Today we visited some families in the area and was treated to Mennonite sausage! We also visited Steve's church building for a Bible study with a group from the church. Although Steve and Joni live in Downtown Hamilton, the church is in a leafy suburb which presents challenges of it's own. The church has a congregation of about 70 people and I am told that it is traditional and made up of people who travel into church. This makes community connection difficult and the fantastic building (I was envious) remains unused much of the week. The building has worship space, meeting rooms and office upstairs, a large hall downstairs with further classrooms, large kitchen and wash rooms (translation: toilets). Out side it has it's own parking lot (translation: Car park) and a field behind. It's a new building, last updated in 1990's. The congregation pride themselves in keeping the building immaculate - clean, tidy, prestine - unused! We also visited another Mennonite church which couldn't be more different - building not immaculate but used daily for drop-in's, homeless groups, children's activities, food distribution. A combination of the Oasis Centre in Manchester and our former church ECFC in Bristol. Two very different Mennonite churches both with their challenges.
2 comments:
Hehe - how cool is the church sign!
(Want your own diy version - checkout http://www.churchsigngenerator.com )
I don't much about the Mennonite denomination, except one of my (actually mums)cookbooks - the more-with-less cookbook is a Mennoite cookbook - it has some great recipes and ideas, with an emphasis on wasting as little as possible. It has instructions on how to make yogurt, but after my not entirely successful attempts at making buttermilk I'm not sure whether it would be edible and that would be less-with-more!
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