The Mennonite Brethren Historical Commission announced the release of its latest publication and awarded three project grants during its June 17-18 annual meeting, which took place online.

On Holy Ground: Stories By and About Women in Ministry Leadership in the Mennonite Brethren Church, edited by Dora Dueck, is an anthology from 15 MB women leaders detailing their calls to ministry and experiences as leaders. A book launch with four of the contributors took place June 17 at the Mennonite Heritage Museum in Abbotsford, B.C., followed by a similar event with four other contributors June 23 at Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg, Man.

The commission created a new grant in honor of Paraguayan theologian Alfred Neufeld, who died in 2020 and was known for advocating Anabaptism through his work with Mennonite World Conference. The Global Church History Project Grant seeks to fund projects documenting stories of congregations in the International Community of Mennonite Brethren outside North America.

The grant’s first recipients are Anička Fast of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and Rodney Hollinger-Janzen of Goshen, Ind., for their project to translate Fast’s doctoral dissertation on African Mennonite church formation into French. Fast is a mission educator who lives in Burkina Faso. The $2,000 grant for the translation project will make her research accessible to French-speaking Mennonites in Africa.

Other grants support Buduma Ramesh of Bangalore, India, for research into social forces impacting Dalit Christians in India, and Goshen College student Denisse Aguilar for research on shifting traditions of MB women’s clothing and gender roles.