Mennonite Great Trek - Bukhara
June 3rd, 2008Today we are in Bukhara. We drove to where the Trek was stalled for a winter waiting for permission to enter and travel through Bukhara district. Here the local population offered their mosque on Sundays for Mennonites to worship. At least one Mennonite marriage was performed in the mosque. There was a baptism and also funerals in the mosque. It is still standing and is perhaps the most significant example of interaction between Mennonites and Islam in our history. We gathered in the mosque and listened to H.A. and Tim Penner read from their great-grandfather’s diary of baptizing Elizabeth Stauffer’s grandfather at this place. The Imam gave us permission to sing and pray.
I wonder if we today would make our churches open for Moslem worship for strangers on their journeys?
~ Ed Epp
