A God-given interchange

How amazing to be given a legacy of forgiveness!

Photo: Sherryl Koop

Growing up, I heard many stories about my Russian Mennonite Brethren heritage. Both my parents were born in Ukraine. Both fled it in the 1940s, having experienced the trauma of war first-hand. Neither had any desire to return.

Yet I dreamed of going there with them someday. I wanted to see for myself the places I had visited in my imagination.

One year ago, my dream came true. Together with my reluctant-but-willing parents, my brother, and several others, I went to Ukraine for a two-week heritage journey.

As we travelled through the “homeland” together, exploring and commemorating the past, we talked, listened, laughed, learned, sang and prayed. We visited places of deep personal significance, like the prison where my grandfathers and countless other innocent Mennonites spent their last days. Driving slowly around this compound of high walls and barbed wire, I began to realize how frightening it must have been to live in a time and place where “normal” meant losing your family and home.

I also began to appreciate how amazing it was that instead of being handed a legacy of bitterness concerning the past, I had been taught about forgiveness. I was taught this by my family and by my Mennonite Brethren community as a whole. One experience illustrated this in particular.

It was a hot, dry day. We were walking through the village where my father was born. A dog barked, some roosters crowed. An old woman walked by with a pail in each hand. My father said that nothing had changed.

When we reached the house where he had lived until he was 13, an elderly couple came out to greet us. We sensed an instant bond between my father, who still spoke some Russian, and the old man, who had lived in this house since 1943, the year my father was forced to leave.

Our group was warmly welcomed into the house. I saw where my father had eaten and slept. I saw where the soldiers had entered, and where my grandfather had knelt and prayed for each family member before the soldiers took him away.

We were in the yard, ready to leave, when the old woman suddenly went back into the house. She returned carrying a jacket. It was the uniform of a Russian soldier. From it hung many medals. She proudly put it on her husband. They were also eager to share of their past. And then it happened.

The man reached over and clasped my father’s hand in his. In Russian, he repeated the word “friendship” over and over. My father responded with enthusiasm. They stood there shaking hands and smiling, a former Russian soldier, reaching out in kindness, and my Russian Mennonite pacifist father, who clearly bore no grudges toward the past. We watched in awed silence, then reached for our cameras to capture a moment already imprinted on our hearts.

This God-given interchange spoke of forgiveness to me. It forced me to think differently about the enemy – those terrible soldiers who took my grandfathers. Acting under strict orders, many of them were likely as terrified as those they arrested. As we left, the elderly couple gave us a bottle of fresh, warm milk, a true sacrifice for them.

My journey to Ukraine reminded me that God’s faithfulness is often best seen in circumstances beyond our control. By reflecting on the lives of those who came before me, I also learned in a new way what it means to depend on God in the midst of such circumstances, to accept what comes, and, most importantly, to forgive along the way. That is a rich heritage indeed.

Evy Dyck lives in St. Jacobs, Ont. and is a member of Waterloo MB Church. Pictured here are the soldier and Evy’s father, Victor Derksen.