People & events

Long-time residence for Mennonite Brethren Bible College and Concord College (Ebenezer Hall, and more recently C.A. DeFehr Building) fell under the wrecker’s ball in early January. The area is being appropriated by neighbouring Mennonite Brethren Collegiate Institute for an expansion project. Uses for the old 77 Kelvin St. Administration Building (now A.H. Unruh Teaching Centre) are still in the planning stages.

Photos: Lorie Mayer

The Anglican Consultative Council, a worldwide gathering of Anglican bishops, meeting in September in Hong Kong, passed a unanimous resolution asking bishops to avoid unilateral actions that would strain relations within the church. The resolution was aimed at Bishop of New Westminster Michael Ingham, who has agreed that his diocese in B.C.’s Lower Mainland will bless same-sex unions. On Oct. 29, the Canadian House of Bishops approved, by a vote of 28–9, a statement asking all bishops to uphold the church’s official teaching on homosexual activity until the matter can be discussed by the next general synod in 2004. Outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey has specifically criticized Ingham’s action, and incoming Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has said that dioceses should not act independently on this matter. However, Ingham has hinted that he may go ahead and bless same-sex unions anyway. The House of Bishops also appointed a facilitator to seek reconciliation between Ingham and eight parishes that have asked to be placed under a bishop other than Ingham.

—B.C. Christian News

A Maclean’s/Today’s Parent poll reveals that 11% of parents in Quebec and 41% of parents in the rest of Canada think that it is never appropriate for teens to have sex outside marriage; only 5% of parents in Quebec and less than 1% of parents in the rest of Canada think it is okay for teens to have sex under age 16; 54% of Quebec parents and 86% of parents in the rest of Canada would not allow their teens to spend the night together with their sex partner in their home; 57% of Quebec parents and 44% of parents in the rest of Canada say that it would be okay for their children to have a same-sex sexual relationship at some time in their lives; and 23% of Quebec parents and 4% of parents in the rest of Canada say their teenaged children have had sex.

—Maclean’s

The Student Services Department of Dawson College in Montreal in November told Muslim students to take down a banner saying, “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the last Messenger of Allah” The students had had permission to set up a “Discover Islam” event, but about 20 parents, teachers and students complained about the banner, which Student Services then decided was “offensive, provocative, controversial and political” and might endanger student safety. After protests, the College later apologized for asking that the banner be removed and has offered the Muslim students an opportunity to run the “Discover Islam” event a second time. The banner statement is considered by Muslims to be the “first pillar” or fundamental principle of Islam.

—Council on American-Islamic Relations

World Jewish population has declined to 12.8 million, says Jerusalem-based researcher Dennis Ross. The number of Jews in Israel has doubled since 1970 to 5 million, partly due to immigration of 1 million Jews from the former Soviet Union. However, the number of Jews outside Israel shrank by 2.2 million to 7.8 million. Ross also estimates that Arabs will outnumber Jews in Israel by 2020.

—Council on American-Islamic Relations, Associated Press

Customers shopping at Canadian Ten Thousand Villages stores during the holiday season, have contributed more than $10,000 toward the Giving Projects Program of Mennonite Central Committee. Living Gift Festivals held at participating Ten Thousand Villages stores were designed for customers to spend just a few dollars while at the same time making a difference in the life of someone from a developing country. Shoppers could choose, for example, a special project which provided milk for refugees in Jordan or rain collecting tanks for families in Nicaragua. When one of these projects was purchased as a gift for someone else, they received a special ornament and card to give the person, detailing the gift given.

—Ten Thousand Villages news release

Mennonite Economic Development Associates is offering a Church and Business Tour of southeast Africa July 30–Aug. 19. The tour, hosted by former MEDA president Ben Sprunger and MEDA Africa staff, will visit Tanzania, Mozambique and Zimbabwe; see MEDA’s micro-enterprise work in action, tour Krueger National Park (South Africa’s largest game park); travel the Zambesi River; tour a rain forest; stop at Victoria Falls; and conclude at the Mennonite World Conference Assembly in Zimbabwe. For information, call 717-560-6546.

—MEDA

Almost 862,000 abortions were performed in the US in 1999. The number has been dropping since 1991. There were 256 abortions per 1000 live births, the lowest ratio since 1975, and 17 abortions per 1000 women. A survey by Zogby International has revealed declining support for abortion. One-third of Americans aged 18–29 say that abortion should never be legal, compared to 23% of those aged 30–64 and 20% of those over 65. Over 60% of Americans say that if a friend or family member were contemplating an abortion, they would advise against it. In 1998, nine US women died from complications during legal abortions.

—Evangelical Press News Service

Mennonite Central Committee is contributing food to support a tuberculosis clinic run by Medair, an international aid agency, in Kabul Afghanistan. Tuberculosis spreads easily among Afghanis living in refugee camps. It can be cured with eight months of antibiotics. However, many stop taking the medication after a couple of months when the symptoms disappear; the disease then often recurs and is resistant to antibiotics. The clinic therefore offers free food to people who continue to take the medication for eight months.

—Mennonite Central Committee

Mennonite Central Committee’s Global Family Program is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. It was begun to help orphans in South Korea following World War II; North American sponsors donated money to buy clothing, food, shelter and education for individual children. The program now works in 33 countries, matching donors to 3000 needy children. MCC hopes to expand the program to help 5000 children by 2005.

—Mennonite Central Committee

The Canadian Justice Minister has introduced an omnibus bill that will narrow the legal defences against a charge of child pornography to the single defence of “the public good”; broaden the definition of written child pornography to include material where prohibited sexual activity with children is the predominant characteristic and the material is produced for a sexual purpose; create a new category of sexual exploitation to protect people aged 14–18; increase maximum sentences for child-related offences; make it easier for child victims to testify via short-circuit TV; and introduce new offences of voyeurism. However, it does not raise the age of sexual consent, which is still set at 14.

—Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, Department of Justice

Canadians reported more than 100 different languages as their mother tongues in the 2001 Canadian census. One in six people have a mother tongue other than English or French, up 12.5% from the 1996 census (compared to the Canadian population growth of 4%). The most common languages other than English and French are Chinese (2.9% of the population), Italian, German, Punjabi and Spanish. Language groups with the largest gains included Chinese, Punjabi, Arabic, Urdu, Tagalog and Tamil.

—Canadian Ethnocultural Council

Mennonite Economic Development Associates has sold CHISPA (which is Spanish for “spark”), a bank it created in Nicaragua. MEDA started CHISPA in 1990 as a small business training and credit program, which eventually helped 7000 small business operators. In order to increase the services it could offer, MEDA allied with a consortium of investment funds to turn CHISPA into a full bank, called Confia Bank, in 1999. When it became obvious that the bank needed to expand further into an international family of banks, MEDA decided to sell its ownership to International Project Consulting, one of its consortium partners based in Germany, which works almost exclusively in microfinance banking. MEDA had earlier spun off similar microfinance institutions in Haiti and Bolivia, but it remained involved with Confia Bank to a higher stage of development.

—MEDA

Calgary Mennonite Centre for Newcomers is consolidating all its services at one address, effective immediately:

#125, 920 – 36th St. NE
Calgary, Alta.  T2A 6L8

Phone: 403-569-3325; fax: 403-248-5041.

Sophia, a magazine for and by Christian women, is offering its fourth New Writers Contest, open to those who have not previously written for Sophia. Categories include: Life writing; A reflection from Scripture; Experience as a Christian woman at the beginning of the 21st century; A theme suitable for one of the columns of Sophia, eg., “Unspeakable Issues”, “Images of God” or a book review for “Shelf Life”; Fiction. 800 word maximum. Cash prizes will be awarded. Deadline for submissions is February 1, 2003. For more information, please write:

SOPHIA, P.O. Box 28062,
RPO North Kildonan,
Winnipeg, MB, R2G 4E9.

Sophia gives voice to stories about family, church, workplace and society. Its goal is to affirm women in their quest for spiritual, emotional and physical wholeness and for the full expression of their gifts in all spheres of life.