News briefs

Students perform for 20,000 visitors during 90 Fiddler performances

Alberta's Rosebud School of the Arts is set to perform the theatre's largest stage production ever as part of its 25th anniversary season. By the time Fiddler on the Roof completes its 90-show run on August 30, students will have performed before an estimated audience of 20,000.

ICEJ Canada promotes podcasts

The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) is now broadcasting weekly news program out of Israel that focus on the Middle East. ICEJ Canada is encouraging Canadian support of the service. Programs include Front Page guest panelists Dan Diker of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and Calev Ben-David of the Jerusalem Post and Michael Oren, a leading Israeli scholar and historian. ICEJ was founded in 1980 as an evangelical Christian response to the need to comfort Zion according to the scriptural command of Isaiah 40.

Bible Society 100th trip

Eighty participants will travel the 1,045 km from Vancouver to Calgary over nine days to mark the Canadian Bible Society's (CBS) 100 years of ministry in the provinces of BC and Alberta. The 'Bikes for Bibles' tour, which includes cyclists, roadies and traffic directors, began in Tsawwassen, BC August 2. According to a CBS news release, the ride is in support of their ESL program, which provides Bibles for newcomers to Canada, and the India Orphanage Project, which provides Bibles for some of the millions of disenfranchised and forgotten children of India.

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St. Paul University sells Novalis

St. Paul University has sold Novalis, Canada's largest Catholic book publisher, to multinational corportation Bayard Presse. The 25 or so staff will be laid off October 1. The university will use monies from the sale to invest in an endowment fund. --Catholic Register

University of Emmanuel College new chancellor

Derek Hoskin, the Anglican Bishop of Calgary, has been elected by the University of Saskatchewan senate as its new chancellor. He will take up the appointment for an initial period of three years. -- Anglican Journal

St. Paul icon on tour

As part of a Catholic emphasis on the life and teachings of Paul, the icon of St. Paul painted by Benedictine Sister Marie Paul in Jerusalem specifically for Toronto is touring 78 of the archdiocese's 224 parishes. Pope Benedict invited Catholics the world over to celebrate a special jubilee year in honour of the 2,000th anniversary of the birth of St. Paul. -- Catholic Register

Ten Thousand Villages new appointment

Doug Dirks has been appointed public relations representative to Ten Thousand Villages, a Mennonite store and one of North America's largest 'fair trade' organization. -- MB Herald

August 7/2008