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

n mission." Among the Russian Mennonites the concern for foreign missions predated the birth of the Mennonite Brethren Church, The strongly influential Moravian Brethren, besides fostering renewal tendencies, also imparted their missionary consciousness and vision to the larger Mennonite community in Russia/1 Like a torch in a relay, the new Mennonite Brethren movement accepted this vision with eagerness and conviction. There is a detailed history of their foreign mission activity on record elsewhere,43 The motivation and methods of that mission enterprise, however, merit review. The Lord's words to Ananias in Acts 5M5-*He is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles"-stirred the soul of the new Mennonite Brethren Church. They, too, felt bom with an assignment from God to "bear my name" across cultural boundaries. From the start we can see a com- pelling sense of responsibility for the spiritual need of those beyond the usual spheres of Christianity. Their isolation in Russia and North America may have sharpened this consciousness. With their outreach in home missions limited, at least at first by barriers of language and culture, they compensated with a strong emphasis on foreign missions. There is room to consider whether there was an overemphasis on foreign missions to the neglect of responsi- bility toward the spiritual needs of the people of their own immediate neighborhoods. When in 1885T in Russia, the first young man, Abram J. Friesen volunteered for foreign service, one leader exclaimed: "We have been praying to God for a long time that He might 90 A MISSIONARY MOVEMENT make someone willing to go out as our missionary to the hea- then/44 He expressed the sentiment of the entire conference. The praying churches provided the basis for the early and rapidly expanding program of foreign missions. In North America in 1879, only five years after the first Mennonite Brethren landed on the continent and while still in the midst of their struggle for social and economic survival, the conference spoke of its responsibility to bring the gospel to those who had not heard.45 Two years later, 1881, the con- ference marked the official birth of Mennonite Brethren for- eign missions in America when it designated half of its offer- ing ($2632) to this cause, applying the other half to home missions. This action formalized the two-prong missionary commitment of the early Mennonite Brethren,46 The predominant interest in foreign mission in the decades that followed was reflected on several levels. As A. E. Janzen noted: "Expre