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MCC appeals for donations for victims of Asia disasters
by Linda Espenshade
Mennonite Central Committee is appealing for an initial $100,000 to assist people in Asia whose homes and lives were devastated by recent earthquakes and flooding.
Two earthquakes struck the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, the first on Wednesday, Sept. 30, and the second on Thursday, Oct. 1. The earthquakes caused buildings to collapse and trapped thousands under rubble. On Friday, the United Nations reported that 1,100 people had died.
Earlier in the week, Typhoon Ketsana wreaked havoc elsewhere in Southeast Asia as heavy rainfall caused widespread flooding and mudslides. Hundred of people have died and at least 500,000 were displaced.
Ketsana prompted the worst flooding in the northern Philippines in 40 years when it struck Saturday, Sept. 26, and then continued its deadly path across Southeast Asia. It battered central Vietnam with powerful winds and heavy rain and then weakened as it moved into Cambodia and Laos.
The $100,000 (USD) will be used to provide immediate shelter, food and other emergency supplies to people in Indonesia and the Philippines and to meet longer-term recovery needs in Vietnam. These are countries where MCC has workers or connections with Mennonite congregations.
- In Indonesia, the Mennonite Diakonial Service has sent an assessment team to the earthquake area. MCC anticipates requests for funding to provide emergency shelter and food. Mennonite Diakonial Service is the service arm of the three Mennonite synods in Indonesia.
- In the Philippines, MCC has started communication with the Integrated Mennonite Churches (IMC) to assess the needs. Next week, MCC will send Bruce Glick of Millersburg, Ohio, to the Philippines. Glick will work in cooperation with IMC and other organizations to develop an emergency response plan. MCC has not had a country program in the Philippines since 2005. However, Glick, who worked with MCC for 19 years, will return to the country where he served in 2004-2005.
- In Vietnam, MCC workers are assessing the need as they communicate with the Social Work Committee of the Vietnam Mennonite Church. MCC anticipates the need for recovery funds to help affected communities rebuild once the initial crisis passes.
MCC is aware that needs may increase as Typhoon Parma is expected to hit the Philippines again, north of Manila, on Saturday. MCC is also monitoring the ongoing needs of people in Cambodia and Laos, who suffered damage from Ketsana, too.
Financial contributions may be made to any MCC office, online at mcc.org/donate or by telephoning toll free at 1-888-563-4676.
Gifts should be designated for MCC’s “Asia Disasters.”
More poverty, hunger in developing world as recession takes hold
Although the worldwide recession appears to be letting up in Canada and the U.S., in many developing countries it has barely begun and the impact will be devastating, says an MCC spokesperson.
“Many families in Africa, Asia and Latin America spend between 50 to 70 percent of their household income on basic food staples,” says Bruce Guenther, MCC’s coordinator of humanitarian assistance. “Food prices have come down from the extreme levels they were at last year, but they are still up to triple what they were.”
Families are spending so much on food that they have little money for other essentials such as education and medicine. The stress and shock is enough to throw many families that were able to get by into poverty.
“On top of this, people are now beginning to lose their jobs because of this recession,” said Guenther. “The effects of mass hunger will continue to make it harder for people to survive.”
Guenther recently saw the impact of hunger firsthand in Kenya, where severe drought conditions have increased the need for humanitarian assistance. MCC is responding by providing emergency food for 3,000 Maasai families and nutritious meals to 43 primary schools.
As well, MCC has organized food for work programs where participants can collect maize, beans and cooking oil in return for community work in sustainable agriculture.
MCC food aid reached record levels this past year as the organization responded to hunger caused by natural disasters, skyrocketing food prices and climate change. The next year is shaping up to be worse.
The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations recently reported that the number of hungry people in the world is on track to reach more than 1 billion in 2009 – the highest number ever.
In March, 2009, the World Bank said the recession was expected to trap 53 million more people in poverty this year, defined as subsistence living on less than $1.25 U.S a day. Poor people in developing countries have little buffer to protect them against the effects of the crisis.
“The high cost of fertilizer and fuel, in combination with extreme weather conditions, are affecting access to food and the amount of food grown,” says Willie Reimer, director of Food, Disaster and Material Resources for MCC.
“And while there is still a surplus of food being produced, it is not as large as in previous years.”
That there is even a surplus of food being produced in the world is of great importance for Reimer.
“This is really more than a food crisis. It is a hunger crisis. There is still more than enough food produced in the world to feed everyone.”
Often the problem is access to food caused by factors such as unequal access to land and conflict.
“In war-torn areas like southern Sudan, 22 years of conflict has resulted in fading knowledge about food-growing techniques. Hidden landmines in the soil complicate people’s abilities to go out and till the land, says Reimer.
MCC is responding by increasing the amounts of emergency food assistance, continuing to help farmers increase the food they can grow, and advocating for food systems that are fair and just.
However, the needs are still great. Here is what you can do:
Pray
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- for the people who are hungry that they may have enough to eat, soon. Pray for the people struggling to provide comfort and food to the hungry.
Live simply so that your lifestyle in this interconnected world is not a burden on the poor.
Speak out on behalf of the poor and hungry so that they are not forgotten by governments.
Donate to MCC (gifts can be designated to “Food”). In the U.S., gifts can also be made to MCC’s account at the Foods Resource Bank.
Krehbiel joins Mennonite Church USA Communication Team
June Krehbiel joined the Mennonite Church USA Communication Team Aug. 1 as interim director of communication for Executive Leadership. She works out of the denomination’s Newton office.
Krehbiel of Moundridge, Kan., brings to her position experience in communicating about the denomination and its educational institutions. She was assistant director of news service for Bethel College in North Newton, Kan, and publications writer and yearbook advisor for Hesston (Kan.) College.
She also served on the Mennonite Publishing Network Board and is the author of two books: God with Us Today: Devotions for Families (Faith and Life Resources, 2006) and 101 Devotionals with Children (Herald Press, 1999).
A published writer since 1981, Krehbiel has also written articles, book reviews, curriculum, devotionals, poetry, puzzles, stories and Sunday school lessons for a variety of Mennonite publications, including The Mennonite and Mennonite Weekly Review.
Recently she served for two years as a contracted writer and copy editor for Executive Leadership Communication.
After attending Bethel College and graduating with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, she taught in Wilber (Neb.) Public Schools. For two years she was a volunteer teacher with Mennonite Central Committee at Jesus Teacher Training College in Otukpo, Nigeria. She later taught junior high language arts at Goessel (Kan.) Elementary School.
She and her husband, Perry, attend Eden Mennonite Church, Moundridge, Kan., in Western District Conference of Mennonite Church USA. They have two adult children.
Krehbiel replaces Marathana Prothro, who resigned to pursue further education.
Mennonite Church USA Corinthian Plan featured in Christian Century
The Corinthian Plan, the Mennonite Church USA health care plan, is featured in the September 22 issue of the Christian Century. The bi-weekly magazine carries staff writer Amy Frykholm’s four-page article titled “Health-care Option: A Mennonite Plan for Mutual Aid.”
The article offers personal stories from Mennonite pastors, a look at the Corinthian Plan as well as its background and reasons for its need.
Frykholm interviewed Keith Harder, the denomination’s health care access project director whose sole work for several years has been to oversee implementation of a viable health care option for the denomination’s pastors. In addition, she contacted a handful of Mennonite pastors, including Juanita Nuñez, moderator of the Iglesia Menonita Hispania.
The writer talked with Marco Guete, conference minister of the Southeast Mennonite Conference. She interviewed Timothy Jost, who crafted the resolution the Delegate Assembly passed in July supporting legislation that would extend health care coverage to all Americans.
“The tenor of the Mennonites’ conversation and the honesty with which they have faced the dilemma is a model for the nation,” Frykholm writes.
New associate for interchurch and communications work brings fresh voice
by Laurie Oswald Robinson for Mennonite Church USA
Joanna Shenk, a 25-year-old seminary student, had questions about the institutional church. When she first encountered Andre Gingerich Stoner in spring 2008, she felt a flicker of hope as she sensed that work for her within the denomination may be a possibility. Stoner is director of Interchurch Relations for Mennonite Church USA.
In her mission and peace class at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS), Elkhart, Ind., Shenk was inspired as she heard Stoner, a visiting speaker, describe his journey into church work and his vision of leadership as capturing a vision and empowering others. The more she listened to him articulate his views on church work, the more she began to envision herself exploring a similar vocation.
“Having come from a family heavily involved in the church, I wanted to make a contribution authentic to my journey. This put me on a long road of discernment,” she said.
At the end of that road, Shenk, a spring 2009 AMBS graduate with a master’s degree in theological studies, began her full-time position Aug. 3 with Mennonite Church USA Executive Leadership. She is working for the denomination as associate for Interchurch Relations and Communications.
In her first Communications project, she is coordinating the collection of data for an audit of women in leadership within Mennonite Church USA. This audit is a response to the call from Mennonite Women USA to investigate declining numbers of women in Mennonite organizational leadership. As a young woman, Shenk is encouraged that the church is taking seriously the involvement of women, and she hopes to continue and resource the conversation with her work.
“It is a real opportunity for us to have Joanna as a member of the Executive Leadership team,” Marty Lehman, director of administration and advancement, says. “Not only does she bring a youthful perspective as well as a passion for the church, but also strong communication skills and experience in ecumenical settings. We are grateful for the gifts she brings.”
Shenk grew up in Springfield, Ohio, and, in junior high, went to Dagestan, Russia, with her parents, Phil and Alice, who served as mission workers with Mennonite Board of Missions and later the Mennonite Mission Network. She graduated from high school at Bethany Christian Schools in Goshen, Ind., a Mennonite Church USA school.
She attended Huntington (Ind.) University where she was a leader in student government. One summer she studied in Beijing, China. She also spent a semester in Colorado Springs at Focus on the Family.
Following her graduation, Shenk held various jobs in the Huntington area before heading to AMBS. She was assistant to the executive director of United Way of Huntington County and assistant manager of One World Handicrafts, a fair trade store in North Manchester, Ind. She also served as research assistant to theologian Beth Felker Jones in the publication of Jones’s book, The Marks of His Wounds: Gender Politics and Bodily Resurrection.
Shenk, who is part of Fellowship of Hope Mennonite Church in Elkhart and an associate member of Jubilee House, the MVS house, has already been exposed to the margins. She’s worked alongside neighbors to think creatively about responses to high unemployment, poverty and violence.
In June she taught a jewelry making class to young people and adults in her Elkhart neighborhood as part of a community-initiated summer academy.
“The teachers and students, a mix of genders, ethnicities and ages, created the academy as a space for the community to come together and learn from each other,” she said. “Clearly, no one homogenous group has all the gifts.” This idea she brings to her work with Mennonite Church USA.
Shenk has come to believe that these kinds of mutually beneficial relationships within diverse groups call all people out of controlling positions and into new ways of working together and being the body of Christ.
“We don’t need to be threatened by new approaches or new voices,” she says. “We can both explore new ways of relating, such as through interchurch relationships, and also hold on to the best of our traditions and institutions. For us as Mennonites, this is an opportunity, not a risk to our identity or our denomination.”
For example, in her Interchurch Relations work, one of her projects is to engage with intentional communities and other emerging churches across the country. These groups want to be in relationship with Mennonites due to their interest in Anabaptist-Mennonite theology and ethics but not necessarily join a denominational structure.
“With her wide range of experiences and relationships, Joanna will make a strong contribution to the Interchurch Relations work of Mennonite Church USA, especially as we build relationships with new discipleship communities that share a kinship with Anabaptism,” says Stoner.
To summarize her vision for work within the denomination, Shenk quotes contemporary Canadian theologian Mary Jo Leddy in saying, “Our critique of the church needs to be as strong as our hope for the church.”
That’s the tension Shenk hopes to sustain in her work. “I want to offer my gifts in a way that is helpful for the future and, at the same time, draw on the strengths of the past,” Shenk adds.
Ruth Lapp Guengerich assumes presidency of Mennonite Women USA
by Patricia Burdette
Ruth Lapp Guengerich, Goshen, Ind., assumed the board presidency of Mennonite Women USA during the Mennonite Church USA Assembly in Columbus, Ohio, in July. She replaces outgoing president, Rebecca Sommers, longtime resident of Sarasota, Fla., now living in Goshen.
At the Mennonite Women dinner, Sommers presented Guengerich with a shawl she had made for the occasion to symbolize the leadership change.
“I have felt called to work with women’s issues within the church,” Guengerich says. “I desire to see women in Mennonite Church USA overcome the hurdles that may have limited them in finding their niche within church structures or that prevented them from finding fulfillment in their daily lives. It is my goal that Mennonite Women will be a means of empowering women to use their energy in positive ways to serve God, empower others through friendship and challenge the church to reflect the diversity that we bring.”
Having recently moved to the Goshen area from Archbold, Ohio, and Zion Mennonite Church, Guengerich attends Silverwood Mennonite Church where her husband, Ron, pastors. A professional clinical counselor for 25 years, she works as the international personnel counselor and recruiter for Mennonite Mission Network.
During her tenure as president, Sommers led the redesign of Timbrel: Women in Conversation Together with God, the organization’s bi-monthly magazine. She also gave leadership to the creation of the Miriam Group giving circles and the development of the Sister-Care Seminars, a new program of Mennonite Women USA. Sister-Care is designed to train women in the church to reach out and offer healing and hope to other women.
“I have been blessed by the women who have given energy and service on our board. What a great group of women!” Sommers says. “I have also been blessed by the many women I have met across the United States as I heard their stories and encouraged and affirmed them in the ways they serve the church.”
Sommers and her husband, Merle, are members of College Mennonite Church. Rebecca is a fabric artist and retreat leader.