Across MCEC, congregations find creative ways to put faith into action through service, community and care for others.  For Christa Bender of Nith Valley Mennonite Church in New Hamburg, that calling took an unexpected form:  a bicycle journey across Canada that combined a long-held dream, a love of quilting and a commitment to supporting Mennonite Central Committee's work, one comforter top at a time. 

Read Christa’s story, as told by MCEC pastor Greg Yantzi.

When Christa Bender dipped her bicycle tire into the Pacific Ocean in Tofino, British Columbia, on a spring morning in May 2024, she was beginning more than an athletic feat. She was embarking on a six-month journey across Canada that would weave together faith, community, and a Singer Featherweight sewing machine — one comforter top at a time.

Christa, a member of Nith Valley Mennonite Church in New Hamburg, Ontario, completed the 10,602-kilometre route over 125 days of cycling, arriving in St. John’s, Newfoundland, in late September. Her husband Mark drove their 15-foot Hymer camper from campground to campground, meeting her every 30 to 40 kilometres along the way. Together, they passed through every province, camping in 88 sites, parking in driveways and church lots, and along the way collecting fabric from thrift stores across the country.

The idea had been taking shape for decades. The dream of cycling coast to coast first stirred while Christa and Mark rode the Cambridge-to-Paris trail roughly 40 years ago, when they encountered a couple who had dipped their back tire in the Pacific and were heading to Maine to dip the front in the Atlantic. But it was three events in 2023 that gave the trip its distinctive shape: Christa’s longstanding volunteer work at the MCC Thrift Centre in New Hamburg; her involvement in Nith Valley’s sewing circle making comforter tops; and the arrival of a little Singer Featherweight sewing machine from a nephew’s family. The Featherweight came along on the trip.

“These three events all happened in 2023 and defined our trip across Canada — one comforter at a time,” Christa says.

Rather than volunteering at MCC Thrift stores along the route as she had originally planned, Christa found herself stopping to shop for fabric — at MCC shops, Salvation Army stores, Value Villages, and independent thrift outlets from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland. By the end of the trip she had pieced together 15 comforter tops. A quilt assembled from all the leftover scraps — a literal cross-Canada quilt — now tells the story of the journey in patchwork.

The route took Christa through landscapes that tested and astonished her. She cycled the Icefields Parkway from Jasper to Banff — “beyond beautiful,” she says — and endured five days of horse flies in northwestern Ontario by starting each morning at 5 a.m., before the insects woke. She pedalled beside the St. Lawrence, circled the entire Gaspé Peninsula, crossed Prince Edward Island on the Confederation Trail, and arrived in Newfoundland for a final, misty 700 kilometres to Cape Spear. She biked through 119 days of sunshine and 23 days of rain.

Throughout the journey, Christa understood herself to be on a spiritual pilgrimage as much as a physical one. Reflecting on the timing of the trip — delayed one year from the original plan due to family visits and the arrival of a grandchild — she says, “I always marvel at how insignificant events shape the journey of our lives. We need to acknowledge that God does guide us, and we need to trust that guidance.”

MCC was a thread woven throughout. Christa visited the four MCC Thrift stores in Winnipeg — she was most impressed by the Kildonan Thrift Centre — and made her fabric stops at MCC shops a recurring feature of the trip. Each piece of fabric carried potential: a future comforter top to warm someone in need.

The journey ended not with fanfare, but with characteristic warmth. After visiting the Terry Fox memorial in St. John’s and stopping at a pub with Mark to celebrate, Christa pulled into a local thrift store — still in her cycling gear. When she mentioned to the cashier that she had biked from Victoria, the cashier made an announcement to the whole store.

“In her amazing Newfoundland accent, she announced to everyone in the store that this lady had biked across the country — and everyone applauded,” Christa recalls. “A standing ovation in a thrift store. What a way to end the trip.”

Christa shared her story with the Nith Valley congregation on June 2, 2026, two years after the journey began — and brought along the cross-Canada quilt, now completed, as evidence that the road had indeed led somewhere beautiful.

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Christa Bender is a member of Nith Valley Mennonite Church (New Hamburg, Ontario), a volunteer at the MCC Thrift Centre in New Hamburg, and a member of the congregation’s sewing circle. The 15 comforter tops made during her trip have been donated through MCC. She shared her story at a recent dinner event. A video of her presentation can be found on the YouTube channel of Nith Valley Mennonite Church.