♪ A prayer from the African pastor Augustine in the 4th century has stirred my thought for some time: God, “you were closer to me than I am to myself.” If you place that prayer alongside Paul’s prayer that the Ephesians be “filled [with] … all the fulness of God” (Ephesians 3:19), you quickly find yourself in a bottomless sea of wonder and prayer.

♪ If you go to the place where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers meet and converge, you won’t find the Garden of Eden anymore. You will, however, find a nicely manicured park with a large tree at the center.

♪ You’ve been back in this country for a little less than three months and you’re just wrapping up another talk at one of your sponsoring churches. People walk up to you after the service and shake your hand to welcome you. “You must be so happy to be home!” they proclaim earnestly as they insert words into your mouth before you can even open it in protest.

SBF’s season of Sunday school ended with an outdoor service, followed by lunch outdoors. After lunch attendees made some teams and played interactive games with people of all ages. It was a beautiful day!

♪ In the area where we serve, the culture is male-dominated, and women believe they have no value. Without marriage they are nothing; whether never married or widowed. Without a husband, they have no value and are a burden to their relatives.

♪ “I still use it,” Anicka Fast says of the brownish knitted potholder she received at Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) orientation in Akron, Pennsylvania, in 2009. Fast and her husband John Clarke were en route to their first MCC assignment at the time.

The EMC office and The Messenger received a letter from our missionaries Lesley and Marianne Fast pointing us to an investigative piece by Canadian Mennonite about allegations made by Fast’s daughter and son-in-law against MCC.

♪ I was wrong. Embarrassingly so. I had been working with leaders in training at a Christian camp every summer for 20 years, and I gave the wrong answer to the most basic question of all.

On May 29, 2025, Mennonite World Conference (MWC) will welcome guests from around the world to The Courage to Love: Anabaptism@500.

One of the youth in Mennville EMC’s joint youth ministry with Riverton Gospel Chapel recently asked to be baptized in our church. Upon her confession of faith, we baptized and welcomed Susan Marks into membership on May 19, 2024.

♪ Dwylla Zacharias’s life was upended in a moment. It was early 2021. She, husband Jared, and their four children had recently returned from the mission field of Hungary and were sorting out how to report to supporting churches despite pandemic restrictions.

♪ Have you discovered an exciting new theology or even joined a new church and then become an evangelist sharing your news with friends near and on Facebook?