Place of Meeting April 2015

Place of Meeting

Suffering and joy 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.

Toronto United Mennonite Church

April 2015

Place of Meeting

Milestones

is 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, through the mail folder in the lobby or at dmartens@pathcom.com Next deadline: April 28 Have you discovered the allcolour online version of Place of Meeting, complete with live weblinks? 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

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.

A building update This report will supplement the weekly bulletin updates on how our building project is proceeding.

By Bob Tiessen

Recent Events

TUMC Interior

Our 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 21day appeal period we can apply for our final building permit. The third unit will require the payment of development charges of $20,000.

The interior design of the work at TUMC has not changed from the diagram in the Annual Report booklet. The kitchen redesign has been finished. The design committee must still decide on finishes, colours, exact cabinet structures and location of billboards etc. We have decided to relocate the Mennonite timeline from the basement to the meeting room adjacent to the lobby.

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 relocated 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 potential damage to trees and the need to move the sidewalk. The cost of making these changes would have been substantial.

Pending Work The Aurora House charitable status application 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

The Building Committee presented our interior plans to the Joint Management Committee so that our building partners, the Mennonite 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 construction. We expect work on 1774 Queen St. East to start in the summer.

Expenses for 6 Lark Budget: $400,000 Spent: $86,909

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.

The building committee appreciates the support of the congregation in the many ways it has manifested itself during this project.

Expenses for TUMC Budget: $550,000 Spent: $67,355 – includes all loans and mortgages

Place of Meeting April 2015 page 3

Special exhibit comes to TUMC

F

rom 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, daughters, 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 Mennonite 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 children 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 Sunday 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

Along the Road to FFreedom reedom eedom Mennonite women of courage & faith paintings by Ray Dirks art stories tragedy human rights dignity strength str ength vulnerability loss honour love lo ve family faith even forgiveness 26 paintings 7 didactic panels a project of the MHC Gallery

Place of Meeting page 4

Special exhibit comes to TUMC

historical context, personal journeys & a universal message

I

ntolerable persecution in the 16th century caused Anabaptists (Mennonites) 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 — mothers, 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

Along the Road to Freedom

Maria Friesen Neufeld

Katja Goerz

Katharina Loewen Epp Katharina Epp Kroeger Katharina Kroeger Neufeld

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 brought their 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.

Place of Meeting April 2015 page 5

Reflections on Anabaptist heritage from the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland

By Faye Tiessen

J

acqui and Tim Schmucker were welcome speakers at Heritage Club in February. Jacqui joined the Mennonite Church in Bogota, Colombia, when she was 15.

The church was founded by Gerald Stucky of Berne, Indiana,who started a school for children of parents with leprosy. 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 travelogue, 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 Afsluitdijk 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.

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.

Place of Meeting page 6

“Anabaptist cages”? Yes,these iron cages can be seen hanging from the tower of St. Lamberti Church in Muenster. 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

Reflections on Anabaptist heritage

St. Lamberti Church in Muenster, where the bones of Anabaptist 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. bishop’s rule of the city, but it became a place where common ownership of property, polygamy and naked parades 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 Anabaptists.

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 Confession: 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 contradiction to the commands of God, they declared. Communion was for the baptized. Non-resistance was a core

Place of Meeting April 2015 page 7

Reflections on Anabaptist heritage 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 moving it must have been, standing in that cave and singing hymns together. A local Reformed Church pastor who accompanied the group asked their forgiveness 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 migrations of the 1920s, housing them until they found jobs and places to live.

Trachselwald Schloss (castle) was for Tim the location closest to his family history. His 5x great grandfather, 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.

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 accompanied 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.

Place of Meeting page 8

Tim told us that his great grandfather, ironically, was also imprisoned in Pennsylvania, for not providing wagons and horses to the military during the American Revolution. His friends, co-religionists and neighbours 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

Reflections on Anabaptist heritage 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 baptize 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 message, Blaurock was burned at the stake in 1529.

For Jacqui and Tim, their two-week journey 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 Limmat River, where the first (Felix Manz) and last Swiss Mennonites to be executed for their faith faced a sentence of death by drowning.

Place of Meeting April 2015 page 9

Hosannas and borscht 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!

Place of Meeting page 10

Hosannas and borscht

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 deadlock, 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 Harrisburg, Pa., this July.

Place of Meeting April 2015 page 11

UGH! LIMBO...

NO NO

12 years is

E

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 Permanent Residence since 2003.

Design: ©MaoCorrea

12 years is enough!

FRIDAY Join us to APRIL 17, 2015 launch the 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm campaign for Toronto United Mennonite Church (TUMC) /XLV· 1774 Queen Street East Permanent Toronto, ON. M4L 1G7 Residence!

ŽŶĂƟŽŶƐ ǁŝůů ďĞ ŐƌĂƚĞĨƵůůLJ ĂƉƉƌĞĐŝĂƚĞĚ ZĞĨƌĞƐŚŵĞŶƚƐ ĂŶĚ >ĂƟŶ ĨŽŽĚ ĂǀĂŝůĂďůĞ ĨŽƌ ƉƵƌĐŚĂƐĞ͊

&Žƌ ŵŽƌĞ ŝŶĨŽƌŵĂƟŽŶ͗ ƐƚƌĂŶĚĞĚͺŝŶͺůŝŵďŽΛLJĂŚŽŽ͘ĐĂ ƐƚƌĂŶĚĞĚͺŝŶͺůŝŵďŽΛLJĂŚŽŽ͘ĐĂ SPEAKERS: Gloria Nafziger (Amnesty international²Refugee Network) Michele Millard (York University²Centre for Refugee Studies) Leigh Salsberg (Refugee Lawyer) Marilyn Zehr (Pastor² 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

Place of Meeting page 12