Archive
Cutting foreign assistance will fuel further migration
In recent weeks, the Trump administration announced its intention to cut all foreign assistance to the three Northern Triangle countries of Central America—El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The threat to cut aid was couched in terms of punishing the governments for “sending their people” to the U.S. Instead of alleviating the humanitarian crisis in the Northern Triangle and at our southern border, such cuts will only fuel further migration from the region and expand the growing refugee crisis. There are many types of foreign assistance. Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) has long advocated to reduce assistance to foreign militaries and security […]
Pie Lady Moments
If you’re wondering, “pie lady?” what on earth is that, I don’t blame you. Greta Isaac is author of a new book, The Pie Lady: Classic Stories from a Mennonite Cook and Her Friends. In it, Greta shares 32 stories of “pie ladies” and their best recipes in a book that is more story than cookbook. I was privileged to serve as the managing editor for this book in my waning months at Herald Press before retiring, and had a lot of back and forth by phone and email with the author as we edited and revised to get all of her […]
A Canada committed to genuine and mutual relationships
MCC shares God’s love and compassion for all in the name of Christ. We have a vision of communities worldwide in right relationships with God, one another and with creation. Sometimes we share God’s love through an emergency food response to disaster. Often, we seek right relationships by working alongside partners in community-based, on-the-ground development. But sometimes, as for two days in late March, sharing God’s love, and building right relationships means being in Ottawa with other senior church leaders encouraging Canadian senators to support a Canada where engaging justly with Indigenous peoples is part of our identity. I am deeply grateful […]
And the award goes to…
Both my daughters accompanied me once – just once – to Take Your Child to Work Day. It turns out watching their father go through his day in middle management is way less exciting that school. Another Take a Child to Work Day passed on Thursday without my kids noticing. And anyways, they would be more excited to learn that April 25th was also National Zucchini Bread Day, an homage to an underrated baked good. It was also National Hug a Plumber Day because, well, plumbers need hugs too? I couldn’t find any research that suggests plumbers receive fewer […]
An Earth Day reflection
As we approach Earth Day, it is a good time to reflect on the United States’ global commitments to address the causes and effects of climate change. In 2015, countries from around the world came together to write the Paris Agreement, a legally binding accord to address climate change. The agreement seeks to keep global temperature rise below two degrees Celsius through a global response and to help countries address the negative impacts of climate change. All 193 member countries of the United Nations have signed on to the accord. The U.S. is the only country to subsequently reject […]
Mia and the White Lion
Mia and the White Lion is a family adventure English-language film by French director Gilles de Maistere focused on the friendship and bond between a lion and a young girl named Mia (South African actress Daniah De Villiers). Mia caught my attention after reading that it was filmed over a three year period in order to capture the real-life bond that can develop between lions and humans—in this case De Villiers. This genuineness and the film’s lack of CGI is refreshing and not only gives the movie a somewhat nostalgic throw-back feel to films like Born Free or television shows […]
Peacebuilding through Advocacy and Diplomacy
In the days following the summit in Hanoi between the United States and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea), the Korea Peace Network (KPN) met with congressional offices in Washington, D.C. to advocate for ongoing diplomatic efforts and legislation that supports peace on the Korean Peninsula. Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) is a founding member of KPN, a coalition of civil society groups and individuals dedicated to promoting humanitarian access, peacebuilding and reconciliation for Koreans on the Peninsula and in the U.S. Faith leads us to a broader view of God’s kingdom and calls us to participate in […]
Gloria Bell
Julianne Moore has made a career out of subtle performances that make her highly relatable. From playing a woman fighting chemical allergies – and suburban normality – in Safe, to her performance as a homemaker who supports her alcoholic husband and their family by winning contests in The Prize-Winner of Defiance, Ohio,to her Oscar-winning turn as a linguistic professor with early onset Alzheimer’s Disease, Moore usually chooses nuance over melodrama. It’s no surprise, then, that Moore takes a subtler approach to dealing with middle age in Gloria Bell, an English-language remake of the 2013 Chilean film Gloria. Unlike many foreign remakes, Sebastian Lelio (Disobedience, A Fantastic Woman) directed […]
Confronting the fear of our history
“Yet we Christians have also been called to take a good hard look at ourselves. To reflect on our Christian beliefs, to scrutinize our missional practices. And to decolonize. It’s not that Christianity is inherently colonial, but for generations the Church and its faith have been used – wittingly, unwittingly, and far too often – as instruments of dispossession in the settler colonial arsenal. Indigenous peoples are asking the Church to our own work, to beat our colonial swords into peaceable ploughshares.” – pg. xvi Unsettling the word This is a quote taken from Unsettling the Word: Biblical experiments in decolonization. The book is a collection of […]
Hostilities in our hearts and lives
On Ash Wednesday, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) issued a Lenten reflection on gun violence prevention. The reflection calls for inward reflection as well as external action to address gun violence in our society. Policy changes alone will not end gun violence in the United States. But a review of 130 studies in 10 countries suggests that stricter gun policies lead to a reduction in gun deaths. Policy proposals in the U.S. context include expanded background checks, safe storage laws, mandatory reporting of lost or stolen weapons, and a ban on assault weapons. Proposals such as these would not infringe on […]