It was Tuesday, December 31, the last day of the year 2019, when Sangmin Lee called me with excitement to report news of his amnesty. Early in 2014 Lee was sentenced to 18 months in prison for refusing, on the basis of his faith, to complete his mandatory military service. Although Lee was freed on Keep Reading…
During World War II, in a French Mediterranean town far from her home in Goshen, Ind., Lois Mary Gunden Clemens risked her own safety by helping save the lives of Jewish children during the Holocaust. In 1941, during World War II, Gunden Clemens left her job as a professor of French at Goshen College and Keep Reading…
Angela and Rolf Kruse and their five children (four daughters and one son) have lived on Gesses mountain in Ethiopia among the Gumuz people for the past five years. They recently returned to Canada after 17 years of ministry in Ethiopia among Sudanese refugees and tribal people. Angela shared this story with Bearing Witness as Keep Reading…
All Mennonite World Conference member churches who participated in the recent Global Anabaptist Profile (GAP) survey were asked the following two questions: “If the government required military service, what would you do?” and “Do you agree or disagree that it’s okay for Christians to fight in a war?” For the Convención de las Iglesias Evangélicas Menonitas de Nicaragua (CIEMN), Keep Reading…
Last Sunday—the fifth Sunday of Lent—our pastor preached on John 12:1-8, when Mary anoints Jesus’ feet with costly perfume. In the silence that followed the sermon, the phrase that emerged for me was “costly extravagance.” Mary’s gift—expensive perfume poured over Jesus’ feet and wiped off with her own hair—was certainly extravagant. The overwhelming aroma and Keep Reading…
Last week was an exciting one for the Bearing Witness Stories Project, as we celebrated the release of a new book! Over the course of the past year, the Bearing Witness Stories Project and Plough Publishing have worked together to produce a collection of stories of costly discipleship that illustrate Christ-like nonviolence in a diverse Keep Reading…
Sang-Min Lee, the South Korean Mennonite conscientious objector so many of you were praying for, visited the Institute for the Study of Global Anabaptism and Goshen College on December 8, as part of a longer visit in the United States. In April of 2014, SangMin was sentenced to eighteen months in prison for his faith-based refusal Keep Reading…
Although some of the stories shared by Bearing Witness are available elsewhere in written form, many others are not. Rather they are family or personal stories shared with us in a letter, email, or, in some cases, an interview (see the stories of Paul and Suja Phinehas, Stanimir Katanic, or Tulio Pedraza for examples). This year the Keep Reading…
Like Paul and Suja Phinehas, featured in a recent story on the main Bearing Witness site, Naomi Tamura’s Christian faith makes her a religious minority. At Mennonite World Conference Assembly 16 in Harrisburg, PA, this past July, Tamura shared with us both the struggle and the opportunity that accompanies Christian faith in Japan. Both the Keep Reading…
Last year we shared the story of Sang-Min Lee, a Mennonite conscientious objector sentenced to 18 months in prison. The global church and others who resonated with Sang-Min’s peace witness responded by writing him letters and praying for him. Over the course of a letter-writing campaign supported by Bearing Witness, Justapaz, and Mennonite World Conference, Keep Reading…