Focus on Travel

Couple enjoys being ‘on the road’ with MDS

Neil and Audrey Rempel, a semi-retired couple from Winnipeg, are part of the Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) recreational vehicle program, whose volunteers drive their RVs to worksites to assist with rebuilding after disasters. (Photo courtesy of MDS)

A year off to travel and volunteer—that’s what Neil and Audrey Rempel are doing.

The semi-retired couple from Winnipeg are part of the Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) recreational vehicle program, whose volunteers drive their RVs to worksites to assist with rebuilding.

Neil, 66, was a painter for 20 years, and he also built homes. Audrey, 67, worked alongside him.

Learning through space and time

Participants in the January 2016 AMBS ‘Encountering Egypt’ learning tour visit a Nubian house in Aswan, Upper Egypt. (Photo by Sara Wenger Shenk)

Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary organized a trip to Egypt in January 2016. The goal was to encounter the long history of Egypt as well as to get to know Christian and Muslim communities. Of the 37 participants from Canada, the United States and Australia, seven took the trip as a seminary course.

Great Trek from Russia to Central Asia remembered

Audrey Voth Petkau of Waterloo, Ont., left, is welcomed with flatbread by Muslim villagers in Ak Metchet, Uzbekistan. Mennonites from Russia settled in Ak Metchet from 1884 until 1935. (Photo by John Sharp)

“[In Tashkent] the nearby river was full of fish and the banks were lined with trees loaded with apples, pears, plums, cherries, peaches, apricots, pomegranates, lemons, oranges and many fruits we had no name for.

“It seemed like the ideal place to settle,” wrote Elizabeth Unruh Schulz, reflecting on the Great Trek migration from Russia to Central Asia.

‘A community of friends around the world’

Darryl and Shirley Peters’ vision is founded on bringing Africans and guests together as friends. (Photo by Dashir Lodge and Safaris)

Maasai men dance for joy in Tanzania, home to Dashir Lodge and Safaris. (Photo by Dashir Lodge and Safaris)

Building “a community of friends around the world” is a driving force behind Dashir Lodge and Safaris, based in the Arusha area of Tanzania.

Insights from abroad

Dexter Volkman and friends in Wadi Rum, Jordan, during his year of teaching high-school music through the MCC Serving and Learning Together program. (Photo courtesy of Dexter Volkman)

Since I began as director of intercultural studies (ICS) at Columbia Bible College in 2013, the college has sent out 45 young adults to serve in a variety of contexts—Mongolia, Mexico, Mayotte, Myanmar, Macedonia, Moldova—and those are just the countries beginning with “M”!

MCC tours a transformative way to travel

During an MCC learning tour in 2017, visitors and villagers walk along a gully in the Wotebet watershed in Ethiopia. (Photo by Rose Shenk)

“Seeing for yourself” can be a compelling motivator. It’s one of the reasons Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) offers learning tours several times a year.