Year of wonders
I read with great interest the many articles about how different churches are responding to the pandemic and government restrictions. There are many! Because there are many ways for churches to respond both to the pandemic and to the restrictions. I have divided the various Canadian responses into two broad strands in my mind, although…
The weirdness of Christmas 2020
“To all who mourn in Israel, he will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair.” Isaiah 61:3 (NLT) A movie seemingly made for Christmas 2020 appeared almost 30 years ago—a creepy little stop-motion musical, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Was it a Christmas movie, a…
Low German community in southwestern Ontario experiences persecution
Members of Low German-speaking Mennonite communities in southwestern Ontario have experienced public discrimination recently because of a surge in COVID-19 cases in their population. Incidents include negative online comments, cancelled playdates with children in the Low German community, and aggressive verbal attacks at the grocery store. The Windsor-Essex region of the province has been a…
Antifragile church
The past few months have awakened us to our fragility as individuals, communities and nation states. We’ve observed the fragility of our health-care system, food-supply chain, economies, global trade, international relations, institutional accountability. It seems that everything in our world is fragile, including ourselves. We’re also becoming acutely aware of the fragility of the Canadian…
Marking end-of-life rituals during the pandemic
Amid the restrictions of COVID-19, pastors and families are still finding creative and meaningful ways to mark, grieve and ritualize the deaths of loved ones. But no two funerals are the same, and there are added stressors, frustrations and disappointments. Mark Diller Harder, pastor of St. Jacobs (Ont.) Mennonite Church, where there have been four…
COVID-19 global response fund helps Global South churches
The Mennonite World Conference (MWC) COVID-19 inter-agency task force has approved 21 relief proposals. Food and sanitation materials are part of all the proposals from Anabaptist member churches in Africa, Asia and Latin America. With the COVID-19 fund’s assistance, local congregations in more than a dozen countries will bring relief to thousands of families, sharing…
Church seeks to boost ‘helping fund’ for people affected by pandemic
Windsor-Essex County in southwestern Ontario has drawn a plethora of attention during the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to ongoing outbreaks and high occurrences of infections in specific sectors, the virus is still taking quite a toll in the region, despite the efforts of many. The ongoing measures to stifle the spread of the virus are beginning…
MEI planning for in-class reopening
Mennonite Educational Institute in Abbotsford, B.C. plans a Stage 1 reopening of school in September for the 2020-21 academic year. The Province of B.C. defines Stage 1 as a regular school opening with a 100 percent density target for students and five days per week of Kindergarten to Grade 12 in-class instruction. The Ministry of…
Prayer ‘keeps us going’
As the world deals with the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mennonite community in Kudus, Central Java, Indonesia, joins hands and works with the local government to mitigate the risk and manage the spread of cases in the city of more than 800,000 residents. Mardi Rahayu Hospital was built in 1969 by members of the Gereja Kristen…
When pandemics are disasters, MDS is there
Twenty Mennonite Church Canada congregations are among the first 40 churches that have received grants from the Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) Canada Spirit of MDS Fund. The fund was created by MDS Canada in April to help Canadian churches respond to people in their communities facing hardship due to COVID-19. “MDS normally responds to natural…
