Short stuff

Members of the Everestforkids team smile during their ascent to Mount Everest base camp, Apr. 3–20. The team of 5 trekkers (3 pictured above with other climbers) raised $64,000 to send needy children to one of B.C.’s 5 camps this summer. (For more on the trip, see James Toews’ Intersection in this issue.)

B.C. provincial conference minister Steve Berg cuts the cake, commemorating completion of a risk management manual for churches, “Doing the Right Thing.” The product of years of staff effort under the leadership of administrator Marilyn Hiebert (pictured), the manual is available to B.C. MB churches online, on CD, or hard copy. The conference says congregational care involves both risk taking and risk management. The manual includes handbooks on pastoring, searching for a pastor, directors and officers’ liabilities, employee relations, business requirements, and similar topics.

MB Biblical Seminary professor emeritus Allen Guenther, pictured (above) with his wife Anne, was honoured for his years of service to the seminary when a commissioned portrait of him was unveiled April 13. Guenther began his tenure at MBBS in 1981 as associate professor of Old Testament. He was promoted to full professor 10 years later, and named professor emeritus in 1998. He now focuses his time on research and writing in the area of Old Testament studies.

Within hours of deadly tornadoes in southwestern Kansas in early May, 4 Mennonite Disaster Service teams were helping with cleanup. Jeff Blackburn, pastor of the Mennonite church in Greensburg, where much of the town (including his church) was destroyed and 10 people were reported killed, said, “I knew MDS would show up, but I didn’t think it would be this fast.” Volunteers are also repairing roofs on still-standing houses and assisting people who lost homes sort through their personal effects.

—MDS

Three evangelical Christians were murdered in Turkey on April 18. Two Turks and a German were found tied up and their throats slit in the Zirve Publishing House, which specializes in Turkish Christian literature and distributes the Jesus film. The murders sparked tense national debate about the legitimacy of Christian missionary activity. “Missionaries are more dangerous than terror organizations,” Ministry of Justice director general of laws Niyazi Guney reportedly said.

—Compass Direct News

No more limbo, but lots of questions: Pope Benedict’s announcement that the Catholic church will no longer teach there’s a place called limbo where unbaptized babies spend eternity has provoked a variety of responses. Traditionalists are angry because, if this can change, what else can? Clergy who found limbo “more chilling than comforting” for bereaved parents are relieved. Others, who hadn’t realized the nuances – that limbo was not “an infallible teaching” or “even a formal doctrine” – just want clarification.

—Sightings

An additional $444,000 Cdn. has been committed by Mennonite Central Committee to help Iraqis uprooted from their homes. Some 40,000 to 50,000 Iraqis are forced to flee or seek shelter elsewhere every month because of current tensions in the country. MCC is collaborating with partner organizations in the Middle East region to identify specific projects to assist the vulnerable. MCC is also sending 7 shipping containers of material aid.

—MCC News

Dr. Ferdinand Pauls, member of Portage Ave. Church, Winnipeg, was recently awarded the Manitoba Medical Association’s Dr. Jack Armstrong Humanitarian Award for his contributions abroad, championing the cause of obstetrics training and safer childbirth. Although pleased, Pauls said he was more concerned about the 600,000 women and 4 million newborns who die unnecessarily every year during childbirth. Pauls works with the Alarm International Program of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada. He is also president of the Mennonite Mission Health Association.

—Winnipeg Free Press

Six young adults from Anabaptist communities in the U.S. and Canada are currently riding their bicycles from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, through Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos, to Chengdu, China. The touring participants of BikeMovement Asia will connect with Anabaptist and other Christian congregations and agencies, seeking to understand and observe the joys and challenges of their hosts. Join them at their interactive website, Bikemovement.org.

—release

Hispanics are transforming America’s religious landscape, especially the Roman Catholic Church, according to a recent study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Pew Hispanic Center. It’s not just because of their growing numbers, but because they practice a distinctive form of Christianity. Renewalist Christianity, associated with the Pentecostal and charismatic movements, which emphasizes God’s day-to-day intervention in human affairs through the Holy Spirit, is much more prevalent among Hispanics than non-Latinos.

—Evangelical Press News

65 families recently received keys and titles to new homes (above) in a remote coastal village in Tamil Nadu, India, rebuilt as part of a Canadian response to the destruction of the 2004 tsunami. A Canadian ecumenical partnership involving Presbyterian, United, Anglican, and Mennonite churches and the Canadian International Development agency (CIDA) contributed $9 million to restoring homes and livelihoods in six villages. Don Peters, executive director of MCC Canada, and Ed Miller, MCC’s representatiave in India, were part of the joyous ceremony.

—MCC News

More than 1000 people attended a German song festival, held in both Steinbach, Man. and Winnipeg at the end of April. Conductors George Wiebe and Jake Klassen led a choir of 90 in classical and contemporary songs. Of special interest were selections from a new German hymnal being published by Mennonites in Paraguay. Mennonitische Post editor Kennert Giesbrecht also reported on his recent trip to Bolivia. The North Kildonan MB and Elmwood MB churches of Winnipeg were among those participating.

—release

Build a fabric house and help the world. Mennonite Central Committee is calling for house blocks or quilt squares depicting houses. The blocks will be incorporated into quilts, wall hangings, and comforters, and auctioned at MCC relief sales to raise money for MCC projects. MCC quilting coordinators urge participants to use their imaginations. For more information, see MCC Relief Sales.

—MCC News

Some 10,000 to 15,000 believers in unregistered house churches among a minority tribal people in Vietnam have come to consider themselves part of the Mennonite family of faith, after copies of the 1995 Mennonite Church USA confession of faith circulated in the area. Former Eastern Mennonite Missions worker Don Sensenig recently met with 10 Vietnamese house church leaders. They asked for training and further understanding of Mennonite life.

—Mennonite Weekly Review

Close-up to tragedy: The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has joined with Google in a first-ever online mapping initiative that will allow people to visualize and better understand the genocide unfolding in Sudan. Crisis in Darfur, available at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, provides views of burned villages, tent cities, refugees struggling to survive, and eyewitness testimony of atrocities in attacked villages. To date more than 2.5 million civilians have been driven from their homes and more than 300,000 people killed because of their ethnic or racial identity.

—ushmm.org