People & events

A House Against Hunger was dedicated in Port Rowan, Ont. June 15. Begun Aug. 25, 2002, the house was built on land donated by John and Betty Wiebe in appreciation for help MCC had given their family in Ukraine in the 1920s. The project was a joint effort of the United Mennonite, Brethren in Christ and Mennonite Brethren churches to raise money for MCC to fight hunger overseas. Community people volunteered labour, businesses contributed products and services, and ladies brought in coffee breaks. The house is expected to raise about $100,000.

—Marlene Doerksen

AIDS cases have increased dramatically in India. The number reported to authorities jumped more than 15 percent to more than 4.58 million infections in one year. Only South Africa has a larger HIV-positive population (5 million in a population of 42 million).

—Evangelical Press News

The U.S. Mennonite Brethren Conference finished the 2002–03 fiscal year with a $130,000 U.S. increase in church contributions and a surplus in income and transfers. Giving is still only at 27 percent of suggested per member goals, however, and an operating deficit remains. Analyzing both positive and negative factors, outgoing treasurer Dale Regier says Conference efforts to stabilize finances are working.

—Christian Leader

Promise Keepers goes to jail: the international ministry for men held a major conference at Marion Correctional Institution in Marion, Ohio mid-August. Inmates have taken part in PK conferences via live Web casts but this was the first inside a facility. Chaplains world-wide, including a Canadian representative of 100 federal prisons, called about tuning into the free Web cast.

—Evangelical Press News

According to the last Canadian census (2001), British Columbia has 13 of the 25 fastest-aging municipalities in Canada. Alberta has 14 of the 25 youngest municipalities. The percentage of population born outside Canada is 18, which ranks second worldwide, next to Australia at 22 percent foreign born.

—Macleans

Canned pork and beef sent by Mennonite Central Committee, and received like “manna from heaven,” are feeding children and others at high risk in war-torn Liberia, West Africa. Some 4,300 cans were airlifted into Monrovia in April, and a further shipment of 12,000 cans was due to arrive in August. MCC has no personnel in Liberia, but contributes through the Liberian group Concerned Christian Community.

—MCC News

Israeli authorities arrested Oded Golan, owner of the famed James ossuary, on suspicion of forging the inscription as well as other artifacts. The ossuary, a stone box used by Jews in the first century to hold the bones of deceased relatives, bore the Aramaic inscription “James, son of Joseph and brother of Jesus” and has been widely touted as the earliest physical evidence of Jesus’ life.

—Evangelical Press News

Hispanics are now the largest minority population in the U.S. and are impacting the church, says Ron Blue of CAM International. They are driving church growth, have influenced contemporary music, and strongly support family values and warmth in relationships. The growing Hispanic mission force is especially effective in reaching Muslims.

—World Pulse

“The biggest dinner invitation in Canadian history” will be launched Sept. 15 by the Alpha Course, with a mass advertising campaign and some 2000 churches sponsoring special meal events to draw people into conversation about a relationship with Jesus. A variety of approaches will be used. One creative use of the Alpha Course has been Spirituality on Tap, sponsored by the local Christian Missionary Alliance church at Madison Avenue Pub in Toronto.

—Christianity.ca, United Church Observer

David Mainse, 67, has retired as host of “100 Huntley Street”. He founded Crossroads Christian Communication, based in Burlington, Ont., and the television show, watched by more than one million Canadians a week, in 1962. More than 90,000 first-time decisions to follow Christ have been recorded. He will continue to serve as a national evangelist; hosting duties go to his son, Ron Mainse.

—ChristianWeek

A new Pastor’s Manual produced by leaders of African Independent Church (AIC) and workers of the Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission (AIMM) was launched in Botswana in June. The project, containing services, prayers, and ceremonies important to AIC churches, created unity among congregations and gave leaders more confidence. MB missionary Bryan Born and Rudy Dirks of Mennonite Church Canada were instrumental in completing the project.

—AIMM News

Russian President Vladimir Putin attended church services July 31 in celebration of Orthodox saint Seraphim, the first leader to participate in these festivities since Czar Nicholas II. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the Orthodox church is re-positioning itself as a religious power in Russia. Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy III said Putin’s presence was “a sign of the unity of the church, the people and the authorities.”

—Evangelical Press News

Sixty-two Eritrean students caught with Bibles at a compulsory military training camp were arrested and severely punished, according to recent reports from the tiny East African nation, bringing to 213 the known number of evangelical Christians jailed for their faith there since a government crackdown launched February. The teens are reportedly locked in metal shipping containers with no light, high temperatures and limited oxygen.

—Compass Direct

Ida Stoltzfus, age 92, was honoured by Palestinian representatives Aug. 10 for nearly 38 years of service in Hebron, Palestine. Ida and her deceased twin sister Ada worked several years in India and Pakistan before arriving in what was then Jordan in 1952 to do relief work among Palestinian refugees. They later opened an orphanage and school in Hebron, serving until 1989.

—MCC News

The Luis Palau Evangelistic Association pulled together more than 3000 volunteers to weed, plant flowers, edge lawns and spiff up public schools in the Portland, Ore. area, delighting officials and saving the education system more than $410,000 U.S. “The churches under the leadership of Luis Palau have demonstrated very powerfully to our school children that they are loved,” said city commissioner Jim Francesconi.

—Evangelical Press News

In July, volunteers from MCC Manitoba and MCC Canada packed a container of 15,000 blankets destined for the northern Uganda city of Kitgum where the population has swelled from 47,000 to over 75,000 as people flee the on-going battle between government forces and the Lord’s Resistance Army. Many people do not have basic necessities. Pictured (l–r): Richard Dyck, Alfred Sawatzky, Dave Lepp, Paul Friesen, Darby Kilmer.