Lent was not part of my experience growing up in a Mennonite church. It was something that “others” did (read: Catholics), and when one is young, what those others do…
Dora Dueck
Dora Dueck
Dora Dueck worked some five years as associate editor and editor of the MB Herald in the 2000s. She is the author of two novels and a collection of short fiction, as well as stories and essays in a variety of journals. She currently lives in Tsawwassen, B.C. and attends the Cedar Park Church, Ladner, B.C.
- Arts & CulturebooksCrosscurrents
Relentless Goodbye: Grief and Love in the Shadow of Dementia
by Dora DueckCaregiving without answers Relentless Goodbye: Grief and Love in the Shadow of Dementia Ginnie Horst Burkholder In 1996, at 51, Nelson Burkholder was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia (LBD), which…
- MB HeraldNewsPeople and Events
Austrian evangelicals claim connection to Anabaptist past
by Dora DueckA 15-metre galley ship tucked into the ruins of a castle vault restores to public memory a dramatic episode in Anabaptist history. It tells the story of 90 Hutterite men condemned to galley service – rowing the narrow warships – for refusing to recant their faith. A Taeufermuseum (Anabaptist museum) in Austria’s Falkenstein castle displays the historical context and faith emphases of the country’s Anabaptist movement.
She’s been walking this corridor of brown and ash-coloured sand for almost an hour, her walk an easy stride, her body warm with the motion, her head warm too under…
Like a number of others who have sat in the “driver’s seat,” I got my MB Herald driving lessons from Harold Jantz. I came to work for him in 1973, as his first assistant editor. I was absolutely thrilled at the opportunity, for I’d long had the desire, inarticulate as it was, to work in the area of writing.
Last November, in my role as interim Herald editor, I wrote an editorial urging Mennonite Brethren to participate in Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The Commission was formed as a provision of the 2006 Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement between government, church entities, and former students. Its mandate was to work at healing the personal damage and broken relationships caused by the residential school system.
The Voice of a WriterEditors: Doug Heidebrecht and Valerie G. RempelThe lighting around Katie Funk Wiebe’s face on the book’s cover creates a halo effect. It may be as close to visible beatification any Mennonite will get, but seems delightfully appropriate. In honouring one of our leading women, The Voice of a Writer not only blesses her, it recommends to us her way of being and thinking.
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The top 10 Mennonite Brethren stories of the decade
by Dora DueckThe transition from old to new year is always a great time for picks and pans, for looking back and making lists. Here, in no particular order, are my picks for the top 10 stories of the decade for Mennonite Brethren.
Books profiled are The Jesus Storybook Bible, Author Sally Lloyd-Jones, illustrationas by Jago; Mostly Mennonite, Author: Ernie Harder
The Christmas season holds in holy tension the extremes of the incarnation, between the “Lord of lords, and king of kings” of the Hallelujah chorus, and the lullabies cooed because God came as an infant.
- MB HeraldNewsPeople and Events
Rich content, too little time mark study conference on Christology
by Dora DueckColliding expectations, a sub-topic that nearly upstaged the main topic, and frustration over too little time to process it all characterized the MB study conference held Oct. 15-17 in Saskatoon.
Books Profiled: Nightwatch: An Inquiry Into Solitude: Alone on the Prairie with the Hutterites, Author: Robert Rhodes; He Flew Too High, Author: Ken Yoder Reed
The board of faith and life is to be commended for the 2009 study conference recently held in Saskatoon. It made an excellent choice in the theme and speaker. As I’ve continued to reflect on the three aspects of Christology that Thomas Yoder Neufeld chose to highlight – Christ as wisdom, Christ as peace, and Christ as the least among us – I’ve come to realize just how significant and absolutely critical these particular “answers” are to the question behind “confessing Jesus in a pluralistic world.”
Back in March, the MB Herald addressed the theme of our Aboriginal neighbours. We surveyed the landscape of Mennonite Brethren and Aboriginal ministry, and were challenged in articles by pastors Norman Meade and Rob Kroeker to consider how much we really care about the Native people of our country.
On Christmas Eve, 1941, in the front lines of a World War II battlefield, a young German officer named Siegfried Bartel had an experience that changed his life.