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Aylmer, Ont.
100 flee after kids seized


One hundred congregants of the fundamentalist Church of God fled the country in July because they fear child welfare officials will target their families.

Henry Hildebrandt, pastor of Church of God (Ohio) in Aylmer, Ont., said the hurried departures, apparently 74 children and 26 mothers, include family members questioned about the way they discipline their children. Hildebrandt said the members’ biblically-based belief that parents who spare the rod, spoil the child led them to flee Canada for fear their children will be taken too.

On July 4, children’s aid officials and police forcibly removed seven children from a home in Aylmer, Ont. amid allegations they had been spanked with sticks and belts. The children, ranging in ages six to 14, were taken after the parents refused to promise not to use physical discipline. The children were removed kicking and screaming from their home, while members of the church watched. Neighbours are convinced there wasn’t any abuse and spoke to the media of how happy and congenial the children are.

The Aylmer family are Mennonites who returned from Mexico two years ago and now are members of the Church of God, Ohio. The Church of God is not part of the larger Mennonite church, although many of its members are Low German-speaking Mennonites. The Church of God states it does not advocate violence or abusive discipline. It holds that the rod can be used with reasonable force.

The law allows parents to use “reasonable force” to discipline their children but prohibits unnecessary force.

Hildebrandt and members of the congregation have become members of the Children’s Aid Society in order to better understand how the CAS works. Hildebrandt has also been charged for information that appeared on a Web site that identified the children involved in a Child and Family Services case. He was scheduled to appear in court on August 9.

Mennonite Central Committee advocated for the children to come home as soon as possible and put itself forward as a possible mediator between Child and Family Services and the family. However, no progress has been made in establishing such a role while the case is before the courts. The MCC Aylmer Resource Centre is providing ongoing translation for the family in their meetings with social workers and lawyers.

MCC’s Kanadier Concerns program works with Low German-speaking Mennonites in Latin America as well as with recently returned Mennonites to Canada. Abe Peters, director of the Kanadier Concerns, said the majority of Low German-speaking Mennonites in Aylmer follow the current law about reasonable force and believe that parenting goals can be achieved by the use of reasonable force.

MCC in the last year has produced two parenting resources, well-used and accepted in the Low German-speaking Mennonite community. A series of three video tapes, produced in part by MCC Canada, deals with the issue of discipline, as well as self-esteem and child development. A series of cassette tapes follow John M. Drescher’s basic parenting book, Seven Things that Children Need. The four tapes speak about children’s need for significance, security, acceptance, love, praise, discipline and God.

Some leaders of the conservative Old Colony Mennonite Church, mainly made up of Mennonites recently returned to Canada from Mexico, have attended seminars on family violence and child discipline put on by the Aylmer Resource Centre. The seminars teach alternative methods of discipline as well as emphasize the limits of corporal punishment.

This past year, the Old Colony Mennonite leaders sponsored a series of workshops about peaceful family relations. Peters said most teachings in the Low German-speaking community use the image of the rod as found in Psalm 23. In that biblical passage, the shepherd uses the rod not to beat the sheep but to control them and guide them along the right path.

“This is the image we would like to portray for the rod,” said Peters.

 – adapted from reports in National Post, MCC Canada release, Evangelical Fellowship of Canada release

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Last modified October 6, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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