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

the jungle, I awoke and noticed Janzen was gone, listening quietly I sud- denly heard a voice in the distance. Though fearful of the surroundings, I got up and proceeded in the direction of the sound, The veteran missionary, who by now had been on the African continent for more than thirty-five years, was on 100 EARLY MENNONITE BRETHREN MISSIONARIES his knees in the middle of the night crying out: "Oh, God, awaken now the spirit of my brethren at home that the work here in Africa may never cease, that the great church would be built in thy name, and that those in darkness will finally see the gospel." The year 1956 marked the completion of Aaron Janzen's African sojourn. Along with his second wife, Martha Hiebert, he returned to North America to give his final witness to the home churches. In 1957 God called his faithful servant home. The church in the Congo of Africa, now called Zaire, has gone through many testings and trials. The turbulent 1960s brought enormous difficulties, and many wondered if the church could survive after the tremendous bloodshed of the revolution. But God nourished the seeds that Aaron Janzen had sown and other missionaries cultivated. Today, many decades after that remarkable beginning, the Mennonite Brethren Church in Zaire numbers 35,000 believers. Heinrich Voth. In 1898, the burning issue at the confer- ence in Winkler, Manitoba, was whether Mennonite Brethren should have their own foreign mission program. Young men and women who had gone out before had done so with the love and support of their own congregations, but were ad- ministratively independent of the wider church. Conference leader Heinrich Voth, feeling the burden of this vital issue, preached on the subject of John 10:16: "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring." Un- der the canopy of a huge tent, he spoke powerfully and per- suasively. Surely God was urging them to take a step of faith and establish a missionary program in India. Money was scarce, yet the gathered assembly forged ahead under the conviction that "We must follow the assignment of God." They decided to send out Nickolas N. and Susie Hiebert. On the way home from that historic meeting Heinrich Voth felt keenly the burden of responsibility for the decisions he had helped shape. Riding with his wife Sarah in a horse- 101 A PILGRIMAGE OF FAITH drawn buggy, he announced, "Mother, we will need to sell one of our heifers/ The Voths had only two heifers and needed both of them to support their large family. "But," his wife