People & events

MCC News photo: John Robinson

Asunta Maker, 17 months old, sits on her mother’s lap at an emergency nutrition clinic. Mennonite Central Committee supports eight such clinics in northern Sudan, where an estimated 1.8 million people have been forced to relocate because of Sudan’s decades-old civil war.

Harold and Anne Kasper have returned to Canada after serving as missionaries under Gospel Missionary Union in Argentina for almost 40 years. Ttheir work was recognized in Coaldale (Alta.) MB Church Nov. 14.

The Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) unit in Iraq is partnering with a group of Iraqis who want to form a Muslim Peace Team. CPT members have provided training in nonviolence, help in establishing goals and bylaws, and tools for dealing with trauma, working with media and human rights documentation. CPT has been in Iraq since 2002; currently members face dangers in travel and ongoing insurgent attacks. From Advent to Easter they fasted once weekly, praying for discernment.

—CPT newsletter

The prospect of gay marriage has stirred Canada’s Hutterites to send a letter to Prime Minister Paul Martin, warning if the law on the matter is passed “we will live the darkest day in all of Canada’s history” and referencing the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah. The Hutterian Brethren, with some 28,000 members in Canada on 334 colonies, traditionally do not get involved in political action or vote.

—Globe and Mail

A year after the Hillsboro (Kan.) Mennonite Brethren Church building was destroyed by fire, the 600-member congregation is moving toward constructing a new facility. Moderator Don Ratzlaff says it was important to first grieve the loss. A book of full-colour photos of the blaze and aftermath, Trial by Fire: Images of Crisis, Courage and Commitment, is available at hillsborofreepress.com, with $10 of each sale going to the building fund.

—Mennonite Weekly Review

The Fraser Valley Social Purchasing Portal is a new venture by the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Employment and Community Development, aiming to connect socially responsible businesses in the Fraser Valley of B.C. It links those who need products, employees, or markets. MCC is conducting a feasibility study for this project. More information at the website.

—MCC B.C. release

The Salvation Army has chosen the Mennonite Brethren–sponsored École de Théologie Évangélique de Montréal (ETEM) to train its aspiring officers in Quebec. (The Salvation Army requires a BA degree in Theology from its officers.) They are also lending to ETEM the staff person who was their resource person for theological training, Real Gagné, and will pay his salary. ETEM also partners with the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination in doing theological training in Quebec.

—ETEM letter

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) will consider a 3-part resolution at their national convention in Winnipeg this summer that would allow local congregations to decide if they will authorize the blessing of same sex relationships. The resolution proposes that pastors perform blessings if the congregation agrees with a 2/3 majority vote and uses a church-authorized rite.

—ELCIC release

Two French-speaking Bible scholars from Mennonite Brethren schools contributed to the 6000 footnotes in a new edition of the Bible in current French. Marc Paré of the École de Théologie Évangélique de Montréal (ETEM) and Pierre Gilbert of the MB Biblical Seminary, based in Winnipeg, were part of a team of 80 scholars who provided the notes for La Bible expliqué (The Bible explained), recently released by the Canadian Bible Society and the United Bible Societies.

—ETEM letter

A simmering dispute over the closing of evangelical churches in Costa Rica broke open when Carlos Avendaño, an evangelical member of Costa Rica’s Congress, staged a protest by climbing the country’s principal monument. The government says 37 churches have been closed, over lack of restrooms or noise issues. Avendaño says the number is closer to 80 and amounts to religious persecution.

—Compass Direct

The Warman (Sask.) MB Church has closed. The last service was held Dec. 19, and a service of celebration for God’s faithfulness followed on Feb. 6, with some 200 people attending. Testimonies were shared and Frank Froese, 96, who pastored the church from 1957 to 1968, preached. The MB work in Warman began in 1932; the congregation joined the Saskatchewan MB Conference in 1967. The building is being rented by Christian Life Fellowship.

—Sask. MB Conference

A decade after a conference in Chicago that led to the Damascus Road Anti-Racism Process, some 125 people came together in Atlanta, Mar. 11–13, to reflect on this work. Damascus Road uses training about systemic racism to organize teams to work on dismantling racism in their own institutions or congregations. More than 1,500 people throughout the U.S. have participated in anti-racism trainings, with some 50 teams formed.

—MCC News