by Wendy Chappell-Dick

Call for Postcards to Respond to Economic Justice within Mennonite Church USA

As part of our witness at the convention in Columbus this July, we are collecting small works of art from Mennonites who wish to participate in a public interactive display. We want to encourage reflection on the economic disparities within our own body. Up to ten silhouettes will be placed within the Convention Center representing people within our own churches who cannot participate fully, or who experience exclusion due to economic struggles. The silhouettes will carry artistic representations of economic data from the churchwide survey (Kanagy), as well as Bible verses and quotations from Anabaptist leaders. In this way we will remind ourselves of the important voices among us that are often absent or silenced.

The silhouettes will be free-standing and will appear at different places throughout the Convention Center each day. Each evening they will be collected and returned to a booth for safe-keeping overnight.

• If you had no money, whom would you tell?
• 7% of Mennonite Church USA households earned less than $15,000 in 2005 while 16% earned more than $100,000.
• The only good Mennonite is a rich Mennonite.
• 33% of racial/ethnic Mennonite Church USA households and 15% of Caucasian households earn less than $25,000/yr.
• Us and them. Rich and poor. Some of us are them. Some of them are us.
• 16% of racial/ethnic Mennonite Church USA members do not have health coverage.
• I feel ashamed that my child can not go to a Mennonite college. Or any college.
• One third of Mennonites in the United States estimated their home to be worth $200,000 or more.
• Globally, 20% of Mennonites possess 88% of all Mennonite wealth.