THE MENNONITE BROTHERHOOD IN RUSSIA (1789 - 1910), P. M. Friesen, 1911

right one. Even our dear brother and elder, Aron Lepp, came to a different understanding before a huge congregation of approximately 1000 people. At the 25th anniversary on January 6, 1886, in Rueckenau in the Molotschna he freely confessed that he regretted much that had happened! We all make mistakes, but still we hope to enter the heavenly abode as victors on account of the reconciling and healing grace of God. “And the ministers will shine as the brightness of the heavens and those who turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.” 279 With these words the chronicle of our dear narrator, Br. Henry Epp of Andreasfeld, closes. May this aged one richly experience the grace “to enter the heavenly abode as victor” through the power of Christ’s blood at his death which is probably near at hand! But in loving memory of all those who have fallen asleep in Christ and have labored in our churchly house, often with much anguish and tears, sometimes also in error and failure— we all make mistakes— and with an inner prayer of thanksgiving to the one from whom all good and perfect gifts come, the Father of Light, with whom there is no change or shadow of turning, who alone does not err or fail, we want to set the following precious words of the saintly hymn writer, Klopstock, as an epitaph to encourage us to fight boldly: How comfortably rest all those Who are blessed, Who boldly fight the battle of life. How comfortably they rest in the graves, Until they are awakened as victors. You, Reconciler with God Also were lowered into the grave When on the cross your work was accomplished You were not committed to corruption, But as a great victor you arose again. Oh! When we shall also rest With all the blessed, Having survived the difficult battle of life, Then you, Redeemer, will call us Out of the graves to a feast of victory. 9. The following were the Affiliated Groups (or Stations) of the Einlage M.B. Church to 1885: 1) Andreasfeld was the actual center of the church for a long time §216 484 THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH (to 1903) because Elder Aron Lepp, the prominent Minister Johann Siemens and a number of other leading brethren lived there for many years. No special accounts of this church group are extant. The colony of Andreasfeld, in the District of Alexandrovsk, Province of Ekaterinoslav, fifteen versts from Einlage, was established around 1870. Here the Einlage M.B. Church had its first house of worship in the same building as the school. Minister Liebig lived next to this meeting-house/church from June 1871 to 1872, and during the first decade and frequently thereafter, the annual conferences, if hosted by the Einlage congregation, took place here. The leasehold colony of Ebenfeld and the landowners of Blumenau also belonged to the affiliated church of Andreasfeld. The three places had their own schools and teachers, largely drawn from among their brethren.