Rabina, our house-help, a young Afghan woman, very faithful and regular, showed no interest in spiritual matters. When she had family problems, including an abusive mother-in-law, we helped her and her husband move into a separate flat. After 9/11, when we left this place, we lost contact with her. She and her family moved back to Afghanistan.

There go my neighbours on their daily walk. I always greet them when they pass by my house. Juan Manuel and Nena have lived in this neighbourhood for years. We are the newcomers, and our first greeting was the beginning of something we hadn’t imagined.

A shoemaker’s son, born in Steinbach, developed a dream for Bible translation. In April 1972, while Arden Thiessen was preaching at the Blumenort Community Church, this long-haired rebellious teenager rose to his feet and decided to follow Jesus.

Why does it matter so much that we are doing missions together as a Conference? Because missions is the primary way we express our passion to bring glory to God outside the church walls. Our gathered worship must lead to scattered mission.

The moment we arrived home, chaos met us at the door. Our daughter had developed a bladder infection that invaded her kidneys. To add to the chaos, we discovered water in the basement. I had a cavity to get filled. And my wife was under pressure to submit multiple seminary papers despite having neither the time nor the mental space. Within hours, we moved from rapture to rupture.

I’m a big fan of thrifting. Clothes, furniture, books, art, you name it—my home is filled with second-hand deals and vintage items that I’ve collected over a lifetime. A few of my favourites are an art-deco dresser I inherited from my grandmother, floral tins that decorate my cupboards, and a print of Swiss artist Robert Zund’s “Road to Emmaus” that I picked up at a church rummage sale.

For more than a decade, Cullen Klassen has been behind the camera telling stories. What began with homemade music videos and a GoPro camera eventually developed into a vocation focused on capturing stories of transformation and mission.

I had plans for the summer at home with our school-age kids. There would be time set aside for reading, time for teaching some life skills and family responsibilities, and time for some summer fun.

Then, mid-July, we got a puppy.

I never wanted to be an Anabaptist. Growing up in Winnipeg, I grew up a Baptist pastor’s kid who went to seminary and became a Baptist pastor. I never experienced a crisis of faith, probably because my parents were excellent role models. Their integrity convinced me that what I was being raised to learn was right, and I have retained much of what they taught me.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, joy is defined by such words as bliss, great pleasure, happiness, or delight. Without a doubt, joy can contain elements of these emotions because we have experienced them in certain situations in varying degrees. None of these words are contrary to how the Bible would define joy; however, this seems too simplistic and temporary compared to the biblical view of joy.

In this article, I’d like to introduce you to Kiara Kosta. Kiara has been the youth director at Evangelical Fellowship Church in Steinbach, Man., for the last three years. Kiara brings a young and fresh perspective to youth ministry. I began my interview by asking her about the challenges that get in the way of discipleship in the current generation.

At the recent Steinbach Bible College Leadership Conference on baptism we found out the real controversy in our churches is over baptism and membership. Many churches are now questioning whether baptism should automatically make one a member of the church.