Despite the standing ovation, I cannot imagine I was alone in having mixed feelings about the play we had just experienced. My mind was a full cup of queasiness and a dollop of laughter stirred with hard questions as I boarded the stuffy school bus with a crowd of other Mennonite Church Canada Assembly folks for the trip back to Saskatoon.
The march was set to begin at 11 a.m. on July 9, 2016. But at the top of the hour, Michelle McHale, whose fight for civil rights in Steinbach recently brought the city into the national spotlight, asked the crowd to indicate by applause whether they would mind “waiting for the folks on the highway,” as traffic was backed up to St. Anne, nearly 20 kilometres out of town. Steinbach’s E.A.
Assembly 2016 may become known by delegates as a watershed event.
By turns intense and emotional, joyful and worshipful, the gathered delegates made significant decisions that will impact the Mennonite Church Canada body for years to come. They met in Saskatoon, Sask., July 6 to 10, 2016.
About 500 Mennonites from across Canada will gather in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, July 6 to 10, 2016, for the Mennonite Church Canada Assembly. This event, which happens every two years, brings together people for worship, fellowship and to make decisions for the national church.
Five hundred Mennonites from across Canada will gather in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, July 6 to 10, 2016, for the Mennonite Church Canada Assembly. This gathering brings together people for worship, fellowship and decision making for the national church.
Safwat Marzouk
Cindy Wallace
Willard Metzger
One of the highlights of Mennonite Church Canada’s assemblies are the times of worship and spiritual enrichment. The theme of Assembly 2016 (July 6-9), God~Faith-People, is paraphrased from the Old Testament text Jeremiah 31:33: “This is the covenant . . . I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
Bryan Moyer Suderman released a new CD, I’m Glad You’re Here: Songs of Hope and Struggle, on May 6, 2016, in Stouffville, Ont. The concert was also a fundraiser for the “Welcome the Stranger” initiative for refugee support (an initiative of the Mennonite and Brethren in Christ churches in the greater Toronto area), and on the night of the concert raised almost $10,000.
Six women and six men from across North America have been chosen to serve on the committee for the new song collection for Mennonite churches planned for release in 2020.
The 2016 Michael Sattler Peace Prize has been awarded to the Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria (EYN) and EYN’s “Christian and Muslim Peace Initiative” (CAMPI), founded in 2010 with Muslim partners.
This online supplement accompanies the feature, “The lucky struggle,” about workers in the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP).
