People & events

Make Us Holy, a worship ministry based in Kitchener, Ont. and led by former MB pastor Gareth J. Goossen, is launching “Training Ground,” a 9-month internship program for young worship leaders. Each student will work in 2 local churches differing in size, style, focus, or congregational makeup, in order to learn pastoral resourcefulness, and will also serve as worship leader in a cross-cultural short-term mission experience. Interested students should write Gareth J. Goossen.

“CEO disease” is one of the greatest challenges facing pastors today, said Trevor Hubert recently at a workshop sponsored by the Centre for Leadership and Management, a new initiative being explored by Canadian Mennonite University, Winnipeg. “The higher you go up the organizational chart, the harder it is to get good feedback.” This causes leaders to “over-inflate how well they’re really doing.” The Centre, made possible by a Mennonite Foundation of Canada grant, will help pastors develop their leadership potential.

—CMU

Kerri Woelke, a 28-year-old singer/songwriter who leads worship for recovery groups at The Meeting Place, Winnipeg, is the winner of the 2006 Manitoba Christian Talent Search, the second competition of its kind presented by Avante Records and CHVN radio. Her prizes included a guitar, which (since she already has one) Woelke plans to pass on to an inner city girl, along with free lessons.

—Family Life Network

More than 300 agency leaders and frontline workers who serve Canada’s poor and homeless gathered in Ottawa Mar. 29–Apr. 1 for Street Level 2006, the National Roundtable on Poverty and Homelessness, under the auspices of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. Participants developed a manifesto, available for supporters to sign (streetlevel.ca), calling on the government to tackle the problem of homelessness in Canada.

—EFC Update

Religious activity has increased in five of seven core religious behaviours studied by The Barna Group, which tracks religious behaviour and beliefs in America. The biggest jump is in Bible readership. The number of adults reading the Bible during a typical week (other than when they are at church) hit a 20-year low of 31 percent in 1995; it is now at 47 percent. Church attendance, involvement in small groups, church volunteerism, and Sunday school attendance also rose; prayer and evangelism remained relatively unchanged.

—Evangelical Press News

Drought in Kenya: An estimated 6.25 million people need food aid in East Africa, where some areas have been without significant rainfall for several years. More than half of them live in Kenya. Canadian Foodgrains Bank (CFB) is responding with 5,000 metric tonnes of food aid, valued at about $2.7 million, in the form of maize, beans, yellow split peas, and edible oil. Sixty percent of the commodities will be purchased in the region, in areas not affected by drought.

—CFB

Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) recently inaugurated a new project site in Pass Christian, Mississippi. MDS usually sets up camp on a churchyard or other temporarily available property, but damage in the community from hurricane Katrina was so extensive, the organization had to provide its own quarters by buying land and setting up trailers. Nearly all business property and 90 percent of the town’s homes were destroyed. MDS is committed to staying at least three years.

—MDS

Wendy Gritter of Toronto has been named as the first national director of New Direction Ministries Canada, which is dedicated to assisting persons struggling with sexual and gender identity questions. Branches of the ministry currently exist in Winnipeg and Toronto. New Direction Ministries also seeks to equip the church. Gritter wants the evangelical church in Canada to become a stronger source of healing for people struggling with issues related to their sexuality. More information at newdirection.ca.

—release

The global youth committee of Mennonite World Conference (MWC), AMIGOS, wants to raise $100,000 U.S. to help Anabaptist young people from around the world attend the Global Youth Summit (GYS) to be held in 2009, in conjunction with the MWC assembly in Paraguay. The first GYS in Zimbabwe, in 2003, energized its participants and the committee wants to share the momentum with others for whom travel costs will be a barrier. To participate, contact the committee through MWC.

—MWC

Faith Alive Clinic, a free HIV/AIDS clinic supported by Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in Jos, Nigeria, was destroyed Apr. 13 by fire, apparently caused by a power surge in the laboratory. Although no people were harmed, everything in the clinic’s main building was destroyed, including its pharmacy, equipment, and computers. The Christian clinic provides care to thousands of HIV/AIDS patients. MCC is assisting with immediate needs and appealing for additional funds to help the clinic recover.

—MCC News

Canada’s integrated mission in Afghanistan damages Canada’s international reputation as peacekeepers and also affects the work of Mennonite Central Committee and other Canadian humanitarian agencies, says Willie Reimer, coordinator of MCC Canada’s Food Disaster Material Resource department. Humanitarian agencies working in conflict situations want to be perceived by local people as independent and impartial, he says. “Combining humanitarian and military activities blurs the lines.”

—MCC News

Return to the Earth project: The culturally un-identifiable remains of Native Americans stacked in museums and institutions for many years, will be buried with dignity in regional cemeteries throughout the U.S., beginning with a cemetery near the Cheyenne Cultural Center in Clinton, Okla. Cheyenne peace chief and Mennonite Central Committee U.S. board member Lawrence Hart is assisting in burying these remains. Churches are encouraged to participate.

—MCC News

“There wasn’t room for another box,” said Wilf Unrau, manager of Mennonite Central Committee’s warehouse as he and 16 volunteers squeezed 8,657 school kits into a container bound for Afghanistan. Help the Afghan Children (HTAC), an MCC partner, will distribute the kits upon arrival in Afghanistan. Since 1996, MCC has provided more than $7.8 million in assistance to the people of Afghanistan, including food, blankets, soap, school kits, clothing, and canned meat. Pictured are (l–r) Corneil Hiebert, John Guenther, and Alfred Loewen.