Young Voices

When Rod and Susan Reynar tell people they are inviting 10 university students to live with them and form an intentional community, they are typically met with one of two responses: “Oh, that’s neat,” is the first. The second is, “Oh, that’s interesting,” which the couple says usually translates to, “You’re crazy.”

Ethan Eshbach is 22-years-old, a recent college graduate, and is the newest, youngest addition to the Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA) team.

I was a summer program co-director at Mennonite Church Manitoba’s Camp Assiniboia for the summers of 2006 and ’07. By the end of August 2007, when I left camp for the last time, I was a changed person. It was growth that I had not expected.

Nashville Predators players Nick Spaling and Mike Fisher are famous for their hockey careers, but what many may not know is that they are also Christians eager to speak about their faith.

Winnipeg writer Paul Loewen has self-published four novels that combine fictional stories with theological points in an attempt to create modern-day parables. But his latest book may be his most personal story yet because he has witnessed it first-hand. It’s the story of Arvid Loewen, his father.

Reading the Bible is hard. It’s hard to sit still. It’s hard to concentrate. It’s hard to make sense of what I’m reading. And it’s hard to read stories I’ve heard seemingly a million times before—like the creation story, Adam and Eve, Noah—with fresh eyes.

Many of us are familiar with the concept of organ donation that occurs after someone passes away, but more recently I have learned about the need for living organ donations.

Over the past year, I have followed the story of Craig Dunbar, a 41-year-old from Ottawa who was afflicted with kidney failure in 2007.

When my family moved to a rural community in southwestern British Columbia, I didn’t realize how much life and my faith would be challenged.

“Jesus is not a pansy or a pacifist.” That’s what Mark Driscoll, pastor of the Mars Hill multi-venue mega-church conglomerate, said in its The Resurgence magazine recently.

Why read the Bible?

I posed that question on Facebook last month. More than 20 friends, including Christians, agnostics and atheists, responded. 

It's not very often that I get a chance to come into contact with experts in the field of peace and justice, so when I heard about the Peace and Justice Studies Association Conference in Waterloo, Ont., as a peace and conflict studies student at Conrad Grebel University College, I knew this was an opportunity I couldn't miss.

When I grew up in a conservative, non-denominational church, the issue of homosexuality was never discussed, but it was regarded as “sin.” It was not until a friend came out to me at Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg that I had a direct experience with someone who is homosexual. My strong friendship with this person let me see her humanity, rather than just a sexual orientation.