Passing on the Comfort: The MCC Story:
an afternoon of celebration and an evening of reflection, by Ben Stobbe

Some quilts featured at the afternoon quilt show were new, others carried the imprints of years of touching, caressing, covering and folding.Some were in the classical style, others resembled painted
scenes.Some were made to look at, others to keep out the cold.

Quilters are easily spotted here.Exclusively women, they step close, squint, check the stitching and then quietly make a commentto a fellow quilter. Then they step back and join the surrounding group of admirers. At this point someone usually makes a comment accompanied by nodding in unison. In this gathering men are not the detail people. They stand back, view the big picture and if they say anything it probably is in low-german and at best elicits a polite chuckle.

The only disquieting scene was when someone had the nerve to drape a quilt over the upright piano covering even the keys!Now quilts are important in our history but surely they should not silence music. (By the way, that near sin was spotted by a man--the quilters were too busy checking the fabric.)

Among Mennonites, quilting is part of the fabric of MCC. So it was entirely normal to link the afternoon show with the MCC story at an evening lecture. Helen Rose Pauls and Louise Price illustrated how quilts from MCC provided comfort either for themselves or families coming out of wars in Europe. The MCC story was well told by former MCC Director Ron Mathies. Not adverse to taking risks, Ronpassed on accolades given to MCC by outsiders; lest we become too puffed up, he balanced these with criticisms offered by others. He suggested the best accolade came from a Chinese government official who, in trying to describe MCC to another official, said "they are believers in God and followers of Jesus."

A short power-point slide show on MCC work in Sudan illustrated the challenges facing MCC: how to be effective considering the state of our world, how to deal with changes in our supporting constituents, what international programs should MCC focus on, how MCC deals with security concerns and how MCC determines the best resource allocation.