A lot of people wonder exactly what it means to honour truth and reconciliation and also be a follower of Jesus. I think that as followers of Jesus we ought to be the people most concerned with truth and reconciliation.

Faith Eidse’s memoir is essentially a coming-of-age story, but what makes it unique is the backdrop of growing up in Africa with intermittent periods spent “back home” in Manitoba. Her childhood and teenage years encapsulate experiences seldom faced by children in Canadian culture.

We’re only about halfway through an eight-hour journey back to our homes. We are sweaty, tired, and wouldn’t be blamed for being a little grumpy. But that’s not the current mood; youth are singing along to music behind me right now. The reason is simple: we were just at Abundant Springs.

The Personnel Committee is pleased to announce that Betty Ramones has agreed to serve as EMC church leadership assistant and that Beth Reimer has agreed to serve as EMC office accountant.

In spring 2022, Cardus, a Canadian non-partisan think tank, gathered data from nine surveys taken between 2017–2022 in order to get a snapshot of the religious landscape in Canada. In reading the report it is obvious that the events of the past three years have negatively affected the religious landscape in Canada.

COVID is getting smaller and smaller in the rear-view mirror, yet we experience its lingering effects. One effect is that some people haven’t returned to the life of the church. We may have expected a “Great Return of Exiles.” That didn’t happen. Why not?

There seems to be an increase lately of Christians who are deconstructing their faith and moving on from it. In fact, some reports say that 60 percent of people born in the church deconstruct and lose their faith after high school. But I’m not convinced deconstruction needs to end up there.

At the beginning of March 2023, a group of 90-plus young adults met together at Red Rock Bible Camp in the Whiteshell region of Manitoba for a weekend of connecting with God and other EMC young adults.

You may find some aspects of this issue of The Messenger ironic. There are a lot of pictures in this issue of great worship, laughter, hilarious games, meaningful conversations, prayer times and messages and presentations. But you will see that while we celebrate so much that is great, we’re also concerned.

What good does it do to plant one tree, I asked myself, as I visited with farmers in Mwenezi District, in south central Zimbabwe last September. Everywhere our Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Communications team went, farmers were sure to tell us they planted a tree that year.

Straffordville EMC celebrated its first service in their new building on December 23, 2018, and held a grand opening celebration on June 9, 2019.

Last summer, driving through the roads of the province of Jaen in the south of Spain I was struck by the number of hills full of olive trees everywhere I turned. The first thought that came to mind was, when is time of harvest?