Saskatchewan history society presents MB story

The Mennonite Historical Society of Saskatchewan attempts to focus on a different Mennonite group each year.

At this year’s annual meeting, held at Bethany College in Hepburn, Sask., Mar. 16–17, the Mennonite Brethren story was on tap.

It was told in three presentations by Harold and Neoma Jantz of Winnipeg, whose roots are in the area.

They told it “with a lot of passion and love for their church,” said reporter Arthur Wiens. “But it was not a sanitized story, because it also included some of the difficulties and problems that were experienced along the way.”

The first Mennonite Brethren moved into Saskatchewan in the 1890s from the U.S., Manitoba, and Russia. They settled on individual farms near the North Saskatchewan River rather than in villages as the Old Colony Mennonites near the South Saskatchewan River had.

Christian education was very important for them. Sunday school and Christian Endeavour were part of congregational life but concentrated study in Bible schools was also emphasized. At one time MBs had 23 Bible schools in the province!

Presently only Bethany Bible Institute at Hepburn (now Bethany College) is still active. The Jantzs also showed how closely evangelism and missions were connected to these schools. Many leaders and church workers have come from Bethany, and the Western Children’s Mission (which spread into Alberta and B.C. as well) grew out of that institution. The schools’ role in the transition to the English language was also significant.

MB efforts in Saskatchewan included outreach to non-Mennonite immigrants from Russia, such as Doukhobors; radio broadcasting between 1940 and 1980; and camp programs.

In keeping with the society’s focus this year, a men’s octet from the Waldheim MB Church sang and Cornelius Voth, a 98-year-old resident of Hepburn who has attended the local MB church continuously for 96 years since the church was built in 1910, received a citation.

—from reports in Saskatchewan Mennonite Historian