-
Newcomers to natives: Diversity and challenges for Mennonites in Brazil
The first Mennonites arrived in Brazil during the year 1930, coming as refugees from Russia/Ukraine, where their property, churches and schools were taken over by the state during the Stalin years. Thousands of Mennonites (15,000–25,000) and other groups took their few belongings and travelled to Moscow in 1929 to get a visa. Only 5,000 received…
-
A ministry of inclusive hospitality
Hospitality: Exploring what it means to offer hospitality as followers of Christ Shocking photographs published in the news media awoke the Western world to the refugee crisis on September 2015. With a heightened awareness of the issue, the Anabaptist communion worldwide considers what it means to welcome the stranger as those from different religious backgrounds enter…
-
Love opens hearts to learn more
Courier: Perspectives Hospitality: Exploring what it means to offer hospitality as followers of Christ Shocking photographs published in the news media awoke the Western world to the refugee crisis on September 2015. With a heightened awareness of the issue, the Anabaptist communion worldwide considers what it means to welcome the stranger as those from different religious…
-
The heart of a stranger
Hospitality: Exploring what it means to offer hospitality as followers of Christ Shocking photographs published in the news media awoke the Western world to the refugee crisis on September 2015. With a heightened awareness of the issue, the Anabaptist communion worldwide considers what it means to welcome the stranger as those from different religious backgrounds enter…
-
Hospitality transforms
Hospitality: Exploring what it means to offer hospitality as followers of Christ Shocking photographs published in the news media awoke the Western world to the refugee crisis on September 2015. With a heightened awareness of the issue, the Anabaptist communion worldwide considers what it means to welcome the stranger as those from different religious backgrounds enter…
-
Deep in our theological DNA
Like the chambers of a heart, the four MWC commissions serve the global community of Anabaptist-related churches, in the areas of deacons, faith and life, peace, mission. Commissions prepare materials for consideration by the General Council, give guidance and propose resources to member churches, and facilitate MWC-related networks or fellowships working together on matters of…
-
Deep in our theological DNA
Like the chambers of a heart, the four MWC commissions serve the global community of Anabaptist-related churches, in the areas of deacons, faith and life, peace, mission. Commissions prepare materials for consideration by the General Council, give guidance and propose resources to member churches, and facilitate MWC-related networks or fellowships working together on matters of…
-
MWC (re)launches prayer network
Bogotá, Colombia – “It is sometimes hard to understand all the dynamics of what is happening in other parts of the world,” says Joanne Dietzel, coordinator of the PA 2015 prayer network; “however, as we share in prayer we become one body.” With the launch of a new, ongoing prayer network, the Deacons Commission and…
-
Meet your hosts for Indonesia 2021
In July 2009, Mennonite church leaders from Indonesia found themselves in a conversation outside a dormitory in Asuncíon, Paraguay. Although they were not strangers, their paths rarely crossed. The three groups they represented had complex histories that included separation and division. But there in the relaxed context of the 15th Assembly of Mennonite World Conference,…
-
New Young Anabaptists Committee Meets in Indonesia
Less than a year ago, I hadn’t the faintest idea that I would be in Indonesia this February, let alone have four new friends from four different continents. But that’s what happens when you engage in your global faith community: you end up in places you never expected –physically, spiritually, mentally and emotionally. The five…
-
Taking stock: With new leadership, new headquarters, what is in store for MWC?
When I attended my first Mennonite World Conference assembly in Kitchener, Ontario, in 1962, I remember sitting cross-legged on a gymnasium floor with other youth. I’d just come from Ethiopia—where I had been surrounded by brown faces at the Bible Academy, a high school begun by the Mennonite Mission in Ethiopia. Here at the assembly…
-
Is it time to tell contemporary martyr stories?
In early December 2011, Irene and I worshipped in the Haarlem Mennonite Church, just outside of Amsterdam, Netherlands. This congregation began as a “hidden church” in 1530, six years before Menno Simons’ conversion to Anabaptism. Worshipping there was a moving experience. One reason that made it so was the note on a door indicating that…
