Aleksandr Dmitriyenko holds MCC comforters he received in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, in 2016 during distribution to people displaced by violence in the eastern part of the country. (MCC photo by Colin Vandenberg)
Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) will kick off its 100-year anniversary celebration in 2020 by bringing together volunteers in Canada, the United States and Europe to make 6,500 comforters in one day.
Refresh Mobile Showers has provided more than 550 showers since May 1. (Photo courtesy of YouTube)
When Henry Penner saw a need in his community, he decided to meet that need.
The Abbotsford, B.C. resident, along with King Road Mennonite Brethren Church, operates a mobile shower trailer for people who are experiencing homelessness.
Refresh Mobile Showers has provided more than 550 showers since the unique operation started almost eight months ago.
'Growing up in Kansas, there was one particular cookie that was a staple at every holiday event: peppernuts.' (Photo by Kristin Hoffman/BakerBettie.com)
If you’re interested in making peppernuts this holiday season and the recipe on our website won’t cut it, you’re in luck: Kristin “Baker Bettie” Hoffman has just the thing for you.
Students in the Worship Apprentice Program at Conrad Grebel University College, including Rowan Martin (left) and Eunice Femi-Gege (right), tested their skills by leading worship at St. Agatha (Ont.) Mennonite Church on Nov. 17. (Photo by Fred W. Martin)
Students in the Worship Apprentice Program at Conrad Grebel University College come from a wide range of academic programs and church denominations. Pictured from left to right: Chris Fischer, Professor Kate Steiner, Matthias Mostert, Eunice Femi-Gege, Mykayla Turner and Rowan Martin. (Photo by Margaret Gissing)
When students in Grebel’s Worship Apprentice Program led worship at St. Agatha (Ont.) Mennonite Church in November, Colin Friesen, left, a master of theological studies student, joined them and gave the message. Also pictured, from left to right: Rowan Martin, Matthias Mostert, Yeabsra Agonfer, Eunice Femi-Gege, and Mykayla Turner. (Photo by Fred W. Martin)
Every Tuesday, a diverse team of University of Waterloo students gathers for prayer, small group discussion, song teaching and worship-service planning. These students are part of the Worship Apprentice Program offered by Conrad Grebel University College’s Music Department as a skill-building opportunity within the Church Music and Worship Program.
'When the teachers are having fun, the students pick up on it.' (Photo courtesy of YouTube)
“You Need to Calm Down” may be a song in which pop superstar Taylor Swift addresses her detractors, but in the hands of the coaching staff at Rockway Mennonite Collegiate, it’s a song about trying out for athletics.
Soba Bika Sunchiuri shows some of the vegetables she is growing in a plastic house provided by MCC, which helps her to grow plants in spite of irregular rainfall and deluges caused by climate change. (MCC photo by Luke Reesor-Keller)
With the technical help of Brethren in Community Welfare Society, Hulai Rishidev’s cabbage field is thriving. (Photo courtesy of BICWS/Mahendra Yadav)
Sunita Tamang holds her child, Emma Tamang, 2, in front of her newly built plastic house and the drip irrigation system she will use to grow vegetables in South Lalitpur, Nepal. (MCC photo by Avash Karki)
The weather patterns in Nepal used to be regular about 15 to 20 years ago, says Durga Sunchiuri, who grew up helping his parents farm their land in the mountainous terraces of Nepal’s Terhathum District. Not anymore.
David Widdicombe, an Anglican priest, left, and Gordon Zerbe, professor of New Testament at CMU, answer questions. (Photos by Beth Downey-Sawatzky)
David Widdicombe, an Anglican priest, says that the climate crisis demands that Christians turn their primary theological and devotional attentions to three tasks: mitigation of ecological damage, adaptation to climate change, and suffering, which is inevitable.
Singer-songwriter Steve Bell performed at the opening and close of CMU’s climate-change lecture.
Students, scholars and community members alike filled Marpeck Commons at Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) on Nov. 13, hoping to lay a firmer hold on one essential subject: Actionable theology for the age of climate change.
People in Montreal experiencing homelessness have access to 30 mattresses at Care Montreal, an outreach program of Hochma church. (Photo courtesy of YouTube)
Montreal has been hit with unseasonably cold weather this month, and a Mennonite Church Eastern Canada (MCEC) congregation is doing what it can to help members of the city’s homeless population get by.
Hochma church is the home to Care Montreal, an outreach program that opens its doors to around 30 people every night. The program gives folks food to eat and a place to sleep.
Women talk about concerns facing them in their village, giving a representative from the women's advocacy group information to share with representatives from other villages, in this 2014 photo. Together the representatives decide what issues to take to the mayor. (Photo courtesy of ANADES)
Ana Iris Constante says she used to be nervous just to introduce herself.
She would never have guessed that one day she would be part of a group of women that makes regular trips to the mayor’s office with petitions in hand—a group of women that insist on having a voice. Although they are often met with rejection, they no longer fear it.
In a new video, folks from Ontario Mennonite Music Camp demonstrate how to say “Peace be with you” in nine languages. (Photo courtesy of YouTube)
Peace Sunday is coming up on Nov. 10 and Ontario Mennonite Music Camp has created a resource to help churches mark the occasion.
In the short video below, OMMC campers and staff demonstrate how to say “Peace be with you” in Amharic, French, German, Lao, Mandarin, Spanish and three other languages.
The first class at Meserete Kristos College in 1994. (Photo courtesy of MK College Public Relations)
Students and faculty enjoy coffee time at the first campus, 1997. (Photo courtesy of MK College Public Relations)
The Promised Land: Five hectares given as a permanent home for MK College as seen in the fall of 2000. Pictured from left to right: Mulugeta Zewdie, the college’s executive secretary, Mervin Charles and Susan Godshall of Eastern Mennonite Missions, and Linda and Bob Hovde, Mennonite Central Committee Ethiopia representatives. (Photo courtesy of MK College Public Relations)
The MK College campus as viewed from the west in 2019. (Photo by Henok Tamerat)
The MK College campus as viewed from the east in 2019. (Photo by Henok Tamerat)
Current Bishoftu campus as seen from the air. (Photo courtesy of Google Maps, with captions added by John Buckwalter)
The beginning of 2019 marked the silver anniversary of Meserete Kristos College.
A stack of 780 songs greeted members of the Mennonite Worship and Song Committee when they arrived for their final meeting. (Photos courtesy of MennoMedia)
Committee members pictured from left to right, front row: Tom Harder, Shana Peachey Boshart, Anneli Loepp Thiessen, Katie Graber, Amy Gingerich and Benjamin Bergey; and back row: Adam Tice, Sarah Johnson, Doug Klassen, Cynthia Neufeld Smith, Allan Rudy-Froese, Mike Erb, Bradley Kauffman, Paul Dueck and Darryl Neustaedter Barg.
Committee members Tom Harder and Mike Erb provide accompaniment for the singing.
Benjamin Bergy, Katie Graber, Anneli Loepp Thiessen and Cynthia Neufeld Smith test out different versions of a piano accompaniment for a song.
Sarah Johnson and Doug Klassen discuss the visual art that will be part of Voices Together.
A stack of paper containing 780 songs and a binder of 320 worship resources greeted each member of the Voices Together committee when they arrived for their 10th and final committee meeting in early October.
Kelsey Enns is leading a Bible study in Winnipeg that asks the questions, “How is our faith shaped by our history?” and, “Can we decolonize how we read the Bible?” (Photo by Nicolien Klassen-Wiebe)
A Bible study in Winnipeg is asking the questions, “How is our faith shaped by our history?” and, “Can we decolonize how we read the Bible?”
An old German Bible, top, and Gesangbuch, once treasured by their owners, are now part of Tim Martens Bible Collection Project. (Photos by Donna Schulz)
Tim Martens carefully unwraps a pair of tattered-looking old books. One is an ancient German Bible, its text printed in fine Gothic script, the other an old Gesangbuch or songbook.
The 2018-19 Westgate Concert Choir inside the Ralph Connor House. (Photo courtesy of YouTube)
The 2018-19 Westgate Mennonite Collegiate Concert Choir has something to help get you into a playful Halloween spirit.
Last June, the choir filmed a video for its rendition of “Hall of Snarky Ghosts,” a song written and arranged by Westgate alumnus Dan Wiebe. The school uploaded the video to YouTube last month.
Mennonite Church Canada is alive and well, says Doug Klassen, MC Canada's executive minister. (Photo courtesy of YouTube)
Mennonite Church Canada isn’t finished, disbanded, archived or dead.
That’s the message Doug Klassen, MC Canada’s executive minister, delivers in a video uploaded to YouTube this past Friday.
Charleswood Mennonite Church commemorated its newly created affirmation statement with a special worship service. (Photo by Nicolien Klassen-Wiebe)
Cupcakes of all colours of the rainbow were part of Charleswood Mennonite’s ‘coming out’ service. (Photo by Nicolien Klassen-Wiebe)
On Sept. 22, Charleswood Mennonite Church in Winnipeg celebrated “coming out” as a church that welcomes and affirms people of every gender and sexual orientation into its community with special worship service celebrating its newly created affirmation statement.
Worshippers sing at Mennonite Church Canada's Assembly 2016 in Saskatoon. "We sing... because it is a unique corporate experience," music professor Curtis Funk says. (MC Canada file photo by Matt Veith)
“I turned the key and the stillness of the morning was shattered by the uneven rumbling of the engine. Everything was ready for the day’s work. In a few minutes, the pickup would drive onto the farmyard and empty its load of Mexican labourers. But for now I was alone. I eased the clutch out and the tractor lurched forward, pulling the portable packing shed behind it into the orchard.
Mennonite Central Committee has helped people around the world since 1920. (Photo courtesy of YouTube)
Mennonite Central Committee is gearing up to celebrate its centennial next year, and the relief organization has started producing a number of articles and videos to mark the occasion.
You can watch one of those videos—a three-minute-long piece that covers MCC’s history from 1920 until the present day—below.
A Civilian Public Service worker serves patients at New Jersey State Hospital in Marlboro, circa 1945. (Mennonite Central Committee photo via CivilianPublicService.org)
Thirteen Anabaptist church groups in the United States have sent a joint letter to an independent U.S. federal agency making a strong statement of conscientious objection to war and military service, expressing gratitude for religious freedom guaranteed in the U.S. and urging the freedom not to participate in the military.
Antonio Gonzalez, a member of the Faith and Life Commission from Spain, and Adriana Belinda Rodriguez, a member of the Peace Commission from Honduras, chat during the MWC commission meetings in the Netherlands earlier this year. (Photo by Vikal Rao)
Approximately 40 leaders and members of the four Mennonite World Conference (MWC) commissions met together in the Netherlands for three days in late June for a time of face-to-face discussion, reflection, worship and strategic planning to advance the mission of MWC.
Participants in Camp Squeah’s 2019 paddle-a-thon enjoy pleasant weather on the water, raising funds for the camp’s summer bursary program. (Photo courtesy of Camp Squeah)
Rowers and paddlers in Camp Squeah’s annual paddle-a-thon reached their goal, raising over $51,000 on Sept. 21 and bringing the total over the past 21 years to just over $1 million.
Thousands gathered at the Manitoba legislative building last Friday to join the global climate strike. Moses Falco, pastor at Sterling Mennonite Fellowship, made a video about the event. (Photo courtesy of YouTube)
More than 10,000 people in Winnipeg joined the global climate strike last Friday, Sept. 27, including a strong showing of Manitoba Mennonites.
In the video below, Moses Falco—pastor at Sterling Mennonite Fellowship—shares footage from the Winnipeg strike, as well as a multi-faith prayer event that preceded it.
Andre Wiederkehr with his bicycle and homemade trailer. (Conrad Grebel University College photo)
This September, Andre Wiederkehr moved into the Conrad Grebel University College residence at the University of Waterloo in a unique way—he biked.
The second-year science student cycled the 90 km. from his home near Mildmay, Ont. to Grebel in Waterloo, a trip that took him nearly eight hours. He transported everything that he would need to live at Grebel in a homemade bike trailer.
Jaime Escobar Villa, technical manager at Trabold, shows where the newly installed filters are located in the vehicle. (Photo courtesy of MEDA.org)
The climate crisis is top of mind for many these days, so here’s a story about Maureauto Colombia (AVIS), a car rental company in Bogotá, Colombia that is reducing its environmental impact.
