January 2014

Cover art: “Rhythms of Grace”Cyndi Koshowski acrylic on canvas See story page 33  Features Mission call from Highway Embracing small-town ministry 50 ways to care The New Math Columns Editorial:  “Neither snow…

Shireen Awwad Hilal, a Palestinian Christian, has hope for Israel-Palestine. “Few people view our situation with hope, and the concept of reconciliation is controversial,” she said at the Impact Holy Land conference Dec. 4–6. “Let us commit to see hope where others see hopelessness.”

Branch: A Memoir with Pictures
Author: John L. Ruth
“The story is an inner rainbow, a weaving of words and imagination and visualization,…a marriage of the head and heart,” writes Elaine M. Ward in The Art of Storytelling. Stories can “heal, educate, inspire, motivate, transform, make meaning, entertain and build relationships.”

From Times Square to Timbuktu: The Post-Christian West Meets the Non-Western Church
Author: Wesley Granberg-Michaelson
A common theme emerges as I listen to the stories of families who have been members of the Mennonite Brethren church in Canada for many years…

As international efforts are underway to convince warring parties in Syria to gather for peace talks in Geneva on Jan. 22, 2014, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) is releasing an additional $200,000 to help Syrian families get through the winter.

Mother of the Year and other Elusive Awards
Author: Kalyn Falk
When Kalyn Falk was explaining to a reporter why her son jumped in the river, beginning with “our house burned down six weeks ago, and we’ve had a lot of stress,” she realized her family’s story wouldn’t fit in a sound bite. The result is Mother of the Year and Other Elusive Awards, an honest look at the humour and heartbreak of raising a child with profound autism.

The Honest Fishmongers’ production of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure at Pacific Theatre (Jan. 17–Feb. 8) breathes life and relevance into one of the Bard’s darker comedies.

Four-year-old Oscar Yoadel loves the playground at his daycare, Guarderia Samuelito. He runs endlessly back and forth across the brightly-painted suspension bridge. And with a big grin descends the metal slide after his father, Oscar Pinto, climbed with him to the top.

Leslie Hawthorne Klinger has accepted the position as contract editor for Rejoice!, a daily devotional released quarterly, co-published by Kindred Productions and MennoMedia.