Volume 19 Issue 19

Back to class

Miraya Groot follows Mac Wallace, Zack Strike, and Brendan Paetkau as Conrad Grebel University College students unload the last of their residence room furniture before the first week of classes. Just as Grebel students share their treasured school traditions, well-loved skybunks and couches also get passed along from one year to the next. (Photo by Jennifer Konkle)

Cooking up discipleship

Doris Janzen Longacre, author of the More-with-Less Cookbook and Living More with Less

When I was a small child, my parents took our family on assignment to Chile as church workers. In a country which at that time had no Anabaptist-Mennonite churches, our ties to the Mennonite community took other forms. Among these, my parents’ use of Doris Janzen Longacre’s More-with-Less Cookbook was perhaps the most tangible.

Global gifts

Mennonite Church Canada’s history of engaging our global neighbours in mission and international church relations began more than 100 years ago. Since that time, the worldwide church has grown significantly. Almost two-thirds of the global Anabaptist community today is African, Asian or Latin American.

Tribalism

Tribes are good (essential, I said in my last column). And yet there is danger when tribal extremes become virulent tribalism. Such tribalism takes what is good and life-giving about a bounded group and morphs it into a destructive, negative force. It proclaims the superiority of one group over another.

Building peace in northeast Asia

Participants and instructors at NARPI’s summer peacebuilding training session in Mongolia gather for a group photo. Scott Kim is on the far left, wearing a light blue shirt, and Cheryl Woelk is standing behind the banner, holding her infant son. For more photos, visit facebook.com/narpipeace or narpi.net.

During NARPI’s Summer Peacebuilding Training, Scott Kim, left, and Cheryl Woelk, holding their son, visited a Mongolian family, who gave them a sense of Mongolian nomadic lifestyle. They were served delicious homemade butter, curd, fried dough and horse milk.

“Conflict isn’t something we should avoid,” says Cheryl Woelk, “because there are good things on the other side.”

Recently, Woelk and her husband, Scott Kim—members of Wildwood Mennonite Church in Saskatoon—served as instructors at the Northeast Asia Regional Peacebuilding Institute (NARPI) annual Summer Peacebuilding Training.

Bird therapy

When Ken Reddig was too depressed to get out of his chair, he sat at his window and watched birds. In winter, the nuthatches squabbled over dropped seeds. In summer, the hummingbirds jostled for a place at the feeder. “Summer and winter, there was constant activity that kept me entertained, but also inspired,” he says.

Back at the Grebel table

Fine arts student Margaret Gissing poses with a silverware sculpture she created with her father Gus Gissing, a Conrad Grebel University College alumnus. The sculpture represents the many people involved at Grebel and the different gifts they each bring to the table. (Photo by Jennifer Konkle)

Eager faces showing a little bit of nervousness arrived at Conrad Grebel University College on Labour Day for the new school year.

Goodbye, Young Voices

Rachel Bergen is leaving Canadian Mennonite to complete a term with Mennonite Central Committee’s Serving and Learning Together (SALT) program. (Photo courtesy of Rachel Bergen)

I always knew growing up that I wanted to leave home and see the world. The thought of one day volunteering overseas, listening to people’s stories and learning new languages excited me all through my adolescence and young adulthood.

That’s now a reality.

Making the time together good

Peter Warkentin’s physical and mental abilities are gradually declining, but his faith remains strong. (Photo courtesy of Amelia Warkentin)

Peter Warkentin pictured as a young man. (Photo courtesy of Amelia Warkentin)

 Amelia Warkentin

Sleeping soundly with his legs pulled into his hunched frame, my grandfather was comfortable before I woke him.

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