Tour Leader’s Blog

It’s hard to describe a day like yesterday, when our TourMagination 2009 group toured through the former Mennonite settlement of Molotschna. Along the way every single person who had come to see a particular village or site had their deepest desires satisfied. Sometimes(as with Herb Epp) it happened when a Ukrainian who lives now on the site of Herb’s grandfather’s estate told us that he recalled hearing stories from his own grandfather of the former Mennonite estate that once occupied those lands. Other times it was when Vic Huebner was able to wander the now-barren lands of his own grandparents; yet its proximity to the village school meant that it was certainly the site. Along the way we were able to speak with local
villagers (through Olga, through me, and occasionally through bits of German), and even enjoyed a brief snack of perishki and a homemade drink of a Frau Warkentin, who has somehow survived this long in these villages.

But the highlight happened in the former village of Sparrau, the birthplace of Mary Dick of our group in 1926. Mary had fled from this village with her mother - her father already executed by the Stalinist years - in 1943, and was now returning with her daughter Esther. Now both were “returning” to Sparrau. And against all odds, Mary was able to find and visit with a
childhood acquaintance, who had been the daughter of the Russian sheep herder in their village. It was a touching moment, full of joy.

Even later in the day my daughter Laura and I were able to travel to the long-disappeared village of Margenau. The bus could not go any further than the surviving village of Gnadenthal, so it waited there while Laura and I drove in a rather old Lada with one of the villagers to the former site of my mother’s birthplace. We drove through this former village site, now
covered with a great swath of almost 2 meter high thorns. But at the end we could still see the setting of the cemetery. It was moving for Laura and me to visit a place which we almost reached with my mother on another tour way back in 1989.

So it went yesterday. But the true perspective was given at the start of our day there, in the reclaimed Mennonite church of Petershagen which is now the place of worship for local villagers. We were able to join them for part of their worship service. At one point their minister said that we Canadians had maybe come to look for our former sites and villages, but
that we should rest secure in knowing that it was an eternally living God whom we all worshipped. It spoke well to that moment, and the spirit of thankfulness that has carried us so far.

We have our farewell dinner this evening on Zaporozhye Island; then leave tomorrow morning for our final two nights in beautiful Odessa.

~ Len Friesen