What we (also) do

If you've been looking at this blog, you might be led to believe that all we do is gaze at our children all day long. But actually, we do work fairly regular hours for MCC, in the Low German Mennonite program. Ramont continues to "oversee" the water projects around the Chaco town of Charagua, as well as help staff Centro Menno - which has been extremely busy the last month or so. I work every morning as a "publications worker" (how's that for vaguely discriptive?). This means coordinating the printing and distribution of the (twice monthly) Mennonitische Post and (monthly) Das Blatt - both prepared by MCC Canada. We have around 2500-3000 copies printed here in Santa Cruz, then label and distribute them to some 30 colonies via mail boxes at Centro Menno.

But the bulk of my work is to arrange content, prepare visual layout, and edit our own monthly publication, the 20-page Menno Bote. This magazine goes to about 2700 Low German Mennonite families (of 5-10 persons each) each month. It features articles, lots of photos, news, and so on - and for many of our readers, it is the only publication they get. Quite a challenge, and like I tell Ramont at least weekly, probably the most fun job I'll ever have.

Here are the covers from the last four issues, just to give an idea. You can click on any one of them to enlarge it.