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Conscientious (tax) objectors

Charlotte and Ernie Wiens divert 10 percent of what they owe the government each year to Conscience Canada’s Peace Tax Trust Fund. (Photo by Lori Enns)

Like other Canadians, every year Ernie and Charlotte Wiens file their taxes.

Unlike others in Canada, the La Salle, Man. farming couple doesn't send the federal government everything it says they owe—the part that violates their conscience.

For Ernie, 72, and Charlotte, 69, that’s the estimated 10 percent of Canada’s budget spent on the military.  

Rudy Wiebe on Omar Khadr, Miriam Toews, MB Herald and more

Rudy Wiebe, pictured with Conrad Grebel University College professor Hildi Froese Tiessen after a reading at Conrad Grebel in January 2012. (Photo by Dave Rogalsky)

During a recent interview focusing on his debut novel and recent CMU Pax Award, acclaimed Mennonite writer Rudy Wiebe spoke on a variety of topics, including Omar Khadr, Miriam Toews, the western Canadian Indigenous story and the MB Herald. 

Here's what he had to say.

Women without limits

Maria Elena Algarañaz de Masabi works at the booth she runs with Mujeres sin Limites, an artisan collective in Montero, Bolivia. (Photo by Matthew Sawatzky)

It’s a hot, humid morning, and Maria Elena Algarañaz de Masabi is working at a booth displaying brightly coloured handicrafts for sale. She carefully lays out cloth purses and drawstring bags and hangs up knit children’s clothes.

Women’s literacy grows churches, communities

Literacy trainer Zephirin Koutchengu listens as Claudine Lutondo of Kinshasa reads the Bible in Lingala. (Photo courtesy of Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission)

ELKHART, Indiana – In the past two years, more than 260 literacy teachers have been trained in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Now, they are helping 2,560 others learn to read and write in more than 100 locations. Most of the new readers are women and girls.

Ten years after ‘Points of View’

The Other Brothers (Chris Neufeld, left, and Donovan Giesbrecht) in March 2009. (Photo by Mark Reimer)

On April 3, 2009, southern Manitoba-based folk group the Other Brothers released Points of View. Recorded in the studio at Mennonite Church Manitoba, the album earned critical acclaim—CBC dubbed them “the Simon and Garfunkel of the Prairies”—and a small but loyal following.

‘Vice’ director Adam McKay talks about Mennonites on popular podcast

Adam McKay is the writer-director of the acclaimed 2018 film 'Vice,' which explores the life of Dick Cheney. (Photo courtesy of Instagram.com/ghostpanther2018)

Filmmaker Adam McKay recently revealed that when he was growing up, he attended a Mennonite church for a time.

During his appearance on the March 20 episode of the podcast You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes, the writer-director shared that after his mother became a Christian, they attended a number of different churches.

Mennonite World Conference general secretary relocates

Mennonite World Conference general secretary César García, pictured in Harrisburg, Pa. in 2015. García relocated to Kitchener, Ont. last month. (Photo by Dale Gehman)

General secretary César García and executive assistant Sandra Báez Rojas of Mennonite World Conference (MWC) have relocated to Canada as of last month to work out of the Kitchener, Ont., office.

‘She was ahead of her time’

Winnipegger Peggy Unruh Regehr died on September 27, 2018. (Photo courtesy of Keith Regehr)

Before #MeToo and #ChurchToo—before there even was the Internet—there was Winnipegger Peggy Unruh Regehr.

Unruh Regehr, a member of River East Church (a Mennonite Brethren Church of Manitoba congregation) died September 27 last year at the age of 89. She was a pioneer in championing the cause of women in leadership in Mennonite denominations in Canada.

Church growth stretches Ethiopian resources

Students from Meserete Kristos College’s Entertainment Art group lead worship music at a November 2018 outreach event. Over two days, they shared the gospel with 1,080 people, 117 of whom received Christ. (Henok Tamirat)

Challenges accompany the joys of growth as tens of thousands of people new to Ethiopia’s Meserete Kristos Church (MKC) swell the denomination.

Now with more than 600,000 participants, the world’s largest Anabaptist conference struggles to train enough pastors, find adequate meeting spaces, and keep vehicles maintained for its teachers, who travel to distant outposts on rough roads.

AMBS trains Sudanese-Canadian to make a difference

Rebecca Riek (second row, second from left) and Rebecca Yoder Neufeld (next to her) stand among fellow participants at the September 2018 Journey Weekend Learning Event at Amigo Centre in Sturgis, Michigan. (Jason Bryant)

Thousands of miles from their homeland, a group of about 30 South Sudanese women gathers on Tuesdays in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont. Meeting in each other’s homes, they pray for their war-torn country and its people, share about their lives and study the Bible together. Rebecca Riek, who came to Canada from South Sudan 16 years ago, helped start the group in 2007 and continues to lead it.

CPT closes Indigenous solidarity team

Members of CPT's Indigenous Peoples Solidarity team participate in a rally in support of Bill C-262 in front of a local parliament member's office in Winnipeg in 2017. (Photo courtesy of CPT)

In order to address a $265,000 deficit, Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) will close its Winnipeg-based Indigenous Peoples Solidarity team at the end of March. While CPT hopes to maintain relationships with its Indigenous partners, three full-time and one half-time positions devoted to the work will end.

Voices Together visual art chosen

‘Alive,’ a pen and ink drawing by Anne H. Berry, chosen for the theme of ‘the death and resurrection of Jesus.’ (Courtesy of MennoMedia)

‘Nine patch No. 8,’ a monotype by Brenton Good, chosen for the theme of ‘praying.’ (Courtesy of MennoMedia)

Visual art for the Voices Together hymnal has been chosen by the Mennonite Worship and Song Committee. The 12 visual art pieces selected will appear in the forthcoming hymnal—including the pew, worship leader, digital app and projection editions.

Remembering Margaret Loewen Reimer

Margaret Loewen Reimer navigated huge changes as an editor at Canadian Mennonite and its predecessor publication, Mennonite Reporter. (Photo courtesy of the Reimer family)

Loewen Reimer and Ron Rempel in September 1979. (Canadian Mennonite file photo)

“A student of literature and a Mennonite journalist with a special passion for the arts,” is how Margaret Loewen Reimer introduced herself during a lecture series entitled “Mennonites and the artistic imagination” at Canadian Mennonite Bible College, in Winnipeg, in 1998.

Two countries, one mission on the Korean Peninsula

Ron Byler, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) U.S. executive director, right, attended a Korean Anabaptist Conference in Chuncheon, South Korea, along with three South Korean church leaders. Pictured from left to right: Bock Ki Kim, SeongHan Kim and SunJu Moon, all graduates of Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Ind. Byler travelled to South Korea in November 2018 to visit MCC program and partner organizations. (Mennonite Central Committee photo)

Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Canada executive director Rick Cober Bauman poses with one of the cooks at Sariwon Hospital, a pediatric hospital in North Korea. In 2018, MCC shipped nearly 49,000 kilograms of canned meat to North Korea. (Mennonite Central Committee photo)

It has been more than 60 years since the ceasefire that ended the Korean War, but to this day North Korea and South Korea do not have an official peace, and the divide remains great.

Congolese army officer arrested in U.N. murders case

Michael J. Sharp addresses the UN Security Council in August 2016. He and a colleague were abducted and killed in 2017 in the Democratic Republic of Congo. (Photo courtesy of the Sharp family)

Michael J. Sharp and fellow U.N. sanctions monitor Zaida Catalán of Sweden were abducted and killed in 2017 in the Kasai region of the Democratic Republic of Congo while monitoring sanctions violations and possible war crimes by the Congolese national army and various militias.

Ukrainians witness amid suffering, hope

Seven women ages 16–22 were baptized at a nearby pool the day the European leaders visited Mennonites in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. (Photo by J. Nelson Kraybill)

This former Mennonite school served 130 hearing- and speech-impaired children at Tiege in the Molotschna region. When the German army swept through Ukraine, soldiers took the students out to a field and shot them. (Photo by J. Nelson Kraybill)

In a region of Ukraine that thousands of Mennonites left generations ago, two dozen of today’s Mennonite leaders from across Europe gathered for three days of fellowship in October 2018. 

Canada announces funding to empower women and youth in Senegal

Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA) moved to a new office in Waterloo, Ont., in December. Taking part in the ribbon-cutting are, from left to right: Allan Sauder, outgoing MEDA president/CEO; Karen Redman, Region of Waterloo chair; Bardish Chagger, Waterloo MP; Dorothy Nyambi, incoming MEDA president/CEO ; Jenny Shantz, MEDA vice-chair; Jim Erb, Region of Waterloo councillor; and Dave Jaworsky, Waterloo mayor. (Photo courtesy of MEDA)

In December 2018, the federal government announced funding for a new five-year project with Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA) that will improve the economic resilience of women and youth farmers in Senegal. 

How steam wells work to relieve droughts in Ethiopia

MCC's first steam well, constructed in Bidu, Afar, in northern Ethiopia. (MCC photo by Rose Shenk)

Sisay Kasu, left, project manager for MCC Ethiopia, and Hussien Edris, project coordinator for Afar Pastoralist Development Association (APDA), look at the sediment trap leading into a birkat, a traditional water catchment system that MCC and APDA have expanded and modernized as part of an emergency water project in northern Ethiopia. (MCC photo by Rose Shenk)

From where he is standing, MCC Ethiopia representative Bruce Buckwalter can feel warm air escaping from underground steam vents. Notice the dried grass that grows from moisture making its way to the surface from the underground steam. (MCC photo by Rose Shenk)

MCC Ethiopia representative Bruce Buckwalter, left, and Sisay Kasu, MCC project coordinator in Ethiopia, stand in 40-degree C heat next to a traditional Afari steam collection structure in the Afar Desert in northern Ethiopia. (MCC photo by Rose Shenk)

In parts of the world where the effects of climate change are severe and rains are dangerously infrequent, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) is supporting innovative projects to improve access to water.

In the Afar region of Northern Ethiopia, MCC supported the Afar Pastoralist Development Association (APDA) to build and maintain a steam well benefitting 60 households.

MEDAx 2018: Creating pathways for future innovators

Pictured from left to right: CPA director Paul Heidebrecht, and SheCycle members Abby Loewen, Isaac Beech, Daniel Schuurman, Mykayla Turner, Anna Kuepfer and Leah Wouda. (Photo courtesy of Conrad Grebel University College)

A team of six students from Conrad Grebel University College participated in MEDAx, a conference that was part of the larger Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA) conference, held in November 2018, in Indianapolis. 

Experiencing Christmas by lamplight

Oil lamps light the sanctuary of the little church as guests arrive to experience ‘Christmas by lamplight.’ (Photo by Donna Schulz)

Guests arriving for ‘Christmas by lamplight’ at the Mennonite Heritage Museum’s church building in Rosthern, Sask. (Photo by Donna Schulz)

Guests enjoy singing carols, listening to stories, drinking hot chocolate and eating peppernuts at the Mennonite Heritage Museum’s ‘Christmas by Lamplight.’ (Photo by Donna Schulz)

Organist Barb Wolfe accompanies the carol singing on the church’s pump organ. (Photo by Donna Schulz)

Old-fashioned oil lamps graced each windowsill in the tiny sanctuary, their steady flames bathing the room in warm light as people filed into the pews. The people came to experience “Christmas by lamplight.”

North Korean farmers visit Manitoba, build relationships

Jennifer Deibert, left, MCC North Korea program coordinator, and North Korean agricultural delegates An Hui Jun and Jon Bom Ho talk shop with Martin Entz, a professor in the plant science department at the University of Manitoba, at a research farm in Carman, Man. (MCC photo by Colin Vandenberg)

Donna Rice, MCC representative for Northeast Asia, and Ambassador Ri Yong of the North Korean Mission to the United Nations, and others share a meal at the home of Charlotte and Ernie Wiens in La Salle, Man. (MCC photo by Matthew Sawatzky)

In those first few minutes after arriving at Syl’s Restaurant in Carman, members of a delegation from North Korea sit at the edge of the outdoor eating area, where they see local resident Rene McFarlane at a picnic table with her son Lane. The visitors move toward McFarlane and, with the help of a translator, a conversation about families in both countries begins.

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