M

lie

3145 Benham Avenue Suite 4

Elkhart, IN 46517 Phone: 800-790-2498

AnnaG@TheMennonite.org www . Th eM ennon i te . org

Nov. 12, 2014 Colleen McFarland,

Director of Archives and Records Management Mennonite Church USA 1700 S Main St Goshen, IN 46526

Dear Colleen,

We are pleased to know that Mennonite Church USA has received a grant to digitize the print files of Gospel Herald and The Mennonite.

You have our full permission to digitize all issues of The Mennonite and make them available for free, with full-text access.

Best wishes in this important endeavor.

Sincerely,

Anna Groff

Interim Editor The Mennonite

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

The Anabaptist Mennonite Digital Collaborative, coordinated by staff at Mennonite Church USA, Goshen College, and Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, is working with Internet Archive to provide digital copies of this title. Please seek permission from the copyright owner if your use of this item is not permitted under the license.

MENIMONITE

OTHER FOUNDATION CAN NO ONE LAY THAN THAT IS LAID, WHICH IS JESUS CHRIST

Inside:

105:01 JANUARY 9, 1990

Ministry from a 3$ $1 building

A little boy touched the hem of her garment

Jon (the book of Jonah)

pRoloquE

In addition to the four of us of The Mennonite staff wishing you God's blessing for the new year, I hereby gratefully acknowledge the vital work of others. Doris Yoder, assisted by Glenna Schrag, process the never-ending address and subscription changes here in the Newton, Kan., office. Dietrich "Dick" Rempel addresses and solves any complications regarding mailing, which is done out of Newton. Rose Retzlaff handles address and subscription changes in Winnipeg (at 600 Shaftesbury Blvd., R3P 0M4) for the Cana- dian subscribers.

The backbone of the whole operation is the 278 (out of our total of 372) congregations in Canada and the United States that have group subscription plans. I salute the church secretaries who keep those lists in order and send the information to Rose in Winnipeg or Doris in Newton. In Canada 124 congrega- tions have group plans; the rest are in the United States. I am content and grateful that this magazine and our conference give the 49th parallel the respect it is due yet largely transcend it, as a community of faith should.

Now is the time to get ready for Many Peoples Sunday, Feb. 10. Coordinator Alberto Quin- tela encourages you to celebrate it in your church. He has resource ideas and can be contacted at 576 S. Robert, St. Paul, MN 55107, (612) 291-0647. Ideas include a speak- ers bureau, a listing of multiethnic congrega- tions in our conference, "Vision 2001" (ask him about it), activities and lesson plans for children, cross-cultural materials for summer Bible school.

"Many Peoples Becoming God's People" was the focus for 8,000 Mennonites at Normal, 111., last August. Let us continue to put legs to those joyful moments, doing it in the name of Jesus, who reveals himself to us.

An index of the 24 issues of The Mennonite for 1989 is available for the asking. Please send a self-addressed business envelope and (in the United States) a 45-cent stamp. We'll provide postage for Canadian requests, mts

CONTENTS

Spilled milk: the day my mother taught me about bitterness / 3

Ministry goes forth from a $1 building / 4

Look deep into each other's eyes / 7

A little boy touched the hem of her garment / 8

Two faithful urban congregations / 9

News / 10

MCC workers in the Philippines confront crisis / 10 Shots: bullets or vaccinations in the Philippines / 14

Record / 16

Resources / 18

'Land Runs' and the rest of the story / 20 Letters / 21 Reviews / 22

Raising adult believers / 22

'Sexual property' / 22 Jon / 23

Tell the truth: Are we becoming one people? / 24

Cover: RNS photo by J.D. Schwalm of pastor Tom Bronner in Shelby, Miss.

The Mennonite is available on cassette tape. The past 1 3 years of The Mennonite are also available on microfilm at the Manz Library, Bethel College, North Newton, KS 67117, and from University Microfilms International, 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106.

THE MENNONITE

Editorial offices: 722 Main St., Box 347, Newton, KS 67114, (316) 283-5100. Editor: Muriel T. Stackley; assistant editor: Gordon Houser; editorial assistant:

Angela Rempel; art director: John Hiebert. The Mennonite is a member of the Associated Church Press, Evangelical Press Association and Meetinghouse (a Mennnonite and Brethren in Christ editors' group). It is an associate member of the Canadian Church Press.

Circulation secretary: Doris Yoder. Business adviser: Dietrich Rempel. Special editions edi- tors: Western District, Debbie Ratzlaff, Box 306, North Newton, KS 671 1 7; Window to Mission, Lois Deckert, Box 347, Newton, KS 671 1 4; Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries, Richard A. Kauffman, 3003 Benham Ave., Elkhart, IN 46517.

Advisers: (Alberta) Henry and Erna Goerzen, Route 1, Didsbury, AB TOM 0W0; (British Columbia) Amy Dueckman, 33247 Ravine, Abbotsford, BC V2S 1V7: (Central District) Steve Estes, Box 196, Hopedale, IL61747; (Eastern District) Curtis Bauman, 429 N. Second St., Em- maus, PA 18049: (Manitoba) Irma Fast Dueck, 693 Ebby Ave., Winnipeg, MB R3M 2G9; (Men- nonite Conference of Eastern Canada) Margot Fieguth, 99 Veronica Drive, Mississauga, ON L5G 2B1 ; (Northern District) Winifred Wall, Box 67, Freeman, SD 57029; (Pacific District) Clare Ann Ruth-Heffelbower, 3198 E. Menlo Ave., Fresno, CA 93710; (Saskatchewan) Viola Ediger, 125 Rawlinson Bay, Regina, SK S4S 6M8; (Western District) Leland Harder, Box 363, North Newton, KS 67117.

Circulation: 10,896

The Mennonite (ISSN 0025-9330) seeks to witness, to teach, motivate and build the Christian fellowship within the context of Christian love and freedom under the guidance of the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit. It is published semimonthly by the General Conference Mennonite Church, 722 Main St., Box 347, Newton, KS 671 14. Subscription rates: one year, $18 U.S., $21 Canada; two years, $32 U.S., $38 Canada; three years, $44 U.S., $52 Canada. Outside North America add $1 6 U.S. per year to U. S. rate for surface mail, $53.32 U.S. for airmail. Single copies: $2 U.S. Five or more: $1 U.S. each. Paid advertising accepted from Mennonite- related groups. Second-class postage paid at Newton, Kan., and additional mailing offices. Printed in U.S.A. POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to The Mennonite, Box 347, Newton, KS 67114. ©1989

2 JANUARY 9, 1990

We carry scars from our child- hood. They heal over and sometimes they hardly show but they're there.

I have one such scar from when I was 8 years old. In the Southwest, where I grew up, certain places didn't serve Native Americans. Some put up signs that said, "No Indians Served." Others were more subtle; they didn't serve Indians but didn't put up signs. They had other little ways of getting the message across.

One day my mother — who was a beautiful full-blood Indian with lovely, long black hair — and I were shopping. We decided to take a break and go into a restaurant and get something to drink. We sat down in a booth with a formica tabletop and green leather seats. I'll never forget that booth. I'll always re- member the name of the restaurant, too, though I won't mention it here. Mom sat on one side of the booth, I on the other. She ordered coffee and I a glass of milk.

The waitress brought my milk, but she didn't bring my mother's coffee. Instead, she went over near the cash register and stood. I walked over to her and said, "You forgot my mother's coffee." She just looked at me, didn't say anything, but didn't bring the coffee either.

We waited a bit. Then my mother said, "Jo, I think this is one of those places that won't serve Indian people. I don't think she's going to bring my coffee." I remember sitting there looking at my mother, thinking how beautiful she was and wondering how anyone could do this. I was half Indian myself, though I didn't look it because I was fairer and had brown hair. And because of that, I got served and my mother didn't. I became angry, furious, to be more accurate.

My mother said she thought we should go. We got up. As we did, I took my glass of milk — in those days when you ordered a glass of milk you got a real glass and a big glass — slowly poured it all over the back of both sides of the booth, across the seats, over the tabletop and all over the floor. I did as much damage with one glass of milk as I could. Then I picked up the water glasses and did the same thing with them.

By the time I had finished I'd made a

real mess. If they weren't going to serve my mother, I remember thinking, they were going to remember they didn't serve her. I was going to give them a cleanup job they wouldn't forget.

My mother didn't say anything. She didn't correct me. She didn't stop me. She just stood a little distance away and watched. When I had emptied all the glasses and made as big a mess as I could, she said, "Well now, Jo, you have proved yourself to be just as stupid as they are."

That stumped me at the time. But in thinking about it later I realized what she had taught me. Even when you feel you are justified, don't respond in kind when violence has been done to you. There are other ways to respond.

Since then I have experienced dis- crimination many times — as a Native American, as a woman, as a woman in the church. I have tried, on each occasion, to remember my mother's lesson. She was calling me to a different kind of response, a peaceful, non-violent one. It's a response, by the way, that is at the heart of the life and teaching of Jesus.

That doesn't mean you don't fight for what you believe in. But to take on the tactics of ignorance, discrimination and prejudice poisons you, sours your heart and embitters your life.

We have had many wonderful spiritual leaders in the Native American tradi- tions. Their message has always been the same: Even though you have experienced injustice, even though your land has been taken away and your way of life destroyed, even though there have been efforts to actually wipe you out as a people, do not let your heart become sour and respond in kind. If you do, those who made you turn sour will win in the end.

My mother passed that message on to me that day. Spilled milk can do nothing but turn sour. An angry, vengeful heart will, too. Keep your heart sweet, she was saying, the way milk in a glass is.

Jose Hobday is a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi, Milwaukee.

Reprinted with permission from Praying, Box 419335, Kansas City, MO 64141.

/

THE MENNONITE 3

V*

This banner hangs in the worship center of the Dia mond Street building.

Gwen Sensenig, left, tutors a neighborhood child.

A 30-mile drive from the heart of wealthy "Mennonite land" ( Lancaster/Bucks/Montgomery counties, Pa.) is the "American jungle," Philadelphia. You go from the richest of communities to one that compares to the poorest in the developing world.

Mennonites from Lancaster County saw the needs in that city in the early 1900s and opened several "mission" churches. One is Diamond Street Men- nonite Church, which ministers to the poverty-stricken North Philadelphia neighborhood. In the late 1970s the congregation felt the call for a more intense community mission, and so began anew the old dream of a commu- nity center that would share the Good News of Jesus through meeting people's basic needs: clothing, food, health care, education, employment.

At about the same time several members learned about a neighboring building scheduled for demolition. They wondered if they could get the building for their community center. They could if they brought plans for its intended use within two months. Thus, on the day the building had originally been scheduled to be destroyed, the Diamond Street Mennonite Church became the owner of a large, structurally sound building, yet gutted inside, for $1.

Led by a black ministerial team, the Diamond Street congregation is a racially mixed (50-50) group of about 130 members that uses the second floor of the now-in-use Community Center. The members are from across all economic walks of life and worship together in a

flexible mixture of styles that affirms both traditional Mennonite and tradi- tional black forms. This ability to blend says to the community that God's Good News includes reconciliation of all people: black and white, Jew and gentile. This message attracts blacks from the neighboring community, traditional Mennonites, university and seminary students, ex-convicts, teachers.

Together they support the congrega- tional ministry, The Community Center, which houses services intended espe- cially for their neighbors. Outreach programs offered include these:

•The Wholistic Health Center, offering people a wholistic approach to health problems. Explains Charles Baynard, senior pastor, "We view illness not only as a physical illness but as a mental and spiritual illness as well. Treating all the needs of a person is the Christlike way to heal." The clinic-type center has several

Frances Jackson and Martha Matthews:

Frances is human resource and food coordina- tor at the Diamond Street Center.

4 JANUARY 9, 1990

Charles Baynard, pastor of Diamond Street Mennonite Church

volunteer staff people as well as other paid professionals. Doctors, nurses and counselors meet with the 150 or so patients who come for services each month. Assessments are made to help in ongoing care.

•Educational seminars, whose major concern is the rampant teenage preg-

The $1 building: Diamond Street Mennonite meetinghouse in Philadelphia

nancy rate. Women in the congregation work together with young mothers, focusing on family, nutritional and finan- cial needs. They teach budgeting, shopping, parenting. They seek ways to attract people to these seminars.

Baynard says, "The needs in the city are overwhelming. Yet it is difficult to get people to participate." What causes this reluctance? "I'm not sure— some- thing inbred in the city, perhaps." He shrugs. "When the crisis hits home — AIDS, drug abuse or whatever — then people come, when it may be too late. How do we get them involved before tragedy occurs?"

•The youth program. During the school year tutoring is offered to about 25 children. Volunteers, coordinated by Barbara Baynard, work with the chil- dren, ages 6-14.

During the summer Barbara Baynard oversees a program for about 85 commu- nity children. Children meet in the

morning for Bible classes, stories and other educational lessons. Temple University has given computers to the youth program. In the afternoon the children visit historical sites, swim or participate in other outdoor activities. Each Friday the students and teachers have an all-day activity.

•The preschool center. Cheryl Neu- bert is the new director, succeeding Deb Mark.

•Individual care and counseling. These are offered at the center for victims of drug abuse, violence, crisis pregnancy, unemployment, illiteracy, substandard housing, hunger. "Treat the hurting with Christ's compassion," says Frances Jackson, the center's human resource and food coordinator.

Souderton (Pa. ) Food and Hunger Committee, with Diamond Street Church, funds Jackson's position and provides money and food for distribution.

"The grocery bags are a real 'in' for me," says Jackson. "They are a non- threatening invitation to bring people with problems to the Community Center." Jackson interviews each person to find out what additional needs he or she has beyond food. "I treat them like men and women. When I'm loving and kind, I see a change in their attitude. When people feel that someone genuinely cares, they improve themselves."

Jackson continues, "Often a person is afraid to go to a shelter or other agency. I say, Til go with you.' They're surprised that someone will do that for them."

Much of the work at Diamond Street is expensive, both in time and money. The

THE MENNONITE 5

Dreams for the building's future include a gym for use in the youth ministry, space for a Head Start program and offices.

Maintenance and construction worker Jon Porter hugs his "adopted" mom, Wanda Bryant. Jon is a Mennonite volunteer at Diamond Street Community Center.

second floor of the building is complete, but much more needs to be done. Dreams for the building's future include a gym for use in the youth ministry, space for a Head Start program and offices.

Staffing and funding are constant struggles. Securing long-term, dedicated volunteers and staff and dollar resources are the Community Center's greatest challenges. The congregation anticipates ways to fund the center: open a thrift shop, find grants without federal restrictions or develop partnerships with other Mennonite churches and businesses.

"Funding is the bottom line," says Charles Baynard. "We Christians are called to pray for guidance and share our resources."

In the 1930s two women, Alma Ruth and Emma Rudy, came from Lancaster County as the first "permanent" workers at Diamond Street. They ran Bible schools, sewing clubs, visitations and other ministries. While I was visiting the Community Center, Charles Baynard and other staff members received word of Emma Rudy's death. Those who knew her remembered her significant work at Diamond Street for many of her 98 years.

"Sister Emma Rudy was a founding member of Diamond Street Mennonite Church," says Charles Baynard. "She challenged us all. Keeping up her tradition of dedication and faithfulness to God remains our overall goal at Diamond Street Mennonite today."

Laurel Schmidt Hertzler, Sellersville, Pa., is director of publications for Penn View Christian School, Souderton, Pa. She and her husband, Ron, and three children attend Perkasie (Pa.) Mennonite Church.

6 JANUARY 9, 1990

The setting was unlikely. At a chapel on a U.S. Army base in West Germany, 60 soldiers, many in camouflage uniforms, listened closely as Vincent and Rose- marie Harding, seminary teachers from Denver, told stories about their friend Martin Luther King Jr. and the non- violent freedom movement in the U.S. South.

The Hardings were on a speaking tour in West Germany sponsored by Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) and the Military Counseling Network. The tour included U.S. army bases.

"Birmingham, Ala., was one of the most stubbornly segre- gated and brutally racist cities in the country," said Vincent and Rosemarie. "It was a dangerous place for black people who were strug- gling for freedom."

"They used to call it 'Bombingham,'" said one soldier who grew up there.

"Then some folks in Birmingham had the crazy idea that black and white people ought to be able to eat at the same lunch counter," remembered the Har- dings. "But when they tried, the police chief met them with billy clubs, attack dogs and water cannons. Now, how many guns did Martin bring into Birmingham when they started beating black folks and threatening his life?" "None," came the immediate answer. "None? Wouldn't Martin have been justified in defending himself with guns in that situation? Why didn't he bring in the guns?" A discussion ensued. The Hardings asked, "Didn't they teach you that you've got to 'fight fire with fire'?"

After a brief pause, one female soldier grinned and said, "No. You don't fight fire with fire, you fight fire with water."

For the remaining hour the Hardings discussed King's arsenal of non-violent weapons with the roomful of GIs. They talked about King's outspoken opposition to the war in Vietnam and his growing conviction that a profit-oriented United States is incapable of caring for its poor. Always the Hardings emphasized that

King was more than a civil lights leader. He had a vision for a new humanity. He believed that if we look deep enough into each other's eyes we will discover that all men and women are brothers and sisters, children of the one God.

Many such discussions took place on or near U.S. military bases during the Hardings' tour. The Hardings met with women's groups, leaders of black organi- zations, a black congregation and high school classes, as well as with German Christians and members of the peace movement in Stuttgart, Frankfurt and the Hunsriick region.

Roughly 250,000 active duty GIs and again as many family members are stationed in West Germany.

Reflecting on the tour, the Hardings noted that they were impressed by the interest they found in King's commit- ment to non-violence and the forthright and earnest discussions they experienced on the military bases. While painful contradictions emerged in some of these discussions, the Hardings tried to encourage and support efforts to live with integrity rather than to judge or condemn.

"Peace people must be careful about how they approach these soldiers," the Hardings said. Few of them have enlisted because they are warriors; for many the military was the only job they could find. "They are not the enemy; many are here because American civilian life has failed them; they are caught in a trap."

The Hardings often concluded a meeting by brainstorming with their audience about the constructive 'mis- sions' that remain today, about alterna- tives worth committing one's life to. And so in Frankfurt, in a roomful of GIs, the community commander and a senior chaplain discussed Coretta Scott King's idea of a non- violent army and what it might look like and the topics one might study at a peace college. And high school students talked about working with children in the cities, cleaning up the rivers, studying Russian and learning ways to get along without so many nuclear missiles.

Vincent and Rosemarie Harding served as teachers, organizers and negotiators throughout the South while directing the Mennonite Voluntary Service Center in Atlanta from 1961 to 1964. Vincent was a pastor of Woodlawn Mennonite Church in Chicago from 1957 to 1961.

Andre Gingerich Stoner has lived in West Germany since 1984. He and his wife, Cathy Stoner, work there to build bridges between the German peace movement and U.S. military personnel and their families. He is from Harrisonburg, Va., and she is from Akron Pa.

THE MENNONITE 7

PERSONAL

Martha Nickel's story

A little boy touched the hem of her garment

Martha Nickel

Edna Froese

All of us are Christ walking around, and he's using us to reach people," says Martha Nickel, former coordinator of Self-Help Crafts in Saskatchewan. "A lot of people are pulling at our garments, just like they did to Jesus, and we need to give to (-p them of ourselves, whether it's in India or anywhere else."

She explains her work

with Self-Help Crafts from

1981-88 with a story of an

actual tug at the hem of

her garment. In 1977

Nickel, a member of Saska

toon's Nutana Park

Mennonite Church, went

to India to attend a

women's conference. At

her visit to Mother

Teresa's Home for the Des- titute and Dying, one little

boy, close to death, crawled out to meet

her and tugged at the hem of her skirt.

Overwhelmed by the magnitude of his

need, all Martha could do was touch him.

She knew she was no longer helpless —

from now on she would be part of the

solution to poverty. No one who has met her, worked with

her or heard her talk about Self-Help

Crafts can forget her enthusiasm and

vision. When she took over as coordina- tor, primarily individual representatives sold the crafts; she was the only staff person in Saskatoon's small Speers Avenue store, which also served as the provincial warehouse. Total sales at her store that year were $13,401; within one year sales at the store increased 184 percent. When she was forced to retire because of illness in 1988, the store had expanded, both in size and sales, last year selling $133,929 worth of crafts, while $416,000 worth of crafts were sold in 10 stores and 1 1 other commercial locations province-wide.

Her secret? On the surface it appears to be both her business sense and wealth of contacts. She was a determined worker and risk-taker, not afraid to order new and unusual items; her intuition must have been good, for the store was never stuck with products that wouldn't sell. Through her church involvements she knew many people and

groups who might be interested in crafts. Self-Help Crafts grew by word of mouth through a woman who loved to meet people.

Fellow workers comment that she

listened well, was always sensitive to needs and re- spected the dignity of others. As the shop grew to involve more staff and more volun- teers, she discov- ered that "it was best to give them their own areas, let them own some- thing, so they could feel responsible, important." That belief was at the heart of her enthusiasm for Self-Help— she had seen how poverty had reduced human individuality.

Consequently she saw sales as only part of her job. The other part was to tell

the Mennonite Central Committee story whenever and wherever she got the chance. The crafts were packed up, set out and repacked many times as she traveled to churches and mission confer- ences to talk about Self-Help. Together with her husband, Menno, she got Self- Help Crafts into schools, where he used them to teach children about different cultures and about the link between our lifestyles and the life of the poor else- where.

The world is one world, insists Martha. Our part in it is to act responsibly as part of a family.

Now incapacitated by illness, Martha is being ministered to as she ministered to others. Ten years ago she was part of a group that sponsored a Vietnamese refugee family— a couple and their children. She helped supply clothes, arrange for schooling and medical care. Now a doctor, the husband has been her anesthetist and monitors her medication. "I feel safe in his care," she says quietly.

Edna Froese 's address is 1805 Cumber- land Ave. S., Saskatoon, SKS7H2M6.

The link between our lifestyles and the life of the poor elsewhere: Marthas husband, Menno Nickel, uses Self-Help Crafts to teach Saskatoons schoolchildren about people of the world

8 JANUARY 9, 1990

TOqEThER

Two faithful urban congregations

The church of three books

In 1914 the General Conference Mennon- ite Church began a city mission on the south side of Chicago. By 1918 it had outgrown not only its first building but two successive buildings. In September of that year First Mennonite Church moved into its new building at 73rd and Laflin, where it continues its ministry.

After 50 years of serving the white community the congregation experienced a dramatic transition: African Ameri- cans moved into the neighborhood in the 1960s. Church membership had reached an all-time low when John Burke Jr. became pastor in October 1972: nine. The Central District Conference helped subsidize the church.

Now 85-100 faithful people attend each Sunday. Burke also emphasizes atten- dance at midweek services: "People who don't have time to study and pray do not qualify for service in the church." He teaches and models 10 percent "first- fruits" tithing and says a church needs three books: the Bible, the hymnbook and the pocketbook. Off subsidy for a number of years, the congregation has an annual budget of about $40,000. Burke is hired part time, since he is employed full time by the city of Chicago's depart- ment of streets and sanitation.

Burke and his wife, Mamie, are part- ners in ministry. She does much admin- istrative work and organizes fund- raisers: fish fries, banquets (for example, to honor graduates), teas and fashion

shows. She finds jobs for people and takes a group to the Central District women's retreat each year.

With its money the church is able to give away a lot of food, keep its building maintained and help its young people go to college.

Music is an important ministry, as attendees at Normal '89 learned last August, where one of the church's choirs performed. Sunday school classes for all ages use the Foundation Series. Each year the church gives a program of African American history.

John Burke's first goal for First Mennonite Church is evangelism. The church does this by bringing family and friends. (One person has brought 10 people.)

Second, he says, "As a peace church, we cannot accept the shedding of innocent blood and the lack of funds to meet human need. We have to alleviate poverty if we're going to tell people that God exists."

Third, he says, the church must continue its witness in the community against homelessness, racial prejudice, drug abuse and vandalism.

Fourth, enlarge the church building all the way to the alley to create a larger sanctuary with more choir space and Christian education rooms. Pauline Kennel, 15 Tilipi Court, Schaumburg, IL 60193, former coordinator of Chicago Area Mennonites

Seventy-five years of ministry: First Mennonite Church at 73rd and Laflin in Chicago

Loosen up the membership process

Lee Heights Community Church, on the southeast end of Cleveland, ministers to an all-black neighborhood. Some of our members live in the area. Thirty-two years ago most of them did.

"Where black and white blend in Christ." "An equal opportunity faith family." These slogans of my congrega- tion are its theme. We are inclusive. We look, talk and think differently.

Although my church participates in activities of the Ohio Conference, it is not principally a Mennonite church. It began when 30 residents of this area, including co-pastors Vern and Helen Miller, canvassed the neighborhood to invite people to the new church. Our

Ask the people of the community what they need most and then provide it.

constitution says that members need only be followers of Christ; denomina- tional affiliations are a personal choice.

A feeling of understanding and accep- tance on the part of the pastor and others continues to draw people. We feel ownership of the church. Members choose the direction of the church: worship style, leadership and ministries.

Vern recommends loosening up the membership process of emerging congre- gations so this does not become a barrier to new members. Ask people of the community what they need most, he says, and then provide it.

Lee Heights Church owns a retire- ment home ( jointly sponsored by a min- isterial alliance of several neighborhood churches), a hunger center and a day- care center. We have a prison ministry and offer counseling services. During summer we conduct Bible school and day camp for children. Our future plans include enlarged prayer and study groups, helping more people find jobs, developing a community center and doubling the current membership. Regina Shands Stoltzfus, 20103 Butter- nut Lane, Warrensville Heights, OH 44128

THE MENNONITE 9

#2C Pontius' Puddle

YOOR PROSLErA , PONT IOC IS THAT LIKE THE LAODICEANS OF THE EARLY CUORCH, VOO ROM LOKEWARM WHEM G-OD WOOLD PREFER YOO TO &OSU HOT OR COLD;

X'D CHANGE, SOT 1 DON'T KNOW WHETHER TO CALL N\y PASTOR

or PLorASER.

NEWS

MCC workers in the Philippines confront crisis

Pagadian City, Philippines (MCC)— The number of internal refugees in the Philippines is increasing. The Mennonite Central Committee Philippines team has agreed on three responses. First, emergency aid is needed to alleviate immediate food and medical needs of victims. Second, when evacuees return to their homes, they need assistance to rebuild homes and purchase seeds and livestock. Third, international pressure must be brought to bear on the Philip- pines government to respect

the human rights of its citizens.

The "total war" policy of the current government violates the Geneva Convention Protocol II, which protects victims of non- international armed conflicts. As Christians, the MCC team believes that the basic human rights of people must be recognized.

For decades the Armed Forces of the Philippines has used the strategy of "drying up the pond so the fish can no longer survive." In the Philip- pines, the "fish" are the New People's Army— the armed

wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines — and various factions of Muslim soldiers. These groups often live in remote hinterlands that they share with such groups as tribal Filipinos, Muslim and peasant farmers.

"Drying up the pond" occurs when men, women and children must flee their homes and farms. Working animals are often slaughtered and livestock are butchered for food. Crops are destroyed, valuables are stolen and homes are razed. Repeated

Huge bomb in Colombia rattles missionaries

Bogota, Colombia— The explosion here at 7:30 a.m. on Dec. 6, 1989, of a 500-kilo (more than 1 , 000-pound) bomb "was the biggest yet," reports Robert "Jack" Suderman, Mennonite missionary. Though it was about 60 blocks from the Sudermans' apartment, their "windows, doors, curtains shook like an earthquake."

Irene Suderman was accompanying their son Andrew to his ride at the moment of the explosion and thought it was about two blocks away, so great was the impact. Everything within a four-block area was destroyed, including the main target, the Security Division building. Windows were blown out in a 50-block

radius, which included the Mennonite Center and the home of Hector and Mary Becker Valencia.

"The targets," continues Jack Suderman, "are less carefully designed not to kill the inno-

cent. Where this will all stop nobody knows. The govern- ment [of Colombia] is more determined than ever not to negotiate with the extraditables [in the 'drug war']. Things are tense around here." •

operations in an area frustrate civilian attempts to re-establish farms and home life.

Civilians are truly victimized. Any armed group passing their homes demands food and shelter. Regardless of their personal allegiance, they are forced to share their hospitality with their armed visitors.

HALAD, a non-governmental organization providing relief and rehabilitation for evacuees, reported that "until recently [there was] no difficulty getting in to evacuation centers to give food and medical relief. Now, however, [it is] more and more difficult to gain access to evacuees because the military refuses to allow any outsider into evacuation areas."

Sources now estimate that more than 200,000 families throughout the country are internal refugees. Since 50 percent of the population is under 18, the majority of the refugees are children. Clair Ewert, MCC Philippines, member of North Star Mennon- ite Church in Drake, Sask.

The Mennonite Center in Bogota, Colombia

Manager of operations. Cross Wind Conference Center, Hesston, Kan., operated by the South Central Mennonite Conference.

Apply by Jan. 20 to Ted Stuckey, 205 Spruce St., Hesston, KS 67062, or call (316) 327-2700

10 JANUARY 9, 1990

Frank Duerksen, an orthopedic surgeon at Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre hospital, heads an informal network of doctors, nurses and other medical professionals in Winnipeg who regularly collect discarded medical supplies for Kilometre 81 , a Mennonite church- operated hospital in Paraguay for people with leprosy. The seventh shipment of supplies left the Mennonite Central Committee warehouse in Winnipeg in November 1989. The supplies included an operating table, respirators, surgical instruments, bandages, sutures, gloves and other items.

NEWS

A Dialogue on Abortion held Nov. 3, 1989, at Conrad Grebel College, Waterloo, Ont, included personal perspectives. Sponsored by the college's Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies and Mennonite Central Committee Canada's Women's Concerns program, the dialogue included a historical perspective by William Janzen of MCCC's Ottawa office. John Reimer, Conservative Member of Parliament for Kitchener, Ont., took strong exception to the vague wording regarding health dangers to women in Canada's proposed abortion legislation. Lawyer Margaret Janzen expressed disappointment that the new legislation did not appear substantially different from the previous law.

Marriage encounters are being held Jan. 19-21 at Spokane, Wash., Jan. 19-21 at Napoleon, Ohio, Feb. 2-4 at Wilsonville, Ont., Feb. 2-4 at McPherson, Kan., Feb. 9- 1 1 at Ottawa, Feb. 1 6-1 8 at Camp Menno Haven, III., Feb. 23-25 at Bird-in-Hand, Pa. Engaged encounters are being held Jan. 19-21 at Lebanon, Pa., and Feb. 9-11 at Bird-in-Hand, Pa. Contact Mennonite and Brethren Marriage Encounter, Box 347, Newton, KS 671 1 4, (31 6) 283-51 00.

Second of seven clinics emerges in Soviet Armenia

Akron, Pa. (MCC)— The foun- dation for a second medical clinic was poured in October 1989 in Soviet Armenia, where Mennonite Central Committee and Adventist Development and Relief Agency are working cooperatively in earthquake re- construction efforts.

MCC and ADRA plan to build seven outpatient clinics in the

needed materials.

MCC and ADRA volunteers have also begun construction of a children's rehabilitation center in Yerevan, outside the earthquake zone. In the Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan, however, trains carrying much-needed fuel, food and building supplies through Azerbaijan into

Loren Hostetter (right), MCC worker from Harrisonburg, Va., and an Armenian worker, Carnile Avakian, work at the site of the MCC/ ADRA children's rehabilitation center in Yerevan.

Spitak region of Armenia, an area where hundreds of thousands were left homeless and without access to medical facilities after the December 1988 earthquake.

The first two medical clinic projects are going well, reports Loren Hostetter, MCC volun- teer. People in nearby Russian work camps are providing food and lodging and helping to get

Armenia were blocked during the recent tensions there.

Despite the frustrations, "our team is committed to working together to make the best of this difficult task, for the benefit of the people of Armenia and to the glory of God," says Lowell Detweiler. Detweiler, Mennon- ite Disaster Service (MDS) coordinator, spent September 20-Oct. 16, 1989, in Armenia

helping to get the project under way.

Total budget for MCC work in Armenia is about $865,000; ADRA has committed $350,000 to the project. Designated contributions to MCC and major grants from the American Friends Service Committee, Lutheran World Relief and Dutch Interchurch Aid total about $800,000 to date. MCC hopes to raise the $65,000 balance in the next months.

Six MCC personnel serving in Armenia were joined by two additional workers in November 1 989: Henry Gerbrandt of Winnipeg and Heinrich Bergen of Regina. MCC plans to send more personnel in the coming months. Interested German- or Russian-speaking people with construction skills should contact MCC: (717) 859-1151 in the United States, (204) 261- 0329 in Canada.

Mennonites continue exodus to West Germany

Wetzlar, West Germany (MCC)— Dramatic changes in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) have catapulted Eastern Europe to the center of attention.

Political reform in the Soviet Union, while not as dramatic, is no less significant. Open borders and relaxed emigration regulations impact those of Mennonite background.

"Mennonitische Umsidelerbe-

treuung" (MUB) formed in 1972 to assist those of Mennonite background in resettlement in West Germany, estimates that some 40,000 people of Mennonite background have arrived in West Germany from the Soviet Union.

Half of these "Umsiedler" have come within the past two years, about 15,000 in 1989. MUB says that these figures are conservative; the magni- tude makes it impossible to contact all who arrive.

Predictions are difficult. Hans von Niessen, director of MUB, and a committee of recent arrivals say around 80,000 Mennonites are still in the Soviet Union. If conditions remains as they are, 90 percent of these people may emigrate.

West Germany's inundation with emigrants from Poland, East Germany and Romania is causing a critical housing situation. Efforts of North American Mennonites to work with Mennonites in the Soviet Union are destined to be short lived as the exodus continues. James Schellenberg, MCC West Germany

Spruce Lake Retreat, a Mennon- ite retreat center in the Pocono Mts. of Pennsylvania, is now hiring two persons for areas of kitchen, dining room and housekeeping. Singles or a couple. Salaried, year-round position. Housing provided.

Contact Paul Beiler, Spruce Lake Retreat, Route 1, Box 605, Canadensis, PA 18325, (717) 595- 7505.

THE MENNONITE 11

Approximately 120 people attended the dedication service for a new Mennonite church building in Goiania, Brazil, Sept. 16, 1989. Missionary Ron Daku preached a sermon which emphasized the importance of following Jesus. The church has 10 members.

Representatives of Mennonite and Mennonite Brethren congregations in Latin America and of Mennonite mission and service agencies in North America set a goal to establish 50 new Anabaptist con- gregations in Mexico City by the year 2000. With a population of over 22 million, Mexico City is the largest city in the Western Hemisphere. It is expected to be the largest city in the world by the year 2000, with 35 million people. The six Mennonite congregations in Mexico City will form a united missions committee to develop church-planting strategy. Glendon Klaas- sen represented the Commission on Overseas Mission at the meetings in Mexico City Oct. 30-Nov. 4, 1989.

Representatives from 10 Mennonite institutions met Dec. 4, 1989, in Newton, Kan., to discuss how they might coordinate their fund-raising efforts. The General Con- ference's planned giving office organized the meeting because of complaints from constituents about the number of concur- rent fund-raising campaigns. The repre- sentatives decided to try to coordinate their efforts in the future by (1) holding educa- tional meetings for Mennonite fund-raisers, (2) sharing information about fund-raising ' schedules, (3) promoting Mennonite causes, (4) emphasizing and coordinating stewardship training along with fund-raisina efforts.

NEWS

Young Colombian church grows and changes locale

Armenia, Colombia (GCMC)— Members of the Armenia Mennonite Church dedicated their new meetinghouse Oct. 1 , 1989. Cesar and Patricia Moya talked about their years of lead- ership at the Armenia Church. During the first couple of years there were "several times when we felt like throwing in the towel, when the two of us were the only ones gathered on a Sunday morning," recalled Cesar. The Moyas are originally from the Ibague Mennonite Church. They support themselves with jobs in teaching and veterinary science.

Many members shared their appreciation for the Moyas' commitment to the group. "If it wasn't for Cesar and Patricia's love and dedication, I wouldn't

be here today," said one young woman. Others shared the changes in their lives since they found God's love and acceptance within the congre- gation. Then singing "How Great and Wonderful Are Your Works," all gave thanks for God's faithfulness during the three years they met in a small, rented house.

Tim and Mary Lou Schmucker, Tavistock, Ont., arrived in Armenia Oct. 7, after a year of language training, to assist the Moyas in worship, discipleship ministries and biblical and theological training. They are mission workers with the Commission on Overseas Mission of the General Confer- ence Mennonite Church.

"With the Schmuckers' arrival and our move to a new build-

ing, our congregation has moved into a new stage of life with members expressing a deeper commitment and numerous new people starting to attend," said the Moyas.

Bolivian Mennonite congregation builds new meetingplace

Santa Cruz, Bolivia (GCMC/ MBM)— Heroes del Chaco Mennonite Church here began construction of a new building on land purchased in 1988.

Since moving out of a local school building earlier, the congregation had been meeting under the shade of a large fruit tree on its land. On a September 1989 workday, a lean-to roof was built using

Dedication service in Barrio Granada: Cesar Moya and Liliana Ocampo lead the singing.

Conference of Mennonites in British Columbia seeks confer- ence minister/administrator

About 60 percent of the duties will be pastor/church related, and the balance will be conference administration.

Send inquiries to: Jake Tilitzky, Chairman, Conference of Mennon- ites in B.C., Box 2204, Clearbrook, BC V2T 3X8.

The position is available in the summer of 1990.

1 Please forward application by March 1.

Worship service in Heroes del Chaco under a new roof

funds church members raised at a local bazaar. The walls, the floor and the woodwork wil be completed over a period of

Position available: provincial director of youth and young adult ministries

Duties:

•Support local congregational youth ministries;

•Work with Manitoba Mennonite youth organization;

•Resource youth meetings, retreats, workshops;

•Plan and organize university campus and young adult ministries;

•Administrative work for Educa- tional Ministries Commission.

Qualifications. Theological training and youth ministry experience.

Position available: May 1

Deadline for applications:

Feb. 1

Send resume to: Educational Ministries Commission, Confer- ence of Mennonites in Manitoba, c/o 83 Rutgers Bay, Winnipeg, MB R3T 3C9.

12 JANUARY 9, 1990

First Mennonite Church of Champaign- Urbana, III., has published a history of its 25 years as a congregation. Edited by Gordon V. Oyer, the book contains over 100 pages of text and 20 pages of photos. Others involved in the writing, besides Oyer, were Mary Sprunger, Paul Meyer Reimer, Bob Massanari and Clark Breeze. David Haury served as a consultant during his stay in the community. The book is available from the church for $9. Write 912 W. Springfield, Urbana, IL 61801 .

"I'm the man who broke your door last December," wrote a young man to a Winnipeg family recently. "I was lost and cold and looking for some place to get warm.... What I did was really dumb and I'm sorry if I scared you." The letter of apology came as the result of one of the 217 successful mediations conducted by the Mennonite Central Committee Manitoba- supported Mediations Services in Win- nipeg. The family had been frightened by the experience, especially since they had suffered a previous break-in. During a meeting with the father, the young man expressed regret, paid for the damage and agreed to write a letter of apology to the children.

"Making neighbors out of strangers.

That is the heart of where the church must be," Peggy Owen Clark told pastors and church leaders gathered Nov. 15, 1989, at Oaklawn, a Mennonite mental health center in Elkhart, Ind. "We are so used to being a fellowship of friends that we have not developed the hospitality or inclusiveness of church life," said Clark, a regional minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

NEWS

time as the finances allow.

The Heroes del Chaco congregation is located in a rapidly developing area on the outskirts of Santa Cruz, one of the fastest-growing cities in South America. Stephen "Tig" and Karen Intagliata have been involved in community develop- ment and church planting there, together with Mennonite Central Committee workers, since 1985. The Intagliatas work in Bolivia with Mennonite

Board of Missions; they are supported by the Commission on Overseas Mission of the General Conference Mennonite Church. MCC Bolivia country directors Tim and Faith H. Penner also worship there.

The congregation has also begun building a Sunday school room to accommodate the 20-30 children that attend each Sunday. Adult and youth attendance averages about 25. Other current developments

include the formation of a pastoral team and a children's club, which has begun as an outreach to an area several miles away from the church. The Heroes del Chaco

congregation celebrated its first anniversary in April 1989. It is part of the 100-member Bolivian Mennonite Church, which consists of three rural and two urban congregations.

Refugees simply ask to go home

Akron, Pa. (MCC) — More than 1,200 residents of a refugee camp in Colomoncagua, Honduras, repatriated to their homeland in Northern Morazon, El Salvador, Nov. 18, 1989.

"The tranquil refugees, of all ages, marched up to a military checkpoint carrying Salvadoran flags, jugs of water and their few personal belongings," reports Mennonite Central Committee worker Phil Borkholder of Centreville, Mich. "They peacefully asked the Honduran army to drop their guns and permit them to repatriate without any problems...."

Following the early morning confrontation with the Honduran military, the repatriation occurred without incident. It was the first group of 8,400 refugees in the UN-operated camp to leave. Nine years earlier the people fled massacres and indiscriminate bombing by the Salvadoran military.

New Year's resolution:

□ This year I will remember the person in my life who is blind or has a hard time reading.

□ I will help this person keep informed about our conference.

□ I will help provide The Mennonite on cassette for this person.

"Ed says that The Mennonite-on- cassette tapes keep him informed about what is going on in the General Conference churches. Because he is blind and has muscular distrophy he appreciates the tapes very much. The Men's Brotherhood of our church [Bethel Mennonite Church, Fortuna, Mo.] has been getting Ed the tapes for several years."

Dorothy Baumgartner

[Zl Yes, I wish to subscribe to The Mennonite on cassette for $60 (U.S.) per year (24, 90-minute tapes).

Send the tapes to:

Name

Address

Send the bill to:

Name

Address

Return to: Gordon Houser, Box 347, Newton, KS 67114.

THE MENNONITE 13

The Commission on Overseas Mission

of the General Conference Mennonite Church has the following missionary openings: Bible teachers in southern Africa and Zaire; evangelism and church-planting workers in Africa, Asia and Latin America; schoolteachers in Burkina Faso, China, Zaire; theology professors in India, Korea and Lesotho; public health personnel in Botswana; nurses and physicians in Zaire; dorm parents in Burkina Faso and Zaire; and an accountant in Zaire. For more information contact COM, Box 347, Newton, KS 67114.

Instead of bringing participants to Tokyo as in past years, the Japan Anabap- tist Center sent a speaker and his 1 ,000 slides north and south to the far reaches of Japan for the fourth annual All Japan Mennonite/Brethren in Christ Seminar. Jan Gleysteen, artist, Mennonite church historian and photographer, served as resource person for the event, which took place throughout the country in Mennonite, Brethren in Christ and Hutterian churches. In 28 days he visited 20 churches and made some 30 presentations in a trip that covered over 5,000 miles, mostly by rail. All the Mennonite-related groups in Japan cooperated in making the countrywide seminar possible.

Mennonite Voluntary Service has the

following urgent openings: child-care worker, Interval House, Saskatoon; crisis support worker for domestic abuse organization, Beatrice, Neb.; staff person for an overnight emergency shelter, Fort Collins, Colo.; interviewer/intake worker for an organization that provides low to moderate housing opportunities; an advocate for the Community Unemployed Help Centre, Winnipeg. MVS is a program of the Commission on Home Ministries of the General Conference Mennonite Church. For more information contact MVS, Box 347, Newton, KS 671 14

NEWS COMMENTARY ~

Shots: bullets or vaccinations in the Philippines?

A rifle bullet costs about three pesos (15 cents) in the Philippines. So does a vaccination for one child against major preventable killer diseases. The first can kill when fired from an M-16, the standard issue gun for the Philippines Armed Forces. The second can save a child's life when injected from a syringe.

Bullets have taken a terrible toll on the Filipino people. The war between the Philippine military, backed with U.S. money and equipment, and the outlawed New People's Army guerrillas spirals daily to new heights of violence.

A more silent war also rages in the Philippines; again its victims are mainly children. UNICEF's most recent State of the World's Children estimates that the 155,000 Filipino children under the age of 5 who died in 1989 were mainly victims of inadequate nutrition and health care. The huge $29 billion (U.S.) debt owed by the Philippines to international lending agencies and bank creditors in the First World has been cited as a major cause of the hunger, violence and death of these children.

Two respected U.S. econo- mists now researching the Philippines, Robin Broad and John Cavanagh, calculate that 9,200 children per year, or one every hour, could be saved from a premature death if the Philippine government were to limit debt payments to 20 percent of export earnings and

give only a proportionate share of the savings to the health department's budget. In 1989, 44 percent of the total govern- ment budget is being paid to foreign creditors.

While the debt crisis is clearly a factor in the numbers of young children who die from hunger and disease, war is also fueled in part by the extreme poverty the debt has created. Armed conflict here is often billed as an ideological struggle between communism and democracy, but President Corazon Aquino has admitted that the real catalyst for the armed insurgency is poverty.

At a time when the country

Filipina children wash clothes. The "silent war" of the debt crisis harms mainly children. In 1989, 155,000 children under the age of 5 died in the Philippines.

desperately needs money to provide basic social and economic services for the 70

percent of the population mired beneath the poverty line, the debt will instead drain $7 billion

Church is persecuted in the Philippines

Example #1 : "Scared, I speeded up and down Broadway. Three vehicles of armed, non-uniformed men chased me and fired shots, one of which hit the gas tank of my car. I turned left at 17th Street, but the car skidded; I hit the fence of a house and got stuck. I got out, and armed men pointed their guns at me, telling me to raise my hands high. They frisked me but did not identify themselves." Alforque, longtime friend of Mennonite Central Committee workers in the Philippines.

Example #2: Father Malalay was con- ducting Bible studies at the house of Rufino Rivera, 69, a lay church worker and town counselor. Children ran in screaming that drunken soldiers were harassing them. Father Malalay and Rivera went out and found two "civilian intelligence assets" and one soldier. Father Malalay asked the soldier what was happening.

The soldier shouted at the priest. Rivera tried to calm him down and said, "Don't harm him, he is a priest." The soldier shot and killed Father Malalay with his M-14. As Rivera tried to take the gun away, the soldier shot and killed him, too.

The three men then shot into the air shouting that they were being attacked by anti-government NPA rebels.

Example #3: Vizminda Gran, 44, pastor for the United Church of Christ of the Philippines, and her husband, Luvion, 40, were killed on May 1, 1989, in Baliangao, Misamis Occidental. Local police blame the killing on "right-wing vigilantes."

Gran had been branded by right-wingers as a "communist supporter" for her involvement in various church-initiated human rights activities since the Marcos years.

Church workers call on Christians around the world to "be with us with courage in defense of life wherever it is being trampled upon or being annihilated." Joy Hofer, MCC Philippines

14 JANUARY 9, 1990

"It's a miracle that my grandmother Broken Foot Woman could forgive the whites who caused her so much grief," said Ted Risingsun at the October 1989 meetings of Mennonite Indian Leaders Council on the Cheyenne reservation in Oklahoma. "She could forgive them because she died a Christian. As a 4-year-old she was carried by her older sister out of Fort Robinson [Neb.] when the Cheyenne forcibly held there by the U.S. Army broke out in desperation. Soldiers shot and killed that older sister while the group was escaping. Before she died she told little Broken Foot Woman, 'You saw which way the others went. Follow them'— this in deep snow. My grandmother survived the hard journey back to Montana and the gunshot that had grazed her head in the escape. My people were only going home.. ..So you see what God can do."

Abortion is condemned as sin in a

declaration approved recently by the combined church councils of the Verband deutscher Mennoniten-Gemeinden (Union of Mennonite Churches in Germany). The Verband is a conference of churches, mostly in southern Germany, with total membership of 1 ,628. {Bruecke)

Risingsun

COMMENTARY

from the Philippine economy over the next three years. The money will flow into First World banks. Much of the borrowed money has never benefited the people for whom it was meant. Morgan Guarantee Trust, one of the U.S. creditors, has estimated that up to $12 billion of the money they and others lent to the Philippines was stolen by former dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Clearly the debt crisis is no longer a problem for only economists and experts to discuss. The links between war-related violence, child death through hunger and illness, and the crushing burden of the debt have propelled the issue into the moral and ethical arena. Churches in Canada and the United States can address these aspects by studying the social costs of the debt crisis and offering creative perspec- tives that have been lacking.

Churches in the Philippines have invoked biblical texts such as the Year of Jubilee in Leviticus to offer fresh perspec- tive on the debt. When the debt becomes a socially crushing burden, say church leaders, it becomes immoral and unjust and should be canceled. "Failure of a government to do this would cause unrest and rebellion, like the ill-fated Kingdom of Solomon," says the Church- Based Consumers Movement. For countless victims that warning is too late. Dale Hildebrand, Mennonite Central Committee worker in the Philippines

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THE MENNONITE 15

The family of an Israeli soldier shot in the head by a Palestinian gunman recently agreed to donate the Israeli's heart to another Palestinian. After a four-hour transplant operation at Jerusalem's Hadassah Medical Center, Hannah Khader, 54, was in stable condition with the heart of 40-year-old Sgt. Zeev Traum beating in his chest.

RECOR<J

Russ and Gail Toevs, General Confer- ence missionaries in Orodara, Burkina Faso, reported in a September 1989 letter that Christians there helped Ngoloko, the head sacrificer in the village. The previous Christmas Ngoloko had decided to become a Christian, then returned to his traditional religion several months later. Short of food and money, he could not afford to hire workers for his fields. Christians offered to help but explained that they were not trying to entice him back into Christianity. "God is the one who calls people to become Christians." The Toevses write, "Ngoloko was moved by the group's work.. ..He said that his wife had told him he had made a big mistake in leaving Christianity."

The Washington office of Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section will offer a Washington Seminar April 1-3. The objective, says seminar director Delton Franz, "is to become better acquainted with important issues before [the U.S.] Con- gress and to develop meaningful ways to constructively influence the decision- making process." For more information contact Chris Buller, 754 Random Court, Box 6, Hesston, KS 67062. A maximum' number of 55 participants will be allowed. Deadline for registration is March 1.

caIencJar

worIcers

Feb. 7-10 — Conference of

Mennonites in Canada Council of Boards, Winnipeg

Feb. 10 — Many Peoples Sunday

Feb. 16-17 — Conference of Mennonites in Alberta, First Church, Calgary

Feb. 16-17— Conference of Mennonites in British Columbia, Gospel Fellowship, Kelowna

Feb. 23-24— Conference of Mennonites in Manitoba, Sargent Avenue Church, Winnipeg

Feb. 23-24— Conference of Mennonites in Saskatchewan, Mount Royal Church, Saskatoon

March 2-6— Council of Com- missions, First Church, Newton, Kan.

March 22-24— Central District Conference, Bluffton (Ohio) College

March 23-25— Mennonite Conference of Eastern Can- ada, Niagara United Church, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.

May 3-5— Eastern District Conference, Grace Church, Lansdale, Pa.

June 14-17— Northern District Conference, Salem- Zion Church, Freeman, S.D.

June 21-24— Pacific District Conference, First Church, Reedley, Calif.

July 6-10— Conference of Mennonites in Canada, Edmonton

July 24-29— Mennonite World Conference, Winnipeg

Eva Beidler, a Mennonite watercolorist from Hyattsville, Md., was the speaker for Art '89 at The People's Place, Intercourse, Pa., which opened a multimedia art exhibit about peace on display from Nov. 10, 1989, to Jan. 6.

Herman BontragerwlW leave his position as executive secretary of the Mennonite Central Committee Peace Office this year.

Michelle and Steven Burger, First Church, Upland, Calif., are beginning three-year MCC assignments in Port Fouad, Egypt, as English teachers.

Ernest Dyck, Winnipeg, went to Guadeloupe on Dec. 9, 1989. He will become project coordinator for Hurricane Hugo reconstruction.

Henry Enns, Fort Garry Church, Winnipeg, received a Citation Award from the Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists. Enns is director of MCC's disabled persons concerns.

Albert H. Epp, senior pastor at Bethesda Church, Hender- son, Neb., since 1981, will not accept another term beyond this June. He will devote several years to the writing of discipleship materials.

Floyd Fisher, Busby, Mont., is chairing the Mennonite Indian Leaders Council on an interim basis, succeeding Elmer Myron, Phoenix, Ariz. Monica Friesen, Sterling

Burgers

Beidler

M. Friesen

Lepp

Fellowship, Winnipeg, is beginning a MCC assignment in Winnipeg as an administra- tive assistant for Mediation Services.

Anne Harder, First Church, Edmonton, has been elected to chair the MCC Alberta board, succeeding Gerhard Bartel.

Mary Harder is a new member of Der Bote commit- tee. Other committee members are Dick Epp, Saskatoon; Albert Wiens, Herschel, Sask.; and Lawrence Klippenstein, Winnipeg.

Marcus Heinrichs, West Abbotsford Church, Clearbrook, B.C., is beginning a two-year assignment in Akron, Pa., as a printer in the MCC printing and mailing services department. His parents are Alfred and Anne Heinrichs.

Barbara Willems Hoover,

F. Kathler S. Kathler

associate secretary of the MCC Peace Office, will leave that position this year.

Jean-Luc Husser and Etienne Peterschmidt, Mennonites from France, were appointed by Caisse de Secours to serve in Guade- loupe for Hurricane Hugo re- construction projects.

Fred and Susan Kathler, First Church, Burns Lake, B.C., are beginning a two-year MCC assignment in Reedley, Calif., with the Material Resources program.

Peter Kehler has resigned as conference minister for the Conference of Mennonites in British Columbia effective this summer.

David Lepp, Harrow (Ont.) Church, is beginning a two-year MCC assignment in Washing- ton at Sojourner's Neighbor- hood Center, working in computer literacy and business development His parents are Henry and Marina Lepp. J.B. Miller, Sarasota, Fla., is

16 JANUARY 9, 1990

The Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant

near Denver has begun "a major curtail- ment" of plutonium processing while safety conditions are improved, plant officials said Nov. 29. Plutonium is used in detonators for nuclear weapons. U.S. Energy Secre- tary James Watkins visited the plant Dec. 1 for the first time. He said he "will demand and insure that higher environmental and safety standards are imposed before nuclear operations resume." The plant has been plagued with deficient safety stan- dards for years, various authorities have charged. (National Catholic Reporter)

A study and service program is being offered in Colombia June 30-Aug. 20 for about 10 young adults. The program is sponsored by the Commission on Over- seas Mission of the General Conference. Participants will spend the first four weeks in a workshop designed to raise awareness about Latin America. The following three weeks will be spent in a work project for the Colombian Mennonite Church. Cost is $588 (U.S.) plus airfare to Bogota, Colom- bia. COM contributes $350 (U.S.) toward each participant's costs. For more informa- tion contact Bruno or Wanda Derksen Bergen, COM, Box 347, Newton, KS 67114, (316) 283-5100.

"A Cup of Cold Water" is the theme of the Mennonite Disaster Service all-unit meeting to be held Feb. 9-10 at the Hilton Hotel in Eugene, Ore. Tentatively scheduled as keynote speaker at the meeting is Senator Mark Hatfield. For more information contact Donna Brubaker, 28050 Liberty Road, Sweet Home, OR 97386, (503) 367- 5224.

RECORd

B. Pauls

P. Pauls

Preheim

Schmidt

Stahly

Stolifer

the new board chairman of Mennonite Mutual Aid, replac- ing Arthur Jost, Reedley, Calif.

Stephen Murphy, Grain of Wheat Community Church, Winnipeg, is beginning a two- year MCC assignment in Winnipeg doing community work.

Abe and Nettie Neufeld, Steinbach, Man., are serving as interim pastors at Bethany Church, Watrous, Sask.

Doreen and Hugo Neufeld have been appointed mission ministers for the Mennonite Conference of Eastern Can- ada, effective in July.

Letty and Timothy Ngo are the pastoral couple at the new Chinese congregation in Edmonton.

Ben and Pat Pauls, Altona (Man.) Church, began a three- month North America Assign- ment on Nov. 21 , 1989. They are Commission on Overseas Mission workers in San Lorenzo, Paraguay, at the Mennonite Theological Center of Asuncion (CEMTA).

Vern Preheim, Faith Church, Newton, Kan., general secre- tary of the General Conference Mennonite Church, will be part of an ecumenical delegation going to Nicaragua to observe the elections. He will leave

Feb. 21 and return March 1 .

Rudy A. Regehr and Juliana Tarn, both of Winnipeg, are editors of the Chinese Mennon- ite Newsletter, published by the North American Chinese Mennonite Council.

Jose Humberto dos Reis is the first pastor at the Garavelo Church in Goiania, Brazil, where terminating COM missionaries Ron and Marlene Daku did evangelistic work.

Renee Sauder has resigned as associate pastor at Bethel College Church, North Newton, Kan., effective June 30. She will have served seven years in this position.

Donald L. Schmidt, First Church, Newton, Kan., is a new member of the Mennonite Mutual Aid board, replacing William Friesen, North Newton, Kan. Schmidt represents the General Conference Mennonite Church.

JeroldA. Stahly, Bethel Church, Lancaster, Pa., is beginning a three-year MCC assignment in Omdurman, Sudan, as a lecturer in environ- mental studies with Omdurman Ahlia University. His parents are Delmar and Luella Stahly, Akron.

Lois Stolifer, Inman (Kan.) Church, has completed her

M. Wenger

E. Wenger

term of service with COM in Hualien, Taiwan. She gave leadership to the nurses at Mennonite Christian Hospital since 1984.

Verney Unruh, First Church, Newton, Kan., will attend the January meeting of the Asia Mennonite Conference in Semarang, Java, (Indonesia.) He is Asia secretary for COM.

Perer Voran is interim pastor at Turpin (Okla.) Church, beginning this month.

King Hung Wan is part-time pastor-in-training at Chinese Church, Winnipeg, working with pastor David Tarn.

Esther and Malcolm Wenger, Shalom Church, Newton, Kan., left Jan. 1 to spend three months with Hopi congrega- tions in Arizona, leading evening classes in Bible and church history.

Women in Mission of the General Conference has awarded $500 scholarships to

the following students at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries, Elkhart, Ind.: Lynelle Bergen, Charleswood Church, Winnipeg; Catherine Couillard, Faith Church, Minneapolis; Marion Dueck, Zion Church, Swift Current, Sask.; Charlene Epp, Bethel Church, Marion, S.D.; Eileen Klassen Hamm, Aberdeen (Sask.) Church; and Doreen Neufeld, Welcome Inn Church, Hamilton, Ont. — compiled by Angela Rempel

Crossroads is an introduction service for Mennonite, Brethren in Christ, and Church of the Brethren. We advertise only in their publications.

If you seek a friend who shares your interest, we have many to choose from. Some have met the one they married through us. Of course we can't make any guaran- tees, but at only $100.00 for two years, isn't it worth the risk?

How will you find out if you don't join? For information, write to Crossroads, Box 32, N. Tona- wanda, NY14120.

West Abbotsford Mennonite Church invites inquiries for the position of senior pastor as part of a ministerial team. We are a congregation of 240 in the central Fraser Valley. Interest and skills are expected in preaching and teaching, counseling and crisis visitation, and outreach and church growth.

Send inquiries or resumes to: Alvin G. Ens, 29521 Taylor Rd., Mt. Lehman, B.C., VOX 1V0 (604) 856-1348.

THE MENNONITE 17

Vancouver Chinese Mennonite Church is

promoting the repayment of its $12,000 mortgage by its 12th anniversary, in 1990. By borrowing from church members at no interest the congregation is saving about $1,000 a month.

Wolfgang Krausz, a member of the German Mennonite Peace Committee, was sentenced by a local court in Schwabish- Gmund, West Germany, to 20 days in jail for his role in the blockade of a missile project. In his defense Krausz said that the weapons of mass destruction posed a deadly danger to humanity and to the entire creation of God. He said that construction work in such a project is not a normal, neutral activity, just as construction work for the gas chambers during the Third Reich was not a neutral activity. The judge did not accept his arguments.

Tim Sprunger, General Conference missionary in Hong Kong, wrote in an October 1989 letter, "We have chosen the name 'Mong Yan Tong' ('Hope Mennonite Church')." In painting the church's newly purchased building, members found an old can of what looked like Japanese latex paint, then found that it disappeared as it dried. It turned out to be Elmer's Glue. "How could I know?" Sprunger wrote. "None of us reads Japanese."

RESOURCES

Becoming God's People, a

new brochure put out by Mennonite Indian Leaders Council, is available free from the Commission on Home Ministries, Box 347, Newton, KS 67114-0347.

"We no longer view theology as a system of divinely revealed truth. Instead we see theology as a discipline that reflects on the truth," say authors Aten F. Johnson and Robert Webber in What Christians Believe: A Biblical and Historical Summary (Zondervan, 1989, $19.95).

The Sociological Perspective: A Value- Committed Approach, edited by Michael R. Leming, Raymond G. DeVries and Brendan F.J. Furnish (Zondervan, 1989, $14.95), presents a series of 14 essays on topics covered in introductory sociology courses.

The Mennonite Brethren Church in Canada began in Winkler, Man., in 1888. From Faith to Faith: The History of the Manitoba Mennonite Brethren Church by William Neufeld (Kindred Press, 1989 $15.95, $19.95 in Canada) includes photographs.

Children Around the World by various authors (Eerdmans, 1988, $7.95 each) is a series of eight children's books written to introduce young readers to the fascinating and diverse lifestyles of children in other lands and cultures. Another series of eight

books, Outstanding Women of the Bible by Marlee Alex

(Eerdmans, ■r . 1988, $7.95

~t(1x:^J^ each),

presents the classic stories of young women and girls of Bible : times,

illustrated in full color by some of Europe's best chil- dren's book artists.

The sometimes tragic story of Christian mission among the Ayoreo people of Paraguay's Chaco is recounted in the book Die Ayoreos— unsere Nachbarn (The Ayoreos— Our Neighbors), edited by David Hein. (For information write Mennonite World Conference, 465 Gundersen Drive, Carol Stream, IL 60188.)

On Fire for Christ: Stories of Anabaptist Martyrs retold from Martyrs Mirror by Dave and Neta Jackson (Herald Press, 1989, $8.95, $10.95 in Canada) retells true stories of 15 Anabaptist martyrs.

A series of troubling events culminating in the tragic death of her baby granddaughter in the summer of 1971 shook the foundations of Catherine Marshall's faith and plummeted her into a malaise of the spirit. In Light in My Darkest Night (Revell, 1989, $12.95) she reveais the full scope of her spiritual struggle. Anywhere with You by

Vernell Klassen Miller (Herald Press, 1989, $8.95, $10.95 in Canada) is a true missionary adventure story about a young woman who dreams of changing the world but who with her husband meets unanticipated hardship and failure.

After 50 years of watching "pastors wage private war on mediocrity," Richard S. Taylor in Principles of Pastoral Success (Zondervan, 1989, $8.95) sets out to diagnose common causes of failure and subperformance and prescribe advice on ministry success.

Life in a Glass House: The Minister's Family in Its Unique Social Context by Cameron Lee and Jack Balswick (Zondervan, 1989, $14.95) explains the relational and psychological dynamics of a minister's family that both shapes and is shaped by its particular congregation. Michael J. Hostetler, in his

Assistant minister required for congregation of approximately 300 members in the Niagara Peninsula. Bethany Mennonite Church

invites applications with resume, including training and experience. The successful applicant will serve in conjunction with the pastor, with emphasis on youth and young adult ministry.

For further information, direct inquiries to Anna Andres, secre- tary, Pastoral Search Committee, Route 1, Niagara-on-the-Lake ON LOS 1J0.

book Illustrating the Sermon

(Zondervan, 1989, $5.95), shows speakers how to refine intuitive abilities to choose illustrations, find, file and retrieve illustrations, choose a book of quotations, edit anecdotes, evaluate statistics and analyze sermons in seven steps.

Liberating News: A Theol- ogy of Contextual Evangeliza- tion by Orlando E. Costas (Eerdmans, 1989, $12.95) approaches the topic of contextual evangelization from the standpoint of "the poor, the powerless and the oppressed" and is "written against the streams of the larger ecumeni- cal church."

Two new commentaries on the Gospel of Mark are The Role of Disbelief in Mark: A New Approach to the Second Gospel by Mary R. Thompson (Paulist Press, 1989, $9.95) and A Brief Commentary on the Gospel of Mark by John J. Kilgallen (Paulist Press, 1989, $14.95). —compiled by Gordon Houser

Faculty member in pastoral care and counseling, Eastern Mennonite Seminary. Requires a doctorate in an appropriate field and significant experience in church ministry. Experience in pastoral care and teaching is preferred. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply.

Send resume to George R. Brunk III, Eastern Mennonite Seminary, Harrisonburg, VA 22801.

18 JANUARY 9, 1990

'Land Runs' and the rest of the story

Esther Bohn Groves

Bang! At the sound of a fired gun, a row of schoolchildren in pioneer costumes, some pulling play wagons outfitted like Conestogas, raced across a school ballfield to stake a claim.

They were re-enacting Oklahoma's first land run. Indians at Guthrie, Okla., former capital of Indian Territory, were asked to contribute songs and dances in feathered costumes to the centennial anniversary of that land run. They declined.

Ralph Beard of El Reno, Okla., editor of the Cheyenne-Arapaho Bulletin, said, "Whites asking Native Americans to celebrate land runs is like Indians asking whites to celebrate Custer's last stand at the Battle of the Little Big Horn."

What Native Americans in Oklahoma remember more is what preceded Okla- homa's five land runs from 1889 to 1901. Whether Cherokee or not, they call it the Trail of Tears.

In the 1820s, Cherokees living in the southeastern United States had begun to farm and live in log cabins. They had their own constitutional republic and were beginning to develop their own literature in the Cherokee alphabet that Sequoya (17707-1843) introduced. But when gold was discovered in their territory, whites wanted the Cherokees out.

A "treaty" was signed by a small minority (the U.S. signed 370 worthless treaties with tribes between 1778 and 1868), and most of the Cherokee Nation was rounded up at gunpoint in 1838 and marched to Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. One out of four died on the way from cold, hunger, dysentery and

Mennonites were there: From Mrs. J.H. Sch buildings in El Reno, taken "in 1889 or 1890.

other diseases— the Trail of Tears. Yet the resilient Cherokee established a three-branch government at Tahlequah, Okla., their capital, and set up schools.

The federal government moved other tribes to Indian Territory. (Read the list of Oklahoma towns in the back of a road atlas. Many are names of tribes.) Still the pressure for land continued as immigrants arrived and new generations wanted to homestead.

To get at reservation land the govern- ment issued Native Americans 160 acres, even though most had no farm back- ground, and opened leftover land for runs. "An April 19, 1892, land run brought homesteaders into Cheyenne- Arapaho land," says Lawrence Hart, a Mennonite who is a Cheyenne chief.

The biggest of the land runs was the

midt, Gotebo, Okla., comes this photo of the first

Dreams for Native Ministries

We dream of a time when the barriers to cross-cultural communication will be overcome.

We dream of the formation of more Native fellowship groups for worship, study and mutual support.

We dream of strong Native churches that take an active part in the life of the conference.

We dream of educational programs at church institutions to develop lead- ership for the Native church.

We dream of a more regular theo- logical exchange between Mennonite and Native Christians.

We dream of Native Christians taking a more equitable place at the board, staff and administrative levels of Native Ministries.

We dream of Native Ministries as a Native organization that incorporates the spiritual strength of both Mennon- ite and Native traditions.

We dream of the Mennonite church in the forefront of justice as Canadian society reworks its history. John and Vera Funk, executive secretaries, Native Ministries, Conference of Mennonites in Canada, 600 Shaft- esbury Blvd., Winnipeg, MB R3P 0M4

Cherokee Strip Run on Sept. 16, 1893. Some 100,000 prospective settlers lined up on the Kansas-Oklahoma border for the rush south to 40,000 claims. By the time Oklahoma became a state in 1907, the basis for the Native American way of life was gone.

Instead of re-enacting a land run, Elgin School near Lawton, Okla., which has some Indian faculty members and students from 11 tribes, used the occasion to educate. Native American dignitaries and culture were part of the program.

The year 1992 will mark the centen- nial of the Cheyenne-Arapaho land run and the quincentennial of Columbus' dis- covery of the Americas. Hart says that Indian educators are working on a history of Oklahoma that will include new material about western Oklahoma for use as a school text. Neglect, both intentional and unintentional, has kept Native Americans from realizing their heritage. Neglect has kept whites from the knowledge of how Indians ended up in the ghetto while whites prospered. A history of these past events can help us all prepare for and celebrate 1992 more wisely.

Esther Bohn Groves is a member of Turpin (Okla.) Mennonite Church.

20 JANUARY 9, 1990

Utters

One at a time, yes

I like the way you feature one important issue at a time. Marie Ratzlaff, Box 613, Henderson, NE 68371

Careful reading

I feel out of touch with the rest of the Mennonite community and I read The Mennonite carefully to try to keep up. Ronald Sawatzky, 2200 South Ave. B, Apt. A-107, Yuma, AZ 85364

Stewardship questions

"Bring ye all the tithes into the store- house" (Malachi 3:10). Does "storehouse" mean your home church? What happens after the money is in the church treas- ury? Is the money dispensed prayer- fully? Have wills ever been recom- mended or mentioned in a sermon on stewardship? Most of us would avoid mentioning this touchy question for fear of giving offense or marring our social status. I confess to sins of omission. C.B. Friesen, 415 E. First St., Newton, KS 67114

Goodwill correction

The five men from Aberdeen [Editorial, Dec. 12] did work on the building at First Mennonite, Phoenix, Ariz. However, it was the original church building, not the recent addition. [They were] invited back to the dedication of the new wing. Their work in Phoenix has been appreci- ated and remembered. Thank you for giving their work the publicity it deserves. Al Whaley, pastor, First Mennonite Church, 1612 W. Northern Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85021

Editor's note: Frank Hiebert, Aberdeen, Idaho, adds the name of Herbert Huether as one who worked hard on the Phoenix church building. Thanks for these corrections.

Ownership

We pray for you and your work regularly. It makes us feel a part of the publication. Lubin and Tillie Jantzen, 612 W. Ninth, Newton, KS 67114

About letters: We use all letters submit- ted for publication. Longer letters will be shortened. Unsigned correspondence will not be published, though we may with- hold names for valid reasons. Editor

American History

from Another Angle

The Mennonite Experience in America Series

"In the last two or three decades writers of American history have looked more and more to people's religious beliefs, identities, and motivations. There they have found new explanations for economic or political behavior, family and neighborhood life, ethnicity, and other matters. In doing so, they have begun to look at the U.S. nation and its history, far more than previously, through the eyes of minorities and of the powerless. These trends are a new opportunity to tell of particular religious groups. The Mennonite Experience in America Series tells its story within the setting of the American nation, and in turn suggests what its story tells about that nation."— Theron F. Schlabach, series editor

New!

Vision, Doctrine, War: Mennonite Identity and Organization in America

James C. Juhnke explores the story of Mennonites and Amish in America from 1890 to 1930. He reveals how Mennonites responded to the challenges of war and to doctrinal and cultural changes.

In the four decades covered in this book, the American Mennonites nearly doubled in membership. Encounters with Protestant revivalism, organizational techniques, modernism, and World War I affected each group differently. This book tells of those encounters and the changes that followed. Volume 3. Paper, $19.95, in Canada $24.95

Also available:

Land, Piety, Pcoplehood: The

Establishment of Mennonite Communities in America, 1683-1870

Paper, $17.95, in Canada $22.50

Peace, Faith, Nation: Mennonites and Amish in Nineteenth-Century America

Paper, $19.95, in Canada 24.95

Vision, Doctrine, War

Peace, Faith, Nation

Herald Press books are available through your local bookstore or write to Herald Press (include 10% for shipping).

Illl

Herald Press

Dept. MEN

616 Walnut Avenue

Scottdale, PA 15683-1999

Herald Press

Dept. MEN

490 Dutton Drive

Waterloo, ON N2L 6H7

THE MENNONITE 21

REVIEWS

»ooks

Raising adult believers

Parenting for the '90s by Philip Osborne (Good Books, 1989, 300 pages)

Reviewed by Clare Schumm, Box 1245, Elkhart, IN 46515-1245

Phil Osborne, a longtime psychology professor at Hesston (Kan.) College, took on a desperately needed task in writing this book. Recognizing the need to evaluate and integrate the various schools of thought current today, Osborne brings together significant

concepts of current theories of parent education, plus ad- ditional insights of his own, into a meaningful framework that will make sense to parents and profes- sionals alike.

Osborne draws on the learnings from the strengths of behaviorism in the '60s, P.E.T. (Parent Effective- ness Training) in the '70s and religious authoritarianism and family systems in the '80s. He shows that the usual ways to effective parenting taught in the last several decades tend to lean to one side or the other.

The real strength of the book is the alternative perspective to parenting that Osborne calls the adult-believers per- spective. This focuses on the parents rather than the child. Adults have children, and the hope of parents is that their children will grow up to be adult believers like themselves.

Osborne emphasizes that parental concern for children goes beyond teach- ing them what behaviors are socially proper or improper. The larger concern is the gradual induction of the child into a lifestyle of Christian discipleship.

He offers a "balanced parenting" paradigm at the beginning of the book that serves as a benchmark for communi- cation between the author and reader. Most parents will find the topics of practical parenting covered in the middle chapters most helpful. The stories about his own life as a parent enriches his presentation of the theoretical and historical models for parenting and parent education.

Study questions for each chapter make it helpful for academic study, support groups or any parent who reads it. I highly recommend this book for all parents to be and parents with any age children. It helps parents gain perspec- tive on the requirements of parenting, an outlook that will enable them to make wise choices from the profusion of advice before them.

'Sexual property'

Dirt, Greed, and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and Their Im- plications for Today by L. William Countryman (Fortress Press, 1988, 290 pages)

Reviewed by John Linscheid, 6101 Boyer, Third Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19138

L. William Countryman wants Chris- tians to base sexual morality on the Bible rather than on naive assumptions about the Bible. To that end he scrutinizes the sexual moral rules of the New Testament era and discovers their roots in Old Testament con- cerns for physical purity and for family property.

Jesus and his followers rejected physical purity

I.. \Mlliuni Couiilmiiiin

Dirt

Greed

SSex

SKM VI.I-TIIH.MXTIIK

codes. They assumed that purity of the heart— not physical purity regulated by ritual laws— affected one's relationship with God. That didn't mean that Jesus and his followers eliminated sexual morality. But they reformulated— and transformed— it in response to under- standing of "sexual property."

For example, in ancient times the wife was the sexual property of the husband rather than a member of his family. By prohibiting divorce, Jesus gave the woman equal claim on her husband- thus ending the advantage men had in marriage. (Which is why the disciples in Matthew 19:10 conclude that it's no longer beneficial to marry.)

Countryman contends that modern American Christians live with an assumed purity code that reads back into the Bible our assumptions about the reasons for certain sexual regulations. We consider certain sexual practices "dirty," so we assume falsely that the reason such practices were prohibited in

biblical times was due to a similar distaste for them. In fact, many were expressions of regulations designed to protect patriarchal prerogatives and to provide for legitimate family heirs and labor.

Countryman suggests that our purity codes function just as the demand for circumcision did in Paul's day— as a barrier of "law" preventing entrance for some into the Christian community. Countryman calls on Christians to abandon this modern purity code and to adopt instead a biblical morality pat- terned after the type of response that Jesus and his followers made to sexual property rules of that day.

The last chapter outlines the principles that can be derived from New Testament regulations of "sexual property." Here Countryman also sketches some of the implications he derives for moral regulations of sexual relationships in our day. For example, he notes that rape of a woman in ancient times was chiefly considered a violation against the man to whom she belonged. He shows how adapting New Testament understand- ings of sexual property to our age should make us consider rape the most serious sexual sin.

Not all readers will like Countryman's principles and applications. Yet the greatest value of his study lies not in his conclusions but in his examination of the basis for sexual morals in the Bible. He makes us come to terms with the fact that the rationale we often give for sexual prohibitions are not particularly biblical. He confronts us with the cultural gap that divides our world from the New Testament world and that makes it so difficult for us to understand the intent of first-century writers.

At times I felt Countryman failed to fully explore the possible interpretations of particular passages. He failed to consider the revolutionary implications of injunctions to mutual submission between husband and wife in Colossians. (He preferred to simply see Paul as backing off from Jesus' more thorough emancipation of women.) When the basis for a sexual law was ambiguous, he usually rejected out of hand the sugges- tions of other scholars that the vestiges of purity law might be operating— even among Christians who rejected the law as a barrier to salvation.

Yet though I may quibble with details, I wholeheartedly endorse his final principle. Sexuality must be constantly and clearly related to the reign of God rather than be seen as an end in itself.

22 JANUARY 9, 1990

Text: the book of Jonah

Jon

Alvin G. Ens

And so," said our pastor, "on New Year's Eve, instead of our regular service, we ask all of you to make a commitment to friendship evangelism, to tell the congregation your specific goals for outreach into our community in the next year."

I saw that Jon was shaking his head. Earlier he had been vocal in opposing this idea. Jon lives in a multiethnic neigh- borhood. From his personal experiences he knew how it would not work. These foreigners were outsiders. They cared nothing for the church. Their lifestyles and habits and traditions were different. Some of them were downright wicked. Nevertheless, our pastor had made the announcement. All of us were scared or inexperienced or unsure, but we agreed to try it.

New Year's Eve came. Attendance was small, but the spirit was good. Most of us had some friend or group that we thought

Two vessels

Alice Cameron Bostrom

Emerald bubbles disturbed the waters as great jaws

broke the surface of the sea.

A lone man swept past the tooth-like baleen, head over heels to the bowels of the deep.

Slowly, the blow-hole closed like a wink from the eye of God

The whale, a willing vessel bearing Jonah on his cruise.

Alice Cameron Bostrom 's address is 3825 Kentucky Ave. N, Minneapolis, MN 55427.

we could relate to during the next year. I looked around for Jon. He was absent. I wasn't surprised.

Later I heard that Jon went to his office's New Year's Eve party instead of to church. I heard that people had invited him to join in, but Jon just moped about. I guess some high-spirited or maybe slightly drunk person decided he was a party-pooper and literally threw him out.

It turns out that Jon got into his car and drove straight out of town and into the mountains, as far away from home as possible. It was the dead of winter, but I suppose Jon didn't care. Sometimes there are avalanches or snowslides in those mountains. A big one fell that night, followed by a major winter storm for the next two days.

Jon's wife reported him missing the next day, but no one knew where to look. It wasn't until the highway crews cleared out the debris from the avalanche on the third day that Jon's car was found buried. Miraculously Jon was pulled from the wreckage alive and whole except for frostbite.

Jon told us about it later. He had been convicted to also do his thing for friendship evangelism. He felt a specific call to reach the people on his block but had resisted the urging with every excuse he could muster. That's why he had gone to the office party instead of the New Year's Eve church service. The rebuff there prompted him to run even farther.

During those three days under the avalanche he prayed, and now he was ready to join the outreach effort.

Jon watched and waited and formed judgments about his neighbors— the "godless lot," as he called them. But we con- vinced him that his job was not to worry about their response but just to tell them.

During the week before Easter Jon made his move. The death of Christ would be his theme. He started Thursday right after work and went door to door to every house on his block. It took him three days. His message was the same: Sin put Jesus on the cross; judgment follows if one neglects Jesus' plan of reclamation. At each household he left the pamphlet our church had developed to hand out.

Jon's conscience was now eased. But he didn't expect any response.

On Easter Sunday our church is always a bit fuller than usual, though we've never run out of space. Imagine our surprise when strange people started coming in. I counted 57 of them, nearly all from Jon's block. And where was Jon? By the time he came the ushers were placing chairs in the aisle. Jon had to sit in the aisle, with his wife in the chair behind him. I heard that the neighborhood had been buzzing, and the consensus was that Jon made sense. They felt their need for a religion like his.

I could see that Jon was upset. People on the bench beside him were whispering, and the area smelled of tobacco and foreign food. He didn't get a hymn book to sing from, but then he didn't seem in the mood for singing.

Our pastor led a fine worship service. He acknowledged the new life possible for all and invited all to return again the next week. When we got up to leave, Jon remained in his chair, glowering. , At the next week's planning session Jon told us he couldn t figure God out, nor the church's response to these foreigners. He felt that the church was compromising with the world and weakening its faith and doctrine by encouraging the attendance of people with such different backgrounds and practices.

Alvin G. Ens, 29521 Taylor Road, Route 1, Mount Lehman, BC VOX 1V0, teaches English and Bible at Mennonite Educa- tional Institute, Clearbrook, B.C., and is a member of West Abbotsford Mennonite Church.

THE MENNONITE 23

NEWS 01 002? 031 313

LIBRAE

ASSQH «IENM BIBLICAL S EH

3003 3EMHAM AVE

ELKHART I VI 46 517

EdiTORIAl

Tell the truth: Are we becoming one people?

We in the United States pause (Jan. 15) to mark the birth of the great non- violent civil rights leader and Baptist pastor Martin Luther King Jr. Across our conference we are invited to prepare now for Feb. 10, to set aside that Sunday as Many Peoples Day. But I am concerned that we may be misleading other Christians who may be looking at us. Are we really MPBGP (Many Peoples Becoming God's People)?

Let me start close by. This week's cover and that of the previous issue feature an African American and South Africans. A casual observer could surmise from this that the 65,000 or so of us General Conference folks are far advanced in integrating the black and white races of people. In truth, we have done this integrating by fits and starts and have a long way to go.

Many of you have seen the conference video/slide set (well put together by Ardie Schroeder Goering of Goessel, Kan.) that was prepared for our triennial sessions in Normal, 111., last August. It is now getting good mileage among our congregations. If you haven't seen it and want to, contact Dave Linscheid, Box 347, Newton, KS 67114, (316) 283-5100. The piece is entitled "People of the General Conference: Walking Together in the Light." A casual observer would conclude from it, however, that about 90 percent of us "GC" Mennonites are (for lack of a better phrase) "people of color" and that about 10 percent are "white." In truth, the opposite is more like it.

But you have to start somewhere, right? I'm im- pressed that when we have been obedient to the gospel of Christ to "welcome the stranger" (sometimes refu- gees) we have gained in our desire to "become one people."

On page 8 of this issue is such a story, that of Martha and Menno Nickel of Saskatoon. The doctor who is now head of the Pain Control Clinic, where Martha is a cancer patient, is the father in the first Vietnamese refugee family that Martha and Menno helped sponsor in Saskatoon and then assist through his university training. Menno writes, "He is ever so concerned to give Martha the best of help." God's love is made flesh through people. Even the casual reader would see truth in this story.

Another story is that of Ed and Sara Stoesz, Altona, Man., who spent four months in Zaire a couple of years ago under Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission but at their own expense. They fixed machines, rewired, repaired an elevator, painted and cleaned, mainly at the print shop in Kinshasa. Just as stunning is the fact that folks in their congregation sent them 60 letters in three months. I see this as MPBGP going more than one direction.

Pearl Janzen reports that the Many Peoples concept is being born at First Mennonite Church, Reedley, Calif, one of our older congregations (founded in 1904) with a declining membership. More than half of the town is Hispanic, so, she says, "that has been our focus. A handful of individuals, feeling totally inadequate, took a small step with the blessing of the deacons and church council." They worked through mission festivals, inviting the Hispanic leaders of our conference, using the "Neighbors Near and Far" curriculum, including a "Posada" (re-enactment of Mary and Joseph's journey) in the children's Christmas program, and offering a Spanish/English Bible study for the past three years.

Finally, let these three Japanese young people tell you the truth. We and they are part of each other. They paused for photographer and missionary Mary Derksen, modeling the T-shirts designed by the Japanese Men- nonite youth committee for the young people to wear at last May's interchurch sports day. Their names? Shinya Kawagoe, Chika Sato and Chiyo Sato (left to right). Remember them. They are pronounced just the way they are written. MPBGP. Remember it. Muriel T. Stackley

MENNONITE

OTHER FOUNDATION CAN NO ONE LAY THAN THAT IS LAID, WHICH IS JESUS CHRIST

Reach out:

Come as strangers.

leave as friends

105:2 JANUARY 23, 1990

side:

Carlos: with God

Do the poor feel welcome in your church?

Let's start more guest houses

CONTENTS

pRoloquE

There is a new thing under the winter sun: telemarketing The Mennonite. Dorothy Franz Swan came forward last November with the idea of phoning people in our conference, en- couraging them to subscribe. The department to which I am accountable is eager to increase subscriptions. To date Dorothy has spent part of a dozen evenings calling folks. If you live in Beatrice, Neb., or Meno or Enid, Okla., or Wichita, Kan., you may have spoken with her.

An unexpected spinoff of Dorothy's phone calls is that several people have asked for prayer, for a variety of needs. Dorothy records these. They are read, prayed over and placed in a box in our office chapel here at 722 Main, Newton, Kan. The whole office staff gathers each Wednesday morning for chapel, and a prayer group is forming to come together for a prayer time prior to chapel. I see this as just as important as the new subscriptions.

On page 45 is another prayer request, in a letter from Brian Arbuckle. This morning (Jan. 5) I got the Arbuckle phone number and spoke with his wife, Gwen. She reports that Brian was indeed sent to Panama on Dec. 20, 1989, that he was on the front line at first and now has an administrative job. "At this point," she said, "we don't know when he will be returning but trust it will be before May." Read his letter. Honor his request for prayer. It's a way to reach out.

The next issue, dated Feb. 13, will focus on coping with disabilities, mts

Carlos, up there in front with God / 27

(Almost) seven good years in Bolivia / 28

Do the poor feel welcome in your church? / 30

Let's start more guest houses like IGH / 33

News / 34 Palestinian Christians reject violence / 34 Mennonite farmers voice many questions / 36

Refugees knock on our doors / 39

Record / 40

Resources / 41

Nobel laureates and hard questions / 44 Letters / 45 Reviews / 45

Re: Holy Spirit / 45

The uses of power / 46

Money management / 46 Discipleship: the goal of church growth / 47 After the fax / 48

Cover: Photo by Carolyn Prieb

The Mennonite is available on cassette tape. The past 13 years of The Mennonite are also available on microfilm at the Manz Library, Bethel College North Newton, KS 67117, and from University Microfilms International 300 N Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106.

(ffi) tIie mennonite

Editorial offices: 722 Main St., Box 347, Newton, KS 67114, (316) 283-5100 Editor: Muriel T. Stackley; assistant editor: Gordon Houser; editorial assistant- Angela Rempel; art director: John Hiebert. The Mennonite is a member of the Associated Church Press, Evangelical Press Association and Meetinghouse (a Mennnonite and Brethren in Christ editors' group). It is an associate member of the Canadian Church Press.

Circulation secretary: Doris Yoder. Business adviser: Dietrich Rempel. Special editions edi- tors: Western District, Debbie Ratzlaff, Box 306, North Newton, KS 671 1 7- Window to Mission Lois Deckert, Box 347, Newton, KS 671 1 4: Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries Richard A. Kauffman, 3003 Benham Ave., Elkhart, IN 46517.

Advisers: (Alberta) Henry and Erna Goerzen, Route 1, Didsbury, AB TOM 0W0- (British Columbia) Amy Dueckman, 33247 Ravine, Abbotsford, BC V2S 1V7; (Central District) Steve Estes, Box 196, Hopedale, IL61747; (Eastern District) Curtis Bauman, 429 N. Second St Em- maus, PA 1 8049; (Manitoba) Irma Fast Dueck, 693 Ebby Ave., Winnipeg, MB R3M 2G9; (Men- nonite Conference of Eastern Canada) Margot Fieguth, 99 Veronica Drive, Mississauga ON L5G 2B1 ; (Northern District) Winifred Wall, Box 67, Freeman, SD 57029; (Pacific District) Clare Ann Ruth-Heffelbower, 31 98 E. Menlo Ave., Fresno, CA 9371 0; (Saskatchewan) Viola Ediger 125 Rawlinson Bay, Regina, SK S4S 6M8; (Western District) Leland Harder Box 363 North Newton, KS 671 17.

Circulation: 10,896

The Mennonite (ISSN 0025-9330) seeks to witness, to teach, motivate and build the Christian fellowship within the context of Christian love and freedom under the guidance of the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit. It is published semimonthly by the General Conference Mennonite Church, 722 Main St., Box 347, Newton, KS 671 14. Subscription rates: one year, $18 U.S., $21 Canada; two years, $32 U.S $38 Canada; three years, $44 U.S., $52 Canada. Outside North America add $1 6 U.S. per year to U. S. rate for surface mail, $53.32 U.S. for airmail. Single copies: $2 U.S. Five or more: $1 U.S. each. Paid advertising accepted from Mennonite- related groups. Second-class postage paid at Newton, Kan., and additional mailing offices. Printed in U.S.A. POSTMASTER: Send Form 3579 to The Mennonite Box 347, Newton, KS 67114. ©1989

26 JANUARY 23, 1990

Reach out

Carlos, up there in front with God

Julius Belser

Carlos died this morning, and our house- hold family is sad. Folks from our con- gregation have been stopping by all day to share in our sorrow.

Yesterday Carlos' face lit up with a smile when I wheeled my 81-year-old dad into his room in the hospital. Carlos was hurting and just a bit disoriented, but he made a gallant effort to cheer Dad (who has Parkinson's Disease ) with his big- talk banter. Carlos encouraged Dad all seven months of his stay with us, joking about how many dollars were added to the bill every time he held Dad's chair or passed the toast.

I look out on our patio, where Carlos sat daily feeding the squirrels and birds. This morning a squirrel sat right outside our screen door as though he didn't trust our word that Carlos was gone and we had no peanuts.

Next Sunday would have been Carlos' birthday. We were looking forward to our household celebration. These celebrative meals, cards, gifts, treasur- ing-each-other times were especially great for Carlos. On his birthday last month Grandpa got a water pistol as a

Carlos feeds a squirrel on our patio:

Today one sat there as though it didn't trust our word that Carlos was gone and we had no peanuts. '

gift, and to roars of laughter all around Carlos dared him to shoot out the candles. Carlos chose his gifts carefully. He gave Grandpa a plaque that said, "Every Family Needs a Grandpa."

I found a little packet called "God's Papers" among Carlos' belongings. In it he did his "fearless moral inventory" for Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous. His life as an addict was truly horrendous. The Lord's deliverance about four years ago was miraculous. Life since then was opening up to him: going to college, becoming a substance- abuse counselor. But during his time as an addict he shared a needle with someone who had AIDS. For a while he felt that God had let him down when in the midst of this fresh hope in life he learned that he too had AIDS.

After severe bouts with meningitis, Carlos recovered enough that he didn't need hospitalization. He was shocked to learn that the Christian agency where he had lived was no longer open to him now that he had AIDS. One of the chaplains called me to see if there'd be a home for Carlos in our congregation. We talked about forming a ministry to house AIDS victims. But Hilda Carper, who coordi- nates the Evanston shelter for the homeless, reminded me of how isolated AIDS victims usually become, and immediately we considered inviting Carlos to become part of our household family.

We did a careful check with medical authorities and discovered that AIDS is communicated through direct sexual contact or through the blood via needles. With our regular household sanitation there would be no danger to us. Our household family had other needs, but there seemed a special givenness in Carlos' need, and we had a small room available. Little did we realize how im- portant Carlos would be to us.

We thought of possible fear in our church. It seemed more important to quietly welcome Carlos in our household than to have long discussions. We have since used some good public health videos in our congregation.

When we were ready as a household to welcome Carlos, we still had to meet him, and he meet us to see if we would fit together even on an exploratory basis. So we arranged a visit. From our first handshake we got the sense of an open, forthright seeker. His way of asking questions and the refreshing directness of his street style was a good addition to our more laid back, cautious relational style.

On the way home from the hospital that first day, Carlos realized that he

THE MENNONITE 27

Reach out

Ingrid Schultz ministered to— and received the ministry of— Bolivian women

David Ediger

Just then Ingrid rode up on her bicycle, drillers, but all the men had excuses.

She volunteered to find workers to help the well-

(Almost) seven good years in Bolivia

Faith Hershberger Penner

The well drillers were frustrated. The people of El Carmen, Bolivia, had hired them to come to their small town across the Rio Grande River, promising to provide three or four villagers to help each day. But no community men appeared that day, so when the well drillers hit a hard layer, they were ready to pack up and leave. '

Just then Ingrid Schultz rode up on her bicycle, her cheeks underneath a straw sombrero flushed from sun and heat. She quickly volunteered to find some workers to help the well drillers by stomping mud to use in the drilling.

But every man in the community offered an excuse. Discouraged, Ingrid went to El Carmen's mayor to enlist his help. He was not home, but his wife, Dona Juana, quickly volunteered. "Can't the women help?" she asked.

At first the drillers did not think women could help, but they agreed to let them try. Soon Ingrid had rounded up 10 women, one a grandmother and

Carlos, up there in front with God

had lost his wallet and could not cash his check or get medicine without his green card. So we went right over to the Public Aid office and experienced the long waits and reasons why he couldn't get a green card on Friday afternoon. But with per- sistence we got a substitute card in three hours.

I ponder what God did with Carlos and with us. I talked to Carlos' former wife, his daughter and sister, and I try to imagine their pain over the years, being wounded and tricked often over the 20 years of Carlos' addiction. But those closest to Carlos also recognized the refreshing change in his life in the last

three or four years.

Carlos often mourned the wasted years, but he also treasured the last few years and months. To God the important thing is not the number of sad years minus the number of happy ones. God gave Carlos a refreshing end to a painful life— a gracious gift to Carlos and to all of us. Though hard for us, God also gave Carlos a quick, relatively painless death, for which we are grateful. In the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, those laborers who worked only one hour received the same as those who worked all day. "So the last will be first and the first last," reports Matthew in his

Gospel. In God's heart I have no ques- tion but that Carlos has an up-front place.

Julius Belser is one of the leaders of Reba Place Church, Box 6017, Evanston, IL 60204, which affiliates with the Mennonite Church and the Church of the Brethren.

28 JANUARY 23, 1990

others with small children. They and Ingrid, their bodies wet with sweat and streaked with mud, stomped the clay, laughing as they worked together. "With camaraderie," says Ingrid, "all these women on this hot day stomped mud. Women know how to work together and enjoy doing it." At the end of the day the women received accolades from the well drillers and the following morning a full roster of men turned up to help.

Ingrid first came to Bolivia (for Mennonite Central Committee) in 1978 to teach grade school in a bamboo classroom with a dirt floor. After completing a 2 1/2-year term, she worked in MCC Canada offices in Winnipeg.

In 1985 Ingrid returned to Bolivia and coordinated MCC work in the rural Berlin region of Bolivia, about 62 miles (100 kilometers) northeast of Santa Cruz. She worked with about 10 volun- teers and community leaders.

That first year in Berlin was hard. "The MCCers were a diverse group," says Ingrid. "Before unit meetings I got headaches, and afterward I sometimes cried. When volunteers' houses in Barrio Lindo caved in and I tried to work with community leaders to get them rebuilt, I could feel them thinking, 'Who is this woman anyway?'"

From the beginning, however, Ingrid says she felt like she was "coming home" to Bolivia. "I valued the chance to visit with neighbors and get involved in church." And she gradually grew comfortable with her new job.

The experience "made me realize how campesinas (rural women) feel when they are put in leadership positions," says Ingrid. "Bolivian women in literacy classes always say, 'I can't' or, 'This is something I can't do.' I felt the same way. but these are things we women can do."

In her four years in El Carmen, Ingrid saw herself and the women change. In Bolivian communities, where decisions are usually made by consensus, women

At first Ingrid says she felt guilty because she was having fun while people back home in British Columbia thought she was suffering.

traditionally do not have a vote. At one meeting in El Carmen, when a woman tried to speak for her absent husband, a man stood and told her that "women don't count." Another woman, Doha Sofia, stood and said, "When there's work to be done, women count."

At the next community meeting, the women announced that if their opinions did not count, then they were not going to cook for the community's Independ- ence Day celebration. Their opinions are now heard at community meetings.

On another occasion women were preparing a meal for an evangelistic meeting and baptism, to be led by visiting pastors. When the pastors did not come, some suggested calling off the service. Dofia Eva, a literacy student and wife of one church leader, looked up from the pot of rice she was stirring and said, "I thought we were all ministers of Christ."

So the people, including the women, went ahead with the service at the river. The women tied reeds around their polleras (full skirts) so they would not balloon up in the water and a church lay leader baptized 12 people, saying, "As

humble servants of Christ we baptize you."

Ingrid says she also learned from her neighbors about service. During her first MCC term, Ingrid says, she felt guilty because she was having fun while people in her home church assumed that she was suffering. During the past four years, she says, her feelings have "gone beyond" enjoyment. "I spent Good Friday praying and fasting."

Although a lot of their day is spent gathering firewood and carrying water, Ingrid says, Bolivian women are gracious hostesses and find joy in community. "The women have the ability to draw together and support their neighbors. The presence of joy in the midst of suffering and even death, and their ability to share what they have, contin- ues to amaze me."

Faith Hershberger Penner works for Mennonite Central Committee in Bolivia. Ingrid Schultz, member of Sherbrooke Mennonite Church, Vancouver, B.C., is now a student at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries, 3003 Benham Ave., Elkhart, IN 46517.

THE MENNONITE 29

Reach out

Eddy Ha ll

Their clothes are worn. Their haircuts do-it-yourself jobs. Yours is a middle-income congre- gation, so you wonder: Will this new family [let's call them Ray and Sandra Thompson] feel welcome?

Your concerns are soon put to rest. The members of their Sunday school class go out of their way to be friendly. The family comes back. When the class has a hayride, several people personally invite them to come along.

You are delighted when the Thomp- sons take their baby forward for dedica- tion. They must be feeling at home.

Then, a couple of weeks later, they quit coming.

What went wrong? Did they not feel welcome after all?

No, as a matter of fact, they didn't. The family who came and stayed awhile and left were friends of my wife, Melody, and me, friends who came to church with us at our invitation.

Of course, I appreciated our class- mates' efforts to make our friends, who were obviously poor, feel welcome. Their friendliness was genuine. But friendli- ness wasn't enough. To truly make the Thompsons feel welcome would have taken something more — a new way of seeing.

Our family began to learn this new way of seeing in 1979 upon return to Oklahoma after three years away. I began work as a free-lance writer, a job that yields high personal rewards but low and irregular income. We attended the same middle-class church we had attended before, where we had felt so at home. But after attending every Sunday for a year, we still didn't feel a part. Why?

The difference was that we were now poor. We now saw an obstacle course of barriers — all unintentional.

We had never noticed most of these barriers before. Looking back we could see how we ourselves had raised similar barriers as youth leaders in that very

Do the poor feel welcome in your church?

church. Only when we saw the church through the eyes of the poor did these barriers become visible.

Barrier #1: A price tag on Christian fellowship

On the evening of our Sunday school class hayride, Ray Thompson was at our house, anguishing over whether to take his family. He wanted desperately to make friends. But the hayride would cost them $4.50 — and they had no milk for their three children.

We would gladly have taken them as our guests, but we had less money than they had. Our family couldn't even consider going.

The time for the hayrack to leave the church came and went, and still Ray debated. He still had time to drive to the farm and meet the class there, though to go now would cost a couple of dollars more for gas. In the end, Ray stayed home that night and bought milk for his children.

The next month our Sunday school class had a social within walking distance of our home. No gas expense. Admission was just $1 for our whole family. Maybe this time we could go, be included.

But no, it came during a time when our only regular income was the $70 a week my wife was earning from a part- time Christmas job. During those six weeks we had less than $15 a week to spend on groceries. One dollar was a lot. We stayed home and used the dollar for baby formula.

This is why, after a year back at our old home church, we still felt like outsiders. Our Sunday school class had frequent socials where we could have renewed our friendships, but three- fourths of them cost money for admis- sion, child care or both.

The leaders of a women's Bible study my wife attended found some creative ways to eliminate financial barriers to participation. The church provided free

Friendliness isn't enough

child care during the Bible study. Once a month, when the small groups ate lunch together, the women brought brown bag lunches rather than going to a restau- rant. To take care of the only remaining financial barrier, the $10 fee for materi- als, program leaders announced that scholarships were available on request. Good as far as it went, it raised another barrier.

Barrier #2: Offers of help that hurt

In our society, being poor carries a stigma. Even though Jesus blessed the poor and warned the wealthy, the world's attitude of honoring wealth carries over into many churches. To admit to being poor, even in church, is usually humiliat- ing. To admit you can't pay even $10 for a Bible study notebook is a humiliation few will volunteer for.

To get around this, some groups eliminate fees in favor of suggested donations. This is better, but still less than ideal. When I haven't been able to give the full amount of a suggested donation, I have sometimes come away feeling guilty or even second-class. The challenge, then, is to find ways to share that communicate love and affirm dignity.

Our present congregation does an excellent job of this. While expenses for this year's all-church retreat were covered on a donation basis, no one mentioned a "suggested donation." Instead, the literature mentioned the approximate cost per person but empha- sized that everyone's participation was wanted. The result: participation was almost as high as Sunday morning worship attendance, and donations covered all expenses.

Barrier #3: Practices that say, You don't belong

Visiting a predominantly middle- income congregation is a cross-cultural — and therefore often uncomfortable — experience for a low-income family. To

30 JANUARY 23, 1990

Even though Jesus blessed the poor and warned the wealthy, the world's attitude of honoring wealth carries over into many churches.

make the poor feel welcome, a middle- income congregation must become aware of cultural differences and adopt prac- tices that embrace cultural diversity. Three aspects of culture — dress, architec- ture and social customs — can illustrate this principle.

On the Sunday the Thompsons dedicated their baby we were also dedicating our first child. As I dressed for church that morning, I debated: Should I wear a suit to fit in with most of the other fathers who would be standing before the congregation? Or should I wear a sport shirt in case Ray didn't have a coat and tie? I compromised; I wore a sweater.

Ray showed up without coat or tie. Sandra wore the same dress she had worn the previous six Sundays — no doubt her only Sunday dress. I could imagine how conspicuous they felt. I hoped what I was wearing made them feel a little less so. But to make them feel truly comfortable, not just one, but many in the congregation would need to consciously dress not for success but for comfort — the social comfort of other.

Does this mean banning coats and ties from church? Hardly. That would only make more affluent visitors feel out of place. But when visitors can look around on Sunday morning and find both blue jeans and suits, then no matter how rich or poor they are, they won't feel conspicu- ous because of their dress.

What about church facilities? Can your building make poeple feel more or less welcome? Phineas Bresee, a turn-of- the-century pastor and advocate for the poor, thought so. "We want places so plain," he wrote, "that every board will say welcome to the poorest."

When a middle-income congregation in Kansas City found itself in a neighbor- hood fast becoming low income, it decided to not relocate. It reached out to the changing neighborhood and at first enjoyed only limited success.

When they needed new facilities, they

THE MENNONITE 31

Making the poor feel welcome takes more than friendliness and good intentions.

replaced their traditional sanctuary with a sanctinasium — a multipurpose facility where they worshiped on Sundays and played basketball and ate potluck dinners during the week. To their surprise, more neighborhood people started coming. A gymnasium was better than gothic arches and stained glass windows. It was more a part of their culture. The building said, "You are welcome."

Of course, you can't change church architecture overnight. But you can, the next time your church buys, builds, rents or remodels a building, make it a point to ask, Will the facility we're considering welcome the poor?

Finally, how can the social customs of

a congregation hinder fellowship?

Once after a move our family spent several months looking for a home church. We began attending one affluent suburban congregation shortly before the annual women's luncheon. Judging from the description in the church bulletin and the place settings displayed in the church lobby, it was to be quite a formal affair. The price of one ticket was more than I had ever spent on a single meal — more, in fact, than we usually spent for our entire family to eat out.

One woman, trying to make my wife feel welcome, not only invited her to the luncheon but suggested she decorate one of the tables. This required china, crystal and silver for 10, a round linen

tablecloth and a centerpiece. She didn't know, of course, that our "china" con- sisted of five mismatched plastic plates, that our "crystal" consisted of plastic tumblers picked up at the dime store to get us by until we could afford to move our household goods. Her attempt to make my wife feel welcome had just the opposite effect.

The women planning the luncheon evidently had no idea that they were saying to my wife and others, "This luncheon was not planned with you in mind."

Put out the welcome mat

Making the poor feel welcome takes more than friendliness and good inten- tions. It requires learning to see through their eyes, to examine every aspect of church life through the lens of whether it tends to include or exclude them. To learn to see this way, the church will need to involve the poor in decisions that shape the life of the church body. We will need to become their students, learning from them how to shape policies with cultural sensitivity.

With their help, congregations can find ways to remove the price tags on Chris- tian fellowship, to avoid offers of help that hurt and to modify cultural prac- tices that say to the poor, You don't belong.

As poor and non-poor come together, our life together will demonstrate to the world the gospel's power to break down the walls that divide us, its power to make us one.

Eddy Hall's address is Box 365, Goessel, KS 67053. He is a free-lance writer and editor for the Commission on Education.

32 JANUARY 23, 1990

TOqETllER

Come as strangers, leave as friends

Let's start more guest houses like IGH

Gladys E. Harder

Mother Teresa has said, "The greatest poverty in the world today is poverty of the spirit expressing itself in loneliness."

The International Guest House (IGH) in Washington meets this need by pro- viding a "home for those away from home." IGH functions directly under the Hyattsville Mennonite Church of Hyattsville, Md. This church has a dual membership, both in our conference and in the Mennonite Church. IGH offers bed and breakfast.

Since 1976 approximately 30,000 guests from about 150 countries have stayed there. The atmosphere is homelike. Guest after guest has commented on how at home they have felt. Inter- national goodwill is culti- vated and felt at IGH. Most are internationals; many are Buddhists or Muslims. They come as strangers and they leave as friends.

The guests hear the Word of God at the breakfast table. Each guest is offered a copy of the New Testa- ment with Psalms and Proverbs as a gift from the guesthouse. A rack for Christian books is in the foyer. IGH bears witness to the Chris- tian faith gently. My husband and I experienced openness among the guests in their interest in the Christian faith.

A Frenchman wrote the following to IGH: "I had forgotten that the faith could change the atmosphere of a normal house into a very friendly house. You are building the 'peace' that our interna- tional society needs. Thank you for existing."

Stephen, a 16-year old from California wrote, "It's wonderful how people from all over the world can cut the strings of tension that accompany military conflict and economic change and sit together as human beings under one God... only at the International Guest House."

A brain surgeon from Algeria wrote, "It has been a very good experience. If there were more of these international guest houses and people got to know

each other more, maybe the world will have less war and more peace, more happiness."

Charles from England wrote, "Thank you for helping make my stay in Wash- ington one of the happiest I have experi- enced. The warmth and friendliness of

Guest after guest asked us if there was not another international guest house like this one located somewhere else. Many said, "We have traveled far and have never found another place like this."

Annabelle Kratz, chairperson of the

Sowing seeds of Christian faith worldwide: Breakfast time at the International Guest House,

the International Guest House will remain forever in my memory. I hope one day I will return. It is a wonderful reflection on Mennonites, about whom I had not heard previously."

IGH is self-sustaining. A staff of five people are in voluntary service under the Mennonite Church: IGH functions as a non-profit organization and sends about $1,000 to the Mennonite Church every month.

A deep concern has been growing within me. Could it be that as Mennon- ites have borne witness of the Christian faith throughout the world with mission and educational programs and through Mennonite Central Committee that the time has come for us to extend another arm of witness and service by establish- ing international guest houses in various capitals of the world? I believe that the time has come.

IGH board, received this letter from a former guest: "I am writing to you to tell you that I am now a Christian. I also want you to know that the seeds for my Christian faith were sown in my life while I was a guest at the International Guest House 10 years ago."

Let us not miss this marvelous opportunity.

Gladys E. Harder's address is Box 15, Route 1, Mountain Lake, MN 56159. She and her husband, Leo, worked at the International Guest House for a year and a half. For infor- mation about IGH, contact Annabelle Kratz, 13495 Brighton Dam Road, Clarksville, MD 21029-1406, (301) 596-9057.

THE MENNONITE 33

The sixth annual urban issues retreat

will be held March 30-April 1 at Little River Christian Camp, Glide, Ore. The guest speaker will be Steve Penner of Mennonite Central Committee West Coast. He will speak on "Urban Churches and MCC." For more information write Mary Stueben, Seattle Mennonite Church, 225 N. 70th, Seattle, WA 98103.

PowerChurch Plus is the best church administration software, according to the Council of Mennonite Computer Users. CMCU, at its semiannual meeting in October in Elkhart, Ind., recommended this computer program for Mennonite congrega- tions to use. CMCU also agreed to support MennoLink, the computer conferfencing and electronic mail system, on a continuing basis. The computer ethics committee presented a list of issues it plans to address: privacy and secondary uses of information, copying of software and the use of clones, personal use of office computers, appropriate use of resources, knowledge as power and "hacking."

The Olive Branch Self-Help Crafts gift shop in Winnipeg is like dozens of other Self-Help stores across Canada. But the Olive Branch has added a new line of products. The store is now an outlet for moccasins and leatherwork earrings produced by craftsmen at the Stony Mountain Penitentiary, a medium security prison located outside of Winnipeg.

NEWS

10,000 residents oppose Israeli occupation

Palestinian Christians reject violence

Akron, Pa. (MCC)— Ever since the Palestinian uprising began two years ago, one primarily Christian town, Beit Sahour (population 10,000) on the edge of Bethlehem, has remained non-violent. Its citizens use civil disobedience to oppose the Israeli military occupation.

Non-violent resistance takes different forms, reports Linda Stucky, Mennonite Central Committee worker from Southside Mennonite Fellow- ship, Elkhart, Ind. Residents have planted gardens to supply their own food. They opened a nursery, but the military forced them to close. When Israeli authorities closed schools in the occupied territories in Feb- ruary 1988, people in Beit Sahour taught their children at home.

In May 1988 residents began refusing to pay taxes to the Israeli occupiers. Tax money should go for roads, health and local services, they said. But the occupiers were supplying none of these services. Instead they used taxes to fund the military occupation. Residents adopted the slogan "No taxation without represen- tation."

The authorities responded with nightly curfews, mass arrests and a strong troop presence in the town. But

residents still did not pay their taxes For six weeks in September and October 1989, Israeli troops sealed off the town. They seized property and belongings from businessmen and families who had not paid taxes. Tax officials went from house to house humiliating and beating people, according to a September account in the Jerusalem Post.

Israeli tax officials confis- cated without trial several million dollars worth of property. The tax siege has now been lifted, but Beit Sahour residents still refuse to pay taxes.

Stucky writes of an incident in which Israeli troops threat- ened Palestinian children from Beit Sahour. On Sept. 16, 1989, soldiers stopped a school bus when the children yelled nationalist slogans. Most of the children, all between 4 and 1 1 , were under 8 years old.

Typical of what's left of many homes in the Middle East is this one in Burj el Barajneh.

Soldiers forced the bus driver to drive to an army camp where 10 Israeli soldiers surrounded the bus, made the children get off and made the older children get on their knees. Younger children were crying and some wet and soiled themselves in their fear. The soldiers told parents who came to ask to take their children home to go

away or their children would be shot.

The soldiers held the children for two hours, then told them they would be put in prison if they ever shouted nationalist slogans again. Eventually, when the mayor of Beit Sahour arrived at the camp and intervened, the soldiers released the children.

Despite Israeli government harassment, Beit Sahour residents have maintained contacts with Israeli citizens. Some meet with a Jewish group from Jerusalem, accord- ing to the Jerusalem Post. Muslim, Jewish and Christian religious leaders and members of the Knesset (Israeli parlia- ment) and Palestinians and Israelis from the peace movement were invited to a prayer for peace in Beit Sahour when the tax raids ended.

"I am excited because these people have chosen to oppose the occupation in a peaceful way," writes Stucky. "Their response to the occupation is both empowering and power- ful." Non-violent resistance has brought people together to oppose injustice and care for each other, she says. "It is important for us Mennonites to encourage and pray for those using peaceful means to challenge injustice." Ardelle E. Stauffer

34 JANUARY 23, 1990

The new 39,000-square-f oot home of

Steinbach (Man.) Mennonite Church, constructed at a cost of $2.25 million, was dedicated Oct. 14-15, 1989. In his mes- sage of dedication, pastor Paul Dyck suggested that "a building is to a church what a work glove is to a hand." The previous Sunday the congregation honored Abe and Nettie Neufeld for their 40 years of pastoral ministry.

"When Stones Cry Out" is the theme for Lenten Desert Experience IX, Feb. 28-April 15, sponsored by Nevada Desert Experi- ence, Box 4487, Las Vegas, NV 89127, (702) 646-481 14. Among the Lenten weekends of prayer, action and reflection is one for Friends, Brethren and Mennonites, March 16-18, which will use the "Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation" focus of the World Council of Churches to consider the Nevada Test Site and the proposed national high-level radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Holy Week-Holy Walk-Holy Wake, April 8-15, will include a walking pilgrimage beginning on Palm Sunday from Las Vegas to the test site (65 miles).

Delbert Gratz, emeritus librarian at Bluffton (Ohio) College, is directing a Mennonite Heritage Study Tour to Switzerland June 26-July 17. Approximate round-trip cost from Chicago and other midwestern air- ports is $2,450. For an additional fee, par- ticipants may arrange to receive academic credit. Registration deadline is March 30. For more information contact Delbert Gratz, Route 2, Box 89, Bluffton, OH 45817.

NEWS

CLARA is Latin America's new Anabaptist resource center

Montevideo, Uruguay (GCMC) — Twenty-two representatives from 1 1 countries in Latin America and North America gave birth to CLARA at a meeting here Nov. 25-28, 1989.

"The Latin American Anabap- tist Center (CLARA) is a joint effort of church and individuals for the purpose of coordinating, publishing and informing about Anabaptist practice and thought in the light of the Word of God and Latin American realities," states the general objective adopted by the representatives.

Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, the United States and Uruguay are the countries that are par- ticipating in this venture to date. General Conference Mennonite Church missionary Robert "Jack" Suderman is the part-time director of the center, which has its office in Bogota, Colombia.

"It does not escape our thoughts that the symbolic value of opening CLARA at a time of increased violence is quite significant," said Suder- man, referring to the recent drug-related violence in Colombia. "There is a need to model an alternative that makes some sense. No doubt the center is a small step toward a long-term solution."

Funds from membership fees and A Call to Kingdom Commit- ments, the General Conference

development plan, are helping support the center. Represen- tatives have been appointed to both a national and a regional board. Glendon Klaassen

Make friends, say the children

Bluffton, Ohio— A group of 185 children in third through eighth grades and 53 adults learned about peace through music, literature and sharing here at Bluffton College's Lion and Lamb Peace Arts Center, Nov. 3-5, 1989.

The music committee of the Central District conference, the Lion and the Lamb Peace Arts Center and the Bluffton College music department sponsored the weekend retreat, called "Making Friends Through Story and Song."

Children from Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylva- nia arrived on Friday afternoon for introductions and games. Overnight 146 stayed on campus, while 39 stayed in local homes.

Helen Kemp, children's choir director, clinician and com- poser, led choir rehearsals on Saturday morning. She also led a workshop session for adults who lead children's choirs.

Professional storyteller Marcia Lane told stories on Saturday afternoon and taught the children a song in Zulu, a South African dialect.

Helen Kemp, right, leads 185 children in rehearsal at the Lion and Lamb Peace Arts Center at Bluffton College.

Saturday activities included recreation, movies and workshop sessions. The children folded 1 ,042 paper cranes, which will be hung at the Children's Peace Monu- ment in Hiroshima, Japan.

Sunday's worship service included singing, a slide

presentation and a meditation by Joyce Schumacher.

The paper cranes were presented at Sunday after- noon's concluding concert, at which the children sang nine songs. They filed out at the end of the concert singing "Go Now in Peace." Kate Gundy

New congregation worships in Madison, Wis.

An Anabaptist fellowship that met monthly for a number of years has now grown into a congregation and installed its first pastor. J. Melvin Janzen, formerly of Sioux Falls, S.D., is "pastor/church planter'' of Madison Mennonite Church, as of Oct. 22, 1989. Facing the camera (below) are Leila Shenk, Clarice Kratz, Andrew Sandvold, Melvin Janzen, Conrad Wetzel, Gary Martin and Lawrence Kratz. The Kratzes are pastors of Maple Avenue Mennonite Church, Waukesha, Wis. Wetzel and Martin represented the Central District and Illinois Mennonite conferences. Shenk and Sandvold are members of the congregation's church life committee. First steps as a new congregation included a weekend retreat in November 1989 with veteran church planters Leonard and Joan Wiebe, Aurora, Colo., and establishing a covenant relationship with Freeport (III.) Mennonite Church as a cosponsoring congregation. Madison Mennonite Church plans to "blossom" at Easter time by publically declaring its intentions and purpose as a congregation.

"If we have to die out, we want Mennon- ites to own the building," said a Lutheran pastor to Myron Schrag, pastor at Faith Mennonite Church, Minneapolis. Faith Church members will share a building with members of Ebenezer Lutheran Church, the current occupants, until the Lutheran church ceases to exist. A Vietnamese Alliance Church has bought the original Faith Church building. All three churches had a service together on Thanksgiving eve.

Mennonite Voluntary Service workers

Duane Beane and Joan Gerig observed United Nations Human Rights Day by joining the Boycott Shell Choir in front of the South African Consulate in Chicago on Dec. 9, 1989. The group called attention to human rights abuses in South Africa and called for Chicagoans to join the Shell Oil Boycott as a way to demand an end to the apartheid system in South Africa. The group focused on Shell because it is one of the most important suppliers of crucial materials to the South African government and the apartheid economy. Since South Africa has no oil of its own, the military and police depend on oil from companies like Shell to fuel their machinery.

NEWS

Mennonite farmers voice many questions, few answers

from materialism and make it easier to share with others, participants said.

In three meditations, Katie Funk Wiebe, associate professor of English at Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kan., reminded the group of the link between Mennonites' faith and their closeness to the land.

Workshops covered topics ranging from "Biotechnology

Open discussion of financial problems could have an evangelistic impact on rural congregations.

ingly attractive to many people, Wiebe said.

Congressman Glickman sharply criticized former U.S. President Reagan's policy of deregulation. "The eight years of Ronald Reagan produced a love affair with the purest free market, in many cases with the very rich and powerful who were not interested in what was good for the country," he said.

Glickman said that the changes occurring in com- munist nations could lead to U.S. military-spending cuts. "Virtually half the dollars we

McPherson, Kan. (Meeting- house)— The 1 14 Mennonite farmers and other concerned people who attended the Heartland Faith and Farming Conference here in November 1989 know that farming has never been easy. But they have not given up. They love the land, as Mennonites have for centuries.

They seek solutions to the demise of family farms and the shrinking of rural towns. They search for ways that people in rural Mennonite congregations can support one another as communities of faith.

Questions outnumbered answers, but the 1 14 look to the future with hope. Keynote speaker, U.S. Representative Dan Glickman, (D-Kan.) expressed that optimism.

"I see the day," he said, "when there will be a repopula- tion of rural America. For the first time in 30 years we have stopped losing people. The last two years actually have seen some migration to small towns in this country."

But recovery will not happen without change, participants agreed. The worst years of the farm crisis may have passed, but persistent problems continue to cast a cloud of uncertainty over rural life.

"It's not a farm crisis, it's a chronic problem," said Jerry Jost, sustainable farming coordinator for the Kansas Rural Center in Whiting. "We're continuing to lose

farmers, and we're seeing a greater difference between the prosperous farmers and those who aren't doing very well."

By the year 2000, Jost said, if present trends continue, 75 percent of U.S. farm production will have fallen into the hands of only 50,000 farmers.

Rural economic recovery will require creative solutions on the farm and in the small town, workshop leaders said. In the same way, spiritual recovery, making congregations places where people support each other in all areas of life, requires new approaches.

One of the greatest needs is for people in Mennonite churches to overcome the taboo of not talking about money, said participants in a panel discussion. Congrega- tions must be communities in which people can openly discuss financial problems and help those in need.

This could have an evangel- istic impact, panel members said. "When people know that we care about their whole life, people will join us, and we will have a new vitality," said Stan Pankratz of Mountain Lake, Minn. "We need to listen to one another."

Consensus emerged that openness on issues of wealth and poverty could lead to a more caring attitude for those in need. We must not follow society's view that one's wealth is a measure of one's worth. A simple lifestyle can liberate us

and Farming in the Future" to "The Art of Neighboring: an Expression of Faith."

With fewer family farms, rural towns feel an economic crunch. In a workshop on "Supporting/ Maintaining the Small Town," Carol Wiebe, Hillsboro, said that communities must take action quickly and creatively to stay alive.

"Some small towns in Kansas are virtually dead, they just haven't had a funeral yet," Wiebe said. "You cannot maintain your status quo by doing nothing. The good old days are gone."

Towns must promote themselves, she said. Tourism can have a big impact on a small town's economy. "Sell the diamonds in your own back yard," she said.

The quality of life in a small town, as opposed to the growing crime and drug problems in cities, is increas-

spend for our defense is geared toward Moscow. If Moscow's threat has changed, then our defense will change as well, and we have to reduce those expenditures."

The conference was spon- sored by Mennonite Central Committee Central States. Paul Schrag, assistant editor, Mennonite Weekly Review

Assistant minister required for congregation of approximately 300 members in the Niagara Peninsula. Bethany Mennonite Church

invites applications with resume, including training and experience. The successful applicant will serve in conjunction with the pastor, with emphasis on youth and young adult ministry.

For further information, direct inquiries to Anna Andres, secre- tary, Pastoral Search Committee, Route 1, Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON LOS 1J0.

36 JANUARY 23, 1990

mm

* SB

THE MENNONITE

wiNoow to iviissioN

EdiTioN

JANUARY 23, 1990

The opEN wiNdow

The note in our church mailbox was short and to the point. "We love your son but he is too noisy in church," it began. It went on to say that the crying was louder than the pastor, and hinted that we should make use of the nursery. It was unsigned.

I broke out in tears. How could anyone be so cruel? Surely they couldn't expect a two-year-old to sit quietly during the service. His father had taken him out— but apparently not soon enough.

I felt hurt, angry, belittled. I resented some unknown person telling us how to raise our child. And the cowardly act of not signing the note only made it worse.

I looked at my little boy, sorry that he had offended, but sorrier that someone would rather not see him in church. I hoped that he and all children would always feel welcome in God's house.

I thought of the anonymous critic and felt sorry for the person(s) with such an intolerant attitude. Had they forgotten the difficulties of early parenthood? I prayed for forgiveness for them and for myself in my resentment of them.

And I searched my own heart. I too have hurt people by my words without realizing what I was doing. For these times, I also asked forgiveness.

Time heals wounds. We've learned lessons in sensitivity and handling conflict. This issue of Window to Mission talks of coming face-to-face with injustice. How we confront wrongs in our life: is it courageously, face-to-face? Do we care about the injustices in the world, big or small? Amy Dueckman

COVER

In a world of injustice, every tribe and nation needs to know the dignity of being children of God.

CONTENTS

Coffee Beans 3

South Africa: Face to Face with

Injustice 4

Toys for Peace 6

Face to Face with Injustice:

Summary— Program IV 8

A Cup of Sharing 9

Window on the World 10

Looking In, Looking Out 11

COE Prisms 12

A Woman in Mission 13

The Office Window 14

Contributors, Credits, Forecast. . . .15 Window Shopping 16

Published by Women in Mission of the Gen- eral Conference Mennonite Church. Box 347, Newton, KS 67114

Editor: Lois Deckert Coordinator: Sara Regier Office Secretary: Doris Schmidt

W-2 THE MENNONITE

Stained white hands grow tougher in this foreign place plucking, sorting red from green knees and branches bending next to fingers brown and nimble Nearby shoulders wear a plastic sack in morning drizzle, caterpillars crawling up my raincoat sleeves,

and I pick. Aching muscles moan for comfort dry throat begs for Diet Coke Bulging-bellied children barefoot mamas bear tired arms and breasts Normal noontime beans and rice announcing every endless day,

and I eat. Long black gun and olive drab making men of little boys Standing still in night-time air secure our right to live Floor boards feel the weight of caffeinated restlessness,

and I know

my broadened vision fills no empty stomachs I extinguish a strawberry scented candle and I sleep.

Liz Yoder

Reprinted from Lines, a collection of poems by Bethel College (Kans.) students. Used by permission.

JANUARY 23, 1990 W-3

SOUTH AFRICA:

Face to Face with Injustice

Carla Reimer / / «,

Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Who Is the Fairest of Them All?

"There's no bad luck in the world but white folks," says a character in Toni Morrison's Beloved. I read this Pulit- zer prize- winning novel, about an American black woman's struggle for survival, during my visit to South Af- rica in January 1989, and now, months later, that line continues to haunt me.

I would like to believe it isn't true. Surely, I am not personally responsible for slavery, the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. , apartheid. But after six short days in South Africa, I am much less likely to disagree: It's like I've seen my reflection in the mirror for the first time and the image isn't one I'd like to remember.

For starters, traveling in South Af- rica made me realize how much_power I have simply because of the color of my skin. When the security personnel at the Jan Smuts airport in Johannes- burg saw that I was a white tourist, I was sent through customs without a baggage check. Coincidental, maybe. But time and time again, South African whites treated me, a stranger, with the trust and respect they do not have for people with different coloring. I re- ceived the distinct impression that I was considered one of them.

Secondly, I discovered how much I am used to a life of comfort and privi- lege. This became painfully clear to me upon my arrival in Cape Town. The city, which is utterly modern, almost seduced me. There were mountains,

beaches, elegant homes, sunshine. It was all so calm and beautiful, it threw me off guard. I relaxed. I thought to myself: I could easily live here.

Finally and most disturbing, my pro- pensity for ease has insulated me from a world where poverty and racism are a reality. Two days of seeing the town- ships of Cape Town were enough to leave me numb. These places, where black and colored people are forced to live, exist on the outer edge of the city. Most are without decent housing, roads, education, health facilities, jobs. I found I wasn't used to seeing so much injustice in living color. It wasn't a matter of switching a channel on tele- vision to find something more enter- taining. This was a lot harder.

Before I went to South Africa, I hadn't thought much about the color of my skin. I was surrounded by white- ness. I took it for granted. Now that I am back, I think about it often. And sometimes, in moments of strength, I heartily agree with Toni Morrison. I am not all that different from the white

W-4 THE MENNONITE

South Africans who support apartheid. I know we have our own form of town- ships here in North America, but I pre- tend they don't exist. My eyes are locked shut so I won't have to cry any- more. I am the kind of Snow White who isn't the least bit fair.

Transkei: Another Piece of the Puz- zle of Apartheid

Transkei, South Africa, is another piece of the puzzle of apartheid. In 1976 it became the first area desig- nated as an independent state or home- land by the South African government.

"No one was ever given a chance to voice their opinions about the estab- lishment of a homeland here," says a local black leader, who asks to remain anonymous. "We are all South Afri- cans. We don't want a separate govern- ment."

The South African government would like you to think otherwise. In the capital city of Umtata there are im- pressive, large, Western-style build- ings such as the Bank of Transkei, which is actually a subsidiary of a well- known Afrikaaner bank, and Transkei University. "The South African gov- ernment spent millions of rand on the university as if having a place of higher education would verify Transkei 's sep- arate status," says Larry Hills, who served as a General Conference Men- nonite Church missionary in Transkei from 1982— April 1989. "Only about 2,000 students attend the university. The money could have been used to give masses of children a decent educa- tion."

Evidently foreign investors have bought the image the South African government promotes: Need gas for your Toyota jeep? Choose from one of many gas stations, including Shell and Mobil. Have a craving for Kentucky Fried Chicken? Check out the local

version. Run out of cash? Most of the stores accept VISA.

The security police will do all they can to make your stay a pleasant one too. Hills remembers hearing a Tai- wanese man complain to the police about a woman who was trying to orga- nize the workers at the business that he owned: "The man said to the police, 'You promised there wouldn't be any problems like that.' (Unions are out- lawed in Transkei.) The police replied, 'Don't worry we'll take care of her.' "

"Other South Africans think Transkeians are promoting the system of apartheid. They think we are better off. There's nothing better here. We still suffer," says the leader.

You realize the leader is right. Ev- erything the South African government is saying and doing in Transkei is false. Observe the empty courthouse. Count the number of police stations. Look at the black people. See the face of ex- haustion, poverty, despair.

And whatever you do, remember this: men lining the streets of Umtata, every single day, at any given hour, waiting for work. It's like they have a ball and chain.

JANUARY 23, 1990 W-5

Ruth Klassen

Our five-year-old grandson Joel and I had come to an impasse. We were shopping for a birthday gift. It was to be special, but nonviolent. He had made his choice and his questioning eyes waited for my approval. Finally he blurted out, "But Nanna, those are love guns." I reflected on our discussion in Women in Mission.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus in- vited people to follow him. Jesus said we would know who his followers were by the way they lived. His followers were to be loving, patient, kind, gentle and forgiving. Wherever Jesus' fol- lowers went, they were instructed to be peacemakers.

The values of Jesus are forgotten when we give war toys to our children. War toys by definition are "all play- things which are used to solve conflict, gain power, or win through violence and which aim to wound or kill." War toys are contrary to every value Jesus exemplified.

Ontario Women in Mission at their spring conference unanimously af- firmed the following resolution: We will begin a process of reversing this crude and thoughtless militarization of our children by promoting the estab- lishment of War Toy Free Zones in our homes, churches and communities, so that children will have the opportunity to explore the many kinds of construc- tive play that are presently displaced by violent entertainment and be it resolved that we encourage the women's organi- zation in our congregations to write a letter to Canadian War Toy Manufac- turers expressing strongly our concern about war toys and encouraging manu- facturers to produce toys which en-

for Peace

courage creative and constructive play.

There are many alternatives to play- ing with violent toys. Parents can en- courage their children to participate in activities which increase their skills and provide lifelong enjoyment. Learn- ing a sport, practicing a musical instru- ment, becoming an expert model builder or learning to make homemade bread can bring children great satisfac- tion.

Peacemaking begins at home. As parents and children experience the re- wards of solving their problems peace- fully, they will want to share their skills with others.

I have a friend who purchased all the war toys in a local department store in Kitchener before Christmas to the maximum of his credit card. He ad- vised the clerk of his intention to make a statement to the manufacturer that war toys were inappropriate for chil- dren. He effectively put these toys out of circulation until after Christmas when the demand was minimal. He then returned them to the store for credit.

We believe that if enough women were more selective in their purchases for children and grandchildren, as well as church nursery shelves, the con- sumer impact could be noticeable. Does our mission not begin at home?

Much has been written and good re- source material is available. If you wish to encourage your women's group, write Alma Guenther, vice president, Ontario Women in Mission, 5 Emmett Road, R.R. #6, St. Catha- rines, ON, L2R 7K6. Alma has de- signed a bulletin insert which has been made available to Ontario congrega- tions to accentuate the message of peace to all families.

W-6 THE MENNONITE

Resolution on War Toys

WHEREAS Jesus blesses those who are merciful and those who are peace- makers, and lauds those who turn the other cheek and go the second mile, as well as commands us to love our ene- mies and to pray for those who perse- cute us,

and WHEREAS war toys teach our children that the blessed are not those who are merciful but rather those who are merciless, that the blessed ones are not those who serve but rather those who dominate, and that the blessed are not those who love their enemies but rather those who destroy them,

and WHEREAS the sale of war toys has increased to the point where most top-selling toys are violent toys,

and WHEREAS these violent toys are aggressively promoted through tel- evision advertising aimed directly at children, as well as television cartoon shows produced by war toy manufac- turers to help sell their products,

and WHEREAS these programs are totally concerned with violence and combat, depicting an average of 41 acts of violence per hour,

and WHEREAS reputable scientific studies have proven that children watching these shows and playing with these toys are affected in their beha- viour; e.g. a Harvard study found that these amusements are likely to cause high levels of inappropriate aggression (hitting, kicking, yelling, etc.) in nor-

mal children as well as children with aggression problems,

and WHEREAS common sense dic- tates that when the adults in a society offer to their children toys which glo- rify violence, the message being con- veyed to the next generation is that vio- lent behaviour is an approved and normal part of that society's structure,

and WHEREAS far from teaching our children to resolve conflicts with violence and military combat, we need to prepare them to seek creative and effective alternatives to violence for re- solving conflicts, in order to help as- sure their very survival in the nuclear age,

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that we will begin a process of revers- ing this crude and thoughtless "milita- rization" of our children by promoting the establishment of WAR TOY FREE ZONES in our homes and communi- ties, so that children will have the op- portunity to explore the many kinds of constructive play that are presently dis- placed by violent entertainment,

and BE IT RESOLVED that we en- courage the women's organizations in our congregations to write a letter to Canadian War Toy Manufacturers ex- pressing strongly our concern about war toys and encouraging manufactur- ers to produce toys which encourage creative and constructive play.

JANUARY 23, 1990 W-7

Face to Face with Injustice

Summary— Program IV

The book of Esther is a fascinating book of the QkfTestament-/and an en- tertaming^one for its storytelling. But ITprogram writer Carol Rose points out, though the story may seem far from our reality^the characters in Es- thjirls-Steryof faithfulness and courage have much to say to today's reader about confronting social evils coura- geously.

Three characters step out of their Old Testament setting to tell how they chal- lenged the system and how their atti- tudes and actions can be applied to our lives today.

First we hear from Vashti, deposed wife of the king, whose refusal to pa- rade her beauty at the king's party eventually resulted in Esther's ascen- sion to the throne. Whereas Vashti 's disobedience to the king is usually viewed as negative, Rose points out that lessons can be learned from her saying no. Vashti chose between ex- pected conventional behavior and hu- miliation and paid the ultimate price. Her standing up to government powers parallels Christians today who practice civil disobedience for the sake of con- science. No, it is pointed out, may not be easy or nice to say. But sometimes it is necessary.

Next to tell his story is Mordecai, Esther's uncle and protector. Rose re- fers to him as the one who buzzes in the ears of the system, causing annoyance and letting the powers that be know that their systems may be flawed. Morde- cai's refusal to cooperate with Haman indicated needed change and threat- ened the evil and powerful Haman. The rich and powerful in our society do not like to have their positions of comfort challenged or threatened either. Speak- ing out may be costly.

Finally there is Esther, who risked her very life to make her request known to the king. This young woman could have ignored the plight of the Jewish people and continued in her ivory tower as queen of the empire. To do so would have been comfortable. But she chose civil disobedience (going unin- vited to the king), which the writer calls holy obedience. We too, she points out, may be asked to step outside the bounds of the comfortable in our own lives as we come face to face with wrongs and injustices.

Vashti. Mordecai. Esther. These are people who speak to us today. Can we identify with them?

Amy Dueckman

W-8 THE MENNONITE

SHARING

Lois Decked

"Daren, how come you haven't been to see me?" I asked one of the children who formerly spent many hours in our Chicago apartment.

"I can't come," he replied, "there's white folks there."

We had moved and our move took us across the uncrossable line of 47th Street. It wasn't that our new neighborhood was mono- chromatic; it was an integrated neighborhood. Forty-seventh Street marked off poverty from non-poverty as well as black from white. Daren was unable to cross that street. My affection for and acceptance of this child seemed to have little effect on his fears and the taboos instilled in him by generations of injustice.

Most of the time we are uncomfortable with the injustice of racism, no matter which direction that racism takes. Our discom- fort freezes us into inaction and we begin to justify our own acts of intolerance. We lock our car doors when we drive through a neighborhood where people do not look like us. We suspect that anyone who does not resemble us must be out to get us. We are afraid of each other. Whatever happened to courage? Whatever happened to a Christlike love which casts out fear?

In Christ we are all one people. We must be willing to risk our comfort and our lives for each other's salvation just as Esther did for the salvation of her people. Jesus tells us plainly, "love one another as I have loved you." It is up to us to find ways of expressing that love.

JANUARY 23, 1990 W-9

Window on

Ann Marklund

Yesterday, I was biking the two or three blocks to church with my two-year- old daughter riding happily behind me in her bike seat. It was over the usual route: up a steep paved hill, and then down a narrow one- lane, marble inlaid alley.

On both sides of the quiet alley, small one-story houses are clustered. Quite often people sit or even lie on wooden beds in front of their homes. As we passed one house, Purity, my daughter, cheerfully called M hau (Hello). . . . No one answered her.

I kept on biking, but I felt a real heaviness in the area where I always conceive my heart to be. In this very friendly culture, why didn't anyone greet my daughter? Is it because we're foreigners? There really aren't many foreigners in Hualien, this beautiful coastal city on the island of Taiwan. Of course, Purity isn't even a very typical foreigner. She's an African American, living in an ancient homogenous cul- ture whose very low opinions of blacks come from our own imported movies.

Since coming to Taiwan a year ago, we've become quite used to being the center of attention. Usually a crowd collects, with exclamations of hen ke ai (how cute), and many questions. How can white parents have a black baby? Was her hair curly at birth? Does she speak English or Chinese? When we answer some of the basic oft-repeated questions, they are very impressed when we say she is adopted.

Family lineage and blood ties are so important here. When we go on to ex-

the World

COM

plain all of our children, in- cluding our two older Cau- casian boys, are adopted, the comment usually is ai psyin (loving heart). Does the adoption of our children make a statement about God's love and God's work in human hearts? Making a statement was not a poignant factor in the adoption of our children. We just wanted kids. But our Lord, knowing the end from the beginning, has repeat- edly used our children in every mission assignment with which we've been in- volved.

The very first contacts and deepest friendships usually have been insti- gated by the children: a baby-sitter, parents to our children's friends, their teachers and doctors. Jesus, who said, "Let the little children come unto me, " knew the power of a child's smile and small trusting hand to draw adults into the sphere of his love.

But here I was, faced with the rejec- tion of my small child's overtures of friendship. As I rounded the corner, after biking through the courtyard of a small Buddhist temple, I still felt the pain of no answering hello.

Then I faintly heard footsteps run- ning behind me. I turned and looked. A young woman was running from the cluster of houses we'd just passed. She came up beside us and quietly handed my daughter a box of cookies. Purity said, Sye ' sye ' (thank you) and gave the young lady a beautiful smile. Trying to touch over cross-cultural bridges is al- ways difficult and I often wonder about who is reaching out to whom.

W-10 THE MENNONITE

iuc oni

KING OUT

CHM

Helen Brown

I first met Nellie Tolbert at Hall's Chapel in Newton, Kans. Impressed with her sparkling personality and the warm, caring spirit, she emitted, I knew this was a woman I wanted to learn to know better.

Nellie is originally from Bay town, Tex. She comes from a close-knit fam- ily and has three sisters and a brother. Nellie credits her Christian mother's influence for her view of the church today. Nellie explains: "The church was a very important part of our lives. Mother saw to it that we attended regu- larly. For us, church was seen as our extended family. I committed myself to Jesus Christ when I was a junior in high school."

Nellie attended Lee College. While in college she met Les Tolbert who at- tended her church in Bay town. After their marriage, Les and Nellie became actively involved in a youth and young married couples' ministry. When they moved to Houston where Les, in addi- tion to being employed secularly, served as one of the pastors of their new church. Nellie worked as a ca- terer, and was a consultant for Princess House Crystal. Regardless of their vo- cation or involvement, Nellie says, "We want to touch peoples' lives in meaningful ways."

Nellie and Les sensed God's calling to full-time church work. As they prayed and waited for direction, the Lord opened the doors to Markham, 111. Along with their two sons, Jona- than, 14, and Charles, 7, they moved to

Markham in August. Les is serving as co-pastor of Community Mennonite Church and consultant for African American Leadership Development under CHM.

Nellie says, "I've always felt strongly that God wanted me to serve as a mentor to younger women— teach- ing them how to love their husbands and children. I don't believe there's enough affirmation of women in their roles as wives and mothers. These rela- tionships are not something I go look- ing for; God seems to open the doors for me to share."

Nellie is involved in the music minis- try of Community Mennonite Church. One Sunday Nellie and another woman sang a duet. Someone commented that their voices blended well; there was no distinction between the black voice and the white voice. Nellie believes that's the way it should be in our church life— not distinctly black, nor white, but a blending of the two. In Nellie's words, "God wants to use us to create his own special sound."

At times when Nellie feels low or discouraged, she says the Lord comes to her as he did to Elijah in the cave— in a still, small voice. He asks, "Are you ready to get up and continue?" She says, "Yes," and gets up— knowing that the greatest thing in life for Nellie Tolbert is to fulfill the purpose to which God has called her.

JANUARY 23, 1990 W-11

COE Prisms

Commission on Education

nurture

Norma Johnson

Dealing with injustice seems over- whelming to us. The problems of the world are rooted in injustice. At times we feel hopeless and immobilized.

One small way to focus on specific issues of injustice is to allow stories to speak to us. Listed below are some re- cently published children's books and other resources that will not only assist children in grappling with issues but they have intergenerational use as well.

Lenka of Emma Creek by Sophia Un- ruh, illustrated by Arch Unruh, Faith & Life Press, Newton, Kans., 1989. Goessel, Kans., is the setting for this story. Lenka, an older woman, is treated unjustly by a variety of persons in the community. Sarah, a young neighbor girl, comes to grips with is- sues of aging, hunger and intergenera- tional friendship.

Always Gramma by Vaunda Mi- chieaux Nelson, illustrated by Kim- mane Uhler, G.P. Putnam's & Sons, New York, 1988. This story focuses on the feelings involved when a loved one has Alzheimer's disease.

Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox, illustrated by Julie Vivas, Kane/Miller Book Publishers, Brook- lyn, N. Y., 1985. In this story a small boy tries to discover the meaning of memory so he can restore the memory of an elderly friend.

Family Farm by Thomas Locker, Dial Books, New York, 1988. Farm crisis issues are dealt with in this story. The author also illustrated the book

with color prints of his oil paintings. A portion of the proceeds from this book will be donated to Farm Aid.

A Rose for Abby by Donna Guthrie, illustrated by Dennis Hockerman, Abingdon Press, Nashville, 1988. Homelessness and street people are the issues faced in this story.

"Last Letter From Death Row" by Maren Aukerman, appeared in the No- vember 1989 issue of With magazine. This true story tells the experiences of one family who were pen pals with a prisoner on death row.

Starting Out Right is a new resource available from the Parenting for Peace and Justice Network, 4144 Lindell Blvd., #122, St. Louis, MO 63108. Telephone: 314-533-4445. This packet includes a 136-page-book designed to nurture young children as peacema- kers. Kathleen McKinnis and Barbara Oehlberg are the authors. A discussion guide, PPJN Newsletter, poster and gift card are included in this packet.

Neighbors Near and Far: Native People in North America is the fourth in this series of mission education ma- terials. Justice issues are focused and ideas are shared for discussion.

By summer 1989, COE hopes to have a Bible study book and a tape of music available as resources for jus- tice. Paula Diller Lehman is the writer of the Bible study. Doug and Jude Krehbiel are composing and recording the songs. Watch for more information about this resource.

W-12 THE MENNONITE

A Woman in Mission:

Elsie Flaming

Edna Mensch

For the past 12 years Elsie Flaming has served the General Conference Women in Mission. Throughout her term her concern for and commitment to the or- ganization, its members and its out- reach have been an inspiration to many. She never underestimated the ability of women to witness in various settings, and on more than one occasion she en- couraged us with these words: "and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8b, RSV).

Elsie has served in many capacities. She worked as a registered nurse in the local hospital as well as the Leamington Mennonite Home for the Aged. Her love of music led to the po- sition of choir director in her church, and she enjoyed participating in the lo- cal choral society.

Elsie served as president of South- western Ontario Women in Mission from 1973 to 1976. Attending confer- ences, getting to know many new friends and developing a greater appre- ciation for the wider church fellowship across North America were highlights for her. As others took leadership posi- tions in the local organization, Elsie was always supportive, and more than one new president felt her encourage- ment and appreciation for their efforts.

Elsie and her husband, Henry, are members of the North Leamington United Mennonite Church. They are now in their 35th year of marriage. They are the parents of four sons all of whom are married. There are four grandchildren for Henry and Elsie to enjoy.

Friendships are important to Elsie. She is a hospitable hostess and is al- ways ready to help make occasions spe- cial for those involved. A friend de- scribes her as a wonderful, caring person, someone who has always been there for friends who need her.

As our lifestyles change, women's organizations are feeling the effects. Elsie is sensitive to that and encourages us to be flexible and versatile in meet- ing the needs of women. At the same time she urges us to retain those things from our past which are still valid and useful in nurturing the wide range of age groups within our organization.

Recently Elsie was asked to com- ment on the future of our local WM organization. She wrote: "The future of WM depends on each of us. . . . Society actively lures and encourages us to many activities outside of the church. Women in Mission should ac- tively call us to responsibility in our Christian life. Women in Mission must help each one of us to live as a Chris- tian woman who has a mission to ful- fill. This includes being a mother, sis- ter, friend, grandmother, volunteer, professional or working person."

Thank you, Elsie, for your service through WM. Thank you for encourag- ing and admonishing us. Thank you for truly being a woman in mission.

JANUARY 23, 1990 W-13

Sara Regier

In November I spent a week in Ontario at an executive workshop and visiting women's groups and mission projects. The hospitality, the stories and the commitment in action reminded me of what WM is all about.

Friendship is important in church work. Visiting in the home of Elsie Flaming, outgoing WM president, and Helen Hildebrand, the new Canadian vice president, as well as other WM officers in Canada, I realized that when we learn to know each other and share our spiritual lives with each other we can also be honest and open with the challenges and decisions facing us on church committees.

Ingrid Neufeld from Guelph was chauffeur for Ruth Klassen, Ontario WM president, and me. She enjoys hiking and told us, "Hiking is like walking through life. You can't do it alone; sometimes you need a friend to give you a hand to get over the rocks. "

Women's groups provide a place to And discernment and gain strength for the transitions one faces at vari- ous stages of life.

In Manitoba, a mother whose hus- band had cancer told me she came to women's retreat for the first time be- cause she longed for worship and the support of other women.

Carolyn Epp Franzen from the Par- ents and Tots Group, Grace Church,

St. Catherines, Ont., reflects on life for younger women today: "We have more choices and freedom. Some of us come from a time of being distant from the church and we want a nonthreatening group where we can belong and build confidence in the church. "

Betty Puricelli, staff person at the New Life Center for refugees in To- ronto, told us, "I am uplifted by shar- ing communion in a small group. Through the communion elements I get in touch with the suffering of Christ that is present in the struggle of refu- gees. In their brokenness they are so close to God and I realize that suffering should never take us away from the hope of the resurrection. "

Women's groups see the needs around them and provide the organi- zation and initiative for service pro- jects.

Hedwig Dyck, Toronto, began her report at the Ontario WM executive workshop with, "Yes, I'm still around. Through the years we have rolled miles of bandages and made quilts because we benefited so much from MCC, but now we have moved on to collecting clothes for the Jane Finch Center, a low-income housing project in To- ronto, because they need help."

Ontario Women in Mission see the value of a joint education and action project on a specific issue each year. This year they passed a War Toys Reso- lution. Next year the emphasis will be on environmental issues.

An invitation to a Christmas banquet is putting action to a reconciliation res- olution that came to the Canadian Mennonite Conference from the Men- nonite Brethren Conference in 1986. The women's group of the Kitchener MB Church has invited the Servettes from Waterloo-Kitchener United Men- nonite Church to be their guests.

How is your group putting action to the theme for this year— Widening the Circle?

W-14 THE MENNONITE

contributors

Carla Reimer (Cover, South Africa: Face to Face with Injustice) is news service editor for the General Confer- ence Mennonite Church. She traveled in Africa January 2— February 4, 1989. Carla and husband, Nathan Dick, live in Newton, Kans.

Amy Dueckman (The Open Window, Program Sum- mary IV) is a member of the WM Literature Commit- tee. She and her husband, Wayne, and son, James, live in British Columbia.

Liz Yoder (Coffee Beans) is a 1988 graduate of Bethel College, North Newton, Kans. She has traveled and done volunteer work in Central America. Liz is in her second year of an MVS term at Hopi Mission School in Kykotsmovi, Ariz., where she teaches grade four. Ruth Klassen (Toys for Peace) lives in Waterloo, Ont., with husband, Paul. She is a member of the Waterloo- Kitchener United Mennonite Church. Ruth is president of Ontario Women in Mission. She works for The House of Friendship in Kitchener as a community support worker in the food hamper program. She is mother of four married children and grandmother of three. Lois Deckert (A Cup of Sharing) enjoys planning for spring planting with her husband, Marion. She edits Window to Mission at 722 Main, Box 347, Newton, KS 67114.

Ann Marklund (Window on the World) serves as a COM mission worker in Taiwan along with her hus- band, Richard. Both Ann and Richard have graduate degrees in special education and work in New Dawn

Development Center and Hualien Christian School. The Marklunds have three children.

Helen Brown (Looking In, Looking Out) and husband, Hubert, live in North Newton, Kans. The Browns have two grown children and one son in middle school. The family attends Shalom Mennonite Church in Newton. Norma J. Johnson (COE Prisms) is executive secretary of COE. She reads children's books as often as possible. An ideal setting for reading is by the ocean or a lake. Edna Mensch (A Woman in Mission: Elsie Flaming) teaches elementary school in Leamington, Ont. She has been active in the missions committee of the Leamington United Mennonite Church. She and her husband, Sig, have three children. Edna enjoys reading and gardening.

Sara Regier (The Office Window) enjoys the extension classes offered by AMBS each semester. She feels that her studies enrich her as she coordinates the work of WM from the office at 722 Main, Box 347, Newton, KS 67114.

Alison Hiebert (Window Shopping) is a homemaker in Bluffton, Ohio. She and her husband, Harv, have two grown daughters. Since no one in their extended fami- lies lives in the state of Ohio, they spend a good deal of their time on the old-fashioned method for keeping in touch— writing letters.

credits

Art: Angie Miller, p. 8 Photos: Carla Reimer, pp. 4,5

forecast

What does it mean to be a lite-giver all your days? Read the stories about birth and rebirth in the next issue of Window to Mission.

JANUARY 23, 1990 W-15

Alison Hiebert

Readers may associate the Lion and Lamb Peace Arts Center with a musi- cal which was presented at the joint conference sessions in Normal, 111., last August by community and college people from Bluffton, Ohio. This pro- duction, "Dance of the Kobzar: Scenes from the Life of John Peter Klassen, Artist as Peacemaker," was in fact first given in May 1989, as part of a second anniversary celebration by the Lion and Lamb. One hundred and twenty- one persons from Bluffton College and the Bluffton community were involved.

The Peace Arts Center began as an idea expressed by Elizabeth Hostetler, who is chairperson of the education de- partment at Bluffton College and a re- gionally recognized distinguished edu- cator. Encouraged to explore its possibilities, Dr. Hostetier secured a gift for initial funding, guided the early steps toward formation of the center and continues as its director.

The Lion and Lamb is building a col- lection of music, children's books, printed literature and art which may be borrowed, by schools or churches, for peace study activities. Symposiums, art shows, theater events and special speakers are brought to the Bluffton College campus, where the center is located. Workshops and activity week- ends for children are another aspect of

Window Shopping

its program: for example, a high school drama weekend called Imagination Collaboration, a Language Immersion Day and a show of Leonard Everett Fisher's art which was viewed by 500 children from the surrounding public schools.

The Lion and Lamb offers opportu- nities to church women for unique and challenging ways to volunteer. During its second year the center sponsored several small drama groups, the most successful of which was an intergener- ational mix of students and community members. This included several women who are WM members in their church congregations. They enacted peace-related skits and stories for club meetings and mother-daughter ban- quets as well as going into the public school classrooms. La Vera Neufeld, Bluffton, Ohio, has voluntarily given her time every Wednesday morning to assist the Peace Arts Center itself, processing new books, binding scripts and other materials and helping to send out parts of the collection to borrowers.

Assistant director Kate Gundy is in the center daily to meet visitors and carry on the work. She supervises the transfer of valuable material when churches and other groups ask to bor- row parts of the art collection, like original drawings for the children's book Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. Some time ago Dr. Hostetler and Kate began looking for a group of women who might be able to sew fabric covers for all the framed paintings, drawings and prints which are in the lending collection. Here is an opportu- nity for creative expression through needlework.

Two U.S. religious men and a Salvadoran refugee woman began a water-only, open- ended fast Dec. 12. Hundreds of others joined in their call to Congress and the Bush administration for an end to all forms of U.S. military aid to the Salvadoran government and support for a just and lasting negotiated settlement to the war in El Salvador. Under the umbrella group called Ecumenical Fast for El Salvador in Churches and Temples (EFFECT), fasting and prayer are being held in at least 14 U.S. cities.

Bethel College, North Newton, Kan., has received a $186,000 challenge grant from the Knight Foundation of Akron, Ohio, as a recipient of its annual Excellence in Undergraduate Education program. Bethel is one of only 13 private liberal arts schools to be the 1989 recipients of nearly $5 million in grants under this program. The grant must be matched dollar by dollar in new funds from the college, making the total $372,000 over three years. The funds will be used to improve the retention of freshmen through faculty/staff develop- ment, enhanced personal and academic support and study of student satisfaction.

Amid fierce debate, women's ordination has been approved by the Church of England's general synod. The vote in the three-tiered synod to open the priesthood to females carried 34-17 among bishops, 149-85 among clergy, and 144-78 among laity. If the dioceses approve the measure, it will come back to the general synod in 1992, where it will need two-thirds aproval by each group. It must also win the nod of Parliament and Queen Elizabeth II. The earliest women could be ordained is 1993.

NEWS

Business administration.

Goshen College, a Christian liberal arts college in the Mennonite, Anabaptist tradition, invites applications for a teaching position with a view to tenure. Applicant expected to teach lower- and upper-level courses in manage- ment, marketing and/or finance; to relate to business community through Management Develop- ment Program and student internships. Ability to use and teach microcomputers preferred. Qualifications: Ph.D. or master's degree preferred; supportive of the values of the Mennonite Church; capable of excellent undergraduate teaching. Women and minorities especially invited.

Send letter of interest, resume, transcripts and three references to Delmar Good, Chair, Department of Business and Economics, Goshen College, Goshen, IN 46526.

Economics. Goshen College, a Christian liberal arts college in the Mennonite, Anabaptist tradition, invites applications for a one-year teaching position (potential for tenure track following year). Fields: intermediate theory; money and banking; international economics and/or economic development. Qualifications: Ph.D. preferred; supportive of values of the Mennonite Church; capable of excellent undergraduate teaching. Women and minorities especially invited.

Send letter of interest, resume, transcripts and three references to Delmar Good, Chair, Department of Business and Economics, Goshen College, Goshen, IN 46526.

Faith and Action

Happy are those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires; God will satisfy them fully! Matt 5 6

Some say the words Jesus spoke so long ago cannot guide our lives today. Times are different. Everything is more complex.

We say that's wrong.

We are looking for people who are committed to following Christ in life, even if it means hard work and personal sacrifice. We need carpenters, social workers, teachers, secretaries, peace workers and many others.

What do you say?

Mennonite Mutual Aid has an opening for a health utilization review coordinator. Person is responsible for precertification and determining eligibility and validity of medical treatment. Must be an RN, preferably with five years of hospital experience, possess strong communication skills and the ability to make independent decisions.

If interested, please call MMA, Personnel Dept., at (219) 533- 9511.

West Abbotsford Mennonite Church invites inquiries for the position of senior pastor as part of a ministerial team. We are a congregation of 240 in the central Fraser Valley. Interest and skills are expected in preaching and teaching, counseling and crisis visitation, and outreach and church growth.

Send inquiries or resumes to: Alvin G. Ens, 29521 Taylor Road, Mt. Lehman, B.C., VOX 1V0, (604) 856-1348.

MCC helps Brazilian farmers purchase land

Looking over records in the Mennonite Central Committee farm cooperative store in Tacaimbo, Brazil, are (left to right) Jose Francisco de Macedo Filho, Tim Eisenbeis and Maria Farmelucia Alexandre. They are part of an MCC program that enabled 15 farm families to purchase a total of 32 hectares. (One hectare is about the size of 2 1/2 football fields.) Because inflation in Brazil is so high, the cooperative created a system by which credit is repaid in sacks of beans, corn and manioc flour. Proceeds are deposited in a revolving fund to allow other cooperative members to buy land.

THE MENNONITE 37

CrossRoad, a musical drama commis- sioned for Mennonite Collegiate Institute's centennial celebrations, premiered Nov. 2- 4, 1989, at MCI in Gretna, Man. The piece, with lyrics by Tim Wiebe and music by Esther Wiebe, is loosely based on life at MCI. It will also be performed July 20-22 at MCl's gala homecoming and at Mennonite World Conference in Winnipeg later in July.

The start of conciliation work overseas through the Mennonite Central Committee Peace Office, exploration of beginning programs in Niger and Peru, a legal audit to ensure that MCC procedures and policies comply with federal and state re- quirements and a proposal for a new fiscal year were new initiatives presented to the MCC executive committee Dec. 15-16, 1989. The proposed 1990 budget calls for total income of $33.7 million, compared with $31 .6 million in 1 989. The new budget calls for a 5.5 percent increase in U.S. contributions and a 6 percent increase in Canadian contributions.

Beginning Christmas Day 1989, David Hayden of the Justice House Community of Roanoke, Va., moved out onto the streets of Washington, where he plans to live until April 15. Harold Moss, a longtime member of the Community for Creative Non- violence, joins Hayden for the 16-week vigil. Their action is part of an effort to support the Mickey Leland Housing Act — legislation to be introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives that calls for the restoration of the $25 billion per year cut from the federal housing budget.

NEWS

Mennonite New Life Centre shortens refugees' road

Toronto (GCMC)— "The road for a refugee is as long as you make it," reads a poster in the landing leading to the Mennon- ite New Life Centre.

Located here, the New Life Centre tries to make the road a little shorter. Each month the center's five staff members, together with volunteers, help about 200 refugee claimants and landed immigrants by providing services such as advocacy, housing and translation. Most of their clients are from Central America, South America and the Caribbean; some have come from as far away as China.

"In this kind of work we can never meet all the needs, but we do what we can," said Adolfo Puricelli, in an interview here. "We work hard to avoid dependency. If we do every- thing for people, we create more problems." Adolfo directs the center together with his wife, Betty Puricelli.

Finding homes for refugees is especially challenging, given the tight housing market in

The Springstein Mennonite Church invites applications for the position of pastor, beginning in the summer of 1990. Potential applicants should be able to work with younger and older people; fluency in German would be an asset but is not essential.

Direct inquiries to Ron Loeppky, Box 4, Springstein, MB R0G 2N0, (204) 735-2883.

Toronto. There are approxi- mately 1 1 ,000 people on the waiting list for subsidized housing in Toronto, but the government only has 33 units available each month, noted staff member Julio Guzman. "Once, after I had finally found a place for a Central American family of eight, a welfare worker came to visit and said that the living conditions were over- crowded. As a result, the family was put back on the street. I was back at square zero," he recalled. The staff also spend a

Adolfo Puricelli, left, with client at Mennonite New Life Centre in Toronto

substantial amount of their time providing counseling. "When people first arrive here they are numb and overwhelmed. Many have experienced horrible situations. They have lost their children, their husbands, their homes. We help them start the grieving process," said Adolfo.

The center operates a recep- tion center where up to 1 6 government-sponsored

refugees can stay until they find their own quarters. Most live there for about a month. "We find this is a good place for healing to occur," said Betty.

One Mennonite refugee from Central America described how he felt he was treated like a

"We find this is a good place for healing to occur." Betty Puricelli

delinquent when he arrived at the Toronto airport. "They put all of us [refugees] together in a group, and we had to wait at the airport until 1 1 p.m.," he said. "Changing from one culture to another is hard. I probably will never be able to return to my country, even though I miss it very much."

Despite the fact that the New Life Centre staff is "overworked," they exude a sense of joy and even humor. "You can always tell who has been on vacation last," joked Betty. And she said they continue to see the "hand of God guiding their work. We minister in the name of Christ."

The New Life Centre was started in August 1983. It receives support from the Mennonite Conference of Eastern Canada, Mennonite

Central Committee, Conference of Mennonites in Canada, individual donations and A Call to Kingdom Commitments, the General Conference Mennonite Church development plan. The provincial Ministry of Citizen- ship and Culture and the federal Immigration Settlement Adaption Program also provide funds. Carta Reimer

The World Friendship Center in Hiroshima, Japan, needs a peace- loving couple to volunteer as directors. Transportation and lodging are provided.

Further information and job description can be obtained from the American Committee of the WFC, Charles and Helen Sutton, 1201 Vernon Drive, Dayton, OH 45407, (513) 277-7259, or Commission on Overseas Mission, Box 347, Newton, KS 67114.

Associate director for services to health and welfare programs: Mennonite Health Services, starting April 15. Provide direction and administrative services to health and welfare institutions; develop and execute programs of administrative consultation and contracted management services for member institutions. Executive experience and master's degree in healthcare administration pre- ferred. Strong leadership skills and Mennonite or Brethren affiliation required.

Contact Carl L Good, Executive Director, Mennonite Health Services, Box 500, Akron, PA 17501-0500, (717) 859-1151, by Feb. 15.

38 JANUARY 23, 1990

Empowered Ministries, the new name for the joining of Mennonite Renewal Services and Church of the Brethren Renewal Services, has set Aug. 15-18 as the dates for its next annual meeting, Empowered '90. The meeting will coincide with Indianapolis 1990, a nationwide congress on World Evangelization. For more information contact Empowered Ministries, Box 722, Goshen, IN 46526, (219) 534- 2891.

"Talking about the pain makes you feel better, not worse," says Shirley Carr, who lost two teenage sons to homicide in the last year. Dianne Kidner, a Mennonite Central Committee worker from New Westminster, B.C., helps Carr and other families of homicide victims to grieve and heal by encouraging them to counsel and listen to each other through a program called SURVIVE. Begun by Kidner, SURVIVE is just over a year old and already has had requests from more than 70 families for help in dealing with the "extreme, unique crisis of losing a loved one to murder," says Kidner.

Alumni in Japan of Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries, Elkhart, Ind., have joined a new alumni association of people connected to a Mennonite college or seminary in North America, reports Robert Lee from Tokyo. Lee says that the association provides for fellowship with people who have had similar educational experiences and "will offer our pastors the opportunity to meet Japanese who have a 'Mennonite' connection."

NEWS COMMENTARY

knock at our doors

VS worker Lyn Raymond (right) interviews a refugee as she proc- esses government documents for him.

Refugees

When Central American refugees cross the border from Mexico into the United States, some on their way to Canada, their search for refuge, freedom and security has just begun. Having fled their homelands for a variety of reasons, they need food, shelter, clothes and a job. Some Mennonites have welcomed them, but the need exceeds the response.

The refugees' main obstacle is not the Rio Grande River but border guards with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), often waiting to arrest those who enter the country illegally.

Those arrested at the border at Brownsville, Texas, are taken to the Port Isabel Service Processing Center, a 315-acre detention site near Brownsville. The center, built for 700 people, houses about 1 ,000 refugees. Some refugees live in tent cities run by the federal government or in temporary Red Cross shelters. All told, an estimated 2,000 refugees are in the Rio Grande Valley.

Refugees from Central America continue to cross the border, many at Brownsville. Those who elude border guards are detained if their application for political asylum is denied or when caught attempting to leave the Brownsville area without proper documents.

Some refugees come to

Mennonite Church of the Lamb in Brownsville. Irma Aramburu directs the church's refugee program, which receives financial assistance from Mennonite congregations in North America.

Irma orients refugees to the United States, informs them what they can and cannot legally do and tries to provide for their immediate needs. "We think we should help them," Irma says. "The Bible tells us to. They may not all be political refugees, but they are hungry, scared and trying to find someone they can trust."

Voluntary service workers in south Texas with Mennonite Board of Missions also assist the refugees. Lyn Raymond serves at Casa Oscar Romero,

a Roman Catholic shelter a block from the Mennonite church building.

Casa Romero provides food and housing to refugees legally, Lyn said. "We tell them their legal options and answer questions; they make their own decisions." The staff helps complete asylum papers if refugees choose to apply.

Because few refugees can hope to receive political asylum, many attempt to leave the area without being caught in hopes of living with family elsewhere in the United States.

In nearby Harlingen, VS worker Virgil Wiebe serves with the Overground Railroad (ORR), which identifies refugees who may qualify for asylum in Canada. Virgil and

other ORR staff interview refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Once ORR staff members believe a refugee has a strong case, they assist the refugee in applying for political asylum in the United States, the first step in the ORR process.

Most refugees on the ORR track then travel by bus to Jubilee Partners, a Christian community and service organization in Comer, Ga. During the few months there the refugees attend English classes, learn about North American culture and society and prepare for interviews with the Canadian consulate in Atlanta. The ultimate goal, gaining asylum in Canada, may take up to a year.

An estimated 2,000 refugees are in the Rio Grande Valley.

During the wait ORR links refugees with host churches, mostly in the Midwest. Cur- rently about 160 churches in the United States (of several denominations) receive refugees, but the need for host churches continues, according to David Janzen, director of Overground Railroad in Evanston, III. Phil Richard

THE MENNONITE 39

First Mennonite Church, Saskatoon, began exploring a Hispanic church-planting project in the fall of 1 988. With the help of Marco Guete of the General Conference's Commission on Home Ministries, a Hispanic fellowship emerged. In June 1989 the newly named Gethsemane Church decided to join the Mennonite family. The group, which numbers 40, draws together Hispanics from Catholic, Baptist and Methodist backgrounds.

Lois Harder of Koinonia Mennonite Fellowship, Chandler, Ariz., serves as the Mennonite representative on the board of Valley Inter-faith Task Force (VITF), an ecumenical ministry to Central American refugees in the Phoenix area. VITF offers social services, legal services, sanctuary, advocacy and educational services. Various members of the area Mennonite churches have offered to repair the roof of the sanctuary house, repair plumbing and repair cars. Bonnie Yoder has been active at the sanctuary house visiting, teaching English and providing transportation to take refugees to various appointments and to the airport. {Urban Connections)

A court in Manitoba has upheld the right of the Hutterian Brethren to exclude former members from any claim on the church's property or lands or right to live on them. Justice Patrick Ferg ruled that the colonies of the 456-year-old church "have an absolute right to survival on their own terms." The ruling was handed down in a case brought by the church against several people who had been excommunicated and refused to leave the colony where they were living.

RECOR0

dEAThs

Andrew (A.C.) Burcky, 93, died on Dec. 7, 1989, at his home in Bluffton, Ohio. He was emeritus professor of physical education at Bluffton College, having joined the faculty in 1922. He is survived by his wife, the former Ruth William- son, and two children, Jeanne Anne Burkholder and William D. Burcky.

Henry A. Fast, 95, longtime Mennonite church leader, died Jan. 3 in Newton, Kan. He was born Oct. 12, 1894, in Mountain Lake, Minn. Fast became known as "Mr. Conference" during his work as field secretary for the home mis- sions department of the General Conference, 1936-40. A graduate of Bethel College, North Newton, Kan., Witmar- sum Seminary, Bluffton, Ohio, and Hartford (Conn.) Theologi- cal Seminary, Fast served as pastor at Bethel College Mennonite Church, North Newton, 1925-1930. From 1943 to 1951 and 1953-1960 he was a Bible and religion professor at Bethel College. In 1940 Mennonite Central Committee asked him to direct the Civilian Public Service program for conscientious objectors. He directed the MCC program in Europe, 1951- 53. After retirement in 1960, Fast remained active in the church at large as well as in his home congregation, Bethel College Church. He is survived

Fast

and R Ariz.

by his wife, Ethel Schindler Fast, and three children: Marjorie Schowalter, Wichita, Kan., Florence Siebert, Reedley, Calif., ichard Fast, Prescott,

Editor's note: Henry Fast was featured in the April 11, 1989, issue of The Mennonite. For a copy, send $2 (U.S. or Cana- dian) to me at Box 347, Newton, KS 671 14-0347.

WORliERS

Mitch Brown is pastor at Evan- ston (III.) Church. He previ- ously pastored at Hyde Park (III.) Anabaptist Fellowship, which no longer meets.

Ron and Marlene Klassen Daku, Kelowna (B.C.) Gospel Fellowship, returned to Canada in December 1989 after com- pleting two terms of service in Brazil with the Commission on Overseas Mission. Ron directed leadership training classes and helped with church planting. He will study at Briercrest Bible College, Caronport, Sask. The Dakus have two children.

Albert Durksen resigned as pastor at Springstein (Man.) Church, effective this summer, and will become pastor at North Kildonan (Man.) Church. He