Take my hands”: “Jump-a-peg games raising funds for MCC

Peter Dyck, surrounded by jump-a-peg games he’s crafted to raise funds for MCC. The back of each board features a message and a picture of the Dycks. MCC News photo by Jack Scott

Peter Dyck’s many years with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) took him from war-ravaged Europe to South America to Africa and Pennsylvania. Now nearly 90, the well-known speaker and writer is no longer jumping continents, but he’s found a new way to help others: jump-a-peg games.

Dyck first made a few of the simple wooden games – in which the object is to jump and remove pegs on a triangular board until only one remains – in an attempt to make good use of an old board he’d found. At MCC relief sale auctions and fund-raising meals, 10 games have yielded $1,325, and Dyck is now cranking out dozens more. He hopes the games will inspire more people to think creatively about what they can do to help others.

Dyck quotes a verse from a familiar hymn: “Take my hands and let them move, at the impulse of thy love.”

“We have so many people with wonderful imaginations,” he says. “Many retired people can’t volunteer to go to Africa, but they can do something with their hands.”

Dyck’s own involvement with MCC began on the receiving end of aid, when MCC food reached his Mennonite community in Russia during the famine of the 1920s. His family later immigrated to Canada. During World War II, Dyck returned to Europe to serve with MCC. He and his wife, Elfrieda Klassen Dyck, assisted thousands of Mennonite refugees fleeing Stalin’s reign of terror.

Since his “retirement” more than 20 years ago, Dyck has written six books and has been a frequent speaker at churches, schools and retreats. Those activities were curtailed, however, when Elfrieda became ill about a year ago and he became her caregiver.

But Dyck hasn’t given up his lifelong habit of reusing old materials, nor has he given up his desire to help others. At the Scottdale, Pa., retirement community where he and Elfrieda live, Dyck collects newspapers, glasses, hearing aids and other materials to recycle.

“Somewhere I saw a board thrown away,” he says. A woodworking enthusiast, he had previously built an entire children’s playhouse out of scrap lumber. “But here I just had one board. What would I do with it?”

The answer was jump-a-peg games. Dyck enjoys not just the challenge of making the game, but also that of seeing how successfully he can play it. He quotes the guidelines often printed on the familiar game: “If you leave just one peg you’re a genius, if you leave two you’re brilliant, if you leave three you’re still good, but if you leave four you need more practice.” Dyck admits to not having reached genius level – yet.

His motivation for all that work? It comes in part from understanding what it’s like to depend on help from others. Dyck was on the brink of starvation when MCC food reached his Russian village.

“I survived,” Dyck says. “This year, 90,000 people, many of them children, are going to die of starvation.”

But such a dramatic personal story isn’t necessary for wanting to help others, he emphasizes.

“Ask the person who paid $225 [for a jump-a-peg game] why he did that. Ask the ladies why they make quilts. Ask the people who make the school kits or can meat. Or just read Matthew 25:35–40,” he says. “That’s why I make jump-a-peg games.”

—Rachel Miller Moreland, writer/editor for MCC Communications.