Feeding the Hungry, P. C. Hiebert, 1929

ake you along on one of the Organizing Expeditions, such as fell to the lot of the American worker for every section and colony. THE PsyCHOLOGY OF THE SITUATION Four years of strain in the World-war that took property and men beyond what was considered possible; then four years of revolution and counter-revolution with VIZUALIZING FAMINE CONDITIONS 223 the front of the two armies, passing back and forth through the Mennonite colonies; associated with general lawlessness and the atrocities of the robber-bands, who without reason left ruin, death, and often what seemed worse than death in their wake wherever they passed; the terrible epidemics, rather pestilences, left thousands with weakened constitutions and ruined health, besides mowing a deep swath for the grim reaper, death; and finally the hollow-eyed, stalking monster, Famine—Starvation—made his appearance in the Volga colonies, and slowly but surely worked its way westward until it engulfed, with relentless power and cruelty, the Mennonite settlements of Ukraine and Crimea. The earlier visitations had very much under- mined the moral stamina and the vigor of the people, while the latter, leaving no apparent avenue of escape, literally blasted the hope and crushed the vitality of many, in some cases approaching the stage of a general panic. Emigration and even flight was the intention of a very large percent of the Molotschna people, when your representatives arrived early in April of 1922. That the food sent over from far away America could be more than a momentary relief was inconceivable, because of the immensity of the need. It seemed to them that we could perhaps feed a smaller number, but for the thousands nothing but flight was left. When on our tour of inspec- tion, Bro. Krehbiel and I entered the village A—, in the Molotschna, we were told that nearly all were preparing for flight. Some had already gone, and others were to leave on the morrow or the day after. Our counsel not to flee seemed to fall on deaf ears. That afternoon we met with the officials of the “Verband,” who shared the general mood of despair and hopelessness. We could bet- ter understand when several of them reported that they had had no bread in their homes for weeks and were living on substitutes. Still we counseled against flight, but 224 FEEDING THE HUNGRY they pointed through the window where their last hope of food for the coming year was moving away in vast dust clouds. The exceptionally strong spring winds were tear- ing the wheat out of the parched ground that had seen little rain for more than a year. Hopelessness and despair seemed to be masters of the situation. We plead with the people in private, and Sunday from the pulpit, not to flee, for that meant certain death for most of them. Only the return of the vanguard of refugees, after being robbed of all they possessed, and the new hope instilled by reports of the Dutch supplies on the way