Camp Valaqua this summer. MDS teams are usually found on disaster sites, helping to rebuild homes, so why are they building cabins at a thriving church camp? And why are there children wearing hardhats, pounding nails and using staple guns?
A paper cut-out of Joseph Cramer has stood prominently at the many House of Friendship (HoF) events during the Kitchener-based social agency’s 75th-anniversary year.
Sometimes one needs to step over the line in order to score a hit, as this youngster discovers at MC Saskatchewan’s ‘day in the park’ in Saskatoon last month.
Sometimes one needs to step over the line in order to score a hit, as this youngster discovers at MC Saskatchewan’s ‘day in the park’ in Saskatoon last month.
Children aren’t the only ones enjoying games at MC Saskatchewan’s recent ‘day in the park.’ Ken Warkentin of Nutana Park Mennonite Church has some fun knocking a stack of pails over with a foam ball.
Picnickers enjoy Vietnamese cuisine at MC Saskatchewan’s recent ‘day in the park.’ The meal was a fundraiser for Saskatoon Vietnamese Mennonite Church.
The sun shone, the air was warm—but not too warm—and there were no mosquitoes. It was, in fact, a day perfect for a picnic.
On Aug. 10, people of all ages gathered at Scott Park, adjacent to Mount Royal Mennonite Church in Saskatoon, to enjoy Mennonite Church Saskatchewan’s “day in the park.”
When John Neufeld took the reins as director of Kitchener’s House of Friendship (HoF), he was confused by the 19 separate programs it was running: shelters, a food bank, addiction programs, a youth program, work in community centres, and on and on. How to make sense of it all?
On a Wednesday evening in early June, Waterloo musician and musicologist Wilbur (Bill) Maust was seated in the chapel of Conrad Grebel University College, Waterloo, Ont., among some 170 family and friends, to attend a concert organized in his honour by Stephanie Martin.
“The only safe place is inside the story,” reads an epigraph to this first novel by Sarah Klassen of Winnipeg. This story moves through a momentous year in the life of the Wittenberg family, and it unfolds within the larger narratives of family history and coming of age in 21st-century Canada.
‘Whatever happened to forgiveness?’
Re: Pastor’s credentials withdrawn,” July 7, page 23.
“We would benefit more if our leaders were leading more and following less,” lamented one reader in reflecting on the Being a Faithful Church (BFC) discussions at Assembly 2014 this past July. “It is very difficult to guide a scattering herd of sheep from the rear.”
Sol Sanderson, former chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, addresses festival-goers at the Spruce River Folk Festival.
The Joy Singers—left to right: Wilf Buhler, Art Zacharias, Gordon Martens and Ben Buhler—perform at the Spruce River Folk Festival. Three of the four singers are members of Osler Mennonite Church.
Roland Ray, left, of the Mathias Colomb First Nation, Sandy Bay, Sask., shows festivalgoer Les Hurlburt how ancient rock paintings depict the land that once belonged to the band.
It may be a blip on the radar compared to other events of its kind, but what it lacks in size the Spruce River Folk Festival more than makes up for in heart.
The pews are pushed together along the walls while in the middle of the sanctuary children play an energetic game of Duck, Duck, Goose. Vacation Bible School (VBS) is in session at Eyebrow Mennonite Church.
For several years, Mennonite Church Saskatchewan has employed a travelling VBS troupe to bring summer Christian education to rural and urban congregations alike.
I had the good fortune of camping in Algonquin Park in northeastern Ontario a few weeks ago, a perfect place to observe the Perseid meteor shower that happens every August.
Two stories on sexual abuse have re-emerged recently on the Mennonite scene that call for sober reflection and some self-examination, but not self-obsession. They should be seen, in the present, as “teachable moments” and occasions for healing, rather than harsh judgments on the sins of our fathers.
I grew up in a church where everything was painted “Sola Scriptura.” I’m not referring to some chic Greco-Roman inspired hue from Benjamin Moore, but a Latin phrase meaning “Scripture Alone” which coloured the way we saw everything under the sun. “Sola Scriptura” was the primary pillar and doctrinal gatekeeper of Protestant faith.
On a deliciously warm summer afternoon in the middle of August, I greeted my neighbour who is a teacher. We exchanged a few pleasantries and then I began to ask him about the coming school year. “Don’t even start down that direction,” he warned, holding up his hand palm-out, like a nonverbal stop sign.
Nestled in the bend of the Brokenhead River at the very end of a country road is a small Christian community trying to live responsibly and faithfully. Four family units are shareholders of this 58-hectare piece of land that was formerly a commercial strawberry farm.
In the retail shopping world, the dog days of summer are no longer known as “August,” but rather “back-to-school.” This has become the year’s second largest seasonal shopping event behind “winter holidays” (not “Christmas”).