Pioneer Park celebrates 175 years of change
When Ed Snider left Kitchener to farm in the Hanover-Chesley area of southwestern Ontario, Pioneer Park Christian Fellowship, then known as the Weber Mennonite Church, was nearly five kilometres from the city limits. On Oct. 1, 2017, at Pioneer Park Christian Fellowship’s 175th-anniversary celebration, he could see the houses of the Pioneer Park subdivision through…
‘We need legislated protection’
“My people don’t believe in coincidence,” Sylvia McAdam told her audience, “so you’re meant to be here today.” McAdam was speaking at a teach-in at St. Thomas More College in Saskatoon. Billed as Let’s Walk the Talk Saskatoon, the Oct. 6, 2017, event was co-sponsored by Mennonite Church Canada, MC Saskatchewan and the college. It…
Bringing people and food together
On a sunny Saturday in early September, 13 cyclists set out to explore the Local Food Trail near Osler, Sask. Gord Enns, who is executive director of the Saskatoon Food Council and who lives on a farm in the Osler area, organized the tour in conjunction with the town of Osler and the rural municipality…
Mennonites walk for reconciliation
The 2017 Walk for Reconciliation recognizing First Nations peoples drew an estimated 50,000 people in Vancouver on Sept. 24. Some two-dozen Mennonites from several Lower Mainland congregations walked together under a “Mennonite Folks” sign organized by Garry Janzen, Mennonite Church B.C.’s executive minster. As an encouragement to join the walk, at least one MC B.C.…
Remembering the ‘forgotten people’
As a teenager, Ghada Ageel had heated debates with her grandmother at their home in the Khan Younis refugee camp in South Gaza. “I asked my grandmother many questions: Why didn’t you stay in Beit Daras and die there? Why do I have to be a refugee and live this misery?” Her grandmother was forced…
‘Participation, not performance’
Like most musicians and artists, Brandon Leis uses his gifts in many places and in many ways to make a living. Most recently, he was appointed as the new music director of the Menno Singers, a Waterloo Region choir founded in 1955 by Abner Martin. Besides that, since 2003 he has been the music director…
‘Where do we go from here?’
Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen / Nobody knows my sorrow / Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen / Nobody knows but Jesus By entitling his book with the words of the African-American spiritual, one known by whites through popularization in modern entertainment, Drew Hart puts his thesis front and centre. Until whites, especially the…
How to avoid ‘a tense faith’
Humans have a long history of elevating knowledge over trust. Consider Adam and Eve. They had God’s full attention and companionship—and Eden—but they couldn’t resist the off-limits “tree of knowledge.” What did that get them? Misery. That’s just one of the insights offered by Peter Enns, professor of Bible at Eastern University in St. David’s,…
2017 Fall List of Books & Resources
Theology, Spirituality Approaching the Divine: Signs and Symbols of the Christian Faith. Margaret Loewen Reimer. CMU Press, 2017, 96 pages. This book explores the history and meaning of various Christian holidays, and the symbols and rituals connected with them. Many symbols have ancient roots, but Reimer also includes any Mennonite connections. She also considers the…
Writing that ‘really, really works’
Justin Rempel has been making up stories ever since he learned to write. The animals on his parents’ hobby farm near Gretna, Man., and the stories he heard while attending Sunday school at Blumenort Mennonite Church in Rosetown, Man., were his initial inspiration. “Very naturally, the first stories that came to me at 6 were…
