It has been over six months since the Kola EMC church sent a team of 14 participants to Guadalajara, Mexico, to serve with Israel and Sandra Chavez Plett. What was intended to be a youth trip turned into a multi-generational service team age 12 to 50-plus.

We are so excited to have Andreas Warkentin join our staff at Stony Brook Fellowship (SBF) as our community life pastor in September 2025.

At Pansy Chapel, giving thanks for our new spaces has been an ongoing highlight of the year. It is indeed a precious thing to gather as one family (since February) instead of feeling fragmented by two services.

The team serving in Poplar Hill landed just as the electricity went out in the whole community. The team adapted along with the community until the lights came back on, Albert Martens writes, and despite the surprise at the start he says they had one of the best “camps” ever.

The long delays and endless hurdles of shipping desperately needed planes overseas is the focus of Ellen Koop’s feature. She shares about having faith when the answer to their prayers takes years.

“A teenage boy walks along his colony road carrying his Bible. One evening he runs into a group of his friends who have alcohol and are planning to party.” Nancy Friesen tells this story as she shows how God is working in Bolivia.

What does spiritual oppression look like, both to Canadians and to missionaries working in other cultures? What are extra challenges for workers living far from their home church and family? These are the questions Gerald Reimer tackles.

Jesus is God-with-us, but though that was physically true when he walked on earth, it can be hard to see now. Asham shows both how vital God-with-us is in our lives, but where we should expect to see him particularly.

In chapter 45 of her life, Jodie tells of learning new ways to serve her church. She talks about saying a new and scary “yes” to the Lord—and how rewarding her new roles were as she led and taught in youth ministry.

In 2022, Kathleen Grift went back to college to fulfill her lifelong dream of becoming a nurse. “I excelled,” Kathleen says, but “began tripping frequently and struggled to carry my backpack of textbooks. The diagnosis arrived at the end of the second semester. ALS! How could it be? I was 49 years old.”

♪ Writing about the appeal of progressive Christianity is a daunting task. Those labelled as progressive Christians have been seen as those on their way out of the Christian faith, those who don’t hold to the authority of Scripture, and the legitimacy of their faith is sometimes questioned by those within evangelical circles.

♪ Managing Editor Erica Fehr writes her last editor’s note with observations about the EMC.