Liz Klassen felt the need to correct the rumour going around among the seniors that the play Cracked made fun of folk with dementia. Klassen, executive director of the Nithview Community in New Hamburg, operated by Tri-County Mennonite Homes, notes that the name of the play comes from Leonard Cohen’s 1992 song "Anthem" from his album The Future:
A collection of resources for conversations about sexuality is emerging from work of the faculty of Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS).
Next year’s MWC Assembly will feature exuberant singing by people from around the world. (Credit: Merle Good)
In less than a year from now, our sisters and brothers from around the world, and from across North America, will be coming to Harrisburg to worship and fellowship with us. PA 2015, the Mennonite World Conference Assembly, will be held at the Farm Show Complex, July 21-26, 2015.
Babu Ayindo (standing, center) and Doreen Ruto, both Kenyan graduates of EMU's Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, co-facilitated the summertime training of USAID employees in South Sudan’s capital city, Juba, along with CJP staff. (Photo courtesy of Elaine Zook Barge)
Nearly 100 people in South Sudan, all employees of the U.S. government, recently benefited from intensive trauma awareness and resilience trainings facilitated by Eastern Mennonite University.
Author and disability advocate Joni Eareckson Tada (Photo courtesy of Joni Eareckson Tada)
It has been heartbreaking these last few days to hear the story of Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old, beautiful young woman diagnosed with a glioblastoma brain tumor and given only a few months to live. The saddest part of the story for me, however, is not her prognosis, but her decision to end her life prematurely on Nov. 1 through physician-assisted suicide.
Nearly nine years ago, I lay in a hospital bed with a sleeping baby in my arms, engulfed by fear. Mine wasn’t the typical anxiety of new mothers. We had just received a diagnosis of Down syndrome for our daughter Penny, and for a while I felt as though I had been swept out into an ocean.
Cindy Klassen, Canadian speed skater, Olympic and world champion, is scheduled to participate in Mennonite-sponsored events in the Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont. region.
In response to urgent appeals from the Supreme Council of the Evangelical Community in Syria and Lebanon and from the Middle East Council of Churches, Mennonite World Conference issued a call for “a shower of prayer, solidarity and blessing” to MWC member churches.
Loren Johns
Mennonite Church Canada has added a new resource to the list of documents for study and discussion in the Being a Faithful Church (BFC) process. The BFC Task Force asked Loren Johns, Professor of New Testament at Anabaptist Biblical Seminary, to share his thoughts on the topic of the scripture and sexuality. In a video presentation Johns addresses three main points:
Colleen McFarland
The recent announcement of the completion of the John Howard Yoder Digital Library, a collaborative project undertaken by the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary Library, the Mennonite Church USA Archives, and the Mennonite Historical Library, provoked strong reactions.
Jonathan Bornman met with Chief Imam Olarewaju on Friday, July 18, 2014. Standing outside the central mosque of the Anwar Ul-Islam Movement of Nigeria (front row, left to right): Rev. Dr. Daddy D.S. Ibulubo, Jonathan Bornman, Chief Imam Olarewaju, Aloysius Godfrey, and the assistant to the imam. (Photo provided by Jonathan Bornman)
More than 250 Bible school leaders met for “life-changing” seminars on building relationships with Muslims during the Africa Association of Bible Schools (AABS) annual two-day conference in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in July 2014. Jonathan Bornman and David Shenk of Eastern Mennonite Mission’s Christian/Muslim Relations Team led the seminars.
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Five months after Boko Haram abducted more than 200 girls in Nigeria’s Borno State, the Islamic extremist group has begun occupying churches in the country’s northeastern region, church officials there said.
The Rev. Bernice King, CEO of The King Center in Atlanta, daughter of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., speaking at the Newseum on Aug. 22, 2013. (Credit: Adelle M. Banks/Religion News Service)
The youngest child of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. leaned toward the 30 students facing her inside the library at Riverview Gardens High School on Aug. 26. Many of them live near the epicenter of the chaos that erupted in Ferguson. It’s why Bernice King chose this school for this discussion.
In “Differently gifted,” Will Braun discusses the high emotional stakes related to the closure of facilities for people with intellectual disabilities. Here are more items he collected.
The Freedom Tour trailer
Construction managers Herb Schaan left, and Gerry Harms stand in the renovated sanctuary of Douglas Mennonite Church in Winnipeg. (Credit: Deborah Froese)
When Douglas Mennonite Church decided to undertake an extensive renovation of their Winnipeg facility two years ago, they took tithing to a whole new level. They promised to donate 10 percent of the total construction funds raised to Mennonite Church Canada for a global building initiative.
Fourteen-year-old Yusuf Yahiat carries a food package distributed by MCC partner Zakho Small Villages Project at the Garmawa Camp for displaced people in northern Iraq. Like most people living in the camp, Yusuf and his family fled the city of Mosul after its takeover by the militant group that now calls itself Islamic State. (Photo: MCC / Ryan Rodrick Beiler)
Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) and partner organizations continue to meet the needs of families displaced by conflict in Iraq with a mid-July distribution of locally purchased food and personal hygiene items.
In “Finding ways to share this land of plenty,” Will Braun explains the two Supreme Court of Canada decisions concerning the Tsilhqot’in people (B.C.) and Grassy Narrows (Ont.). Here are more items related to these cases.
Hayden holds forth
Wesley Hill is a New Testament professor at the Trinity School for Ministry and author of "Washed and Waiting," a book on being gay and celibate. (Photo by Rebecca Murden, courtesy of Trinity School for Ministry)
When Julie Rodgers came out as a lesbian at age 17, her mom responded by taking her to an ex-gay ministry in Dallas. Rodgers had grown up in a nondenominational evangelical church where she assumed being gay wasn’t an option.
Between July 28 and 31, Mennonite Church Canada hosted Native Assembly 2014 in Winnipeg.
Emily Wirzba, program assistant for energy and environment, held a sign to help people with the words as they sang in Washington, D.C., on July 29, 2014. (RNS photo by Heather Adams)
More than two dozen faith leaders rallied at public hearings hosted by the Environmental Protection Agency (U.S.A.) to testify in support of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan to cut greenhouse gases.
Michael Born (left), Nathan Martin and Matthew Steinman sing in their award-winning rap video.
A video produced by two teenagers from Waterloo and Kitchener, Ont., won first place in the first Cornelius Krahn Mennonite Multimedia Contest for high school students.
Descendants of Peter and Elizabeth Tiessen gathered to celebrate 90 years since their ancestors arrived in Canada. (Photo: Martin Rahn)
On July 19, 2014, a “Dankfest” (festival of thanksgiving) was held at the farm of John and Janice Harder in New Hamburg, Ont., to commemorate the arrival to Canada of the Peter and Elizabeth Tiessen family from Blumstein, Ukraine. The event was also a thank-you to the Aaron Hoffman family from Heidelberg, Ont., who had hosted the Tiessen family when they arrived in Waterloo County in 1924.
Paul Heidebrecht
Paul Heidebrecht has been named director of the new Mennonite Savings and Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement (CPA) at Conrad Grebel University College.
If Christians stopped bickering about church, presenting sex as a first-order concern, telling other people how to lead their lives and lending our name to minor-league politicians, what would we have to say?
We need to figure that out, because we are wearing out our welcome as tax-avoiding, sex-obsessed moral scolds and amateur politicians.
While the violence escalates in Israel and Gaza, a movement is taking hold that unites Jews, Muslims and others in a campaign for peace.
On Tuesday, July 15, 2014, a daylong fast is planned as part of a public effort to show unity in the fight against war and violence in the region.
