Place of Meeting

Suffering and joy

Toronto United Mennonite Church April 2015

Through Lent we have been encouraged, in moments of silence and reflection, to put away

distractions for a time to focus on the journey to the cross in anticipation of the joy of the

Resurrection. This edition of Place of Meeting encompasses some of those themes, in

reflecting on the struggles, of our Anabaptist forebears and our refugee friends of today, to live

in peace and faithfulness to the Gospel.

Place of Meetingis the meaning of the Huron word

“toronton,” from which our city

gets its name. Fittingly, it can also

mean “plenty” or

“abundance.”

Place of Meeting is also the

monthly newsletter of Toronto

United Mennonite Church. May

you find plenty here to enjoy and

ponder. Opinions expressed are

those of the writers and not

necessarily of the congregation

as a whole.

Contributions of all kinds are enthusiastically received, throughthe mail folder in the lobby or at

dmartens@pathcom.com

Next deadline:April 28

Have you discovered the all-colour online version of Place of

Meeting, complete with liveweblinks? Check this month’s

issue out here: issuu.com/pomeditor/docs/

pom_april_2015l

NOTE: New address for submissions:

dmartens4@cogeco.ca

Editor: Doreen Martens

Milestones

Place of Meeting Page 2

Nadine and Ellie Cressman delight with folky harmonies on

“ComeThou Fount of Every Blessing” on March 22, while children

gather in a quilt tent for children’s time with Pastor Marilyn;

Bob Loewen leads children’s time on March 1.

This report will supplement the weekly bulletin updates on how our

building project is proceeding.

By Bob Tiessen

Recent EventsOur application to the Committee of Adjustment for changes

needed at 6 Lark was successful. We can now have a legal third

unit in the building, plus we only need to provide two parking spots

and we can reduce the size of the garages if we wish to. After a 21-

day appeal period we can apply for our final building permit. The

third unit will require the payment of development charges of

$20,000.

The TUMC Board and Aurora House have decided not to apply for

Social Housing designation, which would waive the development

and other charges. Two key factors in the decision: concern that we

would not be able to choose residents, and a restriction on the title

to the property for 15 years. This results in an extra cost of about

$22,000 that was not in the original budget.

A meeting with the Toronto Transportation Department and

Forestry regarding our ramp has resulted in an agreement that will

greatly improve access to the building. We will have gently sloping

ramps (1 in 20) both from the parking lot and along Lark Street.

The Lark Street ramp will in effect be a raised sidewalk. There will

be canopies over parts of the ramp and they will give access to a re-

located north door. The main Lark Street entrance will still involve

a few stairs but we will rework the door to have automatic openers,

as with the north door. A ramp to the Lark Street door would have

required a steeper slope and therefore a larger ramp involving po-

tential damage to trees and the need to move the sidewalk. The cost

of making these changes would have been substantial.

The Building Committee presented our interior plans to the Joint

Management Committee so that our building partners, the Mennon-

ite New Life Centre and the Toronto Mennonite New Life Church,

could see the proposed plans. They agreed to the current plan. We

will need to coordinate construction times, and obviously some

spaces will not be available for outside groups during the construc-

tion. We expect work on 1774 Queen St. East to start in the sum-

mer.

Construction at 6 Lark is continuing now that we have agreement

with the City on replacing the water line and sewer line. We need to

install a sewer ejector pump since the lowered basement floor is

now below the existing sewer line. The basement slab has been

poured and work in other areas is proceeding. We have been getting

some donations of building materials.

Place of Meeting April 2015 page 3

A building update

TUMC InteriorThe interior design of the work at TUMC

has not changed from the diagram in the

Annual Report booklet. The kitchen re-

design has been finished. The design com-

mittee must still decide on finishes,

colours, exact cabinet structures and loca-

tion of billboards etc. We have decided to

relocate the Mennonite timeline from the

basement to the meeting room adjacent to

the lobby.

Pending WorkThe Aurora House charitable status appli-

cation and our application for the rebate of

6 Lark property taxes are still pending. The

next meeting of the Building Committee is

April 20.

Finances

Pledges for 2014

Pledged: $324,477

Received: $312,450

Pledges for 2015

Pledged: $122,572

Received: $38,239

Expenses for 6 Lark

Budget: $400,000

Spent: $86,909

Expenses for TUMC

Budget: $550,000

Spent: $67,355 – includes all loans and

mortgages

The building committee appreciates the

support of the congregation in the many

ways it has manifested itself during this

project.

Special exhibit comes to TUMC

Place of Meeting page 4

From April 12 to April 26, TUMC will host an

exhibition of paintings by Winnipeg artist Ray

Dirks. Called Along the Road to Freedom, this

exhibit tells the stories of Mennonite mothers, daugh-

ters, grandmothers and sisters who led their families

out of persecution and suffering in Soviet Ukraine to

lives of freedom and peace.

This exhibition of 26 paintings, which each focus on a

particular woman’s story, and seven didactic panels,

which give the broader background and history of the

era, was shown at Conrad Grebel University College

in February. It has been made available to show in

Mennonite churches this spring enroute to the Men-

nonite World Conference in Pennsylvania in July.

TUMC, unfortunately, does not have room to display

the entire exhibition, but we have made arrangements

to show a reduced version in our sanctuary for the

three week period. We hope to have 15 paintings plus

the seven history panels. Harold Thiessen and Peter

Dick are coordinating the installation.

Along the Road to Freedom was initiated in 2008 by

four survivors of this refugee experience: Hans Funk,

Wanda Andres, Henry Bergen and Nettie Dueck.

Three lost fathers in the 1930s, swept up, as so many

were, in Stalin’s ruthless grasp. They wished to begin

a project that would honour and remember mothers,

grandmothers and sisters, like theirs, who had led chil-

dren safely out of the Soviet Union, through war-torn

Europe to establishing good lives in Canada. They

asked Ray Dirks, who is also curator of the Mennonite

Heritage Centre Gallery in Winnipeg, if he could help.

Out of this discussion, Along the Road to Freedom

came into being.

There are numerous members (past and present) of

TUMC who experienced this history firsthand, and

whose stories parallel those shown in Along the Road

to Freedom. While you can view the exhibit on Sun-

day mornings (April 12, 19 and 26) we will also host

an evening showing Saturday, April18 from 7 to 9

p.m. and on Sunday afternoon, April 19, 2 to 4 p.m.

–– Submitted by Harold Thiessen

a project of the MHC Gallery

Along the Road to FreedomMennonite women of courage & faith paintings by Ray Dirks

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Special exhibit comes to TUMC

Place of Meeting April 2015 page 5

historical context, personal journeys & a universal message

Along the Road to Freedom Maria Friesen Neufeld

Katja Goerz

Katharina Loewen EppKatharina Epp KroegerKatharina Kroeger Neufeld

Intolerable persecution in the 16th century caused Anabaptists (Men-nonites) mainly from the Netherlands to flee to Poland, settling in areas near Danzig. In the later part of the 18th century many Mennonites began to move to Russia, at the invitation of Tsarina

Catherine II. At the start of World War I about 110,000 Mennonites lived in 56 colonies in Russia*.

The coming of the Russian Revolution in 1917 heralded periods of chaos, persecution and loss. Anarchists caused many deaths during the Civil War that followed. Then came devastating famine and disease. In the 1930s, many men were taken, killed or disappeared into Stalin’s Gulag.

Along the Road to Freedom honours Mennonite women — moth-ers, sisters, daughters, grandmothers, most without men — who found freedom in Canada in the 1920s and in Paraguay and Canada in the 1940s. In the 1920s journeying by train through the Red Gate to Riga, Latvia, from where they continued west by ship. In 1943, in the depths of World War II, 35,000 Mennonites fled Russia in what is called the Great Trek. Only 12,000, ultimately, succeeded in their quest for sanctuary across the Atlantic. Survivors who did not escape were shipped east in boxcars without facilities or food and dumped in the forests of Siberia, left to fend for themselves. Many did not survive.

People who migrated to Canada prior to the Russian Revolution are recognized in the painting of Judith Epp who arrived as a widow in Saskatchewan in the late 1800s. Those who did not get out of Russia are remembered in the painting of Margarita Pankratz.

In the 1920s, many made it out of Russia families intact. In the 1940s many did not. Often only women and children escaped. Sometimes loss was even greater. Katherina Dirks Peters had five children. Three girls died young during the famine and disease infested post-revolutionary times. Her husband disappeared in the 1930s, taken by Stalin’s secret police and murdered. She left on the Great Trek with her two sons. She lost both while fleeing. She finally settled in Yarrow, British Columbia, poor and alone.

Katherina lived her remaining years quietly in a tiny, meticulously cared for shack with a beautiful blue plum tree out back. Someone from her church concluded her obituary in 1974, “For many years this beloved sister lived in Yarrow where her loving, peaceful and honest way of life was a blessing to many.”

While Along the Road to Freedom includes stories of great loss, persecution and suffering, the stories end, over and over again, with love, kindness, selflessness, faith and, yes, even forgiveness.

Stories like that of Katherina are life lessons for us all.

*Statistics from Mennonites: A brief history of Witness, Service, Peace by John J. Friesen, 2009

Coming Events at TUMC

April 11: Bible Quizzing competition at Rouge Valley Mennonite Church –– come out to cheer on our team!

April 17: 12 Years is Enough! Launch event for Luis Matas’ permanent residence campaign, 7 p.m.

April 19: Baptism and communion

April 12-26: Art exhibit at TUMC - "Along the Road to Freedom" - artworks honouring the Mennonite women who broughttheir families to Canada from Russia will be on display

April 26: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?

April 26 - May 17: Four-week series in our Sunday worship service hearing the "Voices of our First Peoples"

May 10: Ecumenical service of hymns and prayer at St. Aidan in the Beach Anglican Church at 4:30 p.m.

Reflections on Anabaptist heritagefrom the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland

Place of Meeting page 6

By Faye Tiessen

Jacqui and Tim Schmucker were welcome speakers at

Heritage Club in February. Jacqui joined the Mennon-

ite Church in Bogota, Colombia, when she was 15.

The church was founded by Gerald Stucky of Berne, Indi-

ana,who started a school for children of parents with lep-

rosy. Jacqui found a sense of community in this church.

After having taken a Mennonite history course with

Arnold Snyder, Jacqui was motivated to learn more about

the ancestors of her faith. So on her 50th birthday, she and

Tim visited sites in Europe associated with the beginnings

of Anabaptism.

Tim explained that their presentation would not be a trave-

logue, but rather their “experience encountering the faith

and life of our foremothers and forefathers in the soil and

rocks, bricks and mortar of their time.”

Their journey began in Amsterdam, then across the Afs-

luitdijk to Friesland. This dike separates what used to be

called the Zuiderzee, now the Ijsselmeer,from the North

Sea. It was engineered by a Mennonite, Cornelis Lely, and

turned the Zuiderzee into a lake. A vast area of seabed was

converted to dry land.

In Pingjum,they visited a “hidden”church, a house with a

meeting room at the back, where Mennonites met in secret

to avoid persecution from the state church. In Pingjum

Menno Simons began as a priest.

In the nearby village of Witmarsum, they heard the same

church bell that Menno would have heard. It was from

Witmarsum that Menno left the Catholic church to join the

Anabaptist cause. Next stop was Leeuwarden,where the

first and last Mennonite martyrs were put to death ––

Sicke Freerks Snyder in 1531, Reytse Aysesz in 1574. The

martyr Elizabeth Dirks, executed in 1549, was a member

of Leeuwarden congregation.

“Anabaptist cages”? Yes,these iron cages can be seen

hanging from the tower of St. Lamberti Church in Muen-

ster. Anabaptists who had led the Muenster rebellion,

among them Jan van Leyden, were tortured, executed, and

their bodies hung in these cages. Tim told us the followers

of Melchior Hoffman, Jan Matthias and Jan van Leyden

took over the town of Muenster using military force and

imposed adult baptism. It was at first a protest against the

The Anabaptist history tour group visits a “hidden”

church (which looks like an ordinary house from

the outside) in Pinjum, Netherlands. All photos by

Tim Schmucker.

Reflections on Anabaptist heritage

Place of Meeting April 2015 page 7

bishop’s rule of the city, but it became a place where

common ownership of property, polygamy and naked pa-

rades took place. It was regarded as a “New Jerusalem”

by some. After a siege lasting about a year,with an army

of 7000 mercenaries, Bishop von Waldeck retook the city

in 1535.

Menno and Dirk Phillips repudiated the Muensterite

views. In 1539, in his Foundation Book, Menno sharply

criticized such Muensterite practices as use of the

“sword” and polygamy. However, the actions of the

Muensterites resulted in severe repression of Anabap-

tists.

After a visit to Berne, Switzerland, the group learned

more about one of the early Anabaptist leaders, Michael

Sattler.Two years after the first adult baptisms in Zurich,

and the deaths of Conrad Grebel and Felix Manz, there

was a meeting of Anabaptists in 1527 in Schleitheim

(canton of Berne).

The meeting, led by Sattler, hammered out a statement of

early Anabaptist faith, known as the Schleitheim Con-

fession: It began with adult baptism, terms of the ban

(Matthew 18), the necessary resistance to evil. There

could be no participation in the works, church services,

meetings and civil affairs of those who live in contradic-

tion to the commands of God, they declared. Commun-

ion was for the baptized. Non-resistance was a core

St. Lamberti Church in Muenster, where the bones of An-

abaptist leaders who led a violent rebellion hung until the

late 19th century; the cages (above the clock) remain.

Below, a memorial marker at the peaceful meadow site of

the Schleitheim meeting, near the city of Berne.

Reflections on Anabaptist heritage

Place of Meeting page 8

belief; a Christian must not pass judgment on worldly

disputes, or serve as a magistrate.

Shortly after this conference, Sattler and his wife were

arrested and executed.

In Baeretswil, the group were led to a cave where

early Swiss Anabaptists met for worship. How mov-

ing it must have been, standing in that cave and

singing hymns together. A local Reformed Church

pastor who accompanied the group asked their for-

giveness for persecuting the Anabaptists in the 1500s.

Next, a visit to the church that Jacob Amman attended

at Erlenbach of Simmertal. Amman, a Mennonite

bishop in the late 1600s, insisted that the ban applied

not just to attendance at the Lord’s supper, but also to

all of life. He and his followers migrated to America,

and later to Ontario. We know their descendants today

as the Amish. Tim reflected on how the Swiss Amish

in the Kitchener –Waterloo area generously opened

their homes to the Russian Mennonites during the mi-

grations of the 1920s, housing them until they found

jobs and places to live.

Trachselwald Schloss (castle) was for Tim the loca-

tion closest to his family history. His 5x great grandfa-

ther, Christian Schmucker, an Amish Mennonite

preacher, was imprisoned there in 1745. Banished

from Switzerland, he and his family finally made their

way to the Netherlands,where Dutch Mennonites

helped them to migrate to Pennsylvania in 1752. The

castle is being restored in a joint European-North

American project. This former prison will become the

centre of Anabaptism in Europe.

Tim told us that his great grandfather, ironically, was

also imprisoned in Pennsylvania, for not providing

wagons and horses to the military during the Ameri-

can Revolution. His friends, co-religionists and neigh-

bours appealed to the authorities for his release, which

was granted.

In Zurich,where the Swiss Reformation movement

began with sweeping reforms by pastor Ulrich

Zwingli in the early 1520s, our travelers learned of the

conflict caused by his students. Conrad Grebel, Felix

Manz, and George Blaurock had joined a Bible study

group with Zwingli. In 1525, in a public debate,with

The group climbed a trail to visit a cave in

Baeretswil, where persecuted Anabaptists met to

worship in secret. An especially moving moment

came when a local Lutheran pastor who had ac-

companied them offered an apology on behalf of

her church for the suffering of those long-ago days,

echoing a more formal process of reconciliation by

the Lutheran church several years ago.

Reflections on Anabaptist heritage

Place of Meeting April 2015 page 9

Zwingli arguing for infant baptism, the

students for adult baptism, the Zurich city

council decided in favour of Zwingli.

The young radicals were ordered to bap-

tize their babies, and to cease gathering

for discussions. Several days later, Grebel

and his group met in Manz’s mother’s

house, where Blaurock asked Grebel to

baptize him on confession of faith.

Grebel, Manz and Blaurock were in

prison for six months, but escaped in

March 1526.

Grebel died of the plague in 1526. Manz

was executed by drowning in the Limmat

River across from the Grossmünster

Church in 1527, the first Swiss Anabaptist

to be martyred for his faith.

After years of travelling throughout

Switzerland to preach the Anabaptist mes-

sage, Blaurock was burned at the stake in

1529.

For Jacqui and Tim, their two-week jour-

ney led them to places associated with

the origins of their faith. We were carried

along with them through photographs and

narrative. We thank them for sharing this

experience.

Trachselwald Schloss, above,

was a place of imprisonment for

Swiss Anabaptists, including Tim

Schmucker’s ancestor Christian

Schmucker. It has been turned

over to Swiss Mennonites for use

as a historical museum, with an

international campaign to raise

funds. Above, Tim and Jacqui

ponder a cell where Christian was

held. Left, a marker by the Lim-

mat River, where the first (Felix

Manz) and last Swiss Mennonites

to be executed for their faith

faced a sentence of death by

drowning.

Hosannas and borscht

Place of Meeting page 10

Palm Sunday (March 29) featured the

traditional procession of palms well as the

children’s choir leading the congregation

in song. Afterwards, the Borscht Battle

announced a couple of weeks earlier

(below) had us testing and enjoying eight

cooks’ attempts at a winning pot of

cabbage soup. Then we got a chance to

see our Bible Quizzing team in action with

a test run of their knowledge from the book

of John. Go team go!

Hosannas and borscht

Place of Meeting April 2015 page 11

The TUMC youth serve out soup during the

Borscht Battle competition –– an especially

busy job since most participants tried several

versions before marking their ballots. A tie was

declared before two late ballots broke the dead-

lock, leaving Erna Neufeldt, top, and her

superior soup the winner of the coveted Golden

Spoon. The real winners, though, are the youth,

the beneficiaries of a pay-what-you-will

admission to the lunch. Proceeds will go to

help their good-sized delegation attend the

Mennonite World Conference assembly in Har-

risburg, Pa., this July.

Place of Meeting page 12

EEENOUGH!UGH!UGH! NONONO 12 years is

LIMBO...LIMBO...LIMBO... more lives in

Luis Alberto Mata is a recognized refugee from Colombia. He is a writer, human rights and social justice advocate who has been waiting for his waiting for his PermanentPermanent Residence Residence since 2003. since 2003. 12 years is enough!12 years is enough!12 years is enough!

SPEAKERS: Gloria Nafziger (Amnesty international Refugee Network) Michele Millard (York University Centre for Refugee Studies) Leigh Salsberg (Refugee Lawyer)

Marilyn Zehr (Pastor Toronto United Mennonite Church) Ilian Burbano (Colombia Action Solidarity Alliance & LACSN) MC: Francisco Rico (FCJ Refugee Centre)

MUSICAL GUESTS: Mark Andrew (pianist) TUMC String Ensemble

Join us to Join us to launch the launch the campaign for campaign for

Permanent Permanent Residence!Residence!

FFRRIIDDAAYY AAPPRRIILL 1177,, 22001155

7:00 pm - 9:00 pm Toronto United Mennonite

Church (TUMC) 1774 Queen Street East Toronto, ON. M4L 1G7

Des

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