A History of the Mennonite Brethren Church, Ja Toews

n 1944 at the corner of Forty-third and Prince Edward. War restrictions on building materials delayed completion of construction until 1946. All other churches in the metropolitan area have their historic roots in this congregation. During the war a number of M.B. families moved back to the Fraser Valley; others moved to North Surrey. Here an M.B. church was organized at Strawberry Hill (now Kennedy Heights) in 1944. By 1952 the Vancouver M. B. Church was overcrowded, so the group decided to erect another church building at the corner of Fifty-ninth and Culloden, in South Vancouver. Here the Fraserview M.B. Church was organized as an independent congregation in 1955. By 1960 both these churches again needed more room, so two new churches were organized in 1961. The Vancouver M.B. Church assisted in the establishment of the Willingdon M.B. Church in Burnaby, and the Fraserview congregation assisted in the establishment of the Killarney Park M.B. Church in southeast Vancouver. In 1968 the mother church once more faced the problem of MENNONITE BRETHREN COME TO CANADA 171 inadequate space for a congregation of over six hundred members. This time aproximately four-fifths of the membership separated from the Vancouver M.B. Church to establish the Culloden M.B. Church. D.B. Wiens, pastor of the mother church for eleven years, continued to serve in this capacity in the new congregation. In 1971 a congregation was also organized in Richmond, just across the Fraser river on Lulu Island, where members of the various Vancouver churches had taken up residence. Herbert Brandt, who had led the Killarney Park congregation for nine years, became the pastor of the Richmond Bethel M.B. Church. In addition to these seven larger congregations in the Vancouver area, two mission churches have also been established here: Queens- boro, near New Westminster (1960), and Pacific Grace Mission (1965). The latter had been in operation as a city mission of the provincial conference since 1951. Beyond the Straits of Georgia lies beautiful Vancouver Island. During the Depression Mennonites moved to the Island to find employment in the large logging industry there. In 1935 a Mennonite Brethren church was established at Black Creek, in the northeastern part of the Island. In the late sixties a church extension project was also begun in Saanich, a suburb of Victoria, in the south. The Island became well known throughout the Mennonite Brethren constituency in Canada during World War II, when most conscientious objectors were employed here in Alternative Service Forestry Camps. In the two oldest provinces of Canada, Mennonite Brethren have congregations that do not only worship God in English or German but also in French, which is unique on the North American continent. Separated geographically from the congregations in the West by more than 1,200 miles, they have nevertheless become an integral part of the brotherhood in t