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

y began to weep bitterly. I decided the children could not be alone. I simply prayed: “Lord Jesus you know the situa¬ tion. I need to go [to Toni] and only You can make me better.” My pain vanished immediately. I got up, dressed and spent the night at her house. It seemed she could die any moment. Her breathing was very shallow and sometimes stopped altogether. Again and again I thought her dead but then she began breathing again. The hours passed. It was such an impossible situation. Toni had been ill for five years. The girls had received little training. What will they do if Toni dies? Who will take care of them? . . . Finally I simply prayed: Lord Jesus you can do miracles and heal Toni. Let her live until the girls can take care of themselves. You know I’m at the end of my wits and have no idea where to place the children. I was responsible for Toni and I simply let the Lord know that. For more than a month we tried to feed Toni with a teaspoon. Suddenly towards morning both she and I fell asleep. When it was daylight she awoke and said: “I’m hungry.” One of her daugh¬ ters who really knew how to care for her brought food and Toni ate a substantial breakfast. She soon recovered. Though Toni was never as vigorous and strong as previously she could move around the house and even cook dinner. When her daughters went to 32 JOURNEYS work in the sugar beets she ran the household alone. The doctor in the village who had frequently predicted her death came to visit her and said simply: “I don’t know what has happened. A miracle has occurred for there was no hope for her.” When one of the daughters went to get drugs for Toni the druggist expressed sur¬ prise that she was still alive. Toni lived for another fourteen years. One afternoon she became ill and died during the night. By then the girls were grown up and independent. Crop failure made things rather difficult for us. What Peter managed to bring home was not enough for all of us. It was the end of April, and no rain had fallen. Everything was dry and arid, almost a reflection of our own hopelessness. My parents sent my stepsister with a message that they had a good harvest in Bergtal and I was to come and bring the children with me. I followed their advice. We were among the last families who were allowed to leave the collective. Later other families would try to leave and were not allowed to do so. The collective farm was nothing more than a glorified prison. I arrived at my parent’s home with my four youngest children on May 1, 1940. Peter wanted to continue to work in the mines so he stayed in the mountains. My parents and siblings helped support us and so we had our daily bread. I began to work on the collective to generate some additional income. This is how we lived throughout 1940. Now and then I received letters from my dear husband and I was also allowed to write to him on occasion. His food was very poor so I would send