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David Victor Toews was born in 1948 in Winnipeg, one of five children of John Aron and Nettie (Willms) Toews. John and Nettie had both arrived in Canada in 1926 as part of the Russlaender immigration from the Soviet Union. John A. Toews was a prominent Mennonite Brethren churchman and author, and had a lengthy association with Mennonite Brethren Bible College as a teacher and president.

In a 2009 issue of Rhubarb, David recalled of his upbringing, "my mother...told my siblings that my bad, spoiled behaviour was because I was 'artistic'.... and in a family of historians, made room for another kind of narrative, more complex, ambiguous, and real than the official histories that surrounded me and tried to define me." In 1967 David Toews, having completed one year of university in Winnipeg, embarked on an extensive tour including Expo '67 in Montreal, Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Returning in 1968, he spent a year working in a sawmill in British Columbia before enrolling at Goshen College were he completed a BA in 1971. The same year he married Kathy Waltner and took the name David Waltner-Toews.

Looking for a career that would allow him to work across cultures in a practical and meaninful way, he decided on veterinary medicine and completed his training at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in 1978. Waltner-Toews practiced as a veterinarian in Alberta and Ontario before pursuing a PhD in Epidemiology at the University of Guelph. Upon completion of his degree, David, Kathy and their two children lived in Indonesia for two years (1985-1987) while David worked on epidemiological projects. He returned to the University of Guelph as a professor in the Department of Population Medicine (1987-2011). During his career he collaborated on numerous ecosystem health research projects in different parts of the world.

Meanwhile, Waltner-Toews pursued writing in a number of genres. His first book of poety as sole author, That Inescapable Animal, was published in 1974. He has also had poems published in many periodicals and anthologies. He has written novels, short stories, and several nonfiction popular science books, in addition to scholarly works in his field. His writing frequently attempts to break down barriers between literature and science. In 2022 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada for his work in ecosystem health and development.

Mennonite bishop, teacher, farmer and author

The Église évangelique mennonite de Joliette began services in 1958, and formally organized in 1974. Harold and Pauline Reesor were the founding missionaries for the group, choosing this small industrial town, 70 km northeast of Montreal, because it had no French Protestant congregation at the time. Previous French United Church work had been abandoned. This mission venture originated through the Mennonite Conference of Ontario and the Mennonite Board of Mission (Elkhart).

The Reesors met together with fellow missionaries Tilman and Janet Martin, along with the Schmidt family from Rawdon for fellowship and worship in French. Harold Reesor visited many homes as follow-up for an evangelical effort to mail French Protestant material to every household in Quebec. In 1963, the Reesors handed over the responsibilities for the congregation to Clyde and Elisabeth Shannon, moving themselves to farm nearby Mascouche.

A church council was begun in 1974. Growth in the late 1970s led to gradual splitting off the members from nearby Rawdon for their own church and the buying of the present larger church building in Joliette in 1982. Since 1982, the congregation has had native French-speaking Quebecers in leadership but from 1994 to 2005 there was no resident pastor.After 2011 there was no pastor. The congregation did not meet officially for a number of years, and was declared closed at the Mennonite Church Eastern Canada annual meeting in April 2020.

The Avon Mennonite Church in Stratford, Ontario, Canada, began with a Summer Bible School sponsored by the Ontario Amish Mennonite Conference in July 1951. In 1963 this conference dropped "Amish" from its name, and became the Western Ontario Mennonite Conference. In 1987 this conference decided to disband their separate organization in favour of becoming a part of Mennonite Conference of Eastern Canada (MCEC) which was created by an inter-Mennonite Conference that also included the Conference of United Mennonite Churches in Ontario and the Mennonite Conference of Ontario. With the creation of MCEC, all the congregations that were not already members of the Conference of Mennonites in Canada (CMC), became CMC associate members. Avon Mennonite Church was one of these, and along with other churches originating in the Western Ontario Mennonite Conference, became a full CMC member congregation in 1995.

A frame church building was erected in the town of Baden in 1913 by Peter Moyer, a member of the Steinmann Amish Mennonite congregation. Baden was a mission post until 1945. Beginning in 1930 a minister was supplied by the Mennonite Mission Board of Ontario (Noah Hunsberger, Newton S. Weber). In 1940 it was agreed that the Sunday-school staff should be supplied by First Mennonite Church. In 1945 Baden organized as a formal congregation of the Mennonite Conference of Ontario. James Martin was the first pastor. Subsequent pastors were Urie Bender, Elmer Grove, Arnold Cressman and David Groh.

The congregation remained small in terms of membership , but held a very large Vacation Bible School program, with up to 300 pupils a year.

In 1966 Pastor David Groh left. Lester Bauman, pastor of the Geiger congregation, was invited to serve Baden as well. Many activities were then held jointly with Geiger. In 1971 Stanley Shantz served as pastor of both. The two congregations agreed to have Sunday services together, using the Geiger building because it was larger. In 1975 the congregations agreed to become one in all but name and membership. In late 1975 the Geiger building burned, and services were held in a renovated Baden building.

In September 1977 the congregations merged and became the Wilmot Mennonite Church at the Geiger location. In 1979 a new building was erected at the Geiger site.