Tulio Pedraza

In 1948 the assassination of Liberal political candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán touched off a ten-year civil war in Colombia. In nearly the same year, Colombians joined with Mennonite missionaries to form the first Colombian Mennonite congregations. But the civil war cast a long shadow over the church’s early years. Because Protestantism was seen as a  Keep Reading…

“Nazarene” war-resisters in Serbia

Gjorgje Nikolic wrote well. He loved to write, and with a job for a paper like Belgrade’s Politika, just after World War I, he had great opportunities. With the opportunities came a deeply troubling experience. In the fall of 1926 the reporting manager of Politika sent him to observe a strange case before the Danube  Keep Reading…

Esther Mbombo

Pour français cliquez ici Esther Mbombo wa Tshipongo was a strong and generous woman, whose dedication to the church sometimes made her an object of criticism and conflict. Someone who knew her says, “Her only response was to suppress her tears and devote herself to reconciliation, even if she wasn’t at fault.” Many people remember  Keep Reading…

Kasai Kapata

What do you talk about when you’re buried up to your neck in the earth, surrounded by the handful of scruffy guerillas who put you there? When Kasai Kapata was in that position he spoke up with, “Comrades, it’s a good thing that I am here in this grave.” “They thought I was crazy to  Keep Reading…

Paulina Foote

When Paulina Foote was invited by the Mennonite Brethren Board of Foreign Missions to serve as a missionary teacher in China, she accepted the assignment as confirmation of her own sense of God’s calling to serve in a foreign land. During the summer of 1922 she gathered her belongings and prepared to say good-bye to  Keep Reading…

Salvador Alcántara

Pastor Salvador Alcántara, from the rural precinct of El Garzal, Simití, Sur de Bolívar, Colombia, is an exemplary and inspiring man. He is a husband, father, grandfather, pastor of the Foursquare Gospel church in El Garzal, farmer, president of the local comunal action council (junta de acción comunal), and vice-president of ASPROAS—the Alternative Producer Association  Keep Reading…

David Klassen

Klicken Sie bitte hier auf Deutsch zu lesen. David Klassen was born in 1899 to Johann and Anna Klassen in a Mennonite village called Rosenort in South Russia (now Ukraine). Although Johann and Anna owned a small grocery story, they owned no land and were not wealthy. At a young age, David, along with his  Keep Reading…

Raphael Mthombeni

Raphael Mthombeni was the conference minister of the Brethren in Christ Church for the Gwayi District in Zimbabwe. He had just spent a week sleeping inside the ceiling of the mission house, because word had spread that he the next in line to be killed because of his involvement with dissidents. A group of five  Keep Reading…

Suzanovo Martyrs

The village of Suzanovo in the Orenburg region of Russia was founded in 1911 by Johann Peters, as a farmstead outside of the larger Mennonite settlement in that area. In the early years, it was populated by Johann and his children. Later, other Mennonites joined this Mennonite island located amidst Russian and Bashkir villages. In  Keep Reading…