The shepherd
I still think of myself as a shepherd. Every day, actually every night, I’m out there. I look for the lost, the wanderers and the weary, and I bring them home. It’s a living. At times, it’s easy; they know the way and I just help them along. Other times, it’s dark and cold, and…
Christmas: A time for giving
Barb and Orrie Gingrich of Holyrood, Ont., have quite a crowd of grandchildren. It was 2008 when Barb began to think of all the gifts being exchanged at her place during the family Christmas festivities. Each family bought gifts for all the children and the adults exchanged names among themselves. What would happen, she wondered,…
Buy Nothing Day
Did you know that Thursday, November 27 was American Thanksgiving? You might not, since this holiday seems to have faded into the shadows of the sinister Black Friday—which is today. I don’t really understand the history of Black Friday, and I’m too scared to google it, but as far as I know, it’s a day…
The Hope of Hope
It was hard to know this Christmas how to hear the familiar story. Every year I look forward to advent, to hearing about Mary and Joseph and the new baby, to reflect again on what this story means for me and my community — and how I live my life differently because of it. This…
A “Merry Christmas” Story
During our trip to Canada for the Christmas break, I was surprised how many times I heard the same story. It goes something like this: They are trying to get us not to say “Merry Christmas” and to say “Happy Holidays” instead because someone might get offended. If they are offended by Christmas, they can…
A happy Christmas morning
My great-grandparents emigrated from Ukraine to central Kansas in 1874 and eventually purchased a farm. Towards the end of October 1894, the harvest was done and the year’s crop of wheat and other grains, along with hay for animals, was stored upstairs. That fateful afternoon my great-grandfather had some blacksmithing work to do and moved…
Singing ‘Silent Night’ in German
Sometimes a Christmas experience stands out in memory simply because it is so different from any other. When Joani Neufeldt, nee Goerzen, thinks of a memorable Christmas, it is one of these unique experiences: “The one that came to mind was when, I think I was late teens, we did a kind of live nativity…
Lighting candles, telling stories
When recalling a significant Christmas memory, Claire Ewert Fisher goes back some 30 years. The executive director of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Saskatchewan, Fisher and her first husband, Wally Ewert, now deceased, were working in Vietnam in the early 1970s and trying to create a connection with their usual celebrations. The weather was rainy and…
Christmas in Nazareth
“I felt a very intense homesickness and wanted to go home [to Manitoba] for Christmas. Christmas is a very important holiday to me.” It was Christmas 2010 and Hinke Loewen-Rudgers had been in Nazareth since October 2008, working through the Witness program of Mennonite Church Canada. There were certain traditions that Loewen-Rudgers did not want…
Thirty years of A Christmas Carol
Thirty years ago this Christmas, my wife Annemarie and I began a Christmas tradition we’ve continued year after year, with variations. Our first child was in utero the first time we read Charles Dickens’ 1843 novella and morality tale, A Christmas Carol, together. I had grown up watching both the Alastair Sim (1951) and Mr.…
