A History of the Mennonite Brethren Church, Ja Toews

church was organized with sixteen charter members from St. Jerome and Ste. Therese. In 1968 the believers in these two places decided to form separate congregations. Other workers from the conference as well as from Quebec joined the Dycks in an expanding witness. In September, 1967, a work was begun in St. Laurent (a suburb of Montreal) and three years later a church was organized there. The three churches today have a combined membership of seventy-one as well as a number of adherents. Two congregations are served at present by French-Canadian pastors. 58 MENNONITE BRETHREN COME TO CANADA 175 During the past few years Mennonite Brethren have extended their witness still further east. Between 1969 and 1971 the Walter Epps, Christian Service workers sponsored by the Board of Missions and Services, have assisted in the establishment of the Mt. Edward Bible Fellowship Church in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. 60 Thus the Canadian M.B. Conference spans a territory of more than four thousand miles — from Dartmouth (a twin city of Halifax), Nova Scotia, to Black Creek, Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Before considering the organization and function of the North American brotherhood in building God's kingdom, it is necessary to become acquainted with another Anabaptist fellowship that since 1960 has become completely identified with the Mennonite Brethren — the Krimmer Mennonite Brethren Church. Chapter 12 The Krimmer Mennonite Brethren Come to North America In previous chapters several brief references have been made to the origin and migration of the Krimmer Mennonite Brethren. The story of this evangelical Anabaptist fellowship, so closely related in faith and practice to the Mennonite Brethren Church, needs to be told more fully now. The ninety-one years (1869-1960) of separate historical experience and development of this body bear eloquent testimony to the depth of Christian commitment to Christ and His kingdom among the Krimmer Mennonite Brethren. This interesting chapter of church history now forms an integral part of the spiritual heritage of the Mennonite Brethren. I. Historical Origin in the Crimea The Krimmer Mennonite Brethren Church had its origin in the village of Annenfeld near Simferopol, Crimea, Russia, on September 21, 1869 — almost ten years after the M. B. Church was founded in the Molotschna. The birth of the Krimmer Mennonite Brethren Church is inseparably linked with the spiritual "rebirth," and practical initiative of its founder and leader of many years, Jacob A. Wiebe (1836-1921). Elder Wiebe grew up in the village of Ohrloff in the Molotschna Colony. Through private study he acquired a fair education for his day. In his youth he was employed as driver for the colony administrator, whose daughter Justina he married in 1857.' A year prior to his marriage, as was customary in those days, Wiebe was baptized and received into the Lichtenau-Petershagen Mennonite Chu