November 5th, 2024Global Companions seek deeper mutual relationships
Winnipeg – Mennonite church bodies abroad are seeking deeper, more mutual church-to-church relationships with MC Canada as they grow and develop organizational strength.
Jeanette Hanson, Director, Director of International Witness, says these global companions want to share and compare their contexts, realities, and priorities, and from there, develop mutual learning relationships with Mennonites in Canada as a nationwide body.
Photo: Gary Janzen and Nhien Pham, back row centre, with friends from a congregation in Vietnam
during a visit in in October, 2024. Janzen says he and Pham are the only links between Mennonites
living in Vietnam and the outside world.
Hanson uses the analogy of a bridge. What was once a one-way, one lane bridge, has grown into a multi-lane bridge with two-way traffic.
Historically, the bridge between churches in North America and other countries saw mostly one-way traffic as North American mission boards or passionate individuals mediated relationships – often with a one-way flow of advice and money from the west. The one-way, one lane bridge gave the west the power to choose priorities and make decisions on behalf of those in need.
Such one-way relationships sometimes led to programs and projects that were not the top priority of the receiver.
Hanson has seen first-hand the shift from one-way traffic to two-way traffic across the bridge. She and her husband Todd worked in China from 1991 – 2015. She now works with organized church bodies in multiple countries from her home base in Canada.
The traffic across the metaphorical bridge has become heavier as churches in Asia, Africa, and South and Latin America express a stronger desire for mutuality and the levelling of power. There is also a hunger to share with Mennonites in Canada who want to learn and benefit from their global companions.
MC Canada’s need for bridges is being met by (mostly) volunteers called Liaison Workers. Each Liaison Worker brings specific skills and interests in facilitating the flow of traffic between specific global companions and MC Canada.
Liaison Workers do not have one-size-fits-all job descriptions. Rather each relationship brings its own unique context, and each worker brings their own passion and energy to the work.
Here are some of their stories.
Africa: Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, Angola, Sierra Leone
Tany Warkentin, a former International Witness worker in Burkina Faso, is familiar with the church context there. She is the bridge between AIMM (Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission) and MC Canada. AIMM describe themselves as, “… a “family gathering” of African, North American, and European Anabaptists working together.”
“I see my role as liaison between MC Canada and the various AIMM (Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission) partners, as a facilitator for connection between global companions,” wrote Warkentin in an email. “My challenge is to be a bridge by which our Mennonite churches in Canada, as well as those in Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, Angola and Sierra Leone, can share in that inspiration and learning that comes from being a global family.”
Warkentin works from home and uses online meeting technology to connect with global companions. Once a year, she visits face-to-face with leaders in Africa, allowing her “… to spend time with other church leaders, get to know them better, exchange ideas and make decisions together on our joint ministries.”
To help connect Canadian Mennonites with African churches, Warkentin answers questions and prepares reports and videos for Canadian congregations who want to initiate or enrich existing relationships with African churches. Such connections can grow into more formal relationships called Witness Support Networks, which groups together participants who wish to journey with global companions from a specific country.
“Through this process of walking together, we think, act and become more like God created us to be, a better reflection of Christ,” she said.
Warkentin understands that by-passing organizational relationships and connecting directly with individuals or individual congregations can be “easier to notice, feel and quantify,” but partnering through the more formal channels of organized national churches doesn't exclude personal connections from happening.
“We want to develop long-term relationships, with enough trust for partners to speak openly, honestly, and even challenge or disagree at times,” she said.
Money is often a gift that Canadians bring to the table.
“With money often comes more-than-our-share of power in relationships, as we often want to direct how ‘our money’ is used,” said Warkentin. “Church-to-church relationships give a healthier framework to balance this power.
“Our AIMM partners recognize that each church knows their context and "their people" best, so it is they who first discern their own needs and how to best respond to those needs while making good use of their local strengths and resources… Partnering as individuals often benefits the individual involved, even if the needs of their neighbour is much greater than their own.”
Global companions have told Warkentin repeatedly that they “… need MC Canada congregations, to walk with them in relationship over the long haul. Committing to and maintaining long-term cross-cultural relationships is not easy and often involves unexpected complications. But we are better equipped to make and keep this commitment with the stability that comes from doing it together with others, as a church.”
Vietnam
In 1997, Nhien Pham was one of a group encouraging a church re-planting vision in Vietnam, connecting with what was then the Conference of Mennonites in Canada (CMC). After CMC reorganized as MC Canada, Pham served International Witness by nurturing a relationship with Vietnamese Mennonites.
Today Pham is president of the North American Evangelical Vietnamese Fellowship and advisor for Evangelical Mennonite Church Vietnam (EMCVN).
The Mennonite movement in Vietnam grew out of relief efforts by Mennonite Central Committee and the Eastern Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities in the late 1950s. The Vietnam war severely impeded church development, and the already small number of Vietnamese Mennonites dwindled.
Pham works closely with Garry Janzen, retired Executive Director of MCBC. They have known each other for more than 20 years, and shared about their efforts via email.
Among many tasks, Pham translates Anabaptist learning materials into the Vietnamese language, helps coordinate disaster relief with leaders of EMCVN, and facilitates travel for Vietnamese visitors to meet with Canadian Mennonite leaders and churches.
Through the years, Pham has shared EMCVN’s joys and struggles. He wants to see EMCVN continue to flourish. He hopes Mennonites in Canada “… can learn from the Vietnamese believers how to be faithful to Christ in a hostile environment.”
The Evangelical Mennonite Church Vietnam (EMCVN) remains unregistered and thus unrecognized by the Vietnamese government. In the past, church leaders and members have suffered persecution for their beliefs and activities.
Janzen said he and Pham are the only links between Mennonites living in Vietnam and the outside world. Janzen helps Pham coordinate and connect EMCVN with International Witness and MC Canada congregations, particularly with Vietnamese Mennonite congregations primarily in Vancouver and Winnipeg. He has also developed a study guide for the book Anabaptist Essentials, which has been translated into Vietnamese.
The pair travel to Vietnam periodically to lead study groups and deepen relationships. “They really enjoy the affirmation and validation [our] relationship helps provide,” he said.
Janzen and Pham’s primary relationship is with the leadership of EMVCN, though the congregations they visit in Vietnam “are very happy to have the relationship with MC Canada.“ He is hoping that EMCVN will apply to join Mennonite Word Conference to help the group understand “that they belong to something much bigger.”
South Korea
Cheryl Woelk, originally from Saskatchewan, is a former International Witness worker. She served from 2002-08 in South Korea, working with peace education initiatives. She is married to Scott Kim. They moved back to South Korea in 2016 after stints of work and study in North America. They currently live in Seoul with their two children, ages ten and six.
“We play this role [of Liaison Worker] naturally because of our identities as a multicultural family trying to nurture deep ties with faith communities in both Canada and South Korea,” wrote Woelk in an email on the couple’s behalf.
Cheryl and Scott have masters level degrees from Eastern Mennonite University that have fostered their keen personal interests in peace building. They currently operate their own business, Collective Joy Consulting, which offers services in conflict transformation, leadership and organizational health for cooperatives, non-profits, and small businesses.
Being self-employed allows them to adapt to their children’s needs. “We've both had several opportunities for more full-time work, but decided to invest our time and money in Collective Joy because it allows the flexibility for us to spend time with family.”
They are passionate about their work because it’s “too easy for us to be divided by nation states and ethnicity. As we share stories and fellowship outside of our close comfort zones, we believe that God will show up in ways we can never expect,” Woelk wrote in an email.
Woelk and Kim believe that working together as church-to-church partners reflects the reality of God's global family because such connection offers “opportunities for contribution, support, accountability and love in every direction.
“We want to be in the space where we can witness the unexpected together and celebrate with our Creator,” said Woelk. “This way of relating creates beautiful soil, not for a cultivated and planned garden, but for a thriving forest of interwoven life and growth in God's Spirit.”
People and ministries in Canada and South Korea are enriched when “our eyes are open to the incredible ways God is working in South Korea to look again at our communities in Canada and wonder what ways God is at work that we're not seeing, for example among Mennonites of different backgrounds, with smaller congregations and with the work of peacebuilding.”
Japan
North American Mennonites first arrived in Japan in 1949.
What started out as a small Mennonite movement, remained small and is shrinking today, said Gerald Neufeld, who lived and served in Japan from 1995 – 2008, working alongside Tokyo Area Fellowship of Mennonite Churches (TAFMC).
Along the way Gerald met and married Rie, moved to Canada and worked with various churches in the Vancouver area. The now-family-of-five moved back to Tokyo in November of 2021, to be closer to Rie’s family and to re-connect with TAFMC.
The couple describes their liaison work as “relationship catalysts.”
“We’re trying to build a mutual relationship between churches, rather than being the focus, as representatives of MC Canada,” wrote Gerald in an email on behalf of the couple.
Working with Canadian resources, they have introduced retired Mennonite professors as resource people to speak at lay-leader training sessions (online) for TAFMAC, and they hold online prayer meetings including people in both Canada and Japan.
In Japan, many Christian churches struggle with low attendance (5 to 30 people), and aging pastors, and some churches have no pastors, said Gerald. Yet, they remain faithful and committed.
“The small Tokyo churches benefit being part of a much larger Mennonite family, and North American churches can learn from the faithfulness of Christians in Japan,” said Gerald.
In 1995 Gerald met a woman who was attending church but not yet a committed Christian. “Now, almost 30 years later, she’s still attending the same church,” he said. “It may be an encouragement for a Canadian church that has shrunk to 80 people to see “a church of 10 people [in Japan] who continue to worship for many years.”
To the Neufeld’s advantage are the years they spent in Japan prior to their current residency.
“In Japan, it takes a long time for people to open up and share deeply, in relationships. We can now build on the foundation of relationships begun almost 30 years ago,” Gerald said.
The Neufeld’s currently live in the original Anabaptist Center, a building that began its life as a mission worker home in 1965. The workers eventually left and the Japanese hosts died, leaving the small local congregations struggling to maintain a structure that sat empty for about 7 years.
The Tokyo churches were unsure of what to do with the Center. Such decisions had traditionally been made by mission workers. When the Neufelds expressed interest in moving from Canada to Tokyo around 4 years ago, the Japanese church renovated the center so the family could move in.
“We believe that church-to-church relationships are empowering,” added Gerald. “Rather than relying on just having a relationship with someone mediating in the middle, there is an encouragement to be more directly connected.”
Rie adds another layer of understanding to church-to-church relations. She’s observed that when mission workers retire or relocate, the relationship they have built is often lost. When the church builds connections with another church, it's more enhancing to the relationship even when in-country workers change.
“It's no longer a one-way ministry, meaning a giver and receiver relationship, but instead it can encourage each church to change perspective and make connections beyond themselves to other groups,” Rie said.
Ethiopia, Myanmar
Church-to-church relationships in Ethiopia and Myanmar require frequent and sustained attention due to the unique political situations in those countries. Ethiopia is currently embroiled in violent internal conflict A military junta in Myanmar continues to persecute Christians.
Norm Dyck navigates these challenges as church bodies there seek to build relationships with MC Canada.
Dyck ensures funding for in-country projects meets Canada Revenue Agency regulations. He also travels to the counties to share leadership workshops or discipleship focused teaching with leaders and congregations.
Dyck says the global church is growing despite massive challenges.
He said the future of the church in Canada will be impacted by its relationship – or lack thereof – with the global church. “I believe we will be able to reimagine our future as the church in Canada through our deep relationships with the global church,” said Dyck.
Dyck quotes Rev. Dr. Jehu Lian is a pastor at the Chin Christian Church in Kitchener and connects with the Anabaptist Church in Myanmar: "We cannot stand alone. We need your support."
Dyck said, “I think we too quickly see [the word] ‘support’ as money, when in fact support means walking alongside, advocacy, simply being present in times of need as well as times of celebration.”
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Photo caption: Gary Janzen and Nhien Pham, back row centre, with friends from a congregation in Vietnam during a visit in in October, 2024. Janzen says he and Pham are the only links between Mennonites living in Vietnam and the outside world. – photo supplied by Gary Janzen and Nhien Pham