Bethel Bible Institute
Can you help identify these three men at Bethel Bible Institute (BBI)? Is John Poettcker in the centre? The formation of Bethel in Abbotsford, B.C., was proposed in 1937 at the ministers conference of the Conference of United Mennonite Churches of B.C. with the hope it would be “the guardian of traditional Mennonite faith.” Its…
Aylmer community store
The Aylmer (Ont.) Mennonite Community Store and Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Aylmer Resource Centre are pictured after 1989. Both represent the response of the local community, Low German Mennonites and MCC Ontario to the increase in immigration of Low German Mennonites from Latin America into southwestern Ontario, beginning in the 1970s. Both organizations have become…
Peter Regier
In 1894, Anna Enss (1855-1914), left, and Peter Regier (1851-1925) moved their family from Prussia (now Poland) to Tiefengrund, Sask., where Regier was the founding leader of the Rosenorter Gemeinde and the Conference of Mennonites in Canada. His sermon collection includes “odd” names for sermons such as “Sexagesima.” Upon further research, we learn that this…
Petitcodiac Mennonite Church
The Petitcodiac (N.B.) Mennonite Church Council is pictured during a meeting in 1996. Whether around a kitchen table or a purposely built boardroom, church councils are the administrative hub of most mainstream Mennonite congregations. But it was not always so. The rise of the church council as a lay decision-making body was achieved only in…
Centennial celebration
New Canadian initiatives around multiculturalism in the 1970s—celebrating anniversaries like Canada’s centennial in 1967, Manitoba’s in 1970, and the arrival of Mennonites in Manitoba in 1974—created a new energy and appreciation for history in Canada. During these years, the Mennonite Heritage Centre and the Archives of Ontario hired permanent staff. Energy was put into founding…
Cayuga church
From halfway across the world, a loyal MAID watcher noticed an error. This was not the Rainham church in 1965, as originally labelled by the photographer, but South Cayuga Mennonite Church, Dunnville, Ont. Comparing it to another photo of South Cayuga, he urged us to “look at the west end of this meetinghouse. Exact same…
GAMEO to maintain its emphasis on the global church
GOSHEN, IND.—Reaffirming a clear commitment to a focus on groups outside of Europe and North America, the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online (GAMEO) management board concluded its annual meeting on May 7. “We are pleased that GAMEO now includes more than 16,500 articles and receives 1,300 visitors each day,” said John D. Roth, GAMEO’s general…
Namaka cutting wheat
A farmer cuts wheat on a farm in Namaka, Alta., in the 1920s. Food and its production continues to be a central driving force in society, affecting our health, quality of life and where we live. Forces such as mechanization, urbanization, and globalization have impacted the food matrix and our connection to the food we grow…
Nipawin streetscape
Streetscape of Nipawin, Sask., in the 1920s. Mennonites first began moving to Lost River in the Rural Municipality of Nipawin in the early 1900s. By 1906, they were meeting in homes for worship. In 1913, Bishop Abraham Doerksen of the Manitoba Sommerfeld Mennonite Church travelled to the Nipawin area, where he baptized 42 people and…
Didsbury drawing
In 1893, Kitchener, Ont., businessman Jacob Y. Shantz secured land from the government and railway, and he promoted the Didsbury, Alta., settlement to eastern Mennonites. The West was a great unknown to many, who felt they would never see their westbound relatives again once they departed for the land of “buffaloes and Indians.” In 2016,…
