It the city of Kikwit, Congolese survivors of violence talk with MWC Deacon Commission chair Siaka Traoré of Ivory Coast, foreground left, and Daniel Geiser of Switzerland, centre. (Photo by J. Nelson Kraybill)
Loving the generous people of the Democratic Republic of Congo is not difficult, but evil happening in the rural Kasai region of that lush country is hard to comprehend.
Donald B. Kraybill is the author of the award-winning book, The Upside-Down Kingdom.
In Donald B. Kraybill’s The Upside-Down Kingdom, Jesus is slightly irreverent. He critiques the rich, scorches nationalism, redefines Old Testament law, and undercuts the authority of religious leaders.
Kraybill points out that Jesus is into sharing, not hoarding. Service, not status. Community, not competition. Basins, not swords. Loyalty to God, not nation.
Young musicians practice during the Ontario Mennonite Music Camp. From left to right are Anna Tyas-Petrik, Hallelujah Tezera, Aidan Morton-Ninomiya, Isabelle Netherton, and Jayden Liu. (Photo courtesy of OMMC)
Aidan Morton-Ninomiya’s review of the Ontario Mennonite Music Camp: “Awesome.” (Photo courtesy of OMMC)
When the idea of the Ontario Mennonite Music Camp (OMMC) was pitched to me at Rockway Mennonite Collegiate, I was immediately excited. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but when I got there, I knew it would be awesome.
Seth Ratzlaff, left, a student at Conrad Grebel University College, his father Victor, lay minister of Westview Christian Fellowship in St. Catharines, Ont., and Aileen Friesen, the J. Winfield Fretz Visiting Research Scholar in Mennonite Studies, discuss her ‘Muslim-Mennonite Encounters in the Russian Empire’ lecture on Jan. 25, 2018. (Photo by Dave Rogalsky)
Aileen Friesen was the go-to person to help visitors order in Russian cafés at a scholarly gathering in Russia’s Far East, according to Marlene Epp, Conrad Grebel University College’s dean. Epp introduced Friesen as the inaugural J. Winfield Fretz Visiting Research Scholar in Mennonite Studies before Friesen’s lecture on ‘Muslim-Mennonite Encounters in the Russian Empire’ on Jan.
Kindred Credit Union has reached a major milestone, marking $1 million in support for churches and charitable organizations since its inception in 1999.
The Ten Thousand Villages Heritage store in Calgary is one of nine Canadian stores that have already closed or will be closing in 2018. (TTV photo)
In early February 2018, Ten Thousand Villages (TTV) began the process of permanently closing nine stores in four provinces. They include:
Natalie Gulenchyn, who is in her 80s and volunteers at Mennonite Central Committee’s material resources warehouse in Winnipeg, sewed the medical kit bags that were transported to North Korea. (MCC photo by Rachel Bergen)
It’s been a long trek for eight small bags of medical supplies. They have been packed and re-packed, crossed an ocean, passed through three countries and numerous airport security checks. On this day, the bags have reached their destination—a small medical clinic on a farm near Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea.
Bryan Moyer Suderman, teaching associate for the Church Leadership Center of Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, leads a ‘Reading the Bible with Jesus’ workshop for Walnut Hill Mennonite Church, Goshen, Ind., at the Amigo Centre in Sturgis, Mich. (Photo by Jace Longenecker)
Bryan Moyer Suderman believes that paying attention to Jesus as interpreter of Scripture can transform how we, too, engage Scripture and each other.
At festivities celebrating 100 years of Mennonite witness in Argentina, a youth drama troupe mimes the temptations and struggles that confront a young adult seeking to follow Jesus. (Photo by J. Nelson Kraybill)
Performing before hundreds of Mennonites and passersby at a park in downtown Buenos Aires, a drama troupe from the Mennonite church in Villa Adelina, Argentina, mimed challenges and struggles facing youth: violence, drugs, promiscuity, greed, and death itself.
John Mbae visits the dairy farm of Walter and Peggy Wiebe, who are Bergthaler Mennonites living near Hague, Sask. After seeing the Wiebe’s fully-automated dairy barn, Mbae remarked, ‘The cows were milking themselves with the machines monitoring and controlling the milking.’ (Photo by Rick Block)
For John Mbae, a Canadian Foodgrains Bank conservation agriculture technical specialist based in Kenya, a visit to the Canadian Prairies was informative and inspiring.
University of Zurich ethics professor Pierre Buehler addresses attendees of a public forum on human rights and faith, organized by the Mennonite conference in Switzerland. (Photo by Samuel Cacciabue)
“Nationalism is on the rise in many parts of the world,” says Juerg Braeker, general secretary of Konferenz der Mennoniten der Schweiz/Conférence mennonite suisse (the Swiss Mennonite church). “Mennonites, because of their view of the relationship between church and state, should be better equipped to point out the dangers of nationalism.”
The 2017 Bear Lake growing project in Wembley, Alta., harvested 64 hectares of barley. Once sold, the proceeds will be used by the Canadian Foodgrains Bank to respond to emergency situations such as those in Syria, South Sudan and Kenya. (Canadian Foodgrains Bank photo)
The Canadian Foodgrains Bank likes to talk about its “farm”—the thousands of hectares across Canada, from P.E.I. to B.C., that are planted by community growing projects to raise funds for the work of ending global hunger.
The Mennonite World Conference delegation is pictured with local members of the Mennonite Brethren church in Nuevo Horizonte, Peru. Following the floods, ‘our hearts were left totally destroyed . . . but thanks to MWC, who have come to visit us and have given us this uplifting and encouraging word, a word of hope and love,’ says Antonio García Dominguez, right, the leader of Conferencia Peruana Hermanos Menonitas. (MWC photo by Joanna Chappa)
Mennonite World Conference (MWC) and Mennonite organizations collaborated to live out their faith with unified action in response to disasters that struck members of the global Anabaptist family in 2017.
To celebrate Christmas, members of Gereja Kristen Muria Indonesia churches act out Bible stories in the style of wayang orang. (Photo courtesy of berita GKMI)
Jantine Huisman, as a child, poses with Christmas decorations. (Photo courtesy of Jantine Huisman)
Christian communities around the world celebrate Christmas, yet each culture has its own traditions. Here, Anabaptist brothers and sisters from different regions share how they celebrate Christmas.
Tim Wiebe-Neufeld stands beside the Ray Dirks painting that tells the story of Maria Friesen Neufeld, his great grandmother, one of the courageous Mennonite women who brought their families out of the hardships and terror of the Soviet Union in the early 1900s. (Photo by Donita Wiebe-Neufeld)
Nettie Dueck, one of four Along the Road to Freedom committee members, travelled from Winnipeg to Edmonton to be at the opening program at King’s University in Edmonton. Dueck is standing beside the Ray Dirks painting that tells her mother’s story. (Photo by Donita Wiebe-Neufeld)
Dave Toews, left, Edmonton exhibition and Alberta tour organizer for the Along the Road to Freedom exhibit, meets Lois Mitchell, Alberta’s lieutenant governor, right, at a private viewing and discussion at King’s University on Dec. 3, 2017. (Photo by Donita Wiebe-Neufeld)
On Dec. 2, 2017, more than a hundred people gathered at Edmonton’s King’s University for the opening of the Along the Road to Freedom art exhibit. This was the first of three stops in Alberta that will end in the spring.
Edwin Klassen (left) shares a laugh with longtime MEDA editor Wally Kroeker as he signs copies of his book, God’s Week has Seven Days: Monday Musings for Marketplace Christians, at the MEDA convention in Vancouver, B.C. (MEDA photo by Steve Sugrim)
At the 2017 MEDA annual convention, Rob Schlegel describes the progress of MEDA’s $50 million Bridges to Enduring Livelihood campaign as MEDA president All Sauder looks on. (MEDA photo by Steve Sugrim)
Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA) raised a record $6.5 million from donors in the past year, president Allan Sauder told the group’s annual meeting in Vancouver Nov. 2 to 5.
The Anabaptist prayer book, Take Our Moments and Our Days, is now available as a mobile app.
Members of the AMBS community gather in the Chapel of the Word for weekly prayers with Take Our Moments and Our Days, an Anabaptist prayer book published by Herald Press in collaboration with the Institute of Mennonite Studies. (Photo by Annette Brill Bergstresser)
The Anabaptist prayer book, Take Our Moments and Our Days, published by Herald Press.
Users in 15 countries across six continents have downloaded a new free mobile app version of Take Our Moments and Our Days: An Anabaptist Prayer Book in the four weeks since its launch on Oct. 23, 2017.
These displaced families, who are staying in the Kikwit District of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, wait to receive a month’s supply of food and non-food emergency assistance, including flour, beans, oil, sugar, salt, tarps and soap. (MCC photo by Fidele Kyanza)
Monique Meta, who is a leader of displaced people who received food and shelter supplies from the Mennonite Church of Congo, stands with the supply of food she received at the Nov. 29 distribution in the town of Tshikapa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A widow, she and her nine children lost all their belongings because of violence in Kamonya, where she lived. (MCC photo by Fidele Kyanza)
Displaced people who recently received food and shelter supplies distributed by Mennonite churches in the Kasai region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) have seen unimaginable horrors.
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) campaigners Setsuko Thurlow, Ray Acheson and Cesar Jaramillo call on Canada to join a UN nuclear weapons ban at a press conference in Toronto on Oct. 27, 2017. Jaramillo is the executive director of Project Ploughshares, a Mennonite Central Committee partner. (Photo courtesy of Paula Cardenas)
Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) congratulates Project Ploughshares, a member of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), on winning the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. Project Ploughshares, of which MCC is a member, was started 42 years ago by a former MCC service worker, Ernie Regehr.
Phil Monture, Six Nations land claims researcher, speaks at 50 Kent Avenue in Kitchener, Ont., on Oct. 26, about the Haldimand Tract that was promised to Six Nations in the late 1700s. (Photo by Dave Rogalsky)
The community room at 50 Kent Ave. in Kitchener had standing room only on Oct. 26, with more than 180 adults of all ages there to listen to Phil Monture.
To celebrate Steinbach (Man.) Mennonite Church’s 75 years of worship and ministry, pastors and congregants planted a peace pole in front of its current building on Loewen Boulevard on Nov. 12. Next spring, a garden and bench will be installed. (Steinbachonline.com photo by Lothar Dueck)
Steinbach Mennonite Church celebrated its 75th anniversary over the Sept. 30-Oct. 1 weekend.
Filmmaker Peter von Gunten, Münster parish official Marlise Hubschmied and Bern Mennonite Church Pastor Dorothea Loosli discuss von Gunten’s 2005 Anabaptist documentary “In Life and Beyond Life” on Nov. 11, before the request for forgiveness offered by Bern government councillor and director of churches Christoph Neuhaus. (Photo by Knoche)
It can’t change the past, but it can impact the future.
In surprise comments delivered in early November 2017, a government official in Bern, Switzerland, requested forgiveness for persecution by the church and state of Anabaptists centuries earlier.
While plenty of Mennonites have played the “Mennonite game”—the Anabaptist version of six degrees of separation—only a select few have played Mark Eash Hershberger’s version. But that’s about to change.
At the MC Saskatchewan Equipping Day Abby Heinrichs and her father Steve tell their personal stories in a workshop entitled ‘In your light, we see light: The church and Indigenous solidarity.’ (Photo by Donna Schulz)
Claire Ewert Fisher indicates the four quadrants of the spirituality wheel in her workshop, “Spirituality in work clothes.” All four quadrants are needed to achieve balance in the church, she says. (Photo by Donna Schulz)
Cindy Wallace asks participants in her ‘Anabaptist heroes’ workshop to consider people in their own lives who reflect Anabaptist values. (Photo by Donna Schulz)
Todd Hanson offers pointers for effective cross-cultural communication in his workshop, “Don’t be a culture monkey,” at MC Saskatchewan’s annual Equipping Day. (Photo by Donna Schulz)
Setting goals is a good practice, but how does a faith community translate those goals into reality?
While visiting Ethiopia recently, Darrell Jantzi and John Peters heard that Meserete Kristos Church (MKC) has continued to grow and now numbers 310,877 baptized members, an increase of 4.5 percent over last year.
