Local Mennonites and mission agencies responded after a powerful earthquake struck the Pacific coast of Ecuador April 16, followed by a second quake four days later. At least 570 people were killed, and more than 7,000 were injured.
Local Mennonites and mission agencies responded after a powerful earthquake struck the Pacific coast of Ecuador April 16, followed by a second quake four days later. At least 570 people were killed, and more than 7,000 were injured.
On many Sundays, Ervin Stutzman, executive director of Mennonite Church USA, can be found preaching or speaking at Mennonite churches, meetings, conventions or other gatherings.
SHIPSHEWANA, Ind. — Leaders of the emerging Evana Network want to help their congregations speak up. “We’ve heard this perception of [Anabaptists as] the quiet in the land, struggling how to know how to engage their communities,” said Evana executive director John Troyer of Goshen. “What does it mean to engage and see shalom be made known in our communities instead of just being the quiet in the land?”
A first-of-its-kind conference April 11-13 in Rome gathered Catholic educators and activists around the idea of moving beyond just-war theory to a greater emphasis on proactive peacemaking and Jesus’ life.
The Mennonite family can now add Hmong to the growing number of ethnic groups embracing Anabaptism in Asia.
Franklin Mennonite Conference is leaving Mennonite Church USA, the third conference in nine months to announce a withdrawal. At their annual spring meeting April 18 at Marion Mennonite Church in Chambersburg, Pa., Franklin delegates voted 44-13 to withdraw from MC USA, effective immediately, and to remain without affiliation for a year, according to conference minister Allen Lehman.
HARRISONBURG, Va. — Eastern Mennonite University’s Presidential Search Committee announced Susan Schultz Huxman as its candidate of choice to be EMU’s ninth president at an April 13 all-campus meeting.
Calling sexualized violence a “cancer within the church that we need to expose,” the Mennonite Church USA Panel on Sexual Abuse Prevention released a statement March 30 urging congregations to “bring to light all that has been too long hidden in the shadows.” The panel, formed last year in response to a statement on sexual abuse passed by delegates at the Mennonite Church USA convention, said it issued the statement “in light of recent events.”
Advocates for deported Iowa Pastor Max Villatoro were hopeful after meeting with lawmakers in Washington, D.C., March 20-21, the one-year anniversary of his deportation. When he was deported on March 20, 2015, Villatoro was co-pastor with his wife, Gloria, at Iglesia Torre Fuerte (Strong Tower Mennonite Church), a Central Plains Mennonite Conference congregation in Iowa City.
The Mennonite Central Committee thrift shop in Harrisonburg, Va., is doing so much business it is investing in a $3.8 million expansion. Deb King is general manager of Gift and Thrift Shop Inc., an organization that includes not only the Gift and Thrift store but also Booksavers of Virginia and Artisans’ Hope, a fair-trade store. King said the thrift shop saw a 9.2 percent increase in revenue in 2015.
BLUFFTON, Ohio — Author, blogger, activist and professor Drew G.I. Hart presented the Keeney Peace Lecture, “What Has Shalom to Do with White Dominant Culture?,” during Forum March 29 at Bluffton University. Hart combined his pastoral experience with his academic training to challenge the church to pursue practices that make for justice.
Adam Miller was back at work March 10 at Excel Industries in Hesston, Kan. It was the first day the lawnmower plant was operating after four people died and more than a dozen were injured in a Feb. 25 shooting.
