A History of the Mennonite Brethren Church, Ja Toews

onse for the month of August alone in 1968 was 2287. 46 The radio ministry of the German department has indirectly contributed to church growth in several South American countries. Mennonite Brethren in Panama Until 1903 Panama, the narrow strip of territory at the southern tip of Central America, was a department of the Republic of Colombia. The Waunana Indians, living in northwestern Colombia and southern Panama, continued to cross the border freely, ignoring the new political division after Panama's independence. An independent mission had begun a work among the Empera tribe of the Choco Indians in 1953. In 1956 anthropologist Jacob Loewen, former missionary in Colombia, made his first visit to this area in the course of his study of all Choco dialects. He was joined by David 432 HISTORY OF THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH 66. A Bible study in Panama. Wirsche in this work. When the Waunana Indians in Colombia heard that their former missionary friends were now teaching the Panama Indians, many of them migrated there and settled in the Chitola area. The unique method of evangelism to reach the Indian tribes has been a "summer reading course." In the words of Phyllis Martens: "This approach — missions via the teaching of reading — is in fact Panama's unique and highly successful donation to the history of Mertnonite Brethren missions." 41 The missionaries continued the sum- mer reading classes until the Indians were able to conduct a year-round literacy program of their own. The report of the Board of Missions and Services to the General Conference in 1969 contains this terse but significant note on the progress of the work in Panama: "The four churches have experienced spiritual growth. The ministry of Glen Prunty, and the visits of David Wirsche, James Harrison and John Goertz have assisted the churches in maturing in the Word of God." 48 By their own choice these churches will be associated with the Menno- nite Brethren. Mennonite Brethren in Mexico It seems somewhat strange that Mexico, next-door neighbor of the United States to the south, has received the missionary attention of the Mennonite Brethren only a little more than twenty years ago. Although it is a North American federal republic, Mexico has more in common religiously and politically with the rest of the Latin American countries in Central and South America. Between 1922-27 several thousand Old Colony and Sommerfelder Mennonites from Manitoba and Saskatchewan moved to Mexico and established large settlements in the states of Chihuahua and Durango. MENNONITE BRETHREN AROUND THE WORLD 433 These groups had left Canada out of protest to the secularization process, chiefly the Canadianization to which they were being subjected in the public schools. The moral and spiritual plight of these Mennonites motivated the Mennonite Brethren to enter Mexico. Because of government restrictions against foreign "missionar