Blankets for vets
Retired Canadian Forces Captain Wayne Johnston received a warm welcome at 50 Kent, the home of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Ontario and other Mennonite agencies in Kitchener last month. Invited by MCC Ontario director Rick Cober Bauman to make a noon-hour presentation, Johnston shared his story of harm and healing. Johnston concluded his military career,…
When vets mourn what should Mennos do?
A new Sunday School peace curriculum in the U.S. pushes Mennonites in a direction very different than the predictable emphasis on the evils of war and the theological superiority of pacifism. “Returning veterans, returning hope: Seeking peace together” encourages Mennonites to see veterans not as people with incorrect views, but as fellow human beings to…
‘Another cool move’
Vernon Erb had a busy fall. Wet weather combined with a late planting season last spring meant the soybeans and corn were hard to get off the fields. “I guess I’ve gone full circle,” he says with a laugh. Like many Amish-Mennonite boys in the 1950s, he was expected to take over the family farm…
‘Bring the wall down’
“Walls became an obsession when I went to Berlin in 2010,” artist Rhonda Harder Epp told the crowd at the opening of her Walls: Arbitrary Impediments art exhibition at King’s University College, Edmonton, last month. In a series of more than 30 oil paintings and paper sculptures, Harder Epp explored ideas of how the barriers…
Who feeds the world?
Without conventional agriculture more people would starve. That is the link commonly drawn between global hunger and the dominant form of North American farming, which depends heavily on fertilizer, fuel, pesticide and genetic inputs. This link is captured in the axiom that says farmers “feed the world.” The implication of this phrase is often two-fold:…
“Your congregation knows how to care for seniors”
When Gloria Dirks was retiring from the joint position of Administrator and Director of Care at Parkwood Mennonite Home in Waterloo, Ont. in 2003, she knew she wanted to use her skills in some way. The call of her congregation, the Waterloo-Kitchener United Mennonite Church, to research the potential of a parish nurse seemed like…
Caring for our seniors
Across the country, many MC Canada churches are staring at the numbers and scratching their heads. As young people drift away from the church and the baby boomers retire, church leadership is faced with increasing numbers of grey heads. Those faithful church founders, so consistent in attendance and giving, have reached the declining years. For…
