In an age when many Mennonite churches worry about losing young people, David Epp has a solution: the church should become their landlord. At Rosthern Mennonite Church’s semi-annual meeting late last summer, he proposed that the congregation purchase a house in Saskatoon to provide a community living space with affordable rent for Mennonite students in the city.
The blue hymnal is nestled in the pew rack, its binding loose from having its spine cracked and pages flipped too many times to count. Now, as technology drives the culture, more and more Mennonite churches are shelving Hymnal: A Worship Book and rolling down screens.
Casa de la Amistad—House of Friendship—is a welcome change for about 140 Bolivian children aged 4 to 18. They are happy to participate in a program that offers them two meals a day, lessons and time to play with other kids in a safe environment.
Hey there readers!
In the last few weeks I've received lots of emails and suggestions of blogs to share. It's now time to start passing some of these on so you can explore them too. Get ready for a wide variety of voices and choices. Modern day Mennonites come in every colour, and these blogs are a great way to hear these many different voices.
This post first appeared on Isaac and Wanda's Blog Life in Egypt
We just returned home from Cairo after bidding farewell to Wanda's parents. We enjoyed two wonderful weeks together, and will be sure to write about it soon once we collect our thoughts and photos. In the meantime, I have written a piece on our encounters with poverty in Egypt.
In this post-Easter season, I’ve been continuing to mull over the significance of the cross for our faith – and not only because I recently wrote an exam on this topic! I articulated my thoughts on the matter last year around this time (you can read it here), so it seems appropriate to articulate them again, slightly differently.
“So Kyle, are you ever going to be a lead pastor?”
Companions, guides, watchdogs and friends; No matter how you slice it, pets play a huge role in the lives of Canadians. The latest survey by Statistics Canada shows this, too, estimating that 35 percent of Canadian households have a dog and 38 percent have a cat.
Conversation within the walls of the Great Hall once fell on deaf ears, as what is now Canadian Mennonite University was originally built as a school for the hearing-impaired. Today, students from a variety of disciplines sit in what is now called the Blaurock Café talking academics and theology over fresh, fair-trade coffee.
This post first appeared on Isaac and Wanda's blog Life in Egypt
I clearly recall our first visit to Beni Suef back in May 2011. We had been living in Cairo for a month, and drove down with our country reps to check out our future stomping grounds. While our arrival in Cairo was accompanied by a wave of culture shock, the sense of excited discomfort only increased in Beni Suef. I remember peering out of our apartment window wondering how we were ever going to live here.
Hey guys --- I've decided that April is Blog Month. In the next few weeks I am going to be scouring the internet in search of some unique blogs Mennonite influenced blogs worth promoting.
Know of someone who has an interesting twist or take, and blogs? Found a curious and inspiring Mennonite who writes? Are you a writer and want to share? If so, give me a shout, and I’ll investigate!
In for the ride, and looking forward to your input!
- B.
You can email me @ brandi.j.thorpe@gmail.com
This post first appeared on Isaac and Wanda's blog Life in Egypt
As we reach the two year point in our term, we look back on past blog entries and realize we have not adequately commemorated our adopted hometown of Beni Suef. Our residence in this fair city is a major factor in our having had such a happy and meaningful experience here so far. So what is the essence of the 'flower of Upper Egypt', Beni Suef?
This post first appeared on Isaac and Wanda's blog Life in Egypt
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Peter 1:3
This post first appeared on Isaac and Wanda's blog Life in Egypt
Winter has breathed its last breath in Egypt, as recent weather has been unusually warm. While we welcome the extended stretch of heat, it makes us nervous about what extreme temperatures might lay ahead.
When I am in Vancouver, I am bad at going to church. I was better last year when my friend Rebecca and I would go, sharing ear buds and listening to One Direction all the way there and back, but this year Rebecca is in Australia and I haven’t gone to church once. I guess I haven’t gone because I haven’t felt that I “need” to, that my relationship with God is strengthened and sustained through writing and reading, friendships, and quiet moments on the bus or walking to class when I am again surprised by the beauty of ocean, mountain, sunshine, and even rain.
I think that every season is a time to reflect, and that poetry is a great way to do that. The following poem I love in any season, but particularily at Easter.
I want to hear from YOU about it --- what do you love/loath about it?
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
By Wendell Berry
In the basement of Toronto’s Danforth Mennonite Church, two chairs and a laundry basket serve as a makeshift set. Two young actors repeat their lines over and over, practising how to move, when to pause and what to say.
On page 35 of the Jan. 21 issue, Thorpe wrote “Advocating for the orphan” about international adoption. Now she looks at local adoption, and the story of a young couple who adopted two children.
It’s a Wednesday night and there is a good turnout at the St. Clair O’Connor Community, an intergenerational housing project in Toronto, where internationally renowned author Miriam Toews is present to share her experience as a Mennonite author for the Mennonite Heritage Club that meets there.
When I was in grade 9 or 10 I remember a boy in my class, who wasn’t religious, asking several students if they “supported gay people” or if they thought “being gay was okay”. We were walking out of my science class and the students that were asked were mostly the kids that attended the Evangelical Mennonite church in our town. I remember everyone shaking their heads, not with aggression but with discomfort. No, they didn’t support it. No, they didn’t want to talk about it. One person turned to the questioner and shot back, “Do you support it?” “No!
This post first appeared on Issac and Wanda's blog Life in Egypt. Visit the site for a full archive of their posts.
Dreaming big can be dangerous when you’ve got an obsessive personality. Once you’ve got a crazy idea, you need to make it happen. That’s a lesson Paul Plett learned after he dreamed of making a feature-length film and then found a community to make it happen.
Jesse Krause, 27, spent nearly a year in total fashioning instruments out of whatever he could find and writing music based on biblical stories, all to tell an old story in a new way.
Young Voices is excited to welcome Isaac Friesen and Wanda Wall-Bergen as our newest bloggers. Isaac and Wanda are currently serving in Egypt with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) as foreign-language instructors and peacebuilders.
With Christmas having come and gone, I would guess that not many of us are thinking about the “little town” of Bethlehem these days. Even at Christmas-time, many of us probably picture the serene and peaceful image from carols and greeting cards, conveniently forgetting about the harsh realities mentioned in the biblical story: the long journey Mary was forced to take while at the end of her pregnancy, just for a census; the lack of space in the inn, leading to a birth in a squalid stable; the attempts by Herod to find and kill the baby, forcing the family to become refugees to Egypt.
