Volume 26, Numer 18D
Cover Date:
September 5, 2022
Issue:
Volume 26 Issue 18D
Senses open new doors
Stella and Rebecca Liu of Toronto Chinese Mennonite Church help file documents and shelve books in the former Mohawk Institute Residential School in Brantford, Ont. In the summer of 2019 Mennonite youth and leaders participated in a Mennonite Disaster Service project there to help the Woodland Cultural Centre’s Save the Evidence campaign. “It’s personal, there are names and faces. It’s not just textbook information now,” said one participant. (Photo by John Longhurst)
The Friesen Housebarn at Neubergthal Heritage Site in Altona, Man. (Photo courtesy of Facebook.com/NeubergthalCommons)
First, a disclaimer: I love books. With a father in the bookstore and publishing business, I grew up in a household that always had books available. I’ve volunteered and been employed in a library. I currently own cards to two local libraries. For me, books have been a source of learning, inspiration and connection to people in other places and times.
Evangelism that heals
(Photo by Ante Gudelji/Unsplash)
On July 30, my brother was getting married in Williston, N.D., and I was the officiant. It was a lovely celebration, with little kids taking over the dance floor at the reception, and I’m delighted to have my brother’s partner join the family.
Lament for Sunday school
Sunday school children, 1989-90. (Faith Mennonite archive photo)
Sunday school children, 1980. (Faith Mennonite archive photo)
Christmas concert, 1995. (Faith Mennonite archive photo)
Angel choir, 2007. (Faith Mennonite archive photo)
Picnic pie-eating contest, 2008. (Faith Mennonite archive photo)
Sara Garnet with Christmas angels, undated. (Faith Mennonite archive photo)
Sara Garnet and I were cleaning out the Sunday school classrooms of Faith Mennonite Church in Leamington, Ont., with heavy hearts one Wednesday afternoon. We had put it off for a long time. It felt like we were cleaning out a home after a death had taken place.
‘We have no safe area under the sky’
Displaced by conflict and trapped by drought, this woman seeks water in the Afar region in northern Ethiopia. (UNICEF on Flickr.com / Creative Commons 2.0)
This UN-chartered ship left Ukraine on Aug. 16, carrying 23,000 tonnes of wheat bound for World Food Programme efforts in the Horn of Africa. (WFP/Anastasiia Honcharuk, used with permission)
For much of my life I associated Ethiopia with famine. I’m just old enough to recall the searing scenes from Ethiopia in the mid-1980s: windswept, dull-beige landscapes; skeletal cattle; distended bellies; flies; people crowding trucks laden with sacks of food; and charitable rock concerts.
Believers Church Bible Commentary series nears completion
Dan Epp-Tiessen wrote the most recent volume of the Believers Church Bible Commentary series on Joel, Obadiah and Micah, which will launch in October with an event at the CommonWord Bookstore and Resource Centre in Winnipeg. (Photo by Nicolien Klassen-Wiebe)
After almost 40 years of writing and editing, the Believers Church Bible Commentary (BCBC) series is nearing completion.
The collection of commentaries covers every book of the Bible, written by various biblical scholars across North America. Herald Press has published 35 volumes since 1986, and almost all of its final nine are currently in progress.
Zooming with God through the Psalms
Dan Forrest of United Mennonite Church in Black Creek, B.C., presents his sermon on Psalm 126, to be shared with other Mennonite Church B.C. congregations. (Screenshot by Ross W. Muir)
Several British Columbia pastors cooperated this summer by preaching sermons on the Psalms and sharing them with each other’s congregations on Zoom.
Urban farm not just about growing veggies
Pictured from left to right, are this season's workers at Metanoia Farms: Trey Dornn, Megan Klassen-Wiebe, Kayla Drudge and Bryn Friesen Epp. (Photo by Daisy Belec)
Pigs are a new addition to Metanoia Farms. (Photo by Daisy Belec)
Metanoia Farms is an urban farm located on Canadian Mennonite University’s campus in Winnipeg. (Photo by Daisy Belec)
Trey Dornn, Megan Klassen-Wiebe, Kayla Drudge and Bryn Friesen are hard at work at Metanoia Farms. (Photo by Daisy Belec)
Lifetime experiences and vegetables are being harvested at Winnipeg’s urban farm, Metanoia Farmers Workers Cooperative Ltd., located on the campus of Canadian Mennonite University (CMU).
Celebrating a half-century of MCC Thrift
Many volunteers gathered in St. Catharines, Ont., on July 12, to celebrate 50 years of thrift. (Christian Benefit Store archives photo)
Fiftieth anniversary centrepieces adorned tables at a celebration of the beginning of thrift stores in the Niagara area, in St. Catharines, on July 12. (Christian Benefit Store archives photo)
The first Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) thrift store opened in March 1972 in Altona, Man. In 2022, the thrift stores are celebrating the 50th anniversary of this first store in Canada. Celebrations are taking place at various times in different locations.
Bridgefolk asks how to repair harm to Indigenous Peoples
Muriel Bechtel, left, Jay Freel Landry, John Stoesz, Fr. William Skudlarek OSB, and Samantha Lioi are pictured at the Bridgefolk hymnsing. (Photo by Gerald W. Schlabach)
Jaime Arsenault, tribal historic preservation officer for the White Earth Nation. (Photo by Gerald W. Schlabach)
Reverend Jim Bear Jacobs of the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Nation. (Photo by Gerald W. Schlabach)
John Stoesz of Mountain Lake, Minn. (Photo by Gerald W. Schlabach)
Abbot John Klassen of St. John’s Abbey takes part in a panel discussion with Bridgefolk founders Weldon Nisly, on screen, Gerald W. Schlabach, and Marlene Kropf about the history of Bridgefolk. (Photo by Joetta Schlabach)
Participants in the Bridgefolk movement for dialogue and greater unity between Mennonites and Roman Catholics have long made the phrase, “Proceed through friendship,” their byword.
Jubilee Mennonite votes to become an affirming congregation
Jubilee Mennonite, which is located in northeast Winnipeg, was founded in 1995 as a dual-conference congregation through the merger of MC Manitoba’s Northgate Mennonite Fellowship and the MB Churches of Manitoba’s Valley Gardens Community Church. (Photo by John Longhurst)
After more than a year of discussion, study and prayer, Winnipeg’s Jubilee Mennonite Church—which is part of both Mennonite Church Manitoba and the Manitoba Mennonite Brethren Churches—has decided to welcome members of the LGBTQ+ community to become full members of the congregation.
MCC calls on PM to remove barriers to humanitarian assistance
Charitable Foundation Uman Help Center, an MCC partner, distributes MCC relief buckets, hygiene kits and blankets in Uman city, at a Baptist church, along with other humanitarian supplies. (MCC photo)
Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Canada has joined other leading Canadian aid organizations to launch Aid for Afghanistan, a national campaign calling on the Government of Canada to immediately act to remove barriers that have blocked and deterred the provision of lifesaving humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan for the past year.
Manitoba congregations awarded mission grants
Jamie Arpin-Ricci of Little Flowers Community, left, surveys the Winnipeg neighbourhood with Melanie Neufeld, MC Manitoba’s mission engagement director. (MC Manitoba photo)
Eight Mennonite Church Manitoba congregations will receive a total of $30,000 for missional engagement in their local communities.
“Finding intentional ways to love our neighbours is an important practice for the church,” says Melanie Neufeld, MC Manitoba’s director of mission engagement. “We’re excited to see what God will do with these new and ongoing initiatives.”
A summer of page-turners
(Book cover compilation by Betty Avery)
Are you browsing the library shelves aimlessly, uncertain as to which book to take home? Did you spend the entire summer gardening or at the lake, unable to find time to read? Or are you looking for a wonderful story to carry you through the gloomy winter? Look no further! Avid readers from across Mennonite Church Saskatchewan have plenty of recommendations to share.
‘And that’s when it happened!’
Paul and Vila Phomsouvanh are pictured at their home in late August. (Photo by Will Loewen)
I was caught off guard when I got the call that my friend Paul Phomsouvanh was in the hospital with COVID-19 last fall. At that time, the new more contagious Delta variant had recently arrived. Cases were on the increase, so I shouldn’t have been surprised.
A business built more by accident than by arrangement
Chris Steingart’s graphic design journey began through creating a website for a church where he served as youth pastor. He is pictured working outside, enjoying the benefits of having a home office. (Photo courtesy of Chris Steingart)
Chris Steingart designed a website for MCC thrift stores. (Photo courtesy of Chris Steingart)
Chris Steingart created an online store for the Shine Sunday school curriculum project. (Photo courtesy of Chris Steingart)
Chris Steingart’s journey to owning a professional web-design business was unanticipated. In 2005, he was working as a youth pastor at Waterloo-Kitchener Mennonite Church in Waterloo, Ont., and he decided that the church needed a website.
When efforts to get volunteers for the project failed, he ended up doing it himself. “How difficult could it be to build a website?”
