Feeding the Hungry, P. C. Hiebert, 1929

ompelled by others to delay our assistance until a num- ber had actually starved to death. Thus we could build up our organization gradually and with a minimum of interference. Under the circumstances it made it possible to require some form of service from the persons helped, in return for the assistance rendered. This manner of dis- pensing charity has important advantages over the more pleasant but weaker way of direct giving, for it does not pauperize the needy; it does not lead them to depend entirely on others without self-effort; and does not lower their self-respect. It is a more difficult way, but when done in a Christian spirit, it is most effective. During the summer, Rev. Hermann Riesen, one of the most active men in the Old Samara settlement, was sent to Siberia in connection with the seed distribution and the horse deliveries, and also to investigate conditions in general among the Mennonites there. He was astonished and horrified by what he found. He reported that about 20 to 25% of the Mennonite children up to approxi- mately fourteen years of age, and some as old as sixteen, RELIEF AND RECONSTRUCTION IN SIBERIA Sty boys and girls, were going about stark naked; while many older ones including men and women had only tatters and rags hung about their bodies. These poorest had prac- tically nothing left to wear. Some had sheep skins but these they must save for the bitter cold weather of the Siberian winter. In many families there was clothing enough for only one person to go out into the cold while the others remained almost naked indoors. On the bed- steads of these poorer families, (and there were many such families) were only rags—no mattresses, no bed- ticking, no pillows or pillow slips, no sheets, no blankets or covers. In such homes they simply slept in their cloth- ing, or rags, with sometimes an old overcoat or sheep skin to serve as cushion and cover. The children often slept on the floor on straw or weeds. One family had made a little pen next to the brick or clay stove and into the straw in this pen the naked children crept to keep warm and to sleep. Many houses were built mostly of earth or sod, with only two rooms for the whole family, which was usually large, an earth floor, chilly in winter and the favorite resort of the myr- iads of fleas in summer. During that summer of 1923, the drought and heat waves almost destroyed the crops. It soon became evident that we must not only clothe but also feed a considerable portion of those communities. It was difficult to ask the villages to return the A.M.R. seed loaned to them in the spring, but if we should merely cancel the obligations, it would surely demoralize the community still more. As we should have to supply the food at any rate, it was decided that the seed loan was to be repaid and then the A.M.R. would care for them during the winter. As rapidly as the villages met their obligations, and need arose, the