Missionary Myth #3
This is the third post in a three-part series addressing some of the common myths and misconceptions we experience most regularly while serving with Mennonite Mission Network in Barcelona. Read Part 1 and Part 2. Missionary Myth #3: We work for you We believe spiritual poverty is real and spreading, and the church is entering […]
Turmoil in Ecuador
Ecuador has generally been a very peaceful and politically stable nation, compared to its close neighbors, Colombia and Peru. Delicia and I have been serving the past four years with Mennonite Mission Network in Quito, Ecuador’s capital, and we have experienced this calm. However, Ecuador has struggled a lot economically. And now these struggles are […]
Missionary Myth #2
This is the second post in a three-part series addressing some of the common myths and misconceptions we experience most regularly serving with Mennonite Mission Network in Barcelona. Read part 1. Missionary Myth #2: Having fun "Wow, it sure looks like the Garbers are having fun!" This is the less-extreme incarnation of the previous myth that […]
Three missionary myths
Three missionary myths Note: This is the introduction and the first of a three-part series that addresses some of the common myths and misconceptions we experience most regularly as international service workers for Mennonite Mission Network in Barcelona. Some time ago, I talked to my friend Daniel, a monthly donor to our ministry, about challenges […]
Letting others be Christ to you
My term of service in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with Service Adventure was both the best and toughest year of my young life. A highlight of my year was my job placement. I worked at Our House: Bright Futures, a day program for adults with disabilities. I was surrounded daily with individuals who greeted me with […]
Ethel Yake Metzler traveled through life with passion and compassion
Ethel Yake Metzler, a passionate lover of travel and a compassionate lover of people, traveled to her eternal home on July 27, 2019. She was 95. Ethel’s life journey began Dec. 19, 1923, in Scottdale, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Martha Erb Eby Yake and C. F. (Clayton Franklin) Yake. She graduated from Goshen (Indiana) College in 1946 with […]
Al Motley, Jr., shares his difficult journey at MennoCon19
ELKHART, Indiana (African-American Mennonite Association with Mennonite Mission Network) — Al Motley, Jr., who gave a seminar at MennoCon19 in Kansas City in July, shared some of his life’s brokenness to challenge the audience to surrender to God in times of difficulty. His invitation was so compelling that the audience participation in his final "altar call" for […]
Revisiting risks in Service Adventure
NEWTON, Kansas (Mennonite Mission Network) – When Eric and Julie Yoder were in their late teens, participating in Service Adventure in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, stretched them beyond the safe cocoons of their childhoods. Two decades later, as a married couple with three children, they hoped that by becoming leaders of that same unit, they would once […]
Ethel Yake Metzler embodied originality, compassion, curiosity in life’s travels
Ethel Yake Metzler, who loved traveling, arrived at her eternal home on July 27, 2019. She was 95. Ethel’s life journey began Dec. 19, 1923, in Scottdale, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Martha Erb Eby Yake and C. F. (Clayton Franklin) Yake. She graduated from Goshen (Indiana) College in 1946 with a double major in chemistry […]
Church planters stoke gospel passions
NEWTON, Kansas (Mennonite Mission Network) – Gisselle Guity believed that while compassion and a sense of call led her into church planting, it is coaching and resourcing that would have kept her there. She and several other women discovered this the hard way. After two years of serving marginalized women in West Palm Beach, Florida, […]
Women leaders spark a growing blaze of Sister Care ministries throughout Brazil
NEWTON, Kansas (Mennonite Mission Network) – In January 2015, Mennonite Women USA’s Sister Care training sparked a fire that created an explosion of interest among women in Brazil. A few women from northeastern Brazil traveled several long days by bus to reach the training held in Curitiba in the south. Yet no distance was too […]
God speaks Potawatomi
The 2019 Trail of Death Pilgrimage of Remembrance, Lament, and Transformation helped seminary students and other participants remember the atrocities done "in the name of Christ" and seek transformation through conversations with Potawatomi neighbors. ELKHART, Indiana (Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary/Mennonite Mission Network) – On Pentecost Sunday, God’s words in the Potawatomi language, "I will pour […]