People & Events

Mennonite Central Committee workers in Burundi have been asked to leave Bubanzi, Burundi by the governor of Bubanza province, saying he cannot assure their safety. Workers Keith Miller and Susan Seitz had recently moved to Bubanza, a town closer to the fierce fighting between the Tutsi army and Hutu rebel militia. The workers had hoped that teaching conflict resolution closer to the heart of the dispute would have had a wider effect. The workers will return to Kibamba, the Burundian town where they had previously worked.
MCC

Allowing casinos to open on the Gulf Coast has coincided with the rise of crime statistics in Gulfport, MS. Incidents of arson, assaults, suicides and embezzlement all rose. In one year, arrests for driving while intoxicated increased 131%; drug-related arrests rose 49%; and domestic disputes tripled. In addition, bankruptcies increased 300%, and the number of pawn shops grew from 6 to 36. However, employment, investment and tax revenue are up. There have also been a flurry of false robbery reports. The city of Biloxi has gone from the brink of bankruptcy 4 years ago to having a $12-14 million surplus.
Mennonite Reporter

Electromagnetic pulses applied to the brain have caused many people to experience unusual auditory and visual sensations which some describe as a "presence" of either God or the devil. Michael Persinger, psychologist at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ont., equipped a motorcycle helmet with wires that emit a rhythmic bombardment of low-intensity electromagnetic waves, hoping it would help treat people suffering from depression, chronic pain and epilepsy. However, many research participants unexpectedly described visualizing visitations by angels, demons or aliens, largely depending on where in the brain the pulse was directed.
Maclean's

The Fellowship of Mennonite Churches in Taiwan recently adopted a statement which urges the Taiwanese government to actively pursue independence from China and gain admittance to the United Nations. In part, the statement reads, "We wish to live in peace with the people of countries of the world, join hands in cooperation, devote our strength toward world peace and prosperity for the blessing of humankind."
Mennonite World Conference

Number of Canadians who consider themselves evangelical by region:

B.C.				14%
Alberta				19%
Saskatchewan and Manitoba 	24%
Ontario				16%
Quebec				13%
Maritimes			25%
EFC Watch

75% of teenagers would talk to their mother if they had an important question about life; half said they would also consult their father (about the same number that said they would talk to their best friend), according to researcher George Barna. 60% of 13-year-olds would talk to their father about a problem, but only 25% of 18-year-olds.
Parents of Teenagers (quoted in CT&T)

In Canada, military expenditures accounted for 7.5% of 1995 federal income taxes. In the US, that figure is 44.6% (including 19.3% for debt and veterans' allowances for past military programs).
MCC

South America's largest mosque is being built with $10 million donated by King Fahd and Saudi Arabian business leaders. The Argentine government donated an eight-acre lot for the mosque and Islamic centre, which will include a school, a show hall and convention and sports centres. There are 800,000 to 1 million Muslims in Argentina.
Alliance Life

11% of the people in Ireland answered the question, "How important is God in your life?" by saying "Not at all." This figure is double that of a decade ago. At the same time, 76% of the Irish still attend church weekly, a higher percentage than any other Western European country. In comparison, 34% of the French said God was not important to them. Only 12% of the people in France attend church each week.
Europe Today (quoted in CT&T)

The Charles E. Fuller Institute of Evangelism and Church Growth, Canadian Ministries, changed its name, effective May 1, to The International Centre for Leadership Development and Evangelism. The US-based organization of the same name (from which the Canadian counterpart became autonomous in 1994) closed in August, 1996 due to financial problems. The Canadian organization's name was changed in order "to clarify its distinct identity and to allow for continuing expansion".
Charles E. Fuller Institute

The proportion of poor children in Canada increased from 14.5% in 1989 to 21.3% in 1993. Poverty rates for both two-parent and single-parent families increased. However, infant mortality rates in poor neighbourhoods continues to decline, and the school drop-out rate decreased dramatically.
MCC

A Florida pastor has admitted strangling an affluent elderly couple who were among the founding members of his church. John Nelson Canning, 59, pastor of Fountain of Life Church, was given control of the financial affairs of Leo and Hazel Gleese when their health began to fail, but the couple later accused him of stealing thousands of dollars.
Evangelical Press News Service

Dancing will be permitted on the campus of 151-year-old Baylor University, the largest Baptist institution in the US, starting this spring. Various committees have studied the dancing issue for years, as Baptist faith and practice have grown increasingly tolerant of some things once considered worldly diversions. The school already permits aerobic and folk dancing classes, performance dance, and cheerleader dance routines during football and basketball games, but this spring's function will be the first at which students are permitted to dance socially. Baylor President Robert Sloan assured the school's Board of Regents that no "lewd gyrations" would be permitted.
EPNS

Former church secretary Linda Siefer is on trial for embezzling $411,000 from St. Michael's Roman Catholic Church in Kalida, OH in order to take vacations, buy a sports car, and build a home with a swimming pool. However, she says her employer, Rev. John Hoying, stole the money. Siefer, 39, was responsible for counting money from collections and making bank deposits, until she resigned in December, 1994. Hoying said he learned of the theft after the bank president contacted him in November, 1994 and told him that no $20 bills were being deposited in the church account. "I knew that was strange because I saw lots of twenties," said Hoying. Sunday offerings increased about $1,500 the week after Siefer resigned, and an audit dating back to 1990 suggests that $1,200 to $1,500 had probably been stolen each week.
EPNS

Four aborted fetuses have been removed from a high school biology classroom where they were displayed in apparent violation of Minnesota's 1987 fetal disposal law. They were removed from the classroom after authorities were made aware of the law. One unborn baby had been aborted in Duluth by a physician whose son used the preserved baby as a "a visual aid for a final report" in a class. Minnesota's fetal disposal law provides for a dignified and sanitary disposal of miscarried or aborted human fetuses by burial or cremation. The school superintendent apologized for the error. The fetuses were cremated at a funeral home.
EPNS

The Mennonite Educational Institute's Chamber Singers won first place in the CIBC National Music Festival in 1995. The choir was asked to participate in the festival following its performance at the Coquitlam (B.C.) Choral Festival, then went on to win first place at the B.C. Festival of Arts. In results announced last August, the choir won the top Canadian award in the high school chamber choir category. The award included a trophy and $500. In May, the MEI Chamber Singers will be travelling to Toronto with the group Razzberry Jam for Musicfest Canada.
Mennonite Reporter

Mennonite churches are statistically the slowest growing among the 10 main evangelical denominations in Winnipeg. Based on the number of baptisms, it is the Chinese, Spanish and Tagalog (Filipino) people who have the fastest growing evangelical churches, according to Jerry Hildebrand, who researched evangelical churches in Winnipeg for his doctoral dissertation at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL. Hildebrand also found a surprising lack of prayer among Winnipeg evangelical pastors and church members.
Mennonite Reporter

Jacqueline Thimm-Richardson is a Dutch Mennonite pastor with a fascinating background. Thimm-Richardson is a Vietnamese woman, with French citizenship, who was raised in the Alliance Church. She left Vietnam in the 1950s at 20 after an MCC worker there encouraged her to attend Eastern Mennonite College in the US. She married fellow student Arno Thimm, a Prussian-born Mennonite who had lived in Denmark and Germany. Arno became a pastor in Germany, and they both taught at the European Mennonite Bible School (Bienenberg) in Switzerland. When Arno was called to pastor Haarlem Mennonite Church in The Netherlands, she added Dutch to the list of 10 languages she already knew. After doctoral work in sociology, she enrolled in the Mennonite seminary to study theology, since she had already studied Greek and Hebrew. In 1990, Jacqueline became pastor of the Beemster-Oosthuizen Mennonite congregation. Currently, Jacqueline, her husband, son and daughter-in-law are all Mennonite pastors in the Netherlands.
Mennonite Reporter

Dutch Mennonite churches had 160,000 members in 1700. This dropped to 28,600 by 1808, rose to 42,000 in 1859, but dropped to 38,500 in 1957 and 15,000 currently.
Mennonite Reporter

The Mennonite Church's weekly magazine, Gospel Herald , and the General Conference Mennonite Church's magazine, The Mennonite, will be merged into a new periodical as the two denominations merge. Publishing interests in Canada, including Mennonite Reporter, published by Mennonite Publishing Service, and Nexus, published by the Conference of Mennonites in Canada, are to be included in the merger talks. Plans for the new publication should be ready by summer, 1997.
Gospel Herald

A custody battle in Pensacola, FL involves a father who spent eight years in prison for shooting and killing his first wife; a mother who is now a lesbian; and their 11-year-old daughter. In August, Judge Joseph Tarbuck awarded primary care to the father, ruling the girl "should be given the opportunity to live in a non-lesbian world". The mother is asking an appeals court to reverse that decision. Supreme courts in eight states have ruled that homosexual parents should not automatically be denied custody, but five others have made opposite rulings.
EPNS

Fewer than 1 in 5 doctors favour a complete ban on physician-assisted suicide, according to surveys published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Catholic, Mormon and other doctors with strong religious beliefs were much less likely to be wiling to assist in a suicide.
EPNS

Mennonite/Brethren In Christ Conciliation Services of Canada is sponsoring a 5-day seminar called "How to Change the Church", a conflict resolution training seminar. It will be held June 17-21 at Conrad Grebel College in Waterloo, Ont. Information is available from: 50 Kent Ave., Kitchener, ON, N2G 3R1, phone (519)745-8458.
Mennonite/BIC Conciliation Services of Canada

Arsonists destroyed a storage facility containing over $500,000 worth of Bibles, books, evangelistic tracts and other materials in October in Nemcinovka, a suburb of Moscow. Investigators found evidence that gasoline had been poured on the material and two large holes had been punched in the walls of the warehouse, owned and operated by the Evangelistic Christian Union of Russia, to ventilate the fire. Just before the fire, Christian Bridge's Moscow office received a letter that read, "Death to Christ and his servants!"
Christianity Today

The National Memorial for the Unborn , a granite, 50-foot wide, 6-foot high wall, was dedicated Jan. 21 in Chattanooga, TN. The wall contains more than 300 bronzed plaques of names of aborted children from 43 states. Typically, each plaque also contains the date of the abortion and a Scripture verse. The wall is connected to AAA Women's Services, a crisis pregnancy centre. Pro-lifers bought the building, an abortion facility where 35,000 babies had been aborted in 18 years, in 1993 and converted it into the crisis centre.
Christianity Today

Grace MB Church in Penticton, B.C. canvassed its church and community, including shoe stores, collecting over 160 pairs of shoes and cash to be donated to MCC for shipment to the Black Sea area of Russia.
Grace MB Church

Mennonite Board of Missions , the missions arm of the Mennonite Church, is considering building a visitor's centre in Nazareth, Israel, on 12 acres of land next to Nazareth Hospital. MBM sees the centre as a way of witnessing to tourists and locals. If plans go ahead, it could be completed by 1999. It would consist of two areas: One would use multimedia to explain the geography and history surrounding Jesus' life; the other would be a "living museum" designed to resemble a Galilean village of 2000 years ago.
Mennonite Reporter

The United Evangelical Lutheran Church (11 million members) and the Mennonite church (7,000 members) in Germany have agreed to practise open communion with each other. Joint services in Hamburg and Regensberg celebrated the agreement in March. The open communion will also apply to other Lutheran, United and Reformed groups in Germany.
Mennonite Reporter 45 million abortions take place every year, according to an estimate by the World Health Organization
1 for every 3 live births. Of those, 25 million are legal abortions.
EPNS

Return to the M.B. Herald Vol. 35, No. 9 Home Page