A Tribute to My Mother

 Many years ago, in a snowstorm, the dearly beloved woman holding me a year later in this photo, gave birth to me in a Manitoba snowstorm, although we were safe and warm in Winkler’s quite new Bethel Hospital.

After recently writing a tribute about my maternal grandparents, my wife encouraged me to write one about my mother. One of my initial reactions to this was, how does one write a tribute to someone that has been gone from your life for 60 years. On second thought, my grandparents have been gone for 35 years already, and I managed to write something about them. I gather I can write something about my mother. When we talk about my mother in this case, I need to be clear. My father remarried 10 months after my mother's passing, so we have a stepmother, but this is about my real, biological mother. She lives in our memories still, this woman who nursed me, mentored me and loved me till she was gone so suddenly in Dec. 1963.

I certainly have memories of my mother that could fuel such a piece of writing. There are also things I have heard about her from friends and relatives. Four years ago I came into possession of a five-year diary of hers from the ages of 14 to 19, as well as some other journals. This certainly shed a different light, or should I say additional light, on who my mother was.

And that will be my starting point. I want to say something about who my mother was before I go on to write about how she influenced my life. Again, these are my memories; my siblings are entitled to theirs.

My mother, Margaret Enns, was born in 1920 as the second child of Franz (Frank) and Maria (Marie, nee Loewen) Enns in a small farming community northeast of the town of Winkler, named Greenfarm. She came from ancestors who immigrated to Canada in 1876 from what was known as New or South Russia, referring to its having recently been taken from the Turks and Tatars by the Russians. Some 110 years earlier the same ancestor lines had move from Prussia, previously Poland, to this area of Russia. In fact, maternally, Jacob Hoeppner, who was one of two delegates who left Prussia to spy out the land of Russia as it were, is an ancestor of hers. Earlier in this century, a cousin of mine who did some travelling in these countries, and also some archival research, managed to trace her line indirectly back to the 16th century in the Netherlands. In fact, the information we have pinpoints what is now the province of Zeeland and quite likely the town of Veer. The family name at the time was DeVeere. From here, family members had moved to Schiedam, which is a suburb of present-day Rotterdam. They had also moved on to Amsterdam, and from there, still in the 16th century, to Poland.

More importantly than simply tracing genealogies, when it comes to the influences that shaped her life, the geological line consisted of individuals who had left the Roman Catholic Church in the so-called Protestant Reformation, to become Anabaptist, later known as Mennonites.

Even though many Mennonites, even then, were quite well off and found in a variety of businesses and professions, such as lace and braid making an, brandy distilling, or grain traders as in the case of the DeVeeres, they tended to live frugal and humble lives. This revived faith of theirs also caused them to do more to look after one another in many areas than others in the society around them might have done. Taking care of the poor and orphans was a duty. Helping out when there were fires and floods led early in the 17th century already to mutual aid organizations under such circumstances.

Although, as mentioned, they had conducted business in a variety of trades in the 16th and 17th centuries, the constant pressures of the king, the local councils and even trade guilds in Poland, led some of them to abandon these things and turn to farming in the Vistula Delta. To be sure, there were skills that the Dutch already held, such as knowing how to drain farmland and unproductive swampy land into productive agricultural areas. This led them to be quite prosperous in these ways to the point that some local councils and even local nobles and church officials who owned land were quite happy to have them as owners or leaseholders on their estates. For well over 100 years, they developed these skills further during their sojourn in Poland. However, when it became Prussia and ever more militaristic, this clashed with one of the tenets of their faith, which was not to take up arms. This was what led them to leave Prussia for Russia where they were given freedom not to have to do so, at least initially.

This last was one of the same factors that led my mother's grandparents and great grandparents generation to leave Russia for Canada when the state there began encroaching on the originally granted freedoms. Again, they arranged these same terms with respect to religious freedom with the Canadian authorities.

My maternal grandparents with their two youngest children and one on the way moved in 1923 from Greenfarm to an area somewhat more distant from Winkler to the northwest, known as Burwalde. Grandfather did well with farming here. By and large then, mother grew up in a home where they were never really in need of anything.

Mother went to the local country school until about Grade 9. By that time she had done things like join 4-H and Sewing Clubs and around that time she also went with some friends to Canadian Sunday School Mission Camp on lake Winnipeg at Gimli. Thus, she was not entirely shielded from the world as some more conservative Mennonites were. Indeed, it was around the time of her birth that many Mennonites left Canada for Mexico because, again, the government, of Canada this time, was beginning to require them to attend public schools, learn English, and be exposed to some nationalistic and patriotic learning, versus the simpler Bible – oriented education they had been allowed to do when the had the privilege of running their own schools according to the agreements negotiated when they immigrated to Canada. 

However, my mother's family was obviously not that conservative. Some of that conservatism did show up though when mother really wanted to go on to complete her high school. It took her some time to convince her father of this and she actually missed a year of school in the process. However, she had her eyes on teaching as a profession and so she actually completed high school in the private residential Mennonite Collegiate Institute in Gretna, nearly forty miles from home. She then went on to enrol in the provincial teacher training program in Winnipeg at what was called the Normal School on William Avenue. 

Again, mother had some friends that we're doing the same thing. They stayed in rooming houses in the vicinity of their school and sometimes spent time studying together as one can see from one of her pictures. From mother’s letters and diaries one also learns how adventurous she was. She attended concerts, went to see special displays, such s one of tropical butterflies in the T. Eaton Department Store, attended some public speaking events by prominent personalities, such as the gentleman who had founded the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Nor did she limit her attendance to church to those of Mennonite persuasion. She visited several different kinds of churches. She tried singing in some choirs too.

She was also though still very family oriented and, I would say, emotionally tied to the land where she grew up. She often writes of missing her family and not exactly looking forward to returning to the city after a weekend or holiday at home. She got to do her teaching practicum in Burwalde and really did not want to return to Winnipeg after that. She shared a number for experiences and opinions with her older brother Frank, including when he had to spend some months in a building camp in what became riding mountain national Park, which was his alternative service in World War II, instead of having to go into the military.

At the same time, mother seems to have been troubled by some lack of motivation and, should I say, self-discipline. She often seemed to leave her preparation and homework till rather close to deadlines. Then she would castigate herself for not starting things earlier and getting done more promptly. This often led her to question her decision to go into teaching and she often wondered whether she was moving in the right direction. These sentiments come out in her diaries and include failure to make entries on a number of dates.

However, now that this was the path she had chosen, her father, who had experience as a school trustee, used his ability and connections in this regard to make sure she got a teaching job upon graduation from Teachers College. Her first job was in fact in the area that had been the village where her ancestors had settled just southwest of Winkler, Hoffnungsfeld. However, she then moved on from there to another rural area which was still Mennonite, Clear Springs, near Steinbach.

Mother was not even through teaching her first year at this school when my father entered her life. They both discovered they shared a mutual interest in Christian missions and father was at that time set on returning to Northern Manitoba to continue a work pastorally that he had begun there as a teacher fulfilling his conscientious objector alternative service status. However, his prospective employer, the United Church, really wanted married staff in those positions. Within six weeks of their meeting, they were married and less than two months later, they were on their way north.

Mother was by this time 24 years of age and I think she was relieved to be married, as many people in that period of time got married younger than that. At the same time, given what I have read in her diaries and what I know of her life with our father, I know that whirlwind romance was really built on love. This was demonstrated so well as far as I can recall, all through the 17 years of their married life of which I was privileged to be a part of. One example of this that I often cite is that only once do I recall her and father getting into an argument. It was over whether we should take a family photo when we were in our Sunday best before lunch, interfering with its being ready and warm, which I think was Dad’s inclination, or after, which I think was mother’s preference. I don’t remember though which way the decision went. 

Whatever problems plagued our mother as referred to above in terms of those years of high school and later study, did not seem to rear themselves in our years as a family as far as I can recall. She worked very hard. Within 11 years of marriage, she had five children, four sons and one daughter.

Mother had learned to cook and bake and she provided for us better than well in that regard. I would have to say we were spoiled, especially when it comes to how much dessert was part of our life. It is a wonder we aren't all diabetics. In spite of all the hard work mother had to do to satisfy the appetites of five growing children, I really don't remember her ever limiting what we ate. There always seem to be enough food.

Living up north, meant all of this baking was done in the wood stove. Father, later aided by us children, helped supply that stove with wood to keep the house warm as well as to do all the food preparation. We also had to go to the river, later the lake, to bring in water. Carrying out buckets of slop to a designated area was another task we were at times entrusted with. Mother and father also put their hand to gardening from the beginning. When we got older, mother also canned some of the fruit we picked, particularly Saskatoons. We were often given fish by our neighbours and she would can some of that. When we went south to visit our grandparents, which was more or less for the better part of a month almost every year, she, grandmother and my aunts would pick and can fruits and vegetables from the grandparent’s garden to help us through our winters up north.

We did not have electricity to begin with either, so all of this work was done by the light of gas or coal oil/kerosene lamps. Mother also was very active helping father in the mission work, teaching children, playing the organ and piano, which she had taken lessons of when she was young, which again shows that her parents were not that conservative. She and father would sometimes sing duets for the worship services. She did sometimes get local girls to help with housework.

Part of the work was having Bible studies and she and father would trek to the different homes where these were sometimes held in rotation, which meant bundling up the children in winter to be pulled along by sleds until we were old enough to walk the distance.

There is some evidence that mother had a degree of anxiety. One notable story that reflects this is that when she first was being given the opportunity to learn to drive, which again is a progressive thing for those days, she was going too fast to make a corner and either did or nearly went into the ditch. She walked away from that and never learned to drive. We didn't hear much about it where were children, but I know she was often anxious when we lived in Loon Straits and father made many boat trips back-and-forth across the 8 miles stretch of open lake to where the road ended to go to pick up supplies or take people for medical care. Sometimes those crossings meant encountering very high and dangerous waves. I am sure she was praying regularly.

Besides going to Bible studies, mother and father did a lot of home visitation. Sometimes mother did this on her own, including taking us children along. When we were older we enjoyed this because it gave us a chance to visit and play with our friends while mother or sometimes both parents would visit with their parents.

One thing about our parents, and I am not sure who would be the one to point to most here, but I know for myself, if I seemed to show an interest in something that was positive, they greatly encouraged it. When I was barely starting school, I became interested in the birds that populated our neighborhood. The next thing I knew had a set of bird books and then even a year’s subscription to the Canadian Children's Audubon magazine. When I showed a penchant for drawing, I have a notebook or two where mother has written interesting comments about my drawing, which she certainly obviously encouraged. Some of it in my preschool years looks more like what we might call abstract or modern art but mother tried to find something in that as well. I remember in Grade 6, when it became known, that in our Social Studies, we were going to do a lot of work that involved including illustrations in our homework, we got a prescription to the MacLeans magazine and were allowed to cut pictures from it to use for our homework. Given my artistic leaning, when paint-by-number sets became a fad, I was given one of those for Christmas when I was, I believe, perhaps 13.

When I was about six years old, our mission chapel or tabernacle as father had named it, was provided with a piano ,which was really given to us as a family, as we kept it even as we moved. Mother then took it upon herself to try to teach us children piano and when we moved to Winnipeg when I was already in grade 11, she and father arranged for us children to continue to take piano lessons, which I did, probably until the end of grade 12. At that point I was probably approaching a Grade 6 level in music.

Father had been interested in music as well and had wanted to play the violin, so mother's wedding gift to him was a violin. Somehow, in his busy life, he never got into it. When one of the teachers in the community when I was in Grade 6 turned out to be a fairly good violinist, I ended up taking lessons, but only for a year, as he left the community after that. Year later, when our daughter was studying violin, we bought Dad’s old violin so Anika has that memory of her grandmother.

In spite of not having grown up around water, mother went with us on picnics that involves boat trips. When we were younger, in Grand Rapids, this involved leaving the security of the river and heading out on to the lake to what we called a beach, but which was really mostly gravel. When we moved to Loon Straits, we often packed things up and went and had wiener and marshmallow roasts, accompanied by other foods and desserts, on the large granite rock points that framed our own private sandy bay. She also went with us when we would take boat rides across the 2 mile bay to what we called the river and travel up it to The Rapids, which was the end of how far a boat could go. 

We boys love to go out exploring from our home. In spring, it was always exciting, and there was some competition between us and our school mates in this regard, to see who could see which birds had returned first from their annual migrations. We always wanted our mother to come with us and on one of our Saturday morning excursions we were so glad when she actually did join us one spring morning. We tramped through the sometimes still deep melting snow to see what we could see. We boys didn't really sense it at the time, although I think I already knew that she had some back and foot troubles and problems with varicose veins, which probably did not make such hikes easier. But she was game to go with us. We were thankful.

I think we were also spoiled when it came to play. We seemed to have a lot of time to play as a child. I don’t know that we were expected to help much until we were attending school. Then we did things like wash and dry dishes, sweep the floor and sometimes help with baking or other food preparation, not to mention carrying wood and water. 

I must comment on discipline. We kids did get into arguments and fights. However, I don’t remember mother being hard on us. If we had really crossed the line, it was father she turned to for the dreaded spankings, which were not frequent in any case.

By the time mother had come to her second year of teaching, before getting married,  it seems she had begun to enjoy it. Her pupils had obviously enjoyed her, as they were really quite sad to see her go when she left six weeks before the end of the year to get married. Thus, it was not surprising that when we moved to Winnipeg and were all in school after a year there, she managed to get herself a substitute teaching job. I remember how happy and excited she was to dress up in her white blouse and grey flannel skirt and go and do this. Her first teaching job was actually at the school our second youngest brother Lloyd was attending, Princess Margaret in North Kildonan. Then she did some substituting teaching further north at McIvor School. Unfortunately, that ended prematurely, as did our having our mother, as she passed away some two weeks before school would've closed for the Christmas season, in 1963.

One’s mother might have passed away, but mother is never out of our lives. Especially when Anne and I began raising our own family, there are so many junctures in the lives of a family and those who were her grandchildren, that she would've loved attending, but she was never there. Indeed, when our daughter was born, our neighbour in the next block, a very kind and hospitable church lady who was raised in Winkler MB, came to visit us and brought a gift for us. She was so surprised, "She looks just like her grandmother!”

“How do you know?" Anne asked.

"I babysat for your grandmother." Mrs. Mary (Abe) Wiebe knew who my grandparents were since we told her of our connection to the Mennonites in southern MB when we moved to Gladstone to practice medicine in the summer of 1978. Every Sunday she told church people how much Anika looked like her grandmother. We have two pictures displayed side by side on our mantel, of both Mother and Anika at a very similar age. They indeed belong to the very same family, the Enns family of Winkler, my mother's roots. Even in later life photos, we saw when we came into possession of some of mother’s photo albums, it was uncanny how our daughter sometimes took poses just like her grandmother! 

In terms of what a mother can offer, who knows how much advice I might have gotten in terms of work, career, marriage and parenting, had she been alive when I really needed it. I know my father did his best as well. However, that all changed when he married a year later and soon began to raise our step siblings. But that is another story. Mother had done most of her upbringing for me by that time, as I was 17 when she passed away, and I know she left me a very good legacy in so many ways. There was her faith, her family devotion, her adventurousness, open-mindedness, gentleness and her creativity. All of those have been influential in my life as well. Someday I hope to be able to thank her for all of this when we meet in the promised new earth.

With help from my wife, Anne.

Grandparents and the Family Farm, a Tribute

When our family moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1962 I began attending a ‘big city’ high school, Daniel McIntyre, in Grade XI. I was surprised, as I got acquainted with some of my classmates, that some did not know their grandparents. At the time, that was almost unfathomable to me. My grandparents, Maria (Marie) and Franz (Frank) Enns, and their farm 5 miles northwest of Winkler in the Burwalde school District, had been a major portion of my life from the time I was born.

Indeed, when I was born, my mother Margaret was staying with her parents and it was Grandfather who took her (and me, as yet unborn) to the new Bethel Hospital in Winkler, Manitoba, some 75 miles southwest of Winnipeg, where I was born in a snowstorm. Mother and I were staying at Grandparents Enns because our family, now three, was living far to the north in remote and largely isolated Oxford House, Manitoba. My parents had gone there some 15 months earlier – not even three months after their marriage, which itself had occurred less than two months after they met! - to begin a term of service in pastoral ministry to the indigenous people there under the auspices of the United Church.

In terms of our reuniting with my father, my birth came at an inopportune time, as it was ‘freeze up” of rivers and lakes in the north, so there was no transportation in or out, as boat and airplane were the only means. Airplanes that flew into these communities at the time could only do so if they had floats for summer or skis for winter, as they had not yet developed permanent landing strips within most of these settlements. So, mother and I stayed with my grandparents for a good month before it seemed that it was acceptable to travel north to The Pas to catch a flight home.

Grandfather, mother and I took the train to The Pas. Perhaps partly because it was freeze up, but also because it seemed that there were difficulties with the aircraft we were to fly in, the wait to fly out stretched on. Grandfather stayed on for a while but eventually had to leave us, as his eldest son's marriage was coming up (Uncle Frank). Grandfather had a couple of unmarried children (Marvin & Marian) still at home, and the farm to manage, but his accompaniment of us reflected in part his paternal love for his descendants as well as his interest in missions, which we were engaged in. He trusted the farm to his wife, who still had the help of the oldest son and youngest one,  these two boys separated by three sisters, all already married, and no longer living on the home farm.

Grandpa, as we called him, had been born in the greenfarm school district, just a couple of miles northeast of Winkler. He and grandma had been married for three years when my mother was born after her older brother, and a year later, the young family moved to take over their own farm, in 1923, in the Burwalde School District.

I believe our grandparents again showed their brave commitment to our family and our mission work by making the long trip by steamship and then canoe to visit us while at Oxford House. I am not sure when our family left Oxford House, but I know they were back at the farm again at least by the time I was about a year old. Nor do I know how long we stayed there at the time. We were in transition from Oxford House to a new mission venture in Buffalo Narrows, Saskatchewan, which began October 7, 1947.

By March, 1948, we were again back at the Enns farm in Burwalde. Once again, mother was expecting and in May my first sibling, Loretta Margaret, was born. Again,  we experienced the patient, loving, care and hospitality that our grandparents showed us for this four months stay with them.

As if that was not enough, grandfather again showed what I think was his combined love for his daughter and her family and for missions, by joining us in our new mission venture in Grand Rapids. In fact, he and his brother–in-law, John Braun stayed for as long as it took to get a new house built to a point where it was satisfactory for us to move into. Our family then settled into life in this new community. In the fall of 1949, our grandparents again showed their devotion to us when grandma and our youngest aunt, Marian, took the steam ship up Lake Winnipeg for a visit with us.

Not six months later, our family, now for with a third child on the way, was back at the farm for another lengthy stay. This was to accommodate the birth of our Leslie David, as there were still no medical facilities in Grand Rapids and I guess our parents did not have sufficient confidence in whomever might have been an indigenous midwife in the community. Again, just as with my birth, the timing was not the best but this time it was because of the break up. I am not sure, but guessing from the pictures we have, I suspect we did not get back to Grand Rapids for sometime. The winter of 1950 was one of extra ordinary snowfall and we had fun playing on the high snow drifts on the lee side of the shelter belts on the farm, digging tunnels and hiding places. We watched uncle Marvin use his home made snowblower to clear the driveways. Then came the flood that wreaked havoc with transportation.

Really, we spent practically a month at our grandparents pretty much every year in the 40s - 50s. To begin with, until 1952 or 3, we crowded into the old two-storey house. I remember the old swinging door between the front room and beyond with its cracked paint, the kitchen at the back where we enjoyed scrambled egg breakfasts which our crazy uncles taught us to use sugar and syrup on. Like pancakes I guess. From there it was a small step to put syrup, honey or jam on toast or bread and flip it over into a helping of greiven/cracklings to come up with a nice sweet and salty dish long before sweet and salty granola and crackers!

No one ever seemed to put a limit on the sweet.  We were spoiled, no doubt about it. There were cinnamon rolls, donuts (homemade), cakes pies, cookies, you name it. It seemed like every lunch, or dinner as we called it, and supper ended with dessert. If nothing else, there was jam, honey or syrup on bread or Grandma’s wonderful buns. Grandpa would come home from the daily trip to town for whatever was on a shopping list and mail and bring the famous Winkler Gardenland four quart cardboard buckets of ice cream, either fruit, vanilla or chocolate, (there weren't nearly as many favours then is now) and we would dig right in, either on a cone or in a dish, which I preferred, thinking I could get a bigger serving that way! In summertime, when we got to go along to town, we might get a popsicle or revel. Or, Grandpa would come home with ice cream wafers, fig newtons, chocolate puffs with that little bit of jam in the center open the wafer, nor toasted coconut marshmallows. At Easter we had our share of chocolate covered marshmallows, and those sweet small sugary coloured eggs. At Christmas we had those sour gooseberry and raspberry candies and other hard candies, sugar coated orange slices, nuts (which I was never found of at that age) and sometimes chocolates.

Before breakfast, or maybe sometimes lunch, grandpa would read from the scripture and between his dentures and residual German accent, we still heard the Word. At noon, we tuned in regularly to a farm show, the Jacksons, to follow their lives. I also have fond memories of grandma, likewise with a residual accent and false teeth, which she had sometimes taken out by that time, reading stories to us at bedtime, especially Johanna Spyri’s Heidi.

Sunday mornings found us in our Sunday best and all on our way to Sunday School in the local school, after which we would get back in the car and drive on to town for church. Sunday school was in English but church was still in German in those days. Sometimes we went to Sunday School there, which was changing to English. For the worship service, when we got a little older, he would sometimes go and sit in the balcony and read our Sunday School papers and look down at that memorable scene of fancy hats on one side of the centre aisle and many bald heads on the other!

Grandpa and grandma really believed in the family too. We had regular family gatherings, especially on Sundays, sometimes beginning with lunch or just the afternoon, ending with vaspa. Of course we had our fair share of what some would call traditional Mennonite food, such as arbus and rollkuchen in summer, with tart Pembina plum jam on the leftover crullers, or even syrup or honey. We certainly also had farmers sausage and verenika with cream gravy. For New Year's there was portzelke and sometimes in the summer we had apple fritters with farmers sausage and vinegar. There was roast chicken or ham with mashed potatoes and gravy, and egg salad. We would on occasion all pack up as extended family and share this experience at one of our uncle or aunts’ homes. Nobody lived more than half an hour drive away. One family who lived the farthest away, in Altona, did not have a car at the time, so grandpa would drive all the way over there and pick them up and bring them for the gathering and then take them home again. And this was in a car that lasted him over ten years! He was determined to have us together as much as he could. This family spirit was also evident in his joining in his family family-of-origin gatherings, which included us if we were around, helping is get to know we belonged to an even bigger kinship.

While the adults were visiting or sometimes the men would be inspecting the crops, we children did things like swing on the lawn swing, play croquet, or a favourite over the granary, “anti- anti over”. There were always a couple of bikes to ride too. That's where we learned to ride bike. When we were thirsty, we simply went to the well beside the house and pumped up cold fresh water into the communal cup that always hung on the pump. In winter we played indoor games such as Chinese checkers, regular checkers and, eventually a favourite, monopoly.

We learned to help too. Sometimes that involves taking a bucket of milk to feed the calf that may have been tied in the yard between the barn and the fuel tank. Or taking a dish of cream to feed the cats, or scraps for the dog. We picked a lot of raspberries, peas and string beans, shelling the peas and cutting up the beans.

Sometimes we would meet with uncles and aunts for picnics at the park in Morden or even over the border in Walhalla, North Dakota, where there was a pool we could swim in. When I spent the summer on the farm (see below), grandpa took me along to a rodeo at Manitou. We sometimes also visited the Morden Experimental Farm to wander through the park-like grounds with their many varieties of trees and flowers.

Overall, this life was very good. When we were living in Loon Straits lose five years before we moved to Winnipeg, we got our own car and so were able to make more frequent trips down to grandpa’s. There always seem to be a place to sleep and enough food to eat. Sometimes we would stay over at cousins. I have to think with much gratitude of all the extra work we seven must have made with our extended visits - finding places to sleep, making beds, doing extra laundry and extra meal preparation (aided by aunts when we had gatherings). Grandma did it all, with help from Aunt Marian and our mother and father and - sometimes us kids.

I don't remember that we ever experienced much discipline from our grandparents. Perhaps that was left mostly to our parents. I do remember one occasion when a cousin and I saw our grandfather and perhaps an uncle or two working on a field some distance away. We decided to head out through the field to see what they were up to. Grandpa let it be known that he was not impressed that we had trampled down a lot of grain. 

We had only lived in Loon Straits some nine months when we had to move from one rental home to another. It was March but still possible to cross the lake with a vehicle. Grandpa and Uncle Marvin came with the latter's Chevy pickup to help us make the move. I have mentioned the grandparents support of our mission endeavors, of which you could say this was an example. They were open to connecting with the indigenous people. On one occasion, one of our school mates had a severe case of poison ivy that required prolonged medical attention. Where did we all stay? At grandpa’s so he could go to Winkler for treatment.

After Grade 11, I spent the entire summer with the grandparents on the farm. I helped with the gardening and regular mowing of the large lawn spaces. I helped with some fieldwork such as haying. However, I never really did to learn to do much tractor work from grandpa. My major occupation that summer was to scrape paint off all the farm buildings except the house, and then paint the lot. I learned to use a spray painter and that certainly helped speed up the process. Sadly, I don't think some of the buildings have been repainted since (see photo 1 below).

All of this left me with a deep and abiding love for these wonderful grandparents. I could not have wished for better. When I was older, I continued to visit them, thinking especially of occasions like birthdays and anniversaries. When I started going with my wife, Anne, we made a visit to the farm early in our relationship. I heard later from Grandpa that they had sensed right away that I was going to marry Anne. Again, their generous loved showed itself in their openness and impartiality, already referred to when it came to indigenous people, was the same for Anne, who was Chinese extraction. When Anne had some family troubles after she had gone back for a visit to Taiwan, and couldn't return to get married at the time we had planned, she called in a panic to let me know. It seemed I knew exactly where to turn for help. She was expecting me to come and rescue her, but I had no such funds. I went to see Grandpa and without batting an eye, he gave me enough to cover the return trip to Taiwan. Of  course, I repaid him when I got my next bursary. Then, when we got married, where else but in their church, Grace Mennonite in Winkler, my mother no longer living, and father in Mexico on assignment and unable to come, our dear grandparents were pleased to have the seats of honour with us at the head table (See photo of us four below, September 24, 1977).

They came to love Anne dearly and when we went for a visit, they often wanted to gift us with something necessary, such as an extra hand mixer they had, garden tiller-which we borrowed for a while and returned, an heirloom clock from Russia - which we did not take, knowing that should be kept in the Enns' family, cookie cutters and a rocking chair when our first child was born. Indeed, such was the level of our relationship that even though our first home was some 115 miles from the old family farm, grandpa and grandma came to visit after the birth of both of our children as soon as they could. With our daughter, that meant they were already in their 80s.

Indeed, when they reached their middle 80s, they began to show signs of decline. First they moved off the farm into an apartment in town. Then grandma ended up in a care home and passed away. Grandpa followed suit a year later. They never lived to see the nineties. It was a great loss but they were of the age and state of health where they were expected to pass to the next life and we knew they had an even better future awaiting them there. For myself, with all the memories that farm holds of people and events, I am glad at least the yard is still in the family.

These grandparents were, to me, wonderful role models of love, nurturing care and  generous hospitality. They were quiet and humble Christians, faithful and devout.  They weren’t overly religious about always needing to attend church or Sunday School, but  they did so quite regularly and faithfully, again, taking them with us and providing that modeling. This also extended to community events such as picnics, nahverein (Women’s Auxiliary) and Jugendverein (Youth programs) when they featured missionaries or held sales to raise money. Grandpa added to his mentoring and role model status by actively canvassing to fundraise for the Russian Mennonites when they came in the 1920s, actively supported the Mennonite Central Committee and served on the local school board.

To honour my grandparents and remember their enduring love, and the home and yard where all this took place, I had a picture enlarged, framed by a drawn-in window, as if inviting me in, hung in my living room. It is of the drive way between two rows of evergreens, leading into the familiar yard and ordinary bungalow where Grandparents Enns used to live, where I still could imagine Grandpa's swift (running?) walk as he would come to meet us when we visited, or Grandma gazing through the kitchen window towards her dear grandchildren playing in the yard, soon to provided us with her warm cookies. We all knew, they loved us always!

- Lorne Brandt, with help from Anne 2023 10 18

 

Why I (Still) Read the Bible

I have been reading the Bible for some 70 years. I know that because my faithful Christian parents gave me my first Bible when I had barely learned to read. Not surprisingly, that long ago, it was what is commonly known as the King James, or sometimes Authorized Version. It is only called this because it is the first English translation to be approved by a king, James II of Britain in 1611, when the king of England was considered the head of the Church of England.  I still have my copy. 

In the interim, I have bought and read through all or part of at least half a dozen other translations, ranging from the revised standard version, bought when I was in Bible College, through the New English Bible, the new international version, the new revised standard version, which I like because of it's more gender inclusive language, the message and the first nations version, which I appreciate for its fresh new simplicity.

Not trying to boast here, but by my count, I think I have read the Bible through at one time or another 15 times or more. I am sure there are many believers who have read it a lot more than that. Half a dozen years ago, one of our church members let it be known he had read through the Bible 40 times!

So why do I (still) read the Bible? I remember when I was about 12, I thought I could read through the Bible and discover all the rules for the right way to live. I think some people still look at the Bible that way. The Jews, of course, actually commonly call their Bible, more or less equivalent to our Christian Old Testament, the Law. Of course, they also have what they refer to as Wisdom Literature and the Prophets.

I freely admit that when I was younger, reading the Bible was sometimes part of an assignment. It was certainly something that one had to put effort into doing. It really wasn’t a joy. I often wondered at the familiar saying from the palms, even put to music, to the effect that "my heart pants for you or God "or for "your commandments." I really could not identify with those sentiments.

However, as I grew older and continued to learn more about the Bible and better ways to interpret and understand it, especially being enriched by learning more about the context within which it was written, I actually began to read it more. It reminded me of when I was in first year English in university. In high school and earlier years, at least in my experience, we basically read literature at more or less face value. However, in first year university, I began to read and learn about the authors, and the times in which they lived. That made their writing a whole lot more interesting. It's the same with the Bible.

Recently, I read something about false teachings, which made me wonder, do we as Christians in North America, at least in my Mennonite branch of the church, encounter much false teaching? After thinking about it for sometime, I can came to the conclusion that the main false teaching that the church has been dealing with for the last 150 years or so, is the conservative, fundamentalist, literal approach to reading and understanding the Bible. Too many young people, brought up on this diet, gave up the faith when they encountered other schools of thought and evolutionary teaching as they moved into high school, college and university. They just could not see how you could have the Bible and science, as many have dichotomized it falsely. Others stumble at stories, especially from the earliest parts of the Bible, and even the miracle stories which are sprinkled through the Old Testament but especially common in the New Testament, because they don't seem to fit with the rules of the modern gods of rationalism and science. I won't go further into this discussion except to say that, in my opinion, there are errors committed on both sides of this debate, which have not benefitted either side.

To a greater extent than many realize, the Bible is a collection of stories, right from chapter 1 of Genesis. These stories contain truths, but not in the way many today look for truth from a scientific perspective. You really have to look at the stories in the context of the world in which they appeared as well as how they fit into the whole larger story of the Bible. Beginning to review the Bible this way opens up whole new interesting realms of beginning to understand what it is all about.

Another way I have come to look at the Bible is that the whole thing can be seen as God's letter to us humans. If we believe what the Bible says about God being love and about what evidence is in our lives that we love God in return, one could even perhaps refer to it as a love letter. Have you ever received a love letter, perhaps if and when you were in a period of courtship? Or from a dearly beloved relative or mentor. Did you only read this letter once and then put it aside and forget it? I doubt it. There are some you may have read a number of times and can still remember portions of. And when you  received said letter, would you have picked and chosen and read just selections from it, and never looked at the rest of? No, you would probably have started at the beginning and read the whole thing.

I think it is the same with the Bible. If we believe it is God's story of his acts in the world, his dreams for the world, his love letter to us, we would read it and we would read the whole thing. I am amazed at how many people who called themselves Christians have actually never read through the whole Bible once, let alone more than once. How do you expect to learn, understand and appreciate all that can be found there if that is how you deal with it?

Interestingly, I have found in the last decade or two that the more I read the Bible, the more I wanted to read it. Those phrases from the psalms that I mentioned earlier actually began to be words I could somewhat resonate with.

There have been many intelligent people over the centuries who have worked hard at trying to disprove the Bible. None of their attempts have stood the test of time. In fact, many, in attempting to do what I just described, have come to the conclusion that they either have to accept the whole thing, or regarded all as trash. 

Given what I have just written, if it at all changes your interest in these ancient writings, I can encourage you to earnestly consider reading it through entirely, perhaps for the first time, perhaps again. It is really a key way to learn to know Jesus and Creator God better.

- Lorne Brandt 2023 10 9

Why Do We Still "Go to Church"?

 Why Do We - Why do I  - (Still) “go to church”?

Most of us know that over the last 60 years and more, church attendance has been declining in western countries. The latest wrinkle in this trend has been an apparent exacerbation of the phenomenon because of Covid. Many congregations, in an attempt to maintain some sense of fellowship and provide a worship experience for their members and parishioners, began conducting online worship and teaching services. One might say that too many found it this was all they needed, and once church doors reopened, some of them have not gone back.

Many of us in our society grew up attending church. Many of our contemporaries stopped as soon as they left home, something that still happens. So why do I still go?

I would have to begin by saying that I go because I am what is known in our world as a Christian. That S is the short answer. As a follower of Jesus Christ, we believe that his life is the best example to follow. He was a regular attender at the church of his society, known as the synagogue. He also went faithfully to the central church one might say, the temple in Jerusalem. So, we could say if that was good for our leader, that was his practice, it has to be good for us.

I could also look back at my ancestors going back at least 500 years, if not longer. They were leaders in the Anabaptist arm of the Church Reformation that went through Europe at that time. Their faithfulness, church membership, and attendance at a church has continued to my day and I continue the practice. Somewhat analogous to the argument I made in the previous paragraph, I could say that if this was something that was good for them, who am I to say that it is not good for me? Do I think I am more intelligent and knowledgable than all of those ancestors?

At the same time, I must clarify that I do not attend church simply because my parents, my grandparents, and these many generations of ancestors did. However, again, just as with Jesus, their lives were by and large good examples and if church membership and attendance and involvement was good for them for half a millennium, why do so many of our contemporaries seemingly so easily throw away this heritage?

A famous Canadian author, Pierre Berton, wrote a book in the 1960s called The Comfortable Pew. As the subtitle suggests, “A Critical Look at Christianity and the Religious Establishment in the New Age” It was a critique of contemporary Christianity. The writer saw it as a comforting tradition but one that was lacking in really addressing the issues that were crying for attention in society. There were times in my life when I was not satisfied with "church". There was a time when I was involved with teaching a youth class, but then sometimes I would skip out for the worship service because it did not seem to meet my needs. There were other times when I judged that a congregation was not meeting my needs and I changed congregations.

Looking back at that now I see how individualistic and perhaps self-centred that was. It reminds me of a book I once read about a noviciate in the Catholic Church who made similar complaints about his church as I would have made about mine. His senior's response was simply something along the lines of, “This church and it's rituals are not yours.” I could leave that for you to interpret, but to me it seems to say that church is something beyond us, it has a life of its own regardless of our individual feelings and attitudes towards it.

However, by the time we got to the 80s or 90s, I wrote a piece that was published by the Canadian Mennonite called The Comfortable Pew. By this time I had come to terms with church membership, attendance and involvement and actually felt, for the most part, that church attendance was comfortable. For me, it was a place of sanctuary, which is what we often call the hall of a church. It was a place to retreat from the world to focus on things other than our everyday lives. The centre of this of course was focussing on worshipping our God. It was also in some ways, as some describe it, for renewal and “recharging (our spiritual) batteries". Thirdly, it was a place to reconnect with those whom we sometimes referred to as brothers and sisters, fellow church members and adherents who had become friends.

This is definitely not to say that I am so comfortable with church that I find no fault with it. There are certainly problems when church becomes too institutional. It is also not good when church becomes too much of a closed shop. There can be issues with power struggles. It is after all, on one level, a human organization. However, if that is all it is, it is only a religious institution, in the most negative and sorry sense of that description.

A “church”, “congregation”, regardless of size and membership and where it meets, is really an organic part, in a metaphorical but real spiritually mystical sense as well, of the universal Church, the earthly body of our Lord, Jesus Christ. As such, if we are committed followers of the Head, this Lord, I believe we, like him, will continue to attend, take part and be involved, regardless of the imperfections. The positive side of that is, that as imperfect as we are, if we are really believers, we are still a part of God’s family and will remain so forever, with an even better future, as he has promised. Of course, our task while we are still on this earth, is to try and bring about as much as we can the kind of world, kingdom some would say, that we understand God wants for the world he created. As we knew all too well, this is a task which Jesus commissioned us to before he left this earth after his resurrection, and so we obediently and faithfully carry-on.

Finally, we know from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles that Jesus'’ followers, eventually named Christians, began to meet regularly for worship, prayer, fasting and teaching. They started something that was valuable to them. If it is not valuable to us, we need to examine ourselves and our relationship with Jesus to see why. Then too, there is that admonishment in Hebrews 10:25 “not to neglect the assembly of the saints”, i.e., not to slack off in meeting fellow Christians for reasons already described.

Why do we "say grace"?

I have members of my extended family whom I appreciate for their often pausing for us to “say grace” before a meal, whether it is in the home or out in public, such as at a restaurant. But what is "saying grace”?

I in the first place, “saying grace” seems to be an odd expression on first look for what we are really doing. We are referring of course to the custom that many Christians have of offering a prayer before a meal. Perhaps the “grace” part refers to the fact that this is a gracious thing to do. We are giving thanks to God, who is the ultimate creator, provider, and sustainer of all. By so doing, we are remembering, and reminding ourselves and others, of this fact.

But grace is a word for a favour we grant others. It is something like mercy. What has that got to do with a prayer before a meal?

As to why we do it, some point back in history. I believe the Jews had prayers of Thanksgiving long before there were so – called Christians. However, when we read what some of Jesus Christ's followers wrote about him in their writings that eventually became part of the Bible, we read that they observed that Jesus asked a blessing over food. There is no mention of "saying grace".

Asking a blessing is entirely understandable and appropriate. We can bless those who have prepared the food, even those who have grown the food and brought it to where we obtained it. We typically also say something along the lines of asking that the food provide the blessing of good health. Ultimately, we are blessing again our God who provides everything.

There are many people who would call themselves Christian who are not in the habit of asking a blessing before meals though. Others bow their heads and offer silent prayer, so who knows what they are saying?

I think the fact that Jesus himself, God in the flesh come to earth, saw fit to offer a prayer of thanks and blessing for food is example enough for us to follow. This brings in another element to this subject of "saying grace". By so doing, we are offering a witness. We are testifying, showing, generally. that we are believers, Christian, and that we consider it appropriate to “return thanks”, another expression one often hears, for food before we eat it.

We hear a lot these days about having an “attitude of gratitude” and being thankful for things. We have come to understand that this is good for our mental and emotional health. Taking time every day to think of something to be thankful for, better yet, offering God thanks for it, is a good practice. So let's "say grace” before our meals. In the scheme of things, it is not an undue expectation.