A History of the Mennonite Brethren Church, Ja Toews

In 1971, almost ninety years later, its membership stood at two hundred and thirty-five, illustrating the problems that a rural congregation (in this case with strong leadership) faces in a changing economy and culture. The Ebenfeld congregation had its "storm and stress" period in the early years. The majority of the group that arrived in 1876 were from the Volga settlement; others came from the Kuban and Chortitza colonies. Elder Peter Eckert, the first presiding minister and a tolerant and open-minded man, attempted amalgamation with the K.M.B. group established in nearby Gnadenau in 1874. The latter preferred to remain separate, however, and the attempt failed. Elder Eckert found it difficult to control and unite the diverse elements in his own local group, especially the Volga brethren who still insisted on the "sister kiss" and other practices which the group could not accept, and hence re- signed from leadership. Abraham Cornelsen, the author of the 1860 Document of Secession, who had arrived with a group from the Don 134 HISTORY OF THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH Settlement in 1879, succeeded Eckert as leader and served the congre- gation as elder until his death in 1884.'" Other problems in the Ebenfeld M.B. Church were created with the arrival of Eduard Leppke, an ex-Baptist who had become a "hyper-Mennonite" in South Russia." After failing to win members for his views and a separatist group, Leppke united with the Krimmer Mennonite Brethren, but soon left them as well and joined the Seventh Day Adventists. The Mennonites and the Mennonite Brethren congregations then (and now!) have been considered fertile fields for proselytizing, or "sheep stealing" by various other denominations. A traveling Baptist minister named Janicka came to Ebenfeld. He succeeded in winning a number of members of the Volga group and founded a Baptist church in Hillsboro. 1 -' Eventually, it appears, most of the Volga brethren moved to other localities and many joined the Baptists. Under the leadership of Johann Foth, who was ordained as elder by Abraham Schellenberg in 1885 and served the congregation in this capacity for thirty years, the Ebenfeld Church became one of the pillars in the M.B. Conference. 13 The Steinreich* Mennonite Brethren Church, ten miles to the east, was founded by Ebenfeld in 1905, and remained affiliated with the mother church until 1946, when it became the Marion M.B. Church. The Ebenezer-Buhler Mennonite Brethren Church The Ebenezer Mennonite Brethren Church, located four miles east of Buhler in Reno County, began in 1878 when a number of M.B. families from Russia settled in this community with Franz Ediger and Peter Wall as leaders. In 1921 this congregation amalgamated with its "daughter-congregation" at Buhler. The latter had been started in 1901 as a Sunday school and established as an independent church under the ministry of elder Heinrich Adrian. The Ebenzer M.B. Church