Take care
Recently the worldwide number of souls lost to the COVID-19 virus surpassed 1 million. Visualizing that large number of lives cut short touches one’s own soul. We, the living, mourn and seek to understand. As members of the world community and participants in our own neighbourhoods and congregations, you and I are witnessing the many…
Expanding the reconciliation tent
Although I’m a pacifist who has never voted Conservative, I support the Conservative-led campaign to put a war hero’s face on the $5 bill. All the more so after speaking about it with Don Plett, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, who upset many in our denomination last year by blocking Bill C-262: An…
Readers write: October 12, 2020 issue
Reactions to recent ‘A moment from yesterday’ photographs Re: A photograph of a volleyball game beside a row of tall poplar trees with a lake in the background, Aug. 17, page. 4. The site is Camp Elim on the north end of Lac Pelletier, 50 kilometres southwest of Swift Current, Sask. The poplars were replaced…
Faith is so much more
The youth of the Mennonite church are often on my mind, and over the years, they have secured a place in my heart. It has been total joy and privilege to share time and space with them at national gatherings, regularly in my ministry within Mennonite Church Manitoba, and through the sharing of stories in…
LaVerna Klippenstein
LaVerna Klippenstein (1934-2014) fulfilled many roles, including mother, wife, teacher and author. After her marriage to Lawrence Klippenstein in 1956, the pair began working in the Métis community of Matheson Island, Man., for two years with Mennonite Pioneer Mission. She is pictured hanging laundry on Matheson Island. She completed a bachelor’s degree from Goshen (Ind.)…
Two stories clamour to be shared
The first story is as recent as a week ago last Sunday. As I stood to sing a somewhat familiar hymn in the morning worship service, the words came off the page to grasp my attention with unusual urgency. The song was “There’s A Wideness In God’s Mercy,” and the verse that snared me was…
Living well together
Whether you know the word or not, shalom is central to the way most Mennonites think of what it means to be disciples faithful to Jesus. “Peace” is how the Hebrew word shalom is often translated. Eminent theologian Walter Brueggemann says that shalom is the foundational message of the Bible, and the intended purpose of…
Praying for the prophets
I was sitting at the kitchen table, trying to read amidst my children having breakfast and building with Lego, and I read this verse: “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people, Your sons and daughters will prophesy. . .” (Joel 2:28). I had been trying to find something from the text for…
Communion and community during COVID-19
For many congregants, the invitation to receive communion at Edmonton’s First Mennonite Church on Sunday, Sept. 27 would mark the first time they had physically set foot in the building for six months. For Maggie Martens it was “an invitation I wasn’t going to pass up.” Martens lives alone and finds that Zoom communion via…
