How photo of Alan Kurdi inspired Canadian sponsors
On September 2, 2015, the heartbreaking picture of Alan Kurdi’s body on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea was a wake-up call to the world concerning the plight of refugees. In the nine months between September of last year and the end of June 2016, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Canada assisted in the arrival of…
Why aren’t we telling these stories?
It has been my experience that the church of Jesus Christ is chock-full of glorious stories of the power and presence of our Lord. It’s also my experience that many of these stories remain untold. The church is poorer for this silence. Why aren’t we telling these stories? Lend me a moment to share a…
Warm but not fuzzy in 2050
Climate change has been on the agenda of our global village for a generation. The science, the discourse and the mood have shifted over time. As has reality. What was once a dark cloud in the distance has become an atmospheric river overhead. At this particular moment, with the so-called “last chance” UN climate conference…
Learning from my Grosspa about the voice of God
In my earliest recollection Jacob Janzen was 60-something. He was not the oldest person I knew and rather undistinguished. He came walking tiredly up the sidewalk to the house in his rubber boots and a kepi—the sort of hat factory workers wore in the 60s, not quite a ball cap, but billed with a pill-box…
An ‘accidental’ visiting scholar
Like a gem miner with a headlamp, Natalyia Venger scans microfilms, hunting for treasures rescued from Russian archives now stored at the Mennonite Heritage Archives (MHA) in Winnipeg. She is here from Ukraine to study Mennonite colonies under Russian nationalism in the early 20th century. It was a time of great upheaval for Mennonites. She…
No limits
I walked into my curling club for the first time in 11 months and saw my team preparing to go out on the ice. I immediately teared up, telling them, “I’m so happy to be here, I think I’m going to cry!” We shared a laugh and hugs, and revelled in the moment of our…
A Place for Hate
Hate – Ryan Dueck “My cellmate said a wild thing the other day; he told me that the word ‘hate’ is in the Bible, somewhere in the Old Testament. I told him he was full of s—, that God doesn’t hate, he only loves.” This was the first comment that emerged around the circle at…
Holy moments at the bottom of the world
Zoe Matties describes the four months she spent taking groups on tours between Argentina, the Falkland Islands, Georgia and Antarctica with One Ocean Expeditions as “holy moments.” “It’s just this vast, mountainous, ice-covered piece of land in the middle of nowhere,” she enthuses in a phone interview from her home in Winnipeg. “Often, we’d go…
MLK’s daughter seeks nonviolent Ferguson response
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. The students seemed…
Hospitality to strangers
Next to the Toronto Blue Jays, nothing more has gotten our attention as Anabaptist Mennonites than the greatest refugee crisis in the modern age, with more than 50 million displaced persons—the greatest number since the Second World War. With our own history of resettlement during the past century, this has become our defining spiritual moment.…
