Welcoming IDPs with water in DR Congo / Reverend Kimbila
Relief, development and podcast
Release Date: 08/17/2023
Behind the scenes with MCC emergency relief / Bruce Guenther
Relief, development and podcast
Bruce Guenther remembers his grandma describing the smell of the bread at the MCC soup kitchen in Ukraine. She received food from MCC over 100 years ago. Today, Bruce helps coordinate MCC's relief response, getting food and other basic needs to those who need it most. View full transcript .
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A field trip: growing safer vegetables in Bangladesh / Jahangir Alam
Relief, development and podcast
When pesticides are used so much it starts to harm the community, MCC partners are looking to find natural ways to grow a safe vegetable. Go into the field with us to Bogura Bangladesh where MCC staff member Jahangir Alam shows us exactly what that looks like and the challenges that come with it. Learn more and see images from this story on MCC's website
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The Enneagram Prison Project
Relief, development and podcast
"I didn't expect something like this program to be in jail," says EPP participant Chantelle Peele. "It was very compassionate and understanding. And it came from a place of true caring. You can sense it right away when you walked in the room that the guides, and the facilitators cared, and they genuinely wanted to help." The Enneagram Prison Project uses a personality test called the Enneagram to facilitate trauma healing and self-awareness training for people in prison and jail. If you don't know what the Enneagram is, don't worry, we get into that in this episode... Featuring EPP...
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Distributing aid in Myanmar at great risk / "Mr. Khong"
Relief, development and podcast
Myanmar has been in crisis since the military seized power again in 2021. Distributing aid is dangerous, so MCC's partners in the region face significant challenges. Meet Mr. Khong (not using his real name for security reasons), an MCC partner in Myanmar. He shares how he is navigating these dangerous conditions, talks about the moral obligation he feels as a peace worker, the livelihoods being impacted, families fleeing from their homes, the unpredictability of the army and the constant worry about being a target. "Being meaningful to my country, being meaningful to my community,...
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Nonviolent resistance: Just peace in Palestine and Israel part 2 / Jonathan Kuttab, Alain Epp Weaver and Jad Issac
Relief, development and podcast
Part two of the conversation with Jonathan Kuttab and Alain Epp Weaver focuses stories of Palestinian nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation. We also hear stories from Jad Issac, the director general of the Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem (ARIJ), an MCC partner of over 40 years.
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Gaza update: Just peace in Palestine and Israel Part 1 / Jonathan Kuttab and Alain Epp Weaver
Relief, development and podcast
Gaza has seen so much devastation over the last few months. In this episode we are joined by Palestinian human rights lawyer and former MCC volunteer, Jonathan Kuttab, as well as Alain Epp Weaver, director of MCC's planning learning and disaster response department, to talk about the current situation and the history that has brought us to this point. MCC has continued to respond through local partners, Seth Malone and Sarah Funkhouser , MCC representatives for Jordan, Palestine and Israel, tell us how.
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Community built stoves / Tariro Cynthia Mutsindikwa
Relief, development and podcast
Meet the engineer behind Score Against Poverty’s fuel-efficient stoves used in Mwenezi, Zimbabwe. Cynthia discusses the importance of the community being involved in the design. You’ll hear how the collaborations of the community of women, the engineer and the local artisan all a part of making the stoves efficient, sustainable and easy to use. Cynthia says, “If you involve them you know that the rate of failure is low and you know that the model that you are going to design or make you are sure that the women will be using it”
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Love is a house / featuring author Yann Martel
Relief, development and podcast
In his book “The High Mountains of Portugal,” Yann Martel writes... “Love is a house with many rooms, this room to feed the love, this one to entertain it, this one to clean it, this one to dress it, this one to allow it to rest, and each of these rooms can also just as well be the room for laughing or the room for listening or the room for telling one’s secrets or the room for sulking or the room for apologizing or the room for intimate togetherness, and, of course, there are the rooms for the new members of the household. Love is a house in which plumbing brings bubbly...
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Goatcast: The mystery of the Damascus "goat monster"
Relief, development and podcast
One person said it “looked like a goat wearing a goat costume.” MCC staff Colin Friesen said it looks kinda like a bantha from Star Wars, but less hairy and also kind of like a camel? On this episode of the podcast we explore the mystery...of why the Damascus goat looks the way it does and why an MCC partner in Lebanon chose to distribute this goat. Full show notes .
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"Everyone is entitled to dignity and safety:" An update from Palestine and Israel / Sarah Funkhouser, Seth Malone and Pastor Ashraf Tannous
Relief, development and podcast
"A ceasefire and a just end to the occupation, is the biggest need. There, of course, are enormous humanitarian needs, you know, water, food, fuel, electricity have all been cut off to the entirety of Gaza...But the real need is for a solution so that everyone can live peacefully on the land." Sarah Funkhouser is one of MCC's representatives in Jerusalem, along with her husband Seth Malone. They join the podcast to provide some important context for the recent escalation in violence in the Middle East and to share how MCC's partners are responding. Pastor Ashraf Tannous shares a...
info_outlineWhat does it take for an internally displaced person in DR Congo to become stable?
Reverend Antoine Kimbila, general secretary of the Community of Mennonite Brethren Churches in the Democratic Republic of Congo, shares about the needs of this growing community in Kikwit and how the church is supporting those who have been displaced by violence in Kasai.