In 1996, when my family moved into our newly built house in Abbotsford, we threw a thank you party for the people who had graciously helped construct our house. Many of the builders were in the congregation where I had just begun pastoring, and shared my Dutch-German-Russian (DGR) ethnicity.

(In North America, many people wrongly name DGR ethnicity “Mennonite.” I say ‘wrongly’ because the vast majority of the world’s Mennonites have never lived in or had any ancestors from Europe.)

One of our guests was my next-door neighbour; he had volunteered as Continue reading →