Feeding the Hungry, P. C. Hiebert, 1929

Marred, bruised, and stained, His precious image lies, And when ye find Him in the midnight wild, Even in the likeness of an outcast child, O wise men, own your King! Before this cradle bring Your gold to raise and bless, Your myrrh of tenderness! For, “As ye do it unto these,” said He, “Ye do it unto me.” Anonymous. MEETING STARVATION IN THE UKRAINE When the food credit for the Volga regions was es- tablished in December by our Committee, a generous a- mount was at the same time specified for the needy cen- ters in the Ukraine. It was well known to all in Russia who had made an effort to know, that parts of the Ukraine were also famine stricken. Rev. Benjamin Janz had re- ported in October the conditions in the volosts occupied by Mennonites. By December a general survey had been made under his direction in those regions, and in each volost the Mennonite organization was ready to work. Thus by December, our districts in the South were fully as well organized to distribute our food supplies as were our Volga regions. If the need was serious, if the com- mittees were ready to work, if a goodly sum had been specified for the South, why did we not begin? In Amer- ica the friends and relatives of the starving Mennonites had donated large sums of money to feed the hungering, 194 FEEDING THE HUNGRY and were beginning to ask impatiently why the food was not delivered. In the Ukraine the Mennonites and others saw their own small stores of food gradually disappear- ing, with Death waiting when the last grain would be eaten. They were becoming panic stricken. But the rea- son for the delay could not then well be explained either to Mennonites in America or in Russia. In fact we ourselves could not then elicit from the A.R.A. the reasons for holding back the food deliveries in the South. The difficulty seems to have lain largely between the A.R.A. and the Ukraine Government. That was apparently further aggravated by antagonisms be- tween the governments in Moscow and Kharkow. In the first place the Ukraine insisted that the A.R.A. make a contract before opening relief centers in that part of Rus- sia. Before antagonisms were aroused, such a contract could undoubtedly have been made in a few days’ time just as ours had been. While we had signed a separate contract with the Ukraine Government, the A.R.A., under whom we now were working, had not done so. They therefore could not open an office there immediately and consequently we could not get the A.R.A. supplies deliv- ered in that section. Through our connection with the A.R.A. we were dependent on them for our food supplies. If there had been several American Mennonite workers in Russia at that time, we could have taken delivery at Mos- cow and shipped the food South under the terms of our own contract. But as it was, our hands were tied. In the second place, it was rumored that the A.R.A. preferred to use only the food remittance plan