Canada's Mennonites
 

My over-the-road neighbour here in the Caribbean grew up in Manitoba, in a Mennonite family. It's a Christian sect that began in Holland a few centuries ago, and under persecution from mainstream denominations (I'm told) its members moved to north-western Russia and parts of Ukraine, then over to Canada in the late 1800s.

As far as I can gather, it's not a proselytising kind of sect, and I'd never heard of it before sitting next to a chap on a plane from Jamaica to Haiti back in the 1960s. He was on his way to stay with his brother at a mission-station in the centre of the country. The brother met him off the plane, and I was invited to tag along. He got my visa extended on the spot, and drove us to his mission up in the mountains. They let me stay for a week there, and we saw all the sights, most memorably Henri Christophe's famous Citadel. Lovely people! Lovely people!

Re: Canada's Mennonites
 

So if they weren't proselytising why were they missionaries?

Re: Canada's Mennonites
 

Taking care of their existing flock, I suppose. Or maybe just "doing good". The station was in the middle of the jungle, pretty much; not much scope for street-to-street proselytising there.

Re: Canada's Mennonites
 

Isn't a missionary someone who promotes their religion? Street to street isn't obligatory, missionaries lure the locals in with free education, healthcare and the like while lobbing a a prayer or two.

Re: Canada's Mennonites
 

Could be, bats. You'd better take it up with Head Office.
This was back in Papa Doc's day; maybe he called them a mission and nobody dared correct him. Graham Greene published a book ("The Comedians") about Papa Doc's Haiti in the same year I visited. Well worth reading!

Re: Canada's Mennonites
 

There are many Mennonites in Ontario. Old order, progressive, 70hp, every flavour.

Re: Canada's Mennonites
 

Yes I've come across them and I'm not impressed.

Re: Canada's Mennonites
 

There are a lot in BC, as well as across the Prairies.

Re: Canada's Mennonites
 

Just to finish off my story... I spent a week at the mission (nobody tried to convert me!), then they drove me down to the north coast for the early morning minibus going back to the capital. It was a full bus (all locals, none of whom spoke anything but Haitian patois, and none except me was coloured anything but jet black). So I chose to join three other young men on the roof. At the occasional stops for food and bathroom necessities during the ten-hour trip, we passed luggage down and packed luggage thrown up to us. As the outsider, I was the guest of honour; everybody made sure I knew what was going on, and I had to fight to pay my own way. The driver went out of his way to drop me at my ratty hotel, and the whole busload waved and shouted a warm farewell. "Au voi, blanc!"

For anybody here thinking of taking a vacation in Haiti, spend as much time as you can outside the capital. The people out there are all desperately poor, but not city-poor. There's a huge difference. And, they're as friendly as you could possibly hope. I don't know if the Mennonite mission is still in business, but if it is, give the people my best regards!

Re: Canada's Mennonites
 

Why? We deal with them quite a bit as they own a lot of the farm supply businesses in the area. We have found them great to deal with. Also the horse and buggy parking lot in the local hospital makes me smile every time I see it.

Re: Canada's Mennonites
 

Doesn't it get in the way of ambulances queuing to admit their patients? :sneaky:

Re: Canada's Mennonites
 

i came across a few at work, as patients. They were aloof to the point of rudeness, the boys arrogant and dismissive of women, or maybe it was just non Mennonites. Anyway, not impressed with that community.

Re: Canada's Mennonites
 

I thought the BC ones were Hutterites, not Mennonites.

Re: Canada's Mennonites
 

Many Mennonites in the Fraser Valley., near Vancouver

Hutterite communities in the Peace River area, north eastern BC.

Re: Canada's Mennonites
 

Ethnocentrism at its best!

Re: Canada's Mennonites
 

https://www.quora.com/How-do-Hutteri...d-Amish-differ "Amish and Hutterites live simply with some separation from the world while Mennonites are typically in the world similarly to other Protestant denominations. Hutterites live communally in rural areas and typically use electricity while Amish live in family households and typically don't use electricity and travel by horse and buggy."
This is the difference, it seems.

Re: Canada's Mennonites
 

Maybe but I don't think so unless thinking that women being treated as equal is wrong.

Re: Canada's Mennonites
 

That's not true of Mennonites, at least not the 70hp and more commited variations of the religion. There are a few who have become detached from their communities and have regular jobs buf the males are generally hampered by not having been educated to read, write or perform arthimetic. Only the women are educated to that level.

Quora is, of course, a source less reliable than "man in pub told me".

Re: Canada's Mennonites
 

Mennonites are Anabaptist protestant Christians. There are many subdivisions within the Mennonite movement, broadly splitting Mennonite communities into Old-Order Mennonites (who eschew much modern technology), Conservative Mennonites (who hold to much of the same theology as Old Order adherents, likely adopt the "plain and simple" dress codes, but make use of electricity, cars, phones etc), and mainline Mennonites, who by manner of dress and adoption of technology are indistinguishable from the general population. There are plenty of Mennonite congregations integrated into society throughout urban and suburban Canada, as well as the more "obviously Mennonite" communities in mostly rural areas. Among mainstream Mennonites, in my experience (I know several) there seems to be little to distinguish their behaviour towards women, or towards those outside their religious group, from the bahaviour or attitudes of anybody else. I can't speak to the Old Order or Conservative Mennonite communities, as I don't really have any direct experience - that's kind of the point of the closed communities in which they tend to function!

There are other fundamentalist Anabaptist congregations, of course. Probably the most well-known are the Amish, formed in the late 17th century in Switzerland and south Germany as a result of a schism in the Mennonite community mostly around the practice of "shunning" (which followers of Jakob Ammann wanted to bring back into vogue after it had been largely dropped). The Amish subsequently suffered further schisms, especially among those who had moved to North America to escape persecution in central Europe, resulting in the large number of different Amish communities with different levels of integration into modern society. Mennonite doctrine, as far as I'm aware, still does not include the practice of shunning. I'm aware that there have been some efforts towards reconciliation of the various Anabaptist churches, but it's my impression that ideas are too entrenched for much progress to have been made there.

Re: Canada's Mennonites
 

I think "closed commuties" is too strong for Old Order and Conservative Mennonites. They don't live in colonies inaccesible to strangers but trade with local people of any stripe. The guy who delivers firewood here is a reasonably conservative Mennonite, he comes with a horse and cart. At the end of the street there's a more progressive family, they have a black minivan with wind-up windows (black vehicles with minimal electrical gadgets dominate car lots here). The minivan people whizz by multiple times a day hauling produce and products for sale.

Much construction work is conducted by Mennonites, working without safety harnesses and without OHIP. The child labourers did a great job on our barn roof, they came and went by horse and trailer though they were also allowed to travel to work in a van driven by a goy. They were fascinated by the light aircraft and gliders so I offered to buy them a flight. They couldn't take it because flight is blasphemy.

What I haven't seen for a couple of seasons is Mennonites harvesting corn with scythes and horse-drawn wagons. Perhaps they've fallen into the 70hp apostasy.

Re: Canada's Mennonites
 

Lots of Mennonites, and Hutterites, in eastern Alberta.
I even came across a colony of Mennonites when I lived in Mexico - descendants of those who left Manitoba in the 1920's, attracted by cheap land, an assurance they would be left alone, and the right for 100 years to be the sole producer of 'Queso Mennonita' (a type of cheddar).

Re: Canada's Mennonites
 

Can missionary work ever be anything else than self serving? Wouldn't it create more opportunities and provide more services, if the funding for these missions and missionaries was given directly to local tradespeople and local service providers? I know for some the answer to this is that the missionaries know what the locals need, better than the locals do.

Re: Canada's Mennonites
 

Yes, maybe, Kim. But missionary work of all kinds is a worldwide tradition of long standing. Politicians of all stripes in all countries prefer to create opportunities and provide services, over giving money to the beneficiaries. Do the missionary politicians know what their subjects need better than the subjects themselves? As an armchair-anarchist I would say "NO, NEVER!", but - sadly, perhaps - most people aren't anarchists. What do you reckon?

Re: Canada's Mennonites
 

Just as a matter of interest, Adrian, and before the thread grinds to a halt... whereabouts in Mexico? In case I ever get to Mexico again.