A History of the Mennonite Brethren Church, Ja Toews

a small Bible school, which proved a great blessing to the young people of the community. Farther west, a new Mennonite center emerged in the Abbotsford area, where a cluster of M.B. churches was established — each in rap- id succession. The South Abbotsford M.B. Church, organized in 1932, must be recognized as the "mother church" of this area. 45 The Abbotsford and Aldergrove districts had been deforested some years earlier leaving a wasteland of giant stumps and ugly charred snags. Hard work, indomitable courage, and perseverance transformed this wasteland into profitable strawberry plantations as well as poultry and dairy farms. By 1935 the settlement had extended northward, and members left the mother church to organize the North Abbotsford (now Clearbrook) M.B. Church. This church, located right in the heart of what is now the town of Clearbrook, has experienced a steady growth until today (1971) it is the largest M.B. congregation in Canada with approximately seven hundred members. A large number of these members are retired farmers or businessmen from the prairies. The location in this town of two large Christian schools — the Mennonite Educational Institute and the Columbia Bible Institute — has been a major factor in shifting the center of Mennonite Brethren activity in this MKNNONITE BRETHREN COME TO CANADA 169 province from Yarrow to Clearbrook. As congregations grew larger, they divided and established daughter churches in the area. In 1945, A.D. Rempel, the leader of the South Abbotsford church from its inception, led a group of members (with the blessing of the church) in the formation of the Matsqui M.B. Church. As a result of continued growth and expansion the mother church experienced a third division in 1950, when the Abbotsford (now Central Heights) congregation was organized with one hundred and eighty-two members under the leadership of H.H. Nickel." The Clearbrook M.B. Church also went through several divisions as a result of continued expansion and growth. In 1947 the East Aldergrove M.B. Church was organized by a group of thirty-four families, because the North Abbotsford church, to which they belonged, was overcrowded. The second division came in 1965, with the organization of the Bakerview M.B. Church, also located in Clearbrook. Members from South Abbotsford also joined Bakerview because they preferred all-English services. A third division occurred in the late sixties when those who preferred to have their worship services exclusively in the German language (mostly recent immigrants from Europe and Paraguay) left the Clearbrook church and organized the King Road M.B. Church, about one mile south of town. This congregation so far (1972) has not joined the conference. In the Interior After World War II Mennonite Brethren began to move into the interior of this vast province. Attracted by the sunshine and fruit-orchards of the Okanagan Valley, a number of M.B. f