MCC partners in Ukraine work to meet physical and spiritual needs
In the silence that lived between the deadly warnings of air raid sirens, the sound of a small choir, singing a song of praise, echoed out of a church sanctuary in western Ukraine. Just the night before, Anna, administrative coordinator for Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Ukraine, had absent-mindedly hummed a few bars of the song…
Mennonite organizations providing aid in Ukraine
A humanitarian aid organization in Molochansk, Ukraine, founded by Canadian Mennonites continues to help the community amidst Russia’s ongoing invasion. Staff at the Mennonite Centre have spent the last three weeks serving food and occasionally providing shelter to embattled Ukrainians in Molochansk, which is occupied by Russian forces. The staff is also helping to fill…
Mennonites in angst over Ukraine invasion
It’s 10:30 a.m. in Winnipeg, but for Valerie Alipova, it might as well be after supper. Alipova, associate pastor of Bethel Mennonite Church in Winnipeg, has been living eight hours out of sync with the rest of Manitoba ever since Russia invaded Ukraine towards the end of February. Alipova was born and raised…
Watch: MCC partner in Ukraine asks for prayer
A Mennonite Central Committee partner in Ukraine requests prayer in a video clip the relief organization posted on YouTube earlier today. In the video, which was filmed on Monday, Feb. 28, Maxym Oliferovski describes what life was like for him in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, a few days after Russian military forces began invading the country by…
Two years in
Since March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic came into the lives of Canadians, this magazine has published many accounts of life in pandemic times. There have been reports on how Mennonite churches and organizations have adapted to health restrictions, found new ways to care for others, and even managed to have fun, despite the challenges.…
Prayer for the war in Ukraine
God of hope, we pray to you when hope is scarce as our world convulses with the horror of war. You alone know the extent of the crimes committed in Ukraine: the people murdered, the homes and infrastructure destroyed, the way violence comes as a calamity, cutting a swath through the world. Why is power…
MCC pulls staff from Ukraine
Russia has begun military operations against Ukraine, but North American Mennonite Central Committee staff who were working in the latter country are safe. That includes Winnipegger Andrea Shalay, the charity’s peace engagement co-ordinator for Europe. Shalay and three other staff, all Americans, were evacuated from Ukraine more than a week ago. “I had just 36…
‘Bring us beyond our own stories’
Among the voluminous lists of those disappeared during the dark times in what is now Ukraine, researchers have found roughly 400 pages of Mennonite names, with five or six names per page. That is just for Zaporizhzhia province. The lists for all Ukrainian provinces are available online, though printed in Cyrillic script. Each name a…
An eye-witness account of Nazi occupation
At the age of 85, I am probably one of the few survivors of the German occupation of Ukraine/Russia from 1941 to 1943 who still have clear personal memories of that time. When the German army occupied Chortitza, Ukraine, where I lived, we Mennonites were exuberant. I remember vividly the euphoria of being liberated from…
UWinnipeg Fellowship to crack open KGB archives
In the 1930s, thousands of Mennonites disappeared in the Soviet Union without a trace. The KGB archives in Ukraine has thousands of files on these missing Mennonites, and a newly announced University of Winnipeg Fellowship wants to crack into these archives to uncover the stories of lost relatives, ancestors and much more. Through the Centre…
