A History of the Mennonite Brethren Church, Ja Toews

he church commissions Brother Johann Harder, to be accompained by Peter Wiebe and Johann Klaassen. (2) Kor sending forth (the gospel) to Council Grove the brethren Abraham Klaassen and Abraham Harms are commissioned. 1 " Kansas The second K.M.B. congregation in Kansas was organized in 1879 near Inman as a result of the westward expansion of the original settlement. Here Mr. and Mrs. Gerhard Kornelsen were instrumental in organizing a group of twenty-four members. Like almost all new congregations established by the Krimmer Mennonite Brethren, this group also chose a biblical name as part of its official designation — in this case it was Zoar. Although Zoar is a rural congregation, it has shown a remarkable stability and strength in church membership through the years and relocated in the town of Inman in 1969. The vision and concern of the church for its young people found expression in the founding of the Zoar Academy and Bible School in 1915. For thirty years the school operated under the direction and support of the Zoar church and community. In 1948 an inter-Mennonite corporation was organized which established the Central Christian High School in Hutchinson — a direct successor of the Zoar Academy.'" Another congregation closely related to the Gnadenau church is the Springfield K.M.B. Church, located five miles southwest of Lehigh. The Springfield community was settled in the 1870's by a dozen members of the Gnadenau church. In 1878 they began to meet for worship services in the homes. Although a church building was constructed in 1894 the 182 HISTORY OF THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH group was organized as a congregation only in 1902. Like the Mennonite Brethren of that day, the Krimmer Mennonite Brethren also ordained elders as church leaders. In 1904 elder Jacob A. Wiebe of Gnadenau ordained David P. Schroeder as elder of the Springfield congregation." Two other early congregations in Rice and Butler counties (Kansas) and one founded in western Kansas some years later have not survived. The Emmanuel congregation, established twenty miles east of Garden City, came into being when members from various churches, especially from Jansen, Nebraska, settled here in 1918 with elder J. K. Ens as leader. In 1926 the membership had reached eighty, and the Sunday school enrollment 110. During the drought and Depression of the thirties the majority of the members moved to other localities, and the church was disbanded in 1936. 21 The last K.M.B. church to be estab- lished before the K.M.B. — M.B. merger was Orchard Park in Hutchinson, Kansas, in 1954. The only K.M.B. congregation in Nebraska was established near Jansen in 1881. The Salem congregation (one of three by that name in the K.M.B. Conference) always remained small and was dissolved in 1930 after almost fifty years of continuous existence. 22 South Dakota A second center of K.M.B. church life and activity developed in the east-ce