Anna Wipf and the Believers of Alwinz, Romania

With thousands of believing refugees crowding into the Sabatisch community in Slovakia in the 1620s, every day brought its share of adventures. Nearly every day some died from the cold, hunger, and disease, while more kept coming. Then, in the thick of things, Bethlen Gabor came. Bethlen Gabor was the ruler of the land of  Keep Reading…

Katharina Reimer Claassen

On January 6, 1860, Johann and Katharina Claassen were among the 18 families of the Molochna Colony, South Russia who organized the Mennonite Brethren Church. The group experienced much joy but also new challenges. In March, nearly three months later, the municipal authorities ordered the “Brethren” back to their former churches and Johann, as their  Keep Reading…

Refocusing martyr stories on women

Jacques D’Auchy was a highly-educated Dutch martyr, whose argumentation before his inquisitor constitutes an important confession for understanding the development of Mennonite theology and belief in the 1500s. Despite D’Auchy’s compelling testimony, however, the Jan Luyken engraving that accompanies D’Auchy’s story in the Martyrs Mirror is not focused on him, but on his wife and  Keep Reading…

John Schrag

John Schrag was a prosperous Mennonite farmer who lived Harvey County, Kansas. He was a member of the Hoffnungsfeld (Hopefield) Mennonite Church. In 1917 when the United States went to war against Germany, Schrag refused to buy bonds to help pay for the war. Many Mennonites reasoned that war bonds were like taxes. Payment could  Keep Reading…

Samuel Kakesa

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The following excerpt is taken from Vincent Ndandula and Jim Bertsche, “An open Bible at rebel headquarters,” in The Jesus Tribe: Grace stories from Congo’s Mennonites, 1912-2012 ed. Rod Hollinger-Janzen, Nancy Myers and Jim Bertsche (Elkhart, IN: Institute of Mennonite Studies, 2012): 82-87. Co-published with the Institute for the Study of Global Anabaptism. By the  Keep Reading…

Binh Thanh Congregation (1975-2003)

This story of the Binh Thanh congregation in Ho Chi Minh City (then Saigon) begins in the weeks following the People’s Revolutionary Army’s takeover on April 30, 1975. The following excerpts are taken from: Luke Martin, Nguyen Quang Trung, Nguyen Thanh Tam and Nguyen Thi Tham, “The Mennonite Church in Vietnam,” in Churches Engage Asian  Keep Reading…

Trial day for Mennonite CO in South Korea

By John D. Roth It was one of the passages narrating the week of Jesus’ passion that first led Sang-Min Lee to consider the way of peace. Soon after he became a Christian, Lee was moved by Jesus’ teaching to love our enemies, especially his rebuke to Peter for defending him with a sword in  Keep Reading…

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…