The Mennonite Brethren Historical Commission awarded four research grants during its June 21-22 annual meeting in Wichita, Kan.

An MB studies $2,500 project grant was awarded to Abidon Malebe Mubwayel, instructor at the Christian University in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, to support editing and completion of his dissertation on symbolic practices and religious language specific to the confessional identity of Mennonite Brethren in DRC.

An Alfred Neufeld $2,000 global church history grant was awarded to Anicka Fast, secretary of the Mennonite World Conference Faith and Life Commission. She is co-editing a book on biographies of Congolese Mennonites. The grant will subsidize printing and distribution costs to make the volume more affordable in Africa.

A $2,000 publication grant was awarded to Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, professor at Tyndale Seminary in Toronto, to help with publication costs for a book on the history of the Fürstenland Mennonite settlement in Ukraine. According to Arnold, from the late 19th to the mid-20th century, “Fürstenland was a place for new beginnings, identity formation and, from start to end, a place for lively debate about what it meant to be Mennonite.”

A Katie Funk Wiebe $1,000 research grant was awarded to Jean-Claude Saki Kavula, director of a Christian peacemaking organization in Kinshasa. He aims to make a church resource book that tells the stories of people resolving conflicts nonviolently within Mennonite churches in DRC.