After more than two months of being closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the 10 Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) British Columbia thrift shops were reopening with limited... Read More
News & Stories
Despite the rain, customers line up patiently to enter the Mennonite Central Committee Centre thrift shop in Abbotsford on re-opening day, May 25. Thrift shops in B.C. had been closed since mid-March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo by Amy Rinner Waddell)
June 3, 2020 | News | Amy Rinner Waddell
Camps across the country are cancelling their summer programs. (Photo courtesy of Facebook.com/CampSqueah)
Camp Squeah of Hope, B.C. has cancelled its 2020 camping season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In a May 15 statement, camp director Rob Tiessen wrote, “In order to best ensure the... Read More
June 3, 2020 | News | Amy Rinner Waddell and Ross W. Muir
The original diaries of Johannes D. Dyck (1826-1898) tell, among other things, the stories of his adventures in America, including an escape from an ambush during the California Gold Rush. (Photo by Conrad Stoesz)
A Mennonite man escapes an ambush during the California Gold Rush because he had a fast horse. We know his story because he left behind a set of diaries. Another Mennonite stuffs... Read More
June 3, 2020 | News | Janet Bauman
(Photo by Aaron Epp)
The coronavirus pandemic has shut down concert venues and sports stadiums. Even movie theatres have locked their doors. Over the past several months, many people have found... Read More
June 3, 2020 | People | Nicolien Klassen-Wiebe
Variety show host Jungle June, aka June Miller, entertains the women at the 2014 MC Alberta women’s retreat. (Photo by Helena Ball)
Mennonite Church Alberta is sad to say goodbye this summer to June Miller. Not only has she served the regional church as its first communications coordinator, she has also used... Read More
June 3, 2020 | People | Joanne De Jong
Helen Martens, the first music professor at Conrad Grebel University College, plays the piano and leads a Grebel choir in 1969. (Photo by David L. Hunsberger / Mennonite Archives of Ontario)
Helen Martens, Conrad Grebel University College’s first music faculty member, passed away on April 9 at the age of 92, surrounded by family in Winnipeg. She last visited Grebel in... Read More
June 3, 2020 | Web First |
Michel Monette, catalyzer minister for Mennonite Church Eastern Canada, back row centre, is pictured with the Centre Bethésda Mennonite de Quebec, a French-speaking church plant. (Photo by Charles Tebena)
Serge Gravel describes meeting with other French Anabaptists online like getting a dose of Vitamin C fortified with Vitamin D and zinc, in order to gain spiritual victory and... Read More
June 2, 2020 | Web First | Janet Bauman
(Image by 微博/微信：愚木混株/Pixabay)
With stay-at-home orders being lifted across much of the U.S. and Canada, churches are thinking about what it will look like to open their doors again. Yet because the COVID-19... Read More
June 1, 2020 | Web First |
(Image by Pexels/Pixabay)
One of the most potent ways we cope with hardship is by singing and praying together. Amid the loss of in-person gathering, congregations have shown a tremendous amount of... Read More
June 1, 2020 | Web First |
"Everyone has their own needs, their own ways of engaging with film..." (Image by Jan Vašek/Pixabay)
Looking for a movie to watch? Sue Sorensen has some suggestions for you. Sorensen, an English professor at Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg, is featured in a series of... Read More
May 29, 2020 | Web First | Aaron Epp
Tha Thi Ke stands in her family’s first cornfield in Vietnam’s Phu Tho Province. In 2001, MCC encouraged farmers to grow winter corn crops and find other ways to supplement income from their rice yields, helping them remain on their land rather than being forced to migrate. (MCC photo by Jack Leonard)
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) has scaled up its work to respond to the global crisis, increasing projects related to water, hygiene and... Read More
May 27, 2020 | Web First | Laura Kalmar
An aerial view of Sandy-Saulteaux Spiritual Centre, an Indigenous ministry training centre near Beausejour, Man. The centre receives money from the Jubilee Fund. (Photo courtesy of sandysaulteaux.ca)
In 1990, as the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival on this side of the Atlantic loomed, Mennonites felt compelled to do something tangible. The Conference of Mennonites in... Read More
May 25, 2020 | Web First | Will Braun
Lydia Ann (Horst) Bauman is pictured with her granddaughter’s dog at a celebration for her 104th birthday in the summer of 2019. CM wonders if she is our oldest reader. (Photo by Lucy Goshow)
Lydia Ann (nee Horst) Bauman may be Canadian Mennonite ’s oldest reader. At 104 years of age she still reads the magazine in her assisted-living suite at Fairview Seniors... Read More
May 20, 2020 | People | Janet Bauman
Bev Suderman-Gladwell, right, and her son Nathan model some of the gowns sewed for frontline workers by a group of volunteers in Waterloo Region. The group has also added scrub caps and masks to the lists of supplies its members are sewing. (Photo by Andrea Deering Nagy)
When Bev Suderman-Gladwell was asked by a physician friend to “leverage her Mennonite connections,” to respond to a time-sensitive need, she had no way of knowing an “... Read More
May 20, 2020 | News | Janet Bauman
Vic Winter is back at home with a new outlook and a new beard. He says he is keeping it. (Photo by Marilyn Winter)
Vic Winter was admitted to hospital in Leamington on March 20. In short order his wife Marilyn was sent home while he was sent to the intensive-care unit at the Windsor Regional... Read More
May 20, 2020 | People | Zach Charbonneau
Sami and Amina (real names withheld for security purposes) were displaced from their home in Aleppo, Syria. This photo was taken in February 2018 in the home where the family of seven lives in Breike, in the Qalamoun valley. They receive monthly food packages from MCC through local partners. (MCC photo by Emily Loewen)
A century ago, bread was the beginning of the work of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). Relief kitchens in Ukraine (then southern Russia) fed families who had been displaced and... Read More
May 20, 2020 | News | Vurayayi Pugeni
Arnie Nickel leads a 45-minute exercise session for seniors on Zoom. (Screenshot by Howard Giles)
Three times a week, Arnie Nickel leads a 45-minute exercise session for seniors on Zoom, a virtual-meeting app. Participants are enthusiastic and their numbers are growing. It all... Read More
May 20, 2020 | News | Donna Schulz
Johann E. Funk took the cover photo for Mennonite Village Photography: Views from Manitoba 1890–1940 in 1903.
Hundred-year-old images on fragile glass negatives, discovered in a dusty barn in the heritage village of Neubergthal, Man., open a window to Mennonite life in Manitoba in the... Read More
May 20, 2020 | News | Nicolien Klassen-Wiebe
Columbia Bible College student Claire Dueck, right, and new best friend Sarah Trentalance. (Photo courtesy of Claire Dueck)
Every year Mennonite Church Alberta offers education bursaries to students who attend a regional-church congregation who have successfully enrolled in a Mennonite or Anabaptist... Read More
May 20, 2020 | People | Joanne De Jong
Garry Janzen, executive minister of MC B.C., keeps in touch with members of his condo complex through the Nextdoor.ca app. (Photo courtesy of Garry Janzen)
Garry Janzen and his wife Diane, who live in a condominium in Ladner, B.C., have found a new way to relate to those around them during the current pandemic: the Nextdoor.ca app... Read More
May 20, 2020 | News | Amy Rinner Waddell
Many offline Mennonites are staying connected by phone. (Image by Alexas_Fotos/Pixabay)
When the novel coronavirus pandemic hit, life went online. From school classes to fitness workouts to worship services, everything started streaming on the web. But what happens... Read More
May 19, 2020 | Web First | Nicolien Klassen-Wiebe
Mike Wiebe filmed the video for 'Letters' at his church. (Photo courtesy of YouTube)
Singer-songwriter Mike Wiebe has given the public a taste of his new project. The Winnipeg musician released a video for his song “Letters” last Friday. It’s the first single from... Read More
May 15, 2020 | Web First | Aaron Epp
Kingsfield-Zurich Mennonite Church, pictured last month. (Photo courtesy of Instagram.com/kingsfieldzmc)
Earlier this spring, Mennonite Church Eastern Canada released the following statement: “We announce with great sadness Kingsfield-Clinton and Kingsfield-Zurich Mennonite Church,... Read More
May 12, 2020 | Web First | Janet Bauman
‘Our separation as churches at this time is difficult, but it also presents an opportunity to take a step back and think critically about what it means to be the church,’ says Kim Penner, who sits on the planning committee for Mennonite Church Canada's upcoming study conference. (Photo courtesy of YouTube)
Mennonite Church Canada is moving ahead with its first study conference in October 2020. Titled “Table Talk: Does the Church Still Have Legs?”, the conference will examine what it... Read More
May 11, 2020 | Web First |
Ken Esau, professor of Old Testament at Columbia Bible College, blows a ram’s horn as he addresses the graduating class on what it means to seek first God’s kingdom. (Screen grab of Columbia Bible College 2020 commencement ceremony (YouTube))
Graduation for Columbia Bible College’s class of 2020 looked a little different this year. Rather than proudly walking across the stage in cap and gown to receive their diplomas,... Read More
May 6, 2020 | News | Amy Rinner Waddell