By some measures, my first mountains were has-beens. I grew up on the Illinois prairie, where the only mountains were in story books, as mythical
Mass shootings are a reality in the United States. There were 610 mass shootings in 2020, defined as when four or more people have been shot or killed, not including the shooter.
Members of Bible Missionary Church, a member of Mennonite World Conference in Myanmar, have fled to mountainous areas for safety since the military seized power there on Feb. 2.
For Willow Avenue Mennonite Church, a Mennonite Brethren congregation in Fresno, Calif., the path to becoming an LGBTQ-affirming congregation began decades ago — and is now leading them out of the USMB conference.
In the silence between the warnings of air raid sirens, the sound of a small choir echoed out of a church sanctuary in western Ukraine. Just the night before, Anna, administrative coordinator for Mennonite Central Committee Ukraine, had hummed a few bars of the song during an evening tea break at the church.
At the end of the first evening of “From Chaos to Shalom: Exploring Peace Theology Together,” emcees Andios Santoso and Joe Sawatzky struggled to wrap up the Zoom session. The concluding prayer had been spoken. But none of the nearly 100 attendees wanted to sign off quite yet.
