A History of the Mennonite Brethren Church, Ja Toews

families from Witmarsum also made the trek to Curitiba. Elder Jakob Huebert joined 418 HISTORY OF THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH the group at Curitiba in 1936 and during the next few years several M.B. churches were established in the area. The Krauel settlement continued to be plagued by economic problems and religious tensions. In 1949 a new resettlement committee discovered land suitable for agricultural purposes in the southernmost state of Brazil, Rio Grande de Sul, about twenty-five miles southeast of the city of Bage, and forty miles north of the Uruguayan border. Under the leadership of Jacob Epp, a leading industrialist of the Witmarsum settlement, the Bage colony was founded. By 1951 the settlement had grown to eighty-two families, most of them Mennonite Brethren. Under the leadership of elder Gerhard Rosenfeld, who had weathered all the religious storms on the Krauel, the M.B. Church began a new chapter in its history. 34 During the last twenty years the Bage M.B. Church has carried on an effective church extension program among its Brazilian neighbors, and several churches have been established in the area. After 1951 the Krauel settlement rapidly disintegrated. Those who did not move to Bage resettled in the state of Parana in a colony called Neu Witmarsum, about forty-five miles northwest of Curitiba. Here the larger group belonged to the Mennonite Church, but an M.B. Church was also organized. Curitiba, however, emerged as the main center of the German-speaking Mennonite Brethren. Through the faithful teaching ministry of such brethren as Gerhard Sukkau, C. C. Peters, and others, the church's missionary vision was enlarged and mission work among Portuguese-speaking people was begun in several places. "There is hardly a church of the German Mennonite Brethren Conference," reported J. J. Toews after a visit to Brazil, "which does not have an extension work among the Brazilians." 35 The establishment of a Theological Institute in Curitiba by the South American M.B. Conference was an important factor in this church extension program. When the "Convention" (the Portuguese-speaking M.B. Conference) began to assume greater responsibility for the work among Brazilians, the "Association" (the German-speaking M.B. Conference) directed its missionary efforts more to the large German communities in Santa Catarina. In Blumenau, Joinville, and other places, local congregations and evangelistic centers have been established. A German-speaking M.B. church has also been organized in the large metropolis of Sao Paulo. The membership of the Association in 1971 was 1,021. The National M.B. Church The Mennonite Brethren Church among Brazilians had an inconspicuous beginning. An orphanage was opened in 1947 near Curitiba as the first experiment of outreach in Brazil by the Board of MENNONITE BRETHREN AROUND THE WORLD 419 50. Conference of the German-speaking M.B. Church "Associati