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A $1M donation to MCC by an anonymous couple in B.C. is helping malnourished children in North Korea through First Steps, a Canadian non-profit that buys soybeans in China. With donated equipment, schools and orphanages process soybeans into milk and serve it daily to 50,000 children, improving health conditions. MCC has provided North Koreans with food and supplies worth more than $13 million since 1996. According to the World Food Program, North Korea faces chronic food shortages as large as 1 million metric tons per year.
—MCC release
“Come together in the way of Jesus Christ,” has been selected as the theme for Mennonite World Conference Assembly 15, to be held in Asunción, Paraguay, July 2009. “The ‘way’ points to the core New Testament value, in an Anabaptist perspective, of discipleship, of following Christ, of taking up the cross, to the glory of God, as described in Philippians 2,” says MWC general secretary, Larry Miller.
—MWC
MCC’s third Iran learning tour, sponsored by the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute, met with government representatives, university professors, Armenian Christians, seminary professors, and religious leaders in December. At one meeting “an Iranian ambassador and others proposed specific ventures in which we were invited to collaborate with them,” said Evie Shellenberger. “Among other things they wished for a round-table religious dialogue. The focus would be the role of religion in addressing the questions related to international politics and justice and a weeklong workshop on peace studies and peace-building.”
—MCC release
The authors of Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy, Donald B. Kraybill, Steve Nolt, and David Weaver-Zercher are donating the royalties to MCC. Their book received critical acclaim and has already sold 50,000 copies. “We have received numerous words of affirmation from readers who have appreciated the way this story has touched their lives and inspired them to be more forgiving persons,” the authors stated.
—MCC release
Trinity Western University inaugurated the Religion in Canada Institute (RCI), the first think-tank of its kind which will explore the diverse role religion plays in Canadian lives, culture, and social institutions with an interdisciplinary group of scholars. Its research “has never been done before in this type of collaboration,” says Michael Wilkinson, sociologist, and director of RCI. “The future of religion in Canada is going to look very different.”
—TWU release
Evangelical Christians in the U.S. rank the economy, improving public education and access to health care, and government reform as more important than ending abortion or stopping gay marriage, according to a new online survey by Beliefnet.com, the leading multi-faith spirituality website. “An historic shift is occurring that can be likened to an earthquake in slow motion. The revolution is a broadening of the agenda where evangelicals are no longer single-issue voters willing to follow the leaders of the Religious Right,” said Richard Cizik, Vice President for Governmental Affairs, NAE.
—Sojourners release
Pastor Ken and Mary Epp celebrated 15 years of service at Main Centre (Sask.) MB Church. Pictured are (back, l–r) Ed and Marie Schmidt, conference minister Ralph Gliege and his wife Grace; (front) Ken and Mary Epp.
MCC is working with the Christian Council of Mozambique, a long-time MCC partner organization, to provide plastic sheeting and wood poles that can be used for temporary shelters for families displaced by heavy flooding. Relief and health kits are also part of the $50,000 package sent to the flood prone region. Along the lower Zambezi river, estimates are that some 230,000 have been affected, including 70,000 who fled from their homes.
—MCC release
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