People & events

Photo courtesy of Centre for MB Studies

The A.H. Unruh Building, familiar to all alumni of the Mennonite Brethren Bible College or its successor, Concord College, will be demolished this summer to make way for more green space as the adjoining Mennonite Brethren Collegiate Institute expands its facilities. While the building is still impressive from the outside, the cost of renovating the structure to meet current building code standards is prohibitive. A plaque will later be mounted in the area to remember the building and its significance. It was first a public school, named the Anna Gibson School after a volunteer who assisted patients during the Spanish flu epidemic, only to succumb to it herself. Mennonite Brethren purchased it for a college in 1944; it was re-named the A.H. Unruh Teaching Centre in 1985 to honour the College’s founder. More on the history of the building and its various names can be found at the MB Conference website.

—from report by Conrad Stoesz, Centre for MB Studies

Two million children, according to UNICEF estimates, are currently exploited in the global commercial sex trade, through prostitution and pornography. World Vision’s “Child Sex Tourism Prevention Project” aims to discourage potential child sex tourists, a quarter of whom worldwide are from the U.S., by placing deterrent messages on billboards, internet ads, television, magazines and in-flight video in the U.S. and destination countries. It is also assisting government officials in the identification of American sex tourists.

—World Vision

A team of youth, all of them alumni of Youth Mission International programs (SOAR, ACTION, TREK), are doing music and mobilization ministry for MB Mission and Service International across Canada this summer. Nathan Toews, Jon Hamm, Erik and Jamie Toews, Doug and Elissa Toews, and Stephen Paul Siemens are leading musical worship, testimony and dramatic Scripture presentation in churches and camps, between May 15 and July 31, seeking to glorify God and motivate commitment to God’s call.

—MBMSI News

Some church-related aid organizations worry that Canada’s new way of giving aid may not be the best way to help the world’s poor. The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has decided to change to a Program Based Approach (PBA), whereby money is sent to governments and local groups in developing countries, instead of going through Canadian aid agencies. A Mennonite Economic Development Agency spokesperson said the approach “makes sense in theory” but may also “be ripe for corruption and misuse of funds.” A spokesperson from Canadian Food for the Hungry International said many groups will no longer be eligible for CIDA funding.

—ChristianWeek

A growing number of Mennonite churches use Rick Warren’s ideas and books (The Purpose-Driven Church, The Purpose-Driven Life). Mennonite Church USA’s mission agency, the Mennonite Mission Network, will hold a consultation before the denomination’s assembly in Charlotte, N.C. this July, to help Mennonite congregations adapt “purpose-driven” ideas. A written resource, by Craig Pelkey-Landes, is also available at Mennonite Mission Network. Pelkey-Landes affirms Warren but adds analysis from an Anabaptist perspective.

—Mennonite Weekly Review

Ethiopia now has the most baptized believers of any Mennonite-related church or conference worldwide. Latest census figures show that the Meserete Kristos Church (MKC) numbers 120,610 baptized members. The second largest group is Mennonite Church (MC) USA at 111,347 members. In 2003, MC USA was the largest, with MKC at 98,025. Since then the Ethiopian church has increased by 22,585 people and MC USA by 1,094.

—Mennonite World Conference

The French versions of Dan Brown’s books (Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code) are among the top sellers at Quebec’s largest book retailers, but there has been little media coverage of the controversy about what Brown relates as “facts.” Ecole de Theologie Evangelique de Montreal, under the leadership of Éric Wingender, is offering workshops about the books, to debunk some of the details Brown weaves into his stories as well as consider the credibility of details from biblical accounts.

—ChristianWeek

Former missionaries (l–r): Rudolf and Hilde Plett, Ani and Alberto Ens, Hans Pankratz, Ingrid and Alfredo Klassen.

The Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches in Paraguay (Spanish-speaking) held 50th anniversary celebrations during Holy Week 2005. A special service March 27 was attended by all MB churches in the country as well as former missionaries who started the work. Latin American MB churches number over 2,600 members in 50 autonomous congregations.

—Mennonite World Conference

Boycotts: The conservative Christian group, American Family Association (AFA), has ended a nine-year boycott of the Disney organization, not because Disney had reformed but because others have become much worse. Critics say boycotts don’t work; during the boycott period Disney reported higher earnings and attendance at its theme parks. The AFA then launched a boycott against Ford Motor Co., the second largest U.S. automaker, but recently withdrew it after company officials agreed to look at AFA concerns. Both boycotts originated over issues related to what AFA calls these firms’ “homosexual agenda.”

—Evangelical Press News

Tsunami survivors in India are being helped by Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) and two Indian Anabaptist organizations (including the Mennonite Brethren Development Organization) to restore their families’ livelihoods. The project, with some $175,000 Cdn provided by MCC, will benefit more than 1,562 families in a dozen villages through money, food, new fishing boats and nets, as well as repair of boats, nets and houses. As of February, the Indian government has listed 10,776 dead and 5,640 missing due to the December tsunami. Pictured, Govindamma Raisani registers for distribution of funds in the village of Pakala Palepallema.

—MCC News, MBMS International

Closing in Botswana: Mennonite Central Committee will end more than 3 decades of service in Botswana this summer. Some 279 MCC workers have served in Botswana, which once had MCC’s largest program in Africa. When workers first arrived in 1968, two years after the country’s independence, Botswana was impoverished and MCC teachers made up 5 percent of the country’s secondary school teachers. Despite a high AIDS rate, conditions have improved dramatically. Since the 1980s, MCC worked in partnership with Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission, which will continue its work with African Independent Churches.

—MCC News

“The last everyday reader of a daily newspaper will completely disappear in October 2044,” predicts Philip Meyer, a University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill professor and author of The Vanishing Newspaper. Today, when youth reach the stage of wanting to be more informed they don’t take up newspaper reading as earlier, but are comfortable with alternative media, especially the Web. Another media analyst, John Morton, thinks print news still has a future, but it may be in the form of weeklies.

—Evangelical Press News