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,... Read More
News & Stories
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)
May 7, 2021 | Web First | Aaron Epp
(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: This week our siblings in... Read More
May 6, 2021 | Web First |
Jehu Lian, a Mennonite pastor, and his wife, Ma Bawi, show solidarity with the people suffering repression in Myanmar. The three-finger salute—adapted from the Hunger Games film—has become a common symbol of freedom, defiance and solidarity in Myanmar and among pro-democracy movements elsewhere in Southeast Asia. (Photo courtesy of Jehu Lian and Ma Bawi)
Amid mass protests, lethal military response and UN warnings of Myanmar becoming a “new Syria,” one Mennonite source in the country said, “We are in darkness, full of fear and... Read More
May 5, 2021 | News | Will Braun
Jaxon Gin, a children’s ministry member of Toronto Chinese Mennonite Church, is pictured with a stained-glass cross he made. (Photo by Grace Ho)
“Let us consider how we may spur one another toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the... Read More
May 5, 2021 | News | Christen Kong
Craig Frere takes in MC Eastern Canada’s spring gathering from his backyard. This was the second year the annual event was held online due to pandemic restrictions. (Photo courtesy of Craig Frere)
How is the church like kimchi? At Mennonite Church Eastern Canada’s spring gathering, held virtually on April 23 and 24, many of the more than 250 in attendance tried making the... Read More
May 5, 2021 | News | Janet Bauman
Liz Baerwald estimates that Zoar Mennonite women and men donated more than 5,900 comforters to Mennonite Central Committee since 1962. In the foreground, Liz and husband Greg knot a quilt together, while, in the background, Erna Funk, left, and Pastor Andrea Enns-Gooding work on another. (Photo by Anna Penz)
“It was not a sudden oh-my-goodness-what-are-we-going-to-do conversation,” says Liz Baerwald of her church’s decision to close. As she sees it, the conversation began more than a... Read More
May 5, 2021 | News | Donna Schulz
Don Engbrecht has built around 200 works, including this Easter sculpture. (Photo courtesy of Don Engbrecht)
Old agricultural equipment left to languish in junkyards or alongside highways gets a second life in Don Engbrecht’s workshop. He has created approximately 200 works over the 20... Read More
May 5, 2021 | People | Nicolien Klassen-Wiebe
Walking alongside people with mental illness includes offering a listening ear and a non-judgmental attitude, say family members. (Photo by Amy Rinner Waddell)
With one in five Canadians experiencing mental illness in any year, according to the Canadian Mental Health Association, it is likely that most people might be called upon to... Read More
May 5, 2021 | Focus on Mental Health | Amy Rinner Waddell
Pastor Caleb Kowalko relaxes at the MC Alberta pastors and leaders retreat, held last November at the King’s Fold Retreat and Renewal Centre, west of Cochrane. (Photo courtesy of Caleb Kowalko)
Over the past year, everyone—pastors included—found themselves in situations requiring problem solving and emotional fortitude. Pastor Ken Tse, from Edmonton Christian Life... Read More
May 5, 2021 | Focus on Mental Health | Joanne De Jong
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... Read More
May 4, 2021 | Web First | Katie Doke Sawatzky
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... Read More
May 4, 2021 | Web First | John Longhurst
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)
Nutana Park Mennonite Church in Saskatoon came up with a creative way to celebrate Easter and care for their congregation at the same time. They called the event a paska faspa ,... Read More
May 3, 2021 | Web First | Donna Schulz
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,... Read More
May 3, 2021 | Web First | Katie Doke Sawatzky
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... Read More
April 21, 2021 | Web First | Katie Doke Sawatzky
A proposed federal law to criminalize conversion therapy is creating controversy, not because anyone is openly defending the practice of seeking to convert LGBTQ+ people to... Read More
April 21, 2021 | News | Will Braun
The Canadian Christian Communicators Association again took to Zoom for its sophomore Awards of Merit ceremony, held on April 7. A total of 20 Canadian magazines, newspapers and... Read More
April 21, 2021 | News |
The building that has served Hanley (Sask.) Mennonite Church since 1956. (Photo courtesy of MC Saskatchewan website)
“I understand this as part of the life cycle of the church,” says Gary Peters. “We’ve been in the process of aging, now we’re in the process of dying.” This may be a painful way... Read More
April 21, 2021 | News | Donna Schulz
Byron Wiebe welcomes people to the Crossroads Community Church drive-through event on Easter weekend. (Photo by Cory Buettner)
Members of Chilliwack’s Crossroads Community Church found a creative way on Easter weekend to both introduce its new pastor in person and to celebrate Easter with the community... Read More
April 21, 2021 | News | Amy Rinner Waddell
Peace activists, Sahar Vardi, right, a Jewish Israeli, and Tarek Al-Zoughbi, a Christian Palestinian, are pictured during their cross-Canada speaking tour in 2018 sponsored by MCC. They are also featured in ‘David and Goliath,’ an episode in MCC Ontario’s podcast, Undercurrents, which explores the history and current situation in Palestine and Israel. (File photo by Byron Rempel-Burkholder)
At its 2016 assembly, Mennonite Church Canada passed a resolution affirming nonviolent efforts of Palestinians and Israelis to overcome injustice in their region, and committing... Read More
April 21, 2021 | News | Janet Bauman
The main course of a meal made by ‘The Gourmet Girls.’ (Photo by Daunine Rachert)
Imagine if you could eat at a five-star restaurant every Saturday night, even during COVID-19. That’s what has been happening in one neighbourhood in Calgary since May 2020. A... Read More
April 21, 2021 | News | Joanne De Jong
“ Woven: Mennonite Women Together ” is the new name of the formerly titled Mennonite Women Manitoba Working Group. The group shed its long moniker as part of its rebranding this... Read More
April 21, 2021 | News | Nicolien Klassen-Wiebe
Grow Hope Niagara
Forty-one acres in Campden, Ont., are being cultivated, planted and harvested for the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, with sponsorships of $400 an acre helping to plant a crop for the... Read More
April 21, 2021 | News | Maria H. Klassen
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. The Company of 1000... Read More
April 20, 2021 | Web First |
From left to right: David Driedger, Leah Gazan, John Clarke
“ Loose the chains of injustice . . . set the oppressed free and break every yoke .” These words from Isaiah are not confined to dusty village squares thousands of years ago—they... Read More
April 7, 2021 | News | Nicolien Klassen-Wiebe
Werner De Jong was the plenary speaker at this year’s MC Alberta annual delegate sessions, held on Zoom this year. His messages focused on the theme ‘Love one another,’ as part of the regional church’s launch of its Year 2 vision: ‘Encountering, Embracing, Embodying Christ in Community.’ (Screenshot by Joanne De Jong)
Brenda Tiessen-Wiens, Mennonite Church Alberta’s moderator, said “Wow!” Peter Za Zor Sang, the secretary of the Calgary Chin Christian Church, kept repeatedly asking, “How blessed... Read More
April 7, 2021 | News | Joanne De Jong