A Pilgrimage Of Faith, J.B. Toews, 1993

Family devotions was a standard feature of home life. Faith was nurtured in a distinct cultural milieu. The benefits of this unique "peoplehood" structure could not be replicated in North America, at least not to the same extent. Mennonite Brethren felt the need to provide their own religious education. As early as 1884 the North American Mennonite Brethren Conference addressed the need to edu- cate the children and youth. The frequency of educational resolutions suggests the extensive concerns about education.2 To this impressive list can be added the many deliberations and decisions at the national and regional conference levels. Clearly, the education of children and youth was central for Mennonite Brethren. The migration of the 1920s and 1930s added to the urgency of this concern. The Mennonites of the 1870s came to the new world not as individuals but as cohesive groups. Immigration followed community patterns in the initial settlements and in daughter 167 A PILGRIMAGE OF FAITH settlements; the Red River Valley of Manitoba; the Ebenfeld- Hillsboro community in Kansas; Henderson, Nebraska; Moun- tain Lake, Minnesota; and later the Hepbum-Waldheim-Dal- meny area of Saskatchewan; Coaldale, Alberta; and Yarrow, British Columbia, Communal cohesiveness was doubtless an important fea- ture of Mennonite history, Cultural and ethnic ties were carri- ers of faith and lifestyle values. While the interdependent community is a scriptural model of church life, it cannot re- main locked in ethnic exclusivisra An interdependent com- munity that finds its roots in Christ and in turn with each oth- er demands exposure to the world in a sharing relationship. Life in North America did not permit the economic and educational isolation Mennonites had known in Russia. Ini- tially the cultural and religious barriers were sufficient to maintain a strong sense of separate identity. But more protec- tion was needed. Strong legalism as a terrier against the in- trusion of social practices from the outside was one measure employed. Another was a more deliberate emphasis on their separate cultural status. The establishment of schools for the preservation of the German language and biblical instruction was intended in part to shore up cultural and spiritual values that were thought to be endangered by exposure to the non- Mermonite environment. BIBLE SCHOOLS AND HIGH SCHOOLS Corn (Oklahoma) Bible Academy which opened in 1902 listed its aim as preserving the German language, teaching Bible and preparing students for work of missions at home and abroad.3 The Mountain Lake (M