The Great Trek of the Russian Mennonites to Central Asia, 1880-1884, Fred Richard Belk, 1976

e arduous task than the desert had been. Arrival in Kaplan Bek, November 24, 1880 On November 24, they broke camp in the middle of the night in order to arrive at Kaplan Bek that day. With a Kirghiz guide leading the way, they branched off the mail route, crossed cultivated fields, hurried over shallow canals and rickety bridges, swayed along crooked roads, trudged through swampy areas, and finally forded the Keles River to arrive at their destination. The trials of their final day turned to joy when they met the brethren who had arrived four weeks earlier. 8 THE TREK CONTINUES The new arrivals from the Trakt were soon to be joined in Kaplan Bek by a group from the Molotschna colony of European Russia. This group had long prepared for a rendezvous with their comrades in the faith with much enthusiasm for the entire venture.! Preparations and Millennialism But material preparations were not of primary concern to this band. More important to them, they believed, was their renewed emphasis on the prophetic passages of the Bible and their relation- ship to millennialism. These studies centered in the village of Gnaden- feld, where a conservative Flemish tradition had long emphasized evangelism, pietism, and a strong missionary impulse, and gave a new religious vigor and enthusiasm to the prophecy of the last days.2, Moreover, a recent immigration of ardently millennialist Mennonite Brethren families from the Kuban regions, intensified the fervor of the entire colony.’ The most active promoter of millennialism and migration was Abraham Peters, who had become pastor of the Orloff-Newkirk con- gregation in 1860, the same year the Mennonite Brethren Church was formed. He had been deeply influenced by the pietistic sermons of a Lutheran pastor, Edward Wiist, and his church was a bastion of the conservative tradition — evangelism, total abstinence, and bap- tism by immersion. Peters was a dynamic speaker and won many followers through prayer and Bible study meetings as Wiist had done before him. In fact, as a newly ordained minister, he played a signif- The Trek Continues 97 icant role in the religious revival which swept through the Molotschna between 1860 and 1870, and he was looked upon by many as the kind of charismatic personality who could lead the people to a promised land. Among his most devoted followers were three families of Mennonite Brethren who had been part of the influx from the Kuban.‘ Peters’ following was encouraged by the favorable reports they had received from the Tashkent delegation in January 1880. In the following spring, meetings were held in the villages of Prangenau and Friedensruh during which discussions of the advantages of the Tashkent area further heightened the enthusiasm of the Peters faction.* They chose Peters to join the representatives of the Trakt colonists in their appeal to St. Petersburg, and efforts were made to gain draft exemptions for two y