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Ethiopia is suffering through its third straight year of drought. Over 16 million people in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Kenya and Sudan are facing starvation. Critical areas are along the Ethiopia-Somalia border. One aid organization reports one child dies every two hours, on average, in the hardest hit Ogaden and Somali regions. Canadian Foodgrains Bank is providing $5.4 million in emergency food assistance (11,100 tonnes) to those affected by the drought in the horn of Africa: about 7,200 tonnes for Ethiopia, 2,200 tonnes for Eritrea and 1,700 tonnes for Kenya. Last fall/winter, CGFB provided $2.9 million (5,500 tonnes) to drought-affected areas in Ethiopia and Kenya. Immediate plans include a 20,000-tonne shipment of Canadian wheat for Ethiopia scheduled to arrive at the end of May. (This shipment includes the 7,200 tonnes from CFGB, 3,600 tonnes from other relief agencies and 9,000 tonnes from the Canadian government’s Canadian International Development Agency. Of the CFGB portion, 4,500 tonnes will come from Mennonite Central Committee, one of the partners in CFGB.) Distribution of the $1.5 million of food assistance for Eritrea and Kenya, consisting of locally produced sorghum, maize and beans, was scheduled to begin at the end of April. – Canadian Foodgrains Bank, Mennonite Central Committee, Evangelical Press News Service
Coaldale (Alta.) Mennonite Church voted March 10 in favour of withdrawing from the Conference of Mennonites in Alberta in response to CMA’s decisions on homosexuality and church membership. By default, the church will also withdraw its membership from the national body, Mennonite Church Canada, as of July 31. The resolution passed with a 94% majority. Pineridge Christian Fellowship, a Mennonite congregation in Calgary, has also withdrawn from the CMA as a result of CMA’s refusal to sever its relationship with South Calgary Inter-Mennonite Church. The South Calgary church allows practising homosexuals to be members. At a meeting Feb. 23, Tofield Mennonite Church decided to retain membership with CMA, but withhold funds earmarked for CMA for a trial period of one year. Several other congregations, including Rosemary Mennonite Church and Bergthal Mennonite Church at Didsbury, are also discussing their conference affiliation. The South Calgary congregration had been part of three Mennonite denominations. The Alberta Mennonite Brethren Conference expelled South Calgary in 1999, but the Conference of Mennonites in Alberta are still pondering how to respond. – Canadian Mennonite
Pastors from nearly every congregation in the Conference of Mennonites in British Columbia met March 19 to discuss membership options in the national body, Mennonite Church Canada. Some pastors are unhappy with the position of Mennonite Church Canada on homosexuality and other issues. Kelowna Gospel Fellowship has already announced its decision to withdraw from Mennonite Church Canada but retain its membership with the Conference of Mennonites in B.C. It is unclear whether this is possible under the new national structure. Point Grey Inter-Mennonite Fellowship in Vancouver, a Mennonite Brethren congregation, has an associate membership with the Conference of Mennonites in B.C.; members from Point Grey participate in the Conference of Mennonites but do not hold chair positions on committees. The Conference of Mennonites in B.C. is looking at a two-tiered membership option in which congregations would have full membership privileges at the provincial level but not at the national level. Delegates at the annual sessions in May will likely vote on the two-tiered membership, but a final draft will likely not be ready until 2001. – Canadian Mennonite
Eastern District Conference of the General Conference Mennonite Church met at a special session March 18 and voted 114-104 against a motion not to join Mennonite Church USA, the integrated church expected to replace the current General Conference Mennonite and Mennonite Church bodies next year. The resolution received only 48% support, falling short of the two-thirds majority needed. Twenty-four of the conference’s 26 congregations were represented at the meeting. Issues such as polity, homosexuality and the Mennonite confession of faith had generated several calls for the Eastern Conference to cut its ties to the denomination. As a result of the vote, at least one congregation will likely withdraw its membership from the Conference and seek affiliation with another Anabaptist group. Among the Conference’s members are some of the oldest Mennonite churches in North America, including Germantown Mennonite Church, Philadelphia (1683); Lower Skippack (Pa.) Mennonite Church (1702); and West Swamp Mennonite Church, Quakertown, Pa. (1717). On Feb. 12, 2000, 47 people representing 24 congregations from the Eastern District Conference and six Mennonite Church area conferences (Lancaster, Atlantic Coast, Virginia, Allegheny, Ohio and Indiana-Michigan) formed an unofficial alliance as an alternative to the merger. After the meeting, participants agreed to form a steering committee to shape the direction of the new alliance and to seek support from their congregations. Those forming this new alliance want a stronger emphasis on the infallibility of the Bible and on evangelism. – The Mennonite, Mennonite Weekly Review
Gladys Staines was honoured at a reception held April 12 by the Canadian Council of South Asian Christians. Staines is the widow of Dr. Graham Staines, an Australian missionary who was martyred in Orissa, India, along with his two young sons, in 1999. Staines described her plan to build a hospital in her late husband’s memory: “My husband left a good career in Australia because he was called to minister to the poor in India. I want to continue that work through building a hospital to minister to the many who have leprosy.” The event brought together a wide variety of Canadians of Indian descent but of many Christian traditions. Speakers highlighted the plight of persecuted Christians in India and Pakistan. – Evangelical Fellowship of Canada
The first-ever Mennonite Pacific Rim Business Expo and International Trade Seminar will be held November 2-5 in Vancouver. Sponsored by Mennonite Economic Development Associates, the expo will be held in conjunction with MEDA’s annual convention there. The purpose of the expo will be a place for Christian business people to forge business links with their counterparts in other countries. When Art DeFehr, president and CEO of Palliser Furniture in Winnipeg, wanted to build a new factory in Indonesia, he decided to locate the new enterprise in Semarang, headquarters of the Indonesian Mennonite Church, instead of in the capital city of Jakarta. “Connecting with the church was an important part of our decision to expand into Indonesia,” said DeFehr. “We wanted to find ways to work together with other Mennonite businesspersons.” – Mennonite Economic Development Associates
Openness to the gospel is growing across the Arab Muslim world, according to Arab World Ministries. AWM notes a new spirit of prayer, more converts, more Christian groups and more former Muslims involved in Muslim ministry. In places where there were no Christians 10 or 15 years ago, there are now significant numbers of new believers, AWM reports. – World Pulse
Leprosy is a highly infectious disease still around in many countries, including India (527,344 people), Brazil (72,953), Indonesia (29,225), Nigeria (12,827), Nepal (12,540) and Democratic Republic of Congo (4863). According to an American Leprosy Missions report, about 4 million people have the disease, and another 65 people worldwide get the disease each hour. ALM and the International Federation of Anti-Leprosy Associations are part of a global alliance seeking to eliminate the disease by 2005. Since the advent of Multidrug Treatment in the mid-1980s, over 10 million people suffering from leprosy have been cured. However, since 1996, the number of new cases diagnosed annually has risen by 39% globally. – World Pulse
Over 100 Christian magazines and newspapers in India have recently lost their postal subsidies. – World Pulse
Active membership in the Watch Tower Society (Jehovah’s Witnesses) worldwide grew 2% last year, according to statistics published in the January 2000 issue of the Watch Tower. Jehovah’s Witnessess reported over a billion hours of evangelistic work, yielding over 323,000 baptisms. Still, the total number of active members grew by only 110,000. Growth was strongest in Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and Israel. The US and Western European countries registered losses in active members. In the US, members spent 5,500 hours of witnessing for each baptized member gained; despite a campaign of nearly 175 million hours of witnessing, the number of active members in the US fell from 944,000 to 940,000. – World Pulse
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Last modified August 29, 2000.
© 2000 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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