Niagara-on-the-Lake Local received the following Letter to the Editor from reader Jan Carrie Steven:
Thank you for publishing Kit Andres’ Letter to the Editor. I am both a Methodist (by tradition) and a Mennonite (on confession of Faith.) And I am a “red-letter Christian” - in that I take the teaching of Jesus very seriously.
I agree that Mennos have a history that ought to make them particularly attuned to people who are suffering. Two of my Menno friends are in their 90s and they fled from Ukraine in the 1940s. One woman can remember wrapping her arms around her father as he was being abducted by the Russian NKVD. He went to a Gulag. She never saw him again. Another can remember fleeing to Germany and en route her mother would hide her sister and her in haystacks while she went to look for food. Some family members died on the journey.
And even arriving in Canada, these women and so many other Mennos were not welcomed, at least initially. They were poor, they were seen as German or Russian – which was not popular to say the least. And Mennonites were seen by some as being part of a cult. Mennos – and indeed all Christians – should have a commitment to upholding the people who are referred to by Jesus as “the least of these” and “Blessed.”
I agree with any movement in any country torn apart by war – including Palestine – for ceasefire (peace,) humanitarian aid (relief,) and rebuilding (development). The Mennonite Central Committee has as its maxim relief, development and peace in the name of Christ.
While I have fingertips to keyboard, I want to note that most Mennonite Christians are not white or of European descent, and they don’t have horse-driven buggies. About 84% of Mennos are African, Asian or Latin American – and of this group, the majority are Ethiopian.
Learn more about the non-violent peacemaking of Ethiopian Mennonites in a time of brutality against them at https://www.mennonitechurch.ca/article/44756-relief-appeal-for-meserete-kristos-church-in-ethiopia
As Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.”
Peace / Shalom / Salam
Jan Carrie Steven
