A young adult from each of the five regional churches will represent Mennonite Church Canada (MCC) at the Global Youth Summit (GYS) in Germany, May 30-June 1, 2025. GYS 2025 will coincide with Anabaptism’s 500th-anniversary celebrations.
Caleb Yang is a member of Point Grey Inter-Mennonite Fellowship in Vancouver, B.C. Yang says that being Anabaptist “means finding home after a long journey of wandering.”
A woman plays traditional Javanese music at the Mennonite World Conference assembly in Indonesia last month. (Meetinghouse photo by Kresna Kurniawan)
It’s a summer of church gatherings. It’s a summer of truth-telling about the devastating impact of colonization by the church. It’s a summer of reflection on what it means to be a post-colonial church.
(Photo by Julianna Arjes on Unsplash)
When I was a young adult volunteer in Jamaica, part of Mennonite Central Committee’s Serving and Learning Together (SALT) program, I brought a pie to a Mennonite church-sponsored baking competition and was disqualified because my mango pie did not fit the unstated criteria of being a sweet pot
Worshippers gather at JKI Injil Kerajaan (Holy Stadium) in Semarang, Indonesia. (MWC photo by Karla Braun)
JKI Injil Kerjaan (Holy Stadium), a large Mennonite church in Semarang, Indonesia, will host MWC’s Assembly 17 in July 2022. (MWC photo by Karla Braun)
In online meetings in mid-November 2020, the Executive Committee approved expansion of MWC’s structure to include new specialized networks. (Mennonite World Conference screenshot)
In online Mennonite World Conference (MWC) meetings in mid-November 2020, the Executive Committee approved expansion of MWC’s structure to include new specialized networks.
Francine Mukoko, a public-health graduate and the first university graduate from the Communauté Mennonite au Congo community in Bateke, presents public-health advice in Teke, the local language. (Photo courtesy of Seraphin Kutumbana)
“What a joy it is for the brothers and sisters [of the Bateke Plateau] to feel themselves a part of the larger Mennonite family,” says Reverend Seraphin Kutumbana of Communauté Mennonite au Congo, a Mennonite World Conference (MWC) member church.
YAMENers Enosh Rupamajhi, Olicky Muchindu and Jeu Song take a group photo in Salatiga, Indonesia. Due to the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, they were temporarily unable to return to their home countries of India, Zambia and Laos, respectively, from their placements in Indonesia. For a few months, they waited out the pandemic, learning, laughing and worshipping together. (Photo courtesy of Olicky Muchindu)
"The love from Indonesia." For Enosh Rupamajhi, Jeu Song and Olicky Muchindu—members of the Young Anabaptist Mennonite Exchange Network (YAMEN)—the warmth of relationship from their hosts and each other is a hallmark of their year.
Joyce Ngumbao and her husband Pius Kisumo stand in a corn and bean field on their farm in Kwa Kavisi, Kenya, that is not planted using conservation agriculture techniques, but was prepared using conventional methods of plowing and scattering seed. These crops are stunted and not growing well. When they can afford to hire help, they want to plant this field with conservation agriculture methods too. (Photo by Matthew Lester)
The water pump at MCC partner Sembrandopaz’s experimental farm just outside of Sincelejo, Colombia. The Montes de María region of Colombia is suffering a shortage of water due to a combination of factors, including aggressive land clearing and droughts worsened by climate change, as well as poor infrastructure. The experimental farm is home to one of the only functional water pumps in the surrounding area, and throughout the day local residents come to the farm to fill up containers. (MCC photo by Annalee Giesbrecht)
Sibonokuhle Ncube of Zimbabwe is a member of the new MWC creation-care task force. (MCC photo by Brenda Burkholder)
The mandate of a new Mennonite World Conference (MWC) creation care task force states that, “MWC is a global communion of Anabaptist churches that are together facing the climate crisis.” It then asks: “What does it mean to follow Jesus into this crisis?”
The task force is to:
