Village News

In southwestern Congo where I was born the sandy, palm-lined avenues of Kamayala frame the rural home of the majority of my childhood.

I arrived in Cuauhtémoc with my head full of the stories I’d read about the Mennonites in Mexico in the pages of the newspaper Die Steinbach Post.

Have you ever been asked to fill in your nationality or ethnic identity for a survey? It makes me think… how many generations of a family are required to live in a geographical location before it can be called home?

In the last 30 years there have been numerous Canadian Mennonite tour groups visiting Poland. Many think of only visiting the places Mennonites lived in the Ukraine, but it is highly recommended to see Poland along the way.

Visiting Mennonite sites around the world is on my bucket list and with this series of articles I hope we can take a kind of tour of these places together.

This week Tom Hanks is celebrating his Cecil B. DeMille award for lifetime achievement in entertainment. He is also celebrating over 31 years of marriage to his wife Rita Wilson. In the ever-changing environment of Hollywood he has defied the odds.

It’s a new year and a new decade! How time flies. Maybe another role for museums like the Mennonite Heritage Village is “Time Machine”. We’ve created a place from a hundred years ago that people can come back in time to visit.

Our traditions at Christmas are part of holding us in relationships with one another. When we get together for annual gatherings where we do pretty much the same thing each year, it’s a way of saying ‘we belong here’, ‘this is who we are’ and ‘we’re safe’.

At Christmas we often think about the loved ones that have passed on. Recently one friend shared with me about how her grand-parents were so caring.

Museum as a mental health well-spring is one of the most recent roles for museums. As we see our society become more anxious and fragmented, finding more places to heal and discover wholeness is important.