Keynote speaker Jae Young Lee, left, visits with Tina Doell at the MCC Saskatchewan Encounter and annual general meeting held in Saskatoon on Nov. 1.
How does a South Korean soldier become a teacher of peace?
Delegates at Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Saskatchewan’s Encounter and annual general meeting heard the answer to that question through the life stories of keynote speaker Jae Young Lee.
Tina Block Ediger
The woman known to countless Mennonite church missionary kids from Canada and the U.S. as “Aunt Tina” died on Oct. 16 at the age of 83
Goshen (Ind.) College president Jim Brenneman, left, presents the Culture for Service Award to alumnus Ray Funk at the college’s fall convocation and homecoming on Oct. 3. (Goshen College photo by Brian Yoder Schlabach)
“Everything I’ve done has been a team sport,” quips Ray Funk as he reflects on his life’s achievements.
Kevin Peters Unrau, right, sits with Stephan Barton, his teacher, on the day Unrau achieved his first-level black belt in Aikido. (Photo courtesy of Kevin Unrau Peters)
Kevin Peters Unrau, in white, takes his test to achieve his first-level black belt in Aikido. (Photo courtesy of Kevin Unrau Peters)
Kevin Peters Unrau thinks that the Mennonite Church has gotten Jesus wrong. When Jesus calls on his followers to “not resist evildoers” in Matthew 5:39, many Mennonites have turned to nonviolent resistance. Unrau, however, has turned to Aikido, the martial art of using someone else’s energy to move past them.
Bryan Moyer Suderman
Bryan Moyer Suderman (SmallTallMusic.com) sees his music work over the past 11 years as an outgrowth of his desire to have Scripture alive in the church.
He has been active in Community Mennonite Church, Stouffville, Ont., as a youth and adult Bible teacher for years, and has worked to have singable music for young and old to join in those Bible stories.
Peter Nguyen and Kim Bui, left, celebrate 40 years of marriage with an official church wedding ceremony officiated by Pastor April Yamasaki on Aug. 10, 2014.
Peter Nguyen and Kim Bui received an anniversary gift on August 10 that they never got at their wedding 40 years ago: a church ceremony with a marriage licence.
Ruth Klahsen, left, and Francis Evans stand at the counter of the Monforte on Wellington osteria in downtown Stratford, Ont. Klahsen is fond of saying that she would not open the restaurant until Evans signed on as a hostess (Photo by Dave Rogalsky)
Cheeses cure at the Monforte Cheese Factory in Stratford, Ont. (Photo by Dave Rogalsky)
Rosy Neale removes cheeses from their moulds at the Monteforte Cheese Factory in Stratford, Ont. (Photo by Dave Rogalsky)
The Monteforte Cheese Factory in Stratford, Ont. (Photo by Dave Rogalsky)
“I’m not a very good Mennonite,” says Ruth Klahsen as she sells her Monforte cheeses at the New Hamburg (Ont.) Mennonite Relief Sale, where all sales go to support Mennonite Central Committee relief projects.
Bill Maust
On a Wednesday evening in early June, Waterloo musician and musicologist Wilbur (Bill) Maust was seated in the chapel of Conrad Grebel University College, Waterloo, Ont., among some 170 family and friends, to attend a concert organized in his honour by Stephanie Martin.
Ron Sawatsky’s untimely death at age 64—shortly before the 2014 assembly of Mennonite Church Canada—prompts memories of his years of leadership in the Canadian church.
Elmer Hildebrand, left, chief executive officer of Golden West Broadcasting Ltd. in Altona, Man., is pictured with Brad Fehr, an on-air radio host/producer.
As a young boy, Elmer Hildebrand enjoyed selling greeting cards and garden seeds to his neighbours in the farming community near Altona. He had no idea where these interests and skills of his would lead. All he knew was that he didn’t want to farm.
Don and Louella Friesen of Carmen Corner Meats happily package an order for a customer.
Mennonite-style farmer sausage sizzles on the grill at many prairie gatherings, and a growing number of those gatherings serve sausage from Carmen Corner Meats.
LaVerna Klippenstein
LaVerna Klippenstein will be remembered by many Canadian Mennonite readers for the columns she wrote in the Mennonite Reporter, precursor to this publication. She was also a regular columnist for 30 years for Christian Living magazine. Being a strong supporter of Christian education and the nurturing of Christian faith, she wrote many devotionals for Rejoice! and other publications.
It isn’t easy to distil six months of life in the Holy Land into an hour’s conversation. This is evident in the way Jerry Buhler searches for the right words and sometimes stops to rephrase what he’s trying to say.
Chau Dang, pastor of Calgary Vietnamese Mennonite Church.
Several years ago, Chau Dang, pastor of Calgary Vietnamese Mennonite Church, enthusiastically recounted for me the Caribbean cruise from which he had just returned. Coming from all over North America, at least 150 Vietnamese friends, 35 from his extended family, had been reunited to celebrate a week of cruising balmy waters.
Last October, Willard Metzger, right, and seven other Christian faith leaders met with Prime Minister Stephen Harper on an Evangelical Fellowship of Canada delegation to discuss matters of importance to the church. Topics ranged from Canada’s relationship with its host peoples to climate change and homelessness. (Photo used by permission of Office of the Prime Minister)
Mennonite Church Canada executive director Willard Metzger, right (in black), marches through the streets of Durban, South Africa, in support of climate justice with other people of faith at the UN Climate Change Forum in 2011. He attended as an unofficial observer on behalf of the World Council of Churches.
Willard Metzger accepts writing invitations from various organizations and publishers to help increase engagement with Anabaptism on a wider level. Thanking God with Integrity: Table Graces & Scripture for a World of Need encourages gratitude while increasing awareness of those who live with less. He contributed to ‘Living Ecological Justice,’ a faith-based learning tool helping Canadian Christians care and advocate for creation.
A growing awareness of Anabaptism is increasing interest in Mennonite Church Canada, and Willard Metzger is happy to respond.
The music studio and classroom in the backyard is decorated with Apple computer prints of creative individuals. John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Einstein, Picasso, Amelia Earhart, some with the Apple logo covered with a piano sticker, share the walls with a painting by Leighton Jones of the Children’s Band.
Viola and Victor Dorsch were honoured at a retirement tea held at Nithview Community on Jan. 16, 2014. Victor served there as a volunteer chaplain for 20 years. (Photo by Dave Rogalsky)
Victor and Viola Dorsch are pictured on the Christopher Columbus passenger liner on their way to Somalia with their children Jim and Shirley. (Photo courtesy of Victor and Viola Dorsch)
Victor Dorsch was only 6 years old when the visiting pastor put his hand on his shoulder and said, “You’ll make a minister some day.” That was in 1933 and Dorsch was living on a farm in North Easthope Township near New Hamburg, Ont., where he attended an Evangelical United Brethren church.
Paul and Tabitha Langel are pictured in front of their bakery at the Forks in Winnipeg. ‘We had a vision for a dreamy kind of neighbourhood bakery,’ Tabitha recalls.
Tall Grass Prairie Bread Company is well-known in and around Winnipeg for its gooey cinnamon buns and its organic local baking and preserves, suffusing the marketplace at the Forks and its Wolseley neighbourhood with the aroma of fresh baking.
Kenna Forrester relaxes with her grandmother Marlene Froese in the Rosthern Junior College student commons.
It is not uncommon to hear people complain about the younger generation. But are today’s youth really all that different than youth of previous generations? Saskatoon grandmother Marlene Froese and her granddaughter Kenna Forrester don’t think so.
Mary Klassen and James Neufeld relax in the café at Sam’s Place, where the sorted and organized donated books are sold as a fundraising project for Mennonite Central Committee.
Mary Klassen and James Neufeld bring a rare commitment to volunteerism.
Ever since Sam’s Place opened in 2009, Klassen has spent her retirement from teaching volunteering full-time at this used bookstore, café and music venue, an activity of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Manitoba.
Meghan Harder poses in a human-sized nest she built in Waterloo Park, Waterloo, Ont., as part of her art challenge to our current culture, to think about how dependent Canadians are on technology. She wonders how humans would—or will—live if their possessions and supports are taken away from them. (Photo courtesy of Meghan Harder)
Meghan Harder installed this ‘micro library’ in Waterloo Park, Waterloo, Ont., as a challenge to people’s dependence on technology, wondering how they could survive without it. (Photo courtesy of Meghan Harder)
Meghan Harder’s art works at themes of political, social and environmental issues, using mixed media, public installations, interventions and performance.
At Box 13—a series of events that use repurposed industrial spaces around the Waterloo Region for an annual weekend of art viewing and sales—she presented photographs of some of her installations and performances.
Saskatchewan guide Ric Driediger helps people meet God in the wilderness. (Photo by Churchill River Canoe Outfitters)
Ric Driediger loves telling stories about his life as a canoeing guide. (Photo by Donna Schulz)
The trickling of an indoor waterfall in the room where Ric Driediger sits evokes images of a northern stream while he reflects on 40 years on the waterways of northern Saskatchewan as a canoeing guide.
Former opera singers Terry and Monique Mierau with their youngest son, Hein, at their house-barn home in Neubergthal, Man., where they practise sustainable farming.
When Terry and Monique Mierau moved to rural Manitoba in 2011 with their three young children, they had, for the most part, stopped singing.
Dave Rogalsky at the Coliseum in Rome during his sabbatical this May.
Before we took it, many people questioned my sabbatical.
One of the plaques crafted by John Reimer.
John Reimer crafted all of the Mennonite Church Canada plaques that hang in congregations across the country today.
John Reimer, who died on June 28 at age 86, left a lasting legacy to Mennonite Church Canada and its congregations. All of the wooden plaques depicting a dove with an olive branch that hang in MC Canada congregations across Canada were handcrafted by him in 2000.
