Church on four legs

We all model our lives on stories we’ve heard and the people who exist in those stories. There are, of course, the biblical accounts of God’s people and Jesus. But there are also stories closer to home. The stories of our parents, grandparents, or people we hear about often make a profound impact on who we are and what we work at becoming.

This series looks at some of those stories as told by people within our Canadian Mennonite Brethren church family.

John Epp, a retired minister of McIvor Ave. MB Church, Winnipeg, tells a story that impacted his entire life and ministry.

It was the 1930s and John’s family had recently arrived in Manitoba from Russia. They had moved onto a lot in semi-rural North Kildonan (presently part of northeast Winnipeg). The family was very poor and it was difficult for the parents to provide food for their six children.

Then, when John was about 11, three calamities happened in one week.

First, John’s father, a carpenter by trade, became very ill and had to be admitted to the hospital.

Second, their only cow died. The cow had provided daily sustenance of milk. All the family had now were the eggs from a small flock of chickens.

Third, John’s youngest sister fell and cut her leg so badly she too had to be admitted to the hospital.

Times were desperate. They had no money.

One day a week or so later, while John and his siblings were playing outside, they heard an unusual sound. It was the tinkling of a cowbell. The children saw John H. Unruh of North Kildonan Mennonite Brethren Church, together with a group of seven or eight church members, emerge from the bush behind Epps’ lot.

Unruh was leading a cow. He brought it onto the yard and gave it to the Epp family.

To this day, John Epp says, he remembers how surprised and overwhelmed he was. Tears form in his eyes and run down his cheeks as he tells me the story. A cow was a major food resource. He doesn’t remember how they managed from the time their cow died until they were given this one by the church.

“Here was a church and its people who loved us so much, they brought a whole cow,” he says. “Not just a piece of a cow. A whole living cow.”

This powerful impression of church as “a practical, living, loving body of believers” has stayed with John for a lifetime. It prompted him to give his life to serving the church as teacher and pastor.

The family survived their difficulties. John’s father, Gerhard Johann Epp, became a pastor of North Kildonan MB Church (1938–42) and John later served as pastor in the River East, North Kildonan, and McIvor Ave. MB congregations.

The Epp farm on Devon Avenue, Winnipeg, c. 1930. Photo courtesy of the Centre for MB Studies

Ken Reddig is director of the Centre for MB Studies, Winnipeg.