The Executive Committee of Mennonite World Conference, pictured here in November 2020, met online last month.
“The growth of digital platforms has increased the awareness of what our [Mennonite World Conference] family is doing during the pandemic,” said Carlos Martínez García, Executive Committee member for Latin America and the Caribbean at the triannual Executive Committee meeting in April. “I realize a greater awareness that we are a global community.”
Team members, from left to right: (Back row) Josiah Neufeld, Steve Heinrichs and Allegra Friesen Epp; (front row) Emily Green and Rachelle Friesen. (MC Canada photo)
Mennonite Church Canada, together with Christian Peacemaker Teams, has responded to an invitation to accompany Unist’ot’en Camp in Wet’suwet’en Territory. This past Friday, May 28, a group comprised of CPTers and members of MC Canada arrived at the camp in northern B.C.
The team members are:
Marta Bunnett Wiebe is the editor of ‘Germinating Conversations: Stories from a Sustained Rural-Urban Dialogue on Food, Faith, Farming and Land.’ (Photo courtesy of MC Canada)
In 2012, A Rocha Manitoba, Mennonite Central Committee Manitoba and Canadian Mennonite University hosted two events with the purpose of bringing together Manitoba farmers and urban eaters to listen to each other’s perspectives on food and faith.
Frank H. Epp (Photo by David L. Hunsberger, Mennonite Archives of Ontario)
Two Mennonite organizations have reported findings of inappropriate sexual behaviour by influential leader Frank H. Epp.
Mennonite Church Eastern Canada and Mennonite Central Committee Canada (MCC) announced on May 27 that they cooperated on an investigation conducted by an independent team, based on a disclosure that was decades old and was recently brought forward again.
Four great grey owls keep watch over Camp Valaqua. (Screenshot)
Did you know that owls pant to cool off, and that they fly without making a sound?
Those are just two of the facts you’ll learn when you watch the latest edition of Ninety Seconds of Nature, a series of videos in which Camp Valaqua director Jon Olfert talks about the outdoors surrounding the camp.
Lakan Sumulong (Dann Pantoja) and Lakambini Mapayapa (Joji Pantoja) have served as Witness workers in the Philippines since 2006. (Photo courtesy of Lakan Sumulong and Lakambini Mapayapa)
Dann and Joji Pantoja, Mennonite Church Canada Witness workers in the Philippines, are embracing their Indigenous names and identities. In a statement published on their website Waves.ca in March, the Pantojas explained the colonial history their birth names represent and why their Indigenous names are significant to them.
YAMEN participant Dr. Ela Castro, left, worked as a doctor at Casa del Migrante in Guatemala City, Guatemala. (Casa del Migrante photo by Samuel Gaitan)
Dr. Ela Castro and her mother, Domicila Castro, prepare to distribute medication in December 2020. (Photo courtesy of Adalina Castro)
Dr. Ela Castro always knew she wanted to spend her life serving those in need. By all outward appearances, this is what she was doing.
She’d studied for years to earn her medical degree. She was working at a health-care clinic. She was helping people—but something was missing. She felt her heart calling her to serve, not just to work for a steady paycheque.
Shadi Alkhannous runs the take-out and delivery counter at the Alnoor Halal Food Market in St. Catherines, Ont. (Photo courtesy of Shadi Alkannous)
Refugee resettlement provides a new start for the families and individuals who have had to flee their homes due to conflict or disaster. Each of the 13,000 refugees who have been resettled in Canada through Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Canada over the last 42 years has been offered a new opportunity.
Despite rainy weather, members of Bethel Mennonite Church in Langley, B.C,. enjoyed meeting together outdoors on April 25. (Bethel Mennonite Church photo)
Bethel Mennonite Church in Langley held its first in-person service since last November, on April 25. Members gathered outdoors in the parking lot under umbrellas.
This feeding centre in Trans-Volga, Russia, circa 1922, was one of 140 MCC-supported centres in southern Russia that distributed 25,000 rations daily at the peak of the relief efforts. (Photo courtesy of Facebook.com/MCCpeace)
A video published on YouTube last month chronicles Mennonite Central Committee’s 100-year history in Europe.
The 11-minute video, which you can watch below, tells the MCC story, beginning with its first beneficiaries: refugees and families affected by war and famine in southern Russia in 1920.
(Photo supplied by Iglesia Cristiana Menonita de Colombia [IMCOL])
Late yesterday afternoon, Mennonite Church Canada released the following call to prayer, written by Jeanette Hanson, director of international witness:
Lori Guenther Reesor is a speaker, writer and consultant on stewardship practices for churches and charities.
Lori Guenther Reesor, a speaker, writer and consultant on stewardship practices for churches and charities, released her first book this spring. Growing a Generous Church: A Year in the Life of Peach Blossom Church is a story of a fictional church that learns the spiritual discipline of giving.
MDS volunteers work on renovations at the Mennonite Central Committee Indigenous Neighbours office in Timmins, Ont.
Doing Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) volunteer work in Canada during a pandemic isn’t easy—as members of the MDS Ontario Unit know only too well.
Volunteers in that province were excited last December to start working with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) to renovate its Indigenous Neighbours office in Timmins, Ont., about seven hours north of Toronto.
Sisters Marlene Froese, left, and Hedie Harder, right, with a few of the 401 paska buns they baked to share with Nutana Park Mennonite Church. (Photo by Denelda Fast)
Elisabeth Reimer, left, and Ruth Wiens, right, ice and decorate paska buns in preparation for delivery to each home in their congregation. (Photo by Denelda Fast)
Marlene Froese and Hedie Harder baked 401 paska buns to share with their congregation. (Photo by Denelda Fast)
Nutana Park Mennonite Church in Saskatoon came up with a creative way to celebrate Easter and care for their congregation at the same time.
Peace Africa’s hearse project will enable Muslim and Christians in Burkina Faso to share a vehicle similar to the one pictured. (Photo by Siaka Traoré)
“Peace Africa explores how the global Mennonite community can support peacebuilding initiatives between Christians and Muslims in African countries,” says Tany Warkentin, Mennonite Church Canada’s liaison to ministry in Africa.
Elaine Enns and Ched Myers.
In their new book Healing Haunted Histories: A Settler Discipleship of Decolonization (Cascade Books, 2021), authors and life partners Elaine Enns and Ched Myers confront hard truths about settler complicity in historic and ongoing injustices perpetrated against Indigenous peoples. They also offer a way toward healing.
Hyejung Jessie Yum, left, and Kevin Koop, right, are beneficiaries of Mennonite Church Canada’s Company of 1000 fund.
Mennonite Church Canada is renewing its call for applicants to the Company of 1000 Study Reserve fund and also for people to become regular donors to the fund.
MWC stands in solidarity with its member churches in joy and struggle. Pablo Stucky, left, speaks with members of Iglesia Hermanos Menonitas Peruana on a Deacons delegation visit after a severe flooding event. (MWC photo by Henk Stenvers)
“Hello. How can I join you?”
This question often comes through the social media accounts of Mennonite World Conference (MWC).
But what does it mean to be a member of MWC?
Students at the Bishop Mazzolari Secondary School, near Rumbek, South Sudan, all received dignity kits—Mennonite Central Committee's newest resource kit. (Photo courtesy of Loreto School)
The newest Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) resource kit will support vulnerable women and girls with dignity. The new dignity kit contains hygiene and sanitary items tailored for women and girls who don’t have ready access to the items they need, including eco-friendly, washable menstrual pads and liners.
‘It does not fall to me to judge the journey of others,’ Jane Philpott says in her TEDx talk.
In a talk posted on YouTube earlier this month, university dean and former member of parliament Jane Philpott reflects on two detours that changed her path.
During the 18-minute presentation, which you can watch below, Philpott recounts two life experiences—a personal tragedy and a professional crisis—and what she learned from them.
Jo Snyder is the author of ‘The Vegan Mennonite Kitchen,’ a new cookbook published by Pandora Press. (Photo courtesy of Jo Snyder)
Jo Snyder has moved around Canada pursuing a career in communications and toured across Europe playing punk music, but a new project has brought her back to her Mennonite roots in the Waterloo Region.
Pastor Gerald Neufeld (back row in the green long-sleeved shirt) and some of the members of the Mennonite Japanese Christian Fellowship in Surrey, B.C. (Mennonite Japanese Christian Fellowship website photo)
One month after its launch on Feb. 1, the 2021 Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) Canada Spirit of MDS Fund approved $54,900 in grants for 24 Canadian congregations and church-related organizations.
Deborah Tewelde received an award late last year given by the Province of Ontario to youth who have shown strong leadership in eliminating racial discrimination.
Deborah Tewelde, a member of Meheret Evangelical Church in Kitchener, Ont., a Mennonite Church Eastern Canada congregation, received the 2019 Lincoln M. Alexander award given by the Province of Ontario to youth who have shown strong leadership in eliminating racial discrimination.
‘It is a text that, if made flesh in Canada, would revolutionize the church’s relationship to Indigenous peoples, spiritualities and lands,’ Steve Heinrichs says of ‘Beloved Amazonia.’ (Photo by Steve Heinrichs)
Mennonite Church Canada’s Indigenous-Settler Relations program is running a five-week online book club beginning this April.
The chosen text is Beloved Amazonia, a courageous collection of documents from the Pan-Amazon Synod, including an “apostolic exhortation” to the church from Pope Francis.
‘We’re all crazy Mennonites,’ musician “Weird Al” Yankovic sang in 1996.
It’s been 25 years since legendary music parodist “Weird Al” Yankovic lampooned the Amish, mentioning Mennonites along the way.
Bad Hair Day, Yankovic’s ninth album, was released on this day in 1996. It has sold more than 2 million copies in the United States alone.
