Churches to host a play on Settler issues
Working toward reconciliation with Indigenous neighbours takes time and requires building awareness and understanding. Following the report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), Justice Murray Sinclair issued this challenge: “We have described for you the mountain. We have shown you the path to the top. We call upon you to do the climbing.”
Representatives of Anglican, United, Lutheran, and Mennonite Settler communities are lacing up for the climb. Muriel Bechtel, a retired Mennonite pastor says, “We are well aware that re-educating ourselves about our colonial history takes courage. We believe building awareness is a vital step in the reconciliation process for churches, governments, and all people who call this land our home.
Four productions of Discovery: A Comic Lament will occur in Waterloo Region from May 31 to June 3. As chair of the planning committee, Bechtel says “Only as we acknowledge our complicity in the displacement and dispossession of Indigenous communities, will we be able to move beyond our paralysis and confusion to deeper listening and action in partnership with Indigenous-led healing and justice efforts. We believe that this drama will inspire and motivate us for the climb ahead.”
“I always find hope in the resilience of the Rohingya people — in their dignity in the face of incredible abuse,” remarked the Honorable Bob Rae, in a CBC interview in early March. Currently working as Canada’s Special Envoy to Myanmar, Rae has spent four months traveling to Indonesia, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Vietnam, and the UN in New York. Tasked with investigating the humanitarian crisis, Rae is actively assessing efforts required to ensure the secure return of refugees to their homes, and gathering evidence of breaches of law and human rights. He reports that Canada has been “publicly associated with the peace process, with the dialogue on governance and pluralism, and with a number of other critical issues, and this engagement needs to continue.”
With an air of celebration, in a hall filled with support from over 400 friends, family, alumni, students, staff, faculty, University of Waterloo representatives, and community members, Marcus Shantz was installed as Conrad Grebel University College’s eighth president on October 29, 2017.
Living in Toronto for 46 years, Mary Groh was increasingly surrounded by a multi-cultural society. As an active member of the Danforth Mennonite Church, following the closure of Warden Woods Mennonite Church, she witnessed the growth of various Mennonite congregations in the east end of Toronto.
Students at the University of Waterloo are an incredibly diverse group, with interests spanning math, health, engineering, science, environment, and arts. Many of these students have spent hundreds of hours of their life learning a musical instrument and, instead of giving up their love of music while at university, they have found a collective place to express it. The orchestra@uwaterloo is a full-sized symphony orchestra whose players are students, staff, faculty, and alumni of Waterloo.