Masum Khandakar is a Bangladeshi rice farmer with a craggy face and a jutting white beard that flares as wide as the wings of his collared shirt. His voice goes high when his emotions overwhelm him. That is what happened one day in late December when he stood up during a community meeting inside a dimly lit schoolhouse in the town of Kotalipara and described what Koinonia had done for him.
The team from Elmira Mennonite Church ended the Hawkesville and Markham church dynasties at this year’s Bible quizzing competition, held on April 9, 2016, at Steinmann Mennonite Church near Baden.
When Henry and Hilda Schulz of Sanford, Man., were still farming, one of the crops they grew was barley.
As friends at their church—Sargent Avenue Mennonite in Winnipeg—learned this, they asked them for barley seed to make Easter centrepieces, as a way to bring a little spring and new life into their homes.
Marketed “for twenty- and thirty-somethings who wish they could do camp again,” Pastors in Exile (PiE) and Silver Lake Mennonite Camp near Sauble Beach, Ont., ran what they called “Winter Camp for Grown-ups” from March 4 to 6, 2016.
From plain coats to lace-covered wedding dresses, Amanda Bartel, a history major from Iowa City, Iowa, is cataloging Bluffton University’s historic clothing collection to learn more about what it means to dress like a Mennonite. She explained the cataloging process for students, faculty, staff and community members on March 1, 2016, at Bluffton University.
First nations, Lutheran and Mennonite movie-goers crowded into Saskatoon’s Roxy Theatre on March 13, 2016, popcorn in hand, to watch the premiere of Reserve 107: Reconciliation on the Prairies.
Mennonite churches in Europe are responding to the violence and displacement in the Middle East that is affecting their society.
Arbeitsgemeinschaft Mennonitischer Gemeiden (AMG, Mennonite Church in Germany) and Algemene Doopsgezind Societeit (ADS, Dutch Mennonite Society) each wrote a letter to their governments urging peace.
Conrad Grebel University College hosted Sir James MacMillan as the 2016 Rodney and Lorna Sawatsky Visiting Scholar. The Scottish composer and conductor, best known for his sacred choral works, gave his Sawatsky Lecture address, “The spiritual in music,” on March 1, 2016.
Because I grew up in the Mennonite tradition, conscientious objection is not a foreign concept to me. I was raised to value peace over violence and to treat every human life as sacred and precious. These values have stayed with me throughout my life.
Steve Heinrichs is passionate about healing broken relationships between indigenous and settler peoples. As Mennonite Church Canada’s director of indigenous relations, he is committed to responding positively to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Call to Action No.
