American harpist donates $8,000 to cancer research
Virginia Bethune, a member of Park View Mennonite Church, began a project 10 years ago that has evolved into the Build-2-Habitat-Houses-With-Music initiative. Together with her husband Dick, a retired Presbyterian minister, and members of the choir at Blacksburg United Methodist Church, Va., where she was organist for 14 years, Bethune has produced seven CDs, most…
Sing the Christmas season
Christmas is a time for telling stories, and there is no better story than the Christmas story itself. Throughout history, this story has been told and retold in countless variations, capturing hearts and minds as each version reveals fresh insights into the story. Throughout the ages, composers have tried to capture the magic of the…
Music for food
Great music was in the air on Oct. 15 and 16 in Winnipeg and Winkler, Man., for the inaugural Canadian Foodgrains Bank Musical Growing Project. More than 700 people attended the two concerts, which raised about $20,000 for the Foodgrains Bank. Featured artists were the Canzona ensemble under the direction of Henry Engbrecht, the Central…
Learning about peace from those ‘who have gone before’
Mennonite Church U.S.A. executive director Ervin Stutzman believes people today can learn from those who faced challenges over peace in the past, gaining perspective and humility as they study history. That’s why he wrote From Nonresistance to Justice: The Transformation of Mennonite Church Peace Rhetoric, 1908-2008, published this year by Herald Press. In the interview…
A life devoted to God
Jeff Warkentin’s passion for God shaped a life defined by service and relationships. As son, brother, husband, father, teacher, pastor, mission worker, musician and friend, he reflected God’s grace and love to everyone he encountered. Warkentin’s skill in working with small groups played a key role in the ministry he shared with his wife Tany…
Four generations farm together to feed the world
“I’m really thankful for the farm,” says Justin Krahn, 13, great-great-grandson of Peter W. Rempel. He and his two siblings spend their free time playing in the century-old cottonwoods and willow trees planted by their great-great-grandfather, whose advice—“Before you cut down one tree, you plant three”—is still practised today by his descendants. Susan Rempel, 85,…
Foot washing ends climate change protest
As the sounds of hymns overpowered the hum of car engines revving at a red light, a city transit bus had passengers clamouring to open windows out of curiosity about the sights and sounds of worship on the sidewalk around them. It was an unusual sight for a September Saturday afternoon in front of Winnipeg’s…
Feds fund Foodgrains Bank with $125 million
More assistance for more people in the developing world—that’s what a new five-year $125-million funding agreement from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) means for the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. “We are very grateful to the Government of Canada for once again providing us with funding to help people who don’t have enough to eat,” said…
CMU receives $10 million in private, public funds
Over the course of a week in October, Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) came into a total of $10 million for its new business school and a food security research project in South Asia. On Oct. 19, the Redekop family of the Fraser Valley in British Columbia pledged a minimum of $6.5 million—and potentially up to…
Yet another outspoken white man
I wonder if it’s enough to be an outspoken white man. In my early years of Christian zeal, I learned from radio host and author James Dobson that men and women were different but equal, and that it was actually gracious of me to recognize them as the weaker sex. (I still strive to be…
