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News briefs for February 2025
Mennos demonstrate at Magellan AerospaceOn December 12, 50 people gathered outside Magellan Aerospace in Winnipeg to protest its manufacturing of parts for fighter jets used by the Israeli military. The Mennonite Church Manitoba Palestine-Israel Network organized the event. Ernie Wiens, from La Salle, Manitoba, delivered a letter to the security guard, citing the group’s concerns.…
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Quilts for Survivors
The story isn’t about Mennonite Central Committee. That’s what Cam McEachern stresses. McEachern, Indigenous Neighbours program associate at the Mennonite Central Committee Ontario (MCCO) office in Timmins, Ontario, describes MCCO’s role as “an incidental, though helpful, element to this phenomenon.” “The story is about Vanessa and her undertaking and achievements,” McEachern says. Vanessa Genier is…
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De Jongs complete term in Ethiopia, move to Kenya
When asked what they’ve learned from their time working at Meserete Kristos Seminary in Bishoftu, Ethiopia, Joanne and Werner De Jong say it’s more about their own transformation. The couple began their term as Mennonite Church Canada International Witness workers in Ethiopia in January 2022. Werner, a former pastor of Holyrood Mennonite Church in Edmonton,…
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Jeff Schellenberg steps down after 28 years at Valaqua
Jeff Schellenberg can attest to the magic effect that Camp Valaqua has on people. After 28 years of living and working on and near Valaqua land, it’s home. “[When this job] came up we thought it would be a really fun thing to do for a year or two while we figure out what we…
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Bearing witness: Martyr Story of Anna Jansz
Anna Jansz was born in 1510 to a well-to-do family living in the town of Briel on the island of Putten near the North Sea coastline of South Holland. Following her marriage to Arent Jansz, she and her husband accepted baptism in 1534 from Maynaart von Emden, a Münsterite Anabaptist leader who had been sent…
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MCC investigation finds harassment by senior personnel
An investigation commissioned by Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in response to complaints put forward by John Clarke and Anicka Fast, who were abruptly terminated in August 2023, found that “MCC processes and some decision making by senior personnel as a whole … is reasonably understood to fall within the threshold of harassment as defined by MCC’s…
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Menno-Nazi ties in the press
During the week of December 13, the Waterloo Region Record, the Toronto Star (the highest circulation newspaper in Canada) and other TorStar publications ran Terry Pender’s in-depth article, “Bending the rules: How Canada opened its doors to Nazi war criminals,” which discusses Nazi links to Mennonites and Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) specifically. The occasion for…
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Irene Baergen honoured for work with newcomers
On December 5, Irene Baergen of Edmonton First Mennonite Church received the King Charles III Coronation Medal at Government House in Edmonton for her years of volunteer service with Edmonton’s Newcomer Centre (formerly, Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers). “My claim to fame is that the first organization meeting was held in our living room over…
