Musical evening focuses on children in Africa

Saskatoon, Sask.

Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan recently kicked off a week of awareness-raising to draw attention to MCC's Generations at Risk project. The project raises money for African children touched by the AIDS epidemic.

[Graph Not Transcribed]

The opening fundraiser, held at Wildwood Mennonite Church on February 9, could have been billed as a "Coffeehouse with conviction." The evening involved soulful singing interspersed with passionate storytelling.

"It was such an emotional evening," said Lois Berg.

Since children are the target in this MCC project, it was fitting that Kim Thiessen performed music from her recent recording. "To such as these: Songs and lullabies for children of the world." Thiessen explained how her church, Foothills Mennonite in Calgary, encouraged her to make a CD of children's music and how Faith and Life Recording Studios in Winnipeg agreed to donate studio time for recording.

In turn, Thiessen is giving all proceeds of the CD to the MCC project.

Brenda Wagner from Akron, Pennsylvania, continued the children's theme with her stories from Africa. Her voice at times breaking with emotion, she moved hearts with her stories of children facing seemingly insurmountable odds and winning.

Jadrian Guenther didn't have much to say. Sitting quietly on his father's lap, the watchful two-year-old didn't need to. He lives in a secure world. And that, say people like Wagner and Thiessen, is the point of the project--to give children in Africa a more secure and hopeful future.