Feeding the Hungry, P. C. Hiebert, 1929

s) PART OF A LETTER FROM RUECKENAU To our Brethren in the Faith in far-off America. Dear Brethren and Sisters:—The Rueckenau village Committee feel themselves duty bound to convey to you, in the name of our village, our deeply felt thanks for your RESPONSES FROM RUSSIA 397 help in our distress, for your representatives that have vis- ited us and for the supplies that you have sent. Only a year ago no one would have believed it possible that we rich Molotschna colonists would in the year 1922 use for food the flesh of horses, dogs, cats and mice, also bran, oilcake or ground corn cobs (mixed with flour for bread). And the persons who were compelled to use such food were by no means all of the poorer classes. In our village it happened that a number of the most prosperous farmers, who owned sixty-five Desjatines of land (almost 180 acres), ate meat of a questionable kind. Needless to say, the famine began among the poorer classes; but the villagers united in the relief work of feeding about seventy persons in a famine kitchen for several months. This kitchen had just been closed for lack of food when your first shipment of supplies arrived. Imagine the feelings with which your first help was greeted. We have been saved by the American kitchen which was organized in the middle of March, from the fate of the adjoining German Prischib ‘district and the surrounding Russian villages where hun- dreds have died of hunger. At the present two hundred sixty-one persons are daily given a palatable and wholesome noon-day meal. May God reward you dear far-away brethren and sis- ters, for what you have done for us and are still doing, and may He protect you from such calamity as has befallen us. The Committee of the Village Rueckenau. APPRECIATION OF RECONSTRUCTION WoRK To the Director of the American Tractors, Division of the Ukraine. Honored Sir:—Our district meeting of the authorized members of the “Verband” assembled at Rueckenau, Oct. 1, 1922, which represent the sixty villages included in the Molotschna Colony, send you cordial greetings! It gives us an intense feeling of satisfaction to observe how our meadows are again being cultivated through your energetic and effective assistance. That which seemed an impossibility for us and our weakened horses, is accom- plished with ease by you and your practical American tractors. 398 FEEDING THE HUNGRY We welcome with joy, every furrow that is plowed, and every parcel of ground that is cultivated, for these efforts next to the grace of God, promise to furnish our own home-raised bread for the future. We therefore take the liberty to thank you for your whole-hearted assistance, in the name of the inhabitants of the Gnadenfeld and Halbstadt .Volosts and request you to transmit, these our words of thanks, unto the kind donors in America, our dear Mennonite brethren. At the request of the District Meeting, The officials of the “Verband,”