Place of Meeting

Joy in the everyday

Toronto United Mennonite Church March 2016

TUMC kids know how to make the best of an annual general meeting, goofing it up whilespaghetti was served during this year’s meeting. We’re doing a bit of catching up in this issue ––enjoy this look at what’s been going on around TUMC for the past couple of months.

Place of Meetingis the meaning of the Huron word

“toronton,” from which our city gets itsname. Fittingly, it can also mean

“plenty” or “abundance.”

Place of Meeting is also the monthlynewsletter of Toronto United Mennon-ite Church. May you find plenty here toenjoy and ponder. Opinions expressed

are those of the writers and notnecessarily of the congregation as a

whole.

Contributions of all kinds are enthusiastically received, through the

mail folder in the lobby or atdmartens@pathcom.com

Next deadline:March 29

Have you discovered the all-colour on-line version of Place of Meeting, com-

plete with live weblinks? Check thismonth’s issue out here:

issuu.com/pomeditor/docs/pom_march_2016l

NOTE: New address for submissions:

dmartens4@cogeco.ca

Editor: Doreen Martens

Scene around TUMC

Place of Meeting Page 2

Top: celebrating with Alison and Doug Blair at the dedication oftheir son, Hamish, on Jan. 31. Above, little hands get into the funas the junior youth bake cookies.

A taste of Italy at the AGM

Place of Meeting March 2016 Page 3

The youth turned our humble basement into the Trattoria TUMC on the evening of Feb. 20, completewith checkered tablecloths, menus in Italian, a slightlymenacing wait staff (cue the Godfather theme) and adelightful rendition of “Menno Lisa” on the wall. And,for diner’s pleasure, there was even a live violinist toentertain.

A Taste of Italy at the AGM

Place of Meeting page 4

Place of Meeting March 2016 page 5

The Blanket Exercise

On Jan. 17, our service explored thestory of Canada’s aboriginal peoplesthrough the Blanket Exercise, aphysical representation of how thelands, culture and dignity of our in-digenous brothers and sisters weretaken away from them through thesettler process. The moving service,following the completion of the Truthand Reconciliation process inCanada, reminded us all that there isstill a long way to go in bringingabout reconciliation, and that we allhave a role to play.

Place of Meeting page 6

The blanket exercise

By Indigenous Peoples SolidaritySubmitted by Doug Pritchard.

For the second year, CPTers were among the support-ers of the November Haudenosaunee deer harvest atShort Hills Provincial Park in Thorold, Ontario. In pastyears, Haudenosaunee hunters entering or leaving thepark have been subjected to anti-hunt protesters sur-rounding their vehicles with flashlights aimed inhunter’s faces, waving placards and calling out variousderogatory statements. In response, Supporters of theHaudenosaunee Right to Hunt organised to accompanythe hunters and demonstrate respect for this exercise oftreaty and inherent rights, joined by the IndigenousPeoples Solidarity team beginning in November 2014.

In addition to the Hunters, in the past local Hau-denosaunee who came out in support also enduredracism and harassment from protesters. The presenceof supporters (includng CPTers) practicing nonviolentintervention and deescalation helped to change that dy-namic. The second evening of the hunt saw Hau-denosaunee and Anishinabe people drumming andsinging to create a positive atmosphere, turning a tenseprotest site into a celebratory sharing of culture, musicand food as the hunters headed home.

The team helped to set up a ‘Peace Table’ on site,funded in part by local churches and supplied by thevegan activist catering co-op Food Not Bombs, as aCPT-style ‘experiment in peacemaking’. The PeaceTable had food and hot drinks for everyone, includinghunters, supporters, anti-hunt protesters, police and theMinistry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNR). Italso served as a place for passers-by to learn what washappening. The aim was to shift the oppositional na-ture of the protest/supporter divide and invite non-In-digenous Canadians to relate to their Haudenosauneeneighbours in a better way.

Since the last hunt, local allies have been busy creatingdialogue with the communities of hunt protesters. Thisincludes animal rights activists, local property ownerswith safety concerns, and even non-native huntersseeking the right to hunt in the park. The success of

these outreach efforts is shown in the contingent of an-imal rights activists that joined the supporters, demon-strating that a commitment to animal rights does notrequire opposing the rights of the Haundenosauneeover their territory.

The new Canadian government has named the need forreconciliation. The Supporters of the HaudenosauneeRight to Hunt know that Canada’s existence is basedupon treaty relationships with Indigenous peoples. Un-derstanding that the Nanfan Treaty of 1701 guaranteesthe right to hunt for Haudenosaunee peoples is criticalto healing the relationships between Haudenosauneeand settlers in Southern Ontario. The Nanfan Treatywas affirmed in R. vs. Ireland (1990) when it wasruled that the treaty is a living document.

Brian Skye, member of the Haudenosaunee Wildlifeand Habitat Authority (HWHA) says, “that [treaty] re-lationship is based on mutual respect, trust and friend-ship. Our respect for safety has ensured we conductourselves accordingly. Our trust is that we are allowedto continue to practice our traditional methods of har-vesting within the context of our mutual understandingof conservation. We continue to hope to build on therelationship so that we may understand that the accom-modation that all parties have undertaken will result ina natural balance. The ecosystem needs to rebound sothat indigenous plants and medicines can survive with-out invasive species being allowed to thrive.”

The MNR has identified deer overpopulation as one ofthe main reasons for devastated landscapes where floraand fauna are consumed to the point of erasure in thearea. The crowding of deer herds into close proximityincreases the spread of disease, which heightens thepotential for harmful contact with nearby human com-munities.

The land management partnership between MNR andHWHA has the potential to develop a real nation-to-nation relationship, where the rights, needs and skillsof different communities are balanced in such a waythat all are supported and the land is sustained for fu-ture generations.

Place of Meeting March 2016 Page 7

Accompanying the hunters at Short Hills

Place of Meeting page 8

Celebrating Advent

TUMC marked the season with song and manyvisual reminders of the this time of turningfrom indifference to love, from chaos topeace.

Ding dong merrily

Place of Meeting March 2016 Page 9

On Dec. 13, the third Sunday of Advent, ourservice was a purely musical delight, featur-ing many instrumentalists and singers fromthe tiniest to the eldest.

O Holy Night

Place of Meeting page 10

Christmas Eve, we packed the house withmany dear friends and family returning toenjoy the candlelit Service of Lessons andCarols, featuring young string players and awonderful quartet.

Scene around TUMC

Place of Meeting March 2016 page 11

Left, the youth enjoy a planning meetingover pizza in December. Below, some ofthe 20s and 30s group enjoyed an after-noon of curling at the Leaside Arena.Below, goodie bags delight the kids afterthe Christmas Eve Service. Junior youthget cozy in their construction-reducedSunday school space. And Ken Salsmandelivers a children’s story that madegood use of his toolbox.

Many TUMCers will remember Bock Ki Kim, a long-time member of TUMC who now serves the growingAnabaptist community in South Korea, This articleappeared in the Mennonite World Conference news-feed.

On Jan.30, nearly 100 people gathered in downtownSeoul, Korea to participate in the first Korean An-abaptist Conference. The goal of the gathering, ac-cording to Bock Ki Kim, director of the KoreaAnabaptist Center and co-sponsor of the event, was“to introduce Anabaptist theology and values in a pub-lic, academic setting” and to “challenge ourselves asKorean Anabaptists to see who we are and what wehave to do in South Korea.”

Participants listened and responded to presentationsby five speakers on the theme of “What is Anabaptismand Why is it Needed in Korea?” Presenters includedJohn D. Roth, secretary of the MWC Faith and Lifecommission and director of the Institute for the Studyof Global Anabaptism at Goshen College; Baptistseminary church historian Byung Doo Nahm; SangKyu Lee of the Presbyterian Kosin Theological Semi-nary; conference organizer and Baptist professor KiHyun Kim; and Won Bum Jung of the Daejeon Theo-logical Seminary.

In the conversation following the presentations, thequestion of nonresistance sparked the most vigorousexchange. For the past 60 years, South Koreans havelived in the shadow of a nuclear power to the north.Consequently, military service is an important part ofKorean cultural identity, especially for young men.The only recourse for conscientious objectors is im-prisonment, a choice recently exercised by Sang MinLee of the Grace and Peace Mennonite Church inSeoul, but his decision remains a highly controversialtopic among Korean Anabaptists.

Today, South Korea is home to one of the most cre-ative and dynamic expressions of contemporary An-abaptism anywhere in the global church, withpotential for explosive growth in the future. The ori-gins of Korean Anabaptism can be traced back to mul-tiple sources. In the decades immediately followingthe Korean War (1950–1953), Mennonite CentralCommittee had a modest presence in the country. Inthe 1980s, several key Korean leaders, based in part

on their contact with MCC personnel, began inde-pendent theological study of the Anabaptist tradition.Several pursued training at Mennonite seminaries inNorth America. In 2001, a more formal relationshipwith Mennonite Church Canada Witness, combinedwith the energetic leadership of members of the JesusVillage Church, led to the formation of the Korea An-abaptist Center, which has since served as an impor-tant resource to the growing movement.

Dae Jang Gan Press has overseen the translation andpublication of nearly 100 Anabaptist-Mennonitebooks into Korean. In fact, church leaders and otherscelebrated the book launch of the Korean translationof John D. Roth’s Beliefs: Mennonite Faith and Prac-tice before the conference began.

Through this Korean Anabaptist Conference, variousAnabaptist groups came together to offer a unifiedvoice within the larger Korean Christian context.

“People want to see a healthy, biblical church, justicein the public square, and a tangible community basedon the Anabaptist movement,” says Bock Ki Kim.“We hope that the conference can be a small catalystfor the future movement as well as a clear invitationto the participants to follow the way of Jesus Christ intheir daily lives.”

-MWC Release by the Institute for the Study of GlobalAnabaptism

Place of Meeting page 12

A little bit of TUMC in Korea

Scene around TUMC

Place of Meeting page 13

All generations get a chance tobe up front at TUMC! Left, theyouth report on their retreat.Below, the tiniest new baby andone of the elder members of thecongregations both have some-thing to teach the kids.