Two things not up for debate
This editorial is not about abortion. Or maybe it is. I write this on the day after Mother’s Day, at a time when conversations are intense about the rightness or wrongness of ending a woman’s pregnancy. There is a lot to be said about the medical, legal and religious aspects of abortion, but not by me…
Finding value in challenged lives
What is a human life worth? What makes my own life worthwhile? Is my time valuable only when my efforts add up to some measurable achievement I can document on my résumé or in my exercise log or my family’s “brag book”? And if that’s the case, what value is there to a less productive…
Readers write: May 16, 2022 issue
What to do about Vladimir Putin? Re: “Becoming the enemy you hate” column, April 18, page 13. The topic that Joshua Penfold highlights is at the very heart of the Anabaptist movement, which began in the 1500s. The Anabaptist leaders determined that the only way to stop the circle and cycle of “an eye for…
The church and mental illness
I have lived with depression for most of my adult life. When I began my role as a minister, I realized that, while I could mostly hold my depression at bay while I carried out my daily responsibilities, it was usually in the tiredness of my time at home that my depression would find its…
‘The gift of giving’
Aziza, a 29-year-old mother living in Beirut, Lebanon, spends almost all of her husband’s income on hospital visits, oxygen and medication to treat her six-month-old son’s lung disease. (Her full name is not used for her security.) The family, who lives in a one-room house with a leaky roof, had funds for little else, including…
Praising God together across barriers
“I can see one family with a lot of members, worshipping the same Father,” says Natacha Kyendrebeogo of Burkina Faso. She is one of four young people serving through the Young Anabaptist Mennonite Exchange Network (YAMEN) on the Mennonite World Conference (MWC) Assembly 2022 team in Indonesia. YAMEN is a program that places emphasis on…
Valaqua gets a spring makeover
Camp Valaqua welcomed approximately 30 enthusiastic volunteers at its spring work day on April 30. Volunteers and staff focused on cleaning up brush and splitting wood. “Our woodshed went from a few sad sticks to full in just a day!” says Jon Olfert, Valaqua’s camp director. Volunteers also repaired the siding on one of the…
Meeting pain with compassion
“I can talk about mental health and, specifically, suicide risk, because nearly every day I ask someone if they have thoughts of wishing to die.” Ruth Bergen Braun is a recently retired Canadian certified counsellor who has first-hand experience with clients who think of suicide or have lost someone to suicide. In a sermon that she…
‘You don’t need words to do it’
Sometimes people go through experiences that are too difficult to talk about or too confusing to articulate. Art therapy helps many people process and heal when at first the words are just too hard to find. Lauren Harms “One of the real gifts of art therapy is that the inexpressible can come out in lines…
