People & events

Pleasant Manor in Virgil, Ont. recently completed a new seniors apartment complex. Called the “Creekview,” the official ribbon-cutting ceremony and dedication was held on Saturday, November 22, 2003. Taking part in the ribbon-cutting were Pleasant Manor board members, the building contractor and local politicians, as well as tenant, Ontario MB Conference and Ontario government representatives. In the photo, (l–r): Don Sewell, Ted Ens, Mayor Gary Burroughs, M.P. Gary Pilliterri, tenant Agnes Neufeld, Peter Warkentin, Ontario MB Assistant Moderator Nancy Boese, Serina Labonte, Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Consultant and Steven Sewell.

John R. Schmidt, a pioneering physician from Kansas who worked among refugee Mennonites and leprosy patients in Paraguay, died Nov. 6 in Filadelfia, Paraguay. He was 92. Schmidt first went to Paraguay with Mennonite Central Committee in 1941. He broke new ground by establishing a clinic for leprosy patients, instead of a colony where they would be isolated.

—Mennonite Weekly Review

Native Mennonites from across North America will gather for an assembly next summer in Riverton, Man. Representatives from Mennonite Church Canada Native Ministries, United Native Ministries and Mennonite Indian Leaders Council met in November to plan the event. They also worked at creating an organization of Native Mennonite congregations in Canada and the USA.

—Mennonite Church Canada

“Developing a Life that Ripples: learning to attend to one’s inner life with God” is the theme of REFRESH 2004, four one-day conferences on spiritual replenishment to be held in conjunction with the provincial MB conventions in Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Quebec. Daniel Wolpert and Garry Schmidt, both of San Francisco Theological Seminary, are the facilitators. More information at 866-766-4395.

—release

Gospel Missionary Union, one of the oldest missionary agencies in the western world, has a new name: Avant Ministries. It also has a new priority: “short-cycle church planting” which seeks to shorten the time needed to develop a mature church. President J. Paul Nyquist said the renaming reflects this “forward-thinking approach” to church planting.

—Avant Ministries

Two young Christian men who set up an Internet site to fight against the flood of X-rated material on the Internet say they have counselled thousands of men, mostly by e-mail, about the devastating effects of pornography. Mike Foster and Craig Gross promote awareness, accountability and recovery. Internet pornography, they say, is a critical problem also for Christians.

—Christian Reader

Mennonite Economic Development Associates is planning a second starch manufacturing facility in Paraguay, the country where they launched their ministry of business assistance 50 years ago. The first starch plant, called CODIPSA, has been successful at providing a market for smallholder manioc producers. The new plant will serve some 6–800 small farmers.

—MEDA release

Some 20 million Chinese peasants migrate to cities every year. When the communists took power in China in 1940, only 10 percent of the population lived in cities; it is expected that it will be half the population by 2015. The migration is negatively affecting rural house churches, as younger Christians leave, but could also become a force for urban evangelism.

—Compass Direct

Three shipping containers with aid from Mennonite Central Committee are bound for Congo. Blankets, soap, clothing and newborn, health, sewing and school kits will be distributed by the country’s three Mennonite conferences, which polled their congregations to determine 25,000 recipients. The gift of a quilt or shirt or pair of pants is very significant for the average person in Congo, says MCC worker Fred Kaarsemaker.

—MCC News

Carl F.H. Henry, former editor of Christianity Today and one of the 20th century’s most respected voices for evangelical orthodoxy, died Dec. 7. He was 90.

—Evangelical Press News

An exhibit of archaelogical finds relating to Judaism and early Christianity, “Ancient Treasures and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” is currently showing at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa. Among the items on display are portions of three of the first Dead Sea Scrolls (discovered in 1947), artifacts tied to King David’s dynasty, and an amulet bearing the oldest fragment of biblical verse ever discovered (parts of the Numbers 6:24–26 benediction).

—release

Gay issues prominent in 2003 were deemed to be at the top of Canadian news in many year-end summaries of 2003. Although TIME magazine picked an American soldier, representative of the war on Iraq, as their Person of the Year, the magazine’s Canadian Newsmaker of the year was the first gay couple to legally wed in Canada. The Globe and Mail selected the Ontario Court of Appeal panel on same-sex marriage as their Nation Builder of 2003. ChristianWeek, a newspaper of news and comment about faith and life in Canada, picked two stories relating to the issue as their top two stories of 2003: Michael Ingham’s approval of a rite for same-sex blessings for the Anglican diocese of New Westminister May 23 and cross-country support (in hearings and rallies) for traditional marriage.