Between a rock and a hard place
Leaders at Mennonite Church Eastern Canada feel they are caught between a rock and a hard place, as they have had to deal with a number of boundary crossings by church leaders over the past five years. Such work can consume time and energy in immense amounts because the denominational leaders want the victims to…
MC Manitoba envisions new future for camps
Mennonite Church Manitoba has a new vision for its camping ministry, one that involves relinquishing two of its camps and significantly improving the third. “The question was, how do we ensure the camping ministry remains sustainable in the years to come,” said Dorothy Fontaine, MC Manitoba’s director of mission, on Oct. 26, 2015, at the…
Mennonite Disaster Service steps in
The first three times their house flooded, John and Mary Webb managed to make repairs. But in 2011, after the Red River filled it with water for the fourth time, they were broke. “We’d put our retirement money into this house,” says Mary. “We didn’t have any funds left. We were poor.” The Webbs own…
Completion of MDS work in High River celebrated
Sandra and Harold Friesen of Calgary and Linda and Jim Dyck of Pincher Creek spent the last two years volunteering as project coordinators for Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) work in High River, Alta., cleaning up after a summer 2013 flood in Calgary and area—the worst in the province’s history—that displaced more than 100,000 people and…
Mennonites ‘wage peace’ on Remembrance Day
A Mennonite church is not a typical venue for a Remembrance Day service, but on Nov. 11, 2015, members of several Mennonite Church Saskatchewan congregations came together at Osler Mennonite Church to pay tribute to those whose lives have been turned upside down by war. Pastor Patty Friesen led the time of worship, which included…
‘An ample opportunity to try something new’
One could say that, in a musical sense, 1955 was the best of times and the worst of times when compared to today. From a Swiss-South German Mennonite perspective, we were heirs to a rich tradition of unaccompanied four-part congregational singing that had its origins in the Singing School movement of the 19th century, when…
Any price for victory
Directed by Francis Lawrence. Screenwriters: Peter Craig and Danny Strong. Starring Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson. A Color Force/Lionsgate release, 2015. Rated PG (violence, frightening scenes). Early in the fourth and final installment of the Hunger Games film cycle, Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence), the rebel heroine, is having an argument with her close friend, Gale (Liam Hemsworth),…
Contemplative journal an expression of creative process
April Yamasaki and Lois Siemens have collaborated across the miles on a second creative project. In 2014, the women, who are pastors of Mennonite Church Canada congregations in British Columbia and Saskatchewan, respectively, joined forces to produce the My Sacred Pauses Daybook, combining text from Yamasaki’s book Sacred Pauses with Siemens’s photographs. This year, they…
Why I go see Santa every year
As Christmas approaches, one of the things I’m most looking forward to is heading to a local mall with my siblings so we can have our picture taken with Santa. I have had my photo taken with Santa each December since I was a year old. My brother Thomas joined the fun in 1986, our…
All members of one family
Over a period of seven years, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) heard more than 6,000 survivors of residential schools tell their painful stories of injustice and abuse. With the TRC’s work in hand, Christian churches can help write a better next chapter. A group of us from across southern Ontario started this…
