Transformed

An interesting place here in our city of Winnipeg is Sam's Place, a used bookstore, cafe, and music venue, located in the Elmwood neighbourhood of Winnipeg. I love this place because I enjoy being surrounded by books. They are all donated and originally belonged to someone's library. I like to think that they were loved and cherished in the homes from which they came and still exude this atmosphere.

Hardy and I were both interested when we read that the focus for January at Sam's Place was MCC Manitoba's Low German Program. On January 14th we attended a special event there called "Low German Mennonites in the City -- Telling our Stories."

The event was hosted by Tina Fehr Kehler, who is fluent in English and Low German and works with MCC to help Mennonites arriving from Central and South America. Her special guest was Mari Loewen. Both Tina and Mari shared their struggle of growing up in a very conservative community where the lovely "worldly" things which attracted them were forbidden. If they wanted to wear jeans like their peers at school they had to wear them under their dresses. Makeup had to be applied in secret and all evidence of it removed before they returned home. Both Tina and Mari eventually moved to the city and after a huge time of adjustment they launched their own careers, Tina with MCC and Mari editing a very successful magazine called Anna. 

                      

This is where the story really becomes beautiful. Mari did not know what to call her magazine, until someone asked her what her mother's name was. Anna, her plain Mennonite mother, who cooked and baked and sewed and gardened, became the inspiration for the magazine's title. Mari told her audience that everything she aspires to in this magazine, she learned at the feet of her parents -- the ingenuity and imagination to invent new ways of doing things from the little that was available, the hard work required to keep a farm and family thriving, the stubborn tenacity to hang in there in spite of the odds against them. As an adult, Mari was able to set aside her frustration at her people's conservative mindset and recognize, appreciate, and make use of their positive qualities. Both Tina and Mari exhibit no trace of bitterness, but are able to laugh and make fun of things that had the potential to turn them against their parents and their community.

My reading these days has also broadened my perspective on what it means to be transformed from a young and somewhat naive person into a determined adult through extraordinary suffering and unimaginable circumstances. A friend gave me the book A House in the Sky, by Amanda Lindhout and Sara Corbett. Lindhout's memoir tells the story of her horrific experience as a captive for ransom by Somalian bandits. She was released after more than a year of captivity in which she endured torture that can only be described as evil personified. Through some mysterious process, Lindhout was able to have an out-of-body experience where she floated above her body, seeing "three people suffering, the tortured and the torturers alike." She came to the conclusion that her captors must themselves have undergone extreme deprivation and suffering and she was able to forgive them. After her release and subsequent healing of her body and mind, she actually returned to Somalia and founded the Global Enrichment Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports development, aid, and education initiatives in Somalia and Kenya.

This modern account of suffering reminds me of what some of my family went through just prior to and during World War II. I never heard them speak of it but have read several books about such experiences. These accounts are written in German and really should be translated for the next generations. All of us need to understand that the evil which occurred in the past is yet alive and well among us; we need to be prepared to meet it head-on.

Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hate. It is a power that breaks the chain of bitterness and the shackles of selfishness. (Corrie Ten Boom)