MWR : Articles : Oct. 31, 2011

Articles : Oct. 31, 2011

The outcry against inequity

The Occupy Wall Street movement taps frustration that runs deeper than anger at economic injustice. The widening gulf between the wealthiest and everyone else is more than a financial problem. When hopes and dreams shrink as inequality grows, people feel a void in the soul as well as the pocketbook.

EMU alumni awards linked by humility, compassion

HARRISONBURG, Va. — Being humble in the face of adversity and joy intertwined two alumni honored on Oct. 16 at Eastern Mennonite University.
German agency has sent more than 1,200 volunteers into service

The 1984 Mennonite World Conference assembly in Strasbourg, France, was a seminal event.
Liberian Nobel Prize winner, EMU alumna, is well connected to peace-church tradition

HARRISONBURG, Va. — Nobel Peace Prize recipient Leymah Gbowee is closely connected with Mennonites and the peace-church tradition.

Another trailblazer

Thank you for the great article, “Women Who Blazed and Blessed the Way” (Oct. 17). One omission of which I am aware is Anne Neufeld Rupp. Anne was ordained by the Central District Conference of the General Conference Mennonite Church at Pleasant Oaks Mennonite Church in Middlebury, Ind., on Nov. 7, 1976.

MCC canner will travel to 32 sites

AKRON, Pa. — During a late-summer visit to Haiti, Mennonite Central Committee’s meat canning crew saw the priorities of MCC’s work — relief, development and peace — in action.
Goshen community honors life and copes with death

GOSHEN, Ind. — A week of activities on- and off-campus helped the Goshen College community honor James S. Miller’s life and cope with his death.
Holy Spirit gives power for mission

MEDAN, Indonesia — In the mountains near an active volcano, an Indonesian Mennonite had an unusually productive harvest of chili peppers last year. He used the proceeds to buy his church a van for mission trips. His pastor objected.
Christian Peacemaker Teams marks 25 years

EVANSTON, Ill. — About 160 people gathered Oct. 13-16 at Reba Place Church to celebrate Christian Peacemaker Teams’ 25 years of nonviolent peacemaking and to focus on “Re-imagining Partnerships for Peacemaking.”
Conrad Grebel inaugurates seventh president

WATERLOO, Ont. — Susan Schultz Huxman, formerly of Wichita, Kan., was inaugurated as the seventh president of Conrad Grebel University College on Oct. 16 at Floradale Mennonite Church.

Nobody’s perfect

Earlier in Matthew 5, Jesus addresses murder and anger, adultery and lust, falsehood and truth telling, revenge and non-retaliation. Now he tells his followers to love not only their neighbors but also those who do not love them back, to greet those outside their own circle of family and friends, and to pray even for their enemies.

Weaving common threads

I purchased a small hanging of red chile peppers and wine-colored ornamental corn to hang on my door at home in Albuquerque. It was handcrafted by a woman of Russian descent named Sopyn who sells such things from garden produce she grows herself outside of Rinconada in Taos County. I can remember stopping at her stand for the first time 28 years ago when my husband and I were on our honeymoon in northern New Mexico.

‘Ideal’ marriage that wasn’t

On my desk is The “Ideal” Couple: The Shadow Side of a Marriage, by Marilyn J. Minter Wolgemuth and J. Carl Wolgemuth, published by DreamSeeker Books, 2011, 126 pages, $14.95.