JOURNEYS Mennonite Stories of Faith and Survival in Stalins Russia, John B. Toews, 1998

1930s which brought such tragedy to her life. She reports only the events and circumstances which impacted her personally. We learn of the brutality of collectivization as she chronicles her husband s arrests and eventual death in the concentration camp. Forceful separa- 22 JOURNEYS tion from her children, especially four-year-old Alfred, her only sur¬ viving biological child, introduce the reader to the callous brutality of Stalins Work Army in 1942. Four years of incarceration brought starvation rations, work in coal mines and on the railroad, periodic relocations, isolation, personal anxiety, primitive living conditions, extreme cold, and a steady longing for her children - she simply docu¬ ments all these life experiences as they happened. Even after Anna is finally released the struggle for personal sur¬ vival continued. She arrives home to find her mother and children starving. Thanks to her knitting skills she earns enough money to buy a cow, only to have it seized by the collective farm because she had not fufilled her meat quota. The family’s sow dies while giving birth. Finally the gift of a calf, which is unobtrusively raised by her sister-in-law in the collectives herd, eventually eases the food crisis. Annas reminiscences lack a precise chronology. The survival drama she describes must have occurred in the late 1940s or even the early 1950s. Anna’s spiritual journey was characterized by a simple theology and a straightforward piety. The Bible outlined God’s provision for salvation in Christ and contained many words of promise for the believer. One took the Bible at its word whatever the circumstances. You were either on God’s side or you were not. A Bible storybook which escaped confiscation in the 1930s, the reading of these stories in a home, a few words of explanation, some prayers — and a religious revival erupted which spread from village to village. Not long after a few of the men who survived their Gulag experience began to return home. Preaching and teaching at secret meetings continued to fan the flames of revival. In this regard Anna’s experience was not unique. Other areas of Mennonite residence in Central Asia reported similar religious manifestations. There is a note of sadness amid all that is religiously refreshing. Female spirituality, female leadership and female assertiveness initi¬ ated the revival, yet when the men returned they were set aside and their contribution minimized. Elsewhere her co-evangelist Justina Martens experiences similar subjection. Amna, by nature outspoken and direct, even found herself excommunicated for several years for reasons that are never articulated. As she shares her personal agony the reader senses a para-message: here was an attempt on the part of male ecclesiastical leadership to bring a courageous female with lead¬ ership qualities into line. In the end her transparent positive nature triumphs over all adversity. For her li