Volume 19, Number 15
Riding for affordable housing
MennoHomes photo
Ken and Debbie Martin are ready to head out from Elmira (Ont.) Mennonite Church on a countryside tour as part of the MennoHomes fifth annual bike-a-thon for affordable housing on June 20. More than 100 adults and children participated by walking, cycling or riding, and raised $40,000 toward a three-storey apartment building to be built in Elmira.
My soul brother
The sky was a deep blue, the sun shining brightly as we gathered in the Zion Memorial Gardens to bury the ashes of a beloved family friend, my brother-in-law Frank R. Keller, in the community of our birth—Souderton, Pennsylvania. We all knew him as “Butch.”
It takes a (global) village
Three Mennonite women from different countries share together during a Mennonite World Conference gathering in Ethiopia. (Photo by Merle Good)
The last in a five-part series leading up to Mennonite World Conference Assembly in Harrisburg, Pa.
When someone asks you to use a few words to describe yourself, what words do you use? Would you change those words to describe yourself when you are with your family? At work? Travelling to some distant place?
Readers write: July 27, 2015 issue
Thanks to those who attended TRC report in Ottawa
Garden dreams
“All through the long winter I dream of my garden. On the first warm day of Spring I dig my fingers deep into the soft earth. I can feel its energy and my spirits soar.”
~Helen Hays, quoted in Like a Garden: A Biblical Spirituality of Growth by Sara Coven Juengst (Westminster John Knox Press, 1996)
Interruptions
So Jesus was striding down the street one day when a kid in front of him turned around and asked for a bus ticket. Jesus had noticed the boy—a skinny teenager wearing a too-big T-shirt—aimlessly tapping a stick on a nearby fence. Jesus had wondered why the boy wasn’t in school, and if he was waiting for an adult doing business at the auto shop or picking up a coffee at the Tim’s.
When a little becomes a lot
“Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, ‘Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?’” (John 6: 8-9)
Where you start matters
The fragrance of old books mingled with stale pipe tobacco washed over me like finely aged wisdom, fermented from years of deep contemplation. Every wall of the late history professor’s study was concealed behind rows of shelves fully stocked with hardcover and paperback treasure. My sense of gratitude for the invitation to come “pillage” Robert’s library morphed into unbridled excitement.
The future of poverty
In the year 2000, world leaders set themselves a deadline for dramatically decreasing global poverty. That deadline was 2015.
On the way to Sängerfest, 1934
Photo: Mennonite Heritage Centre/Mennonite Archival Image Database
A group of 18 young men and women travel in the back of a truck on their way a Sängerfest or song festival in the Didsbury, Alberta, area in 1934. No seatbelts used here! Song festivals were popular in Mennonite circles as a way of gathering to see old friends, enjoy singing four-part harmony music, and a way for young men and women to meet in controlled environments.
Community Mennonite celebrates 25 years
Mike Martin (second from right) and his siblings (from left), Steve, Ron, Willard, Gloria and Terry Martin sang at the 25th anniversary celebration for Community Mennonite Fellowship in Drayton, Ont., on May 23, 2015. Mike, who is the chair of church council, wrote a special song for the event. (Photo courtesy of Community Mennonite Fellowship, Drayton)
Part of the anniversary event was a large quilt display at Community Mennonite Fellowship in Drayton, Ont., on the weekend of May 22-24, 2015. (Photo courtesy of Community Mennonite Fellowship, Drayton)
The roots ran deep in both the Berea and Moorefield Mennonite Churches, north of Kitchener-Waterloo. Berea, first known as the Parker Mission, was founded in 1941 and joined the Ontario Mennonite Conference in 1947. That same year a congregation was founded less than 10 miles away at Moorefield, using a disused Anglican church building.
Emotions run high at MC USA convention
Prayer team member John C. Murray of Hesston, Kan., prays during a Pink Menno hymn sing outside the delegate hall July 4. (Photo by Paul Schrag, Mennonite World Review)
Pick a category of people at the Mennonite Church USA convention, and you could identify their pain.
It might have been the pain of exclusion due to sexual orientation. Or of feeling the church has agreed to tolerate sin. It might have been the pain of sexual abuse. Or of concern for the future of a church sharply divided on how to relate to sexual minorities.
Faith, fasting and feasting
April Yamasaki speaks about fasting from the Christian perspective at the Abbotsford interfaith symposium on July 6, 2015. (Photo by Amy Dueckman)
Those attending the “Fasting: An Aid to World Peace” interfaith event in Abbotsford enjoyed dinner together. The meal was not served until after sunset because it took place during Ramadan. (Photo by Amy Dueckman)
An interfaith symposium on July 6 at Abbotsford’s Garden Park Tower found Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs reflecting on fasting and peace and then eating together with a meal around formally set tables.
Ester Neufeldt leaves MCEC after 27 years
Ester Neufeldt, outgoing operations minister of MCEC, sits in her office at 50 Kent, Kitchener. This is the third office move she oversaw in her 27-and-a-half years of working for the area church. (Photo by Dave Rogalsky)
Ester Neufeldt has been around Mennonite Church Eastern Canada longer than MCEC has existed. The area church came into being on Feb. 1, 1988, but Neufeldt began her job on Jan. 25.
Pastor brings compassion to same-sex debate
A letter to my congregation: An evangelical pastor’s path to embracing people who are gay, lesbian and transgender into the company of Jesus.
By Ken Wilson. Read the Spirit Books, 2014.
Singing a new song
When children arrive at Mennonite Church Manitoba’s (MCM) three camps this summer, they will have a new tune to learn. “This Ground” is a simple, catchy, four-chord song—and it was written by current and former staff of MCM’s camping ministry, Camps with Meaning (CWM).
A ray of sunshine in the classroom
Will Friesen (centre), a Grade 5/6 student with severe cognitive and physical disabilities, poses with some of his classmates at Rosenfeld Elementary School. (Photo by Jackie Nickel)
Mattea Nickel.
Wilhelm (Will) Friesen, a Grade 5/6 student, does not have a voice. Will was born with severe cognitive and physical disabilities which prevent him from performing basic tasks, including speaking. Born in a Mennonite colony in Bolivia in 2004, he moved with his parents and two sisters to Manitoba in 2007.
Saskatchewan Mennonites pedal for peace
Organizer Rachel Regier explains the goals of Pedal for Peace to about 40 participants. (Photo courtesy of MCC Saskatchewan)
Before they ate their fill of rollkuchen, watermelon, farmer’s sausage and other traditional Mennonite food, a group of Saskatchewan Mennonites cycled 43 kilometres in solidarity with those who have to leave their homeland in search of peace.
