Village News

The concept of sponsorship as we know it originates from the Greco-Roman world when Roman elites would sponsor sporting events (such as the gladiator games) to garner public affection for themselves and their syndicates.

In the 1920s, nearly 8,000 Mennonites left Canada for Latin America in search of a new home that would give them what Canada no longer would, including control of their own schools.

I want to introduce you to Mennonite Heritage Village’s (MHV) new Development Specialist and Development Coordinator, Melissa Kerr and Kaelyn Nickel.

Last Sunday 50 people gathered to pray for Ukraine near a Mennonite Heritage Village (MHV) monument built to remember the suffering and deaths our ancestors endured in that same land a hundred years ago.

Anyone else noticing how some of the major events of the past couple years also happened 100 years ago?

Exactly one hundred years and two days ago, the first train load of Mennonites gathered in Manitoba and Saskatchewan to leave Canada for new homes in northern Mexico.

There once was a person who moved to a northern climate such as ours. While experiencing their harsh winter he let his neighbours know, “someone here must have done something very, very bad and we are still paying the price for that transgression!”

At the Mennonite Heritage Village (MHV), we see history is not made in a few days or weeks, but over years and centuries. This long perspective can help us be patient in a time of transition where we wait for what we long for. These days we do a lot of waiting.

Besides promoting a new line of sugar-free pop, Michael Bublé has also made a return to the pop charts in recent years. Several years ago his young son Noah was diagnosed with cancer and Michael and his wife took a break from their very public careers.

For the last five years, as curator at the Mennonite Heritage Village (MHV), I have heard the rumblings of an impending migration. As the wide vista of 2022 opens before us, the migration is now imminent. Of course, Mennonite history is full of movement as people migrate from one country or continent to another, but this migration is different.