A History of the Mennonite Brethren Church, Ja Toews

al congregation became independent in its organizational structure. Spacious church buildings were erected at Spat (1887) and at Schoental (1905). In 1902 the church membership stood at three hundred and thirty, with an additional five hundred adherents. David Gerhard Duerksen (1850-1910) must be regarded as one of the "chosen instruments" of God in building the Mennonite Brethren Church. The following description of Duerksen appeared in the Mennonitisches Lexikon shortly after his death: He was one of the greatest channels of blessing to Russian Mennonitism during the last fifty years preceding World War I. For those who knew him, either as educator, preacher, elder or author, his life and service were an ideal, or a pattern to emulate. During more than two decades, he was one of the strongest influences for the awakening, nurturing, and influencing of the spiritual life in the Mennonite Churches. B Through another family of the Spat-Schoental congregation great blessings have come to the larger brotherhood on three continents — the Unruhs. Heinrich and Cornelius, both trained in the Baptist Seminary in Hamburg, went as missionaries to India with their families around the 90 HISTORY OF THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH turn of the century; Abraham and Benjamin both became outstanding educators, first in Russia, and later in Canada and Germany respectively, and Gerhard served faithfully as a preacher in the Mennonite Brethren Church in Russia as well as in Canada. Because of the high spiritual and intellectual caliber of its leaders, the Spat- Schoental church became one of the most influential Mennonite Breth- ren congregations in South Russia. The Mennonite Brethren here became actively involved in the promotion of better education. David Duerksen and Jakob Kroeker served as members on the commission which supervised the teaching of religion and German in the schools. The whole church actively supported the establishment of Christian private high schools — in 1905 in Karassan, and in 1906 in Spat. The first Bible school among the Mennonites of Russia, built by Mennonite Brethren in the Crimea in 1918, will receive special consideration in the next chapter. (2) Memrik (Kotljarewka). The Memrik Mennonite settlement was established as a "daughter colony" of the Molotschna in 1885 in the so-called Don basin of the Ekaterinoslav province. The necessary qualifications of a settler were that "the head of the landless family conduct a quiet and moral life, be industrious and in possession of a wagon, plow, harrow, two horses, two cows, and the necessary means to establish a home." 7 A total of 221 families settled here in ten villages. Among these settlers were also twenty-eight members of the Mennonite Brethren Church, who had an elected minister, Isaak Fast, and a deacon in their midst. The group functioned as a subsidiary of the Molotschna M.B. Church until 1900, when it became independent and