'If I don't get paid, I can't say no'

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Ruthild Foth, 75, from Ludwigshafen, Germany, attended her 11th Mennonite World Conference (MWC) Assembly in a row. For most of those she worked as volunteer interpreter.

Her first MWC meeting was in Karlsruh, Germany, in 1952. The next one, in 1957 in Basel, Switzerland, was her first as a volunteer. In an interview on July 14, she said, “If I don’t get paid, I can’t say no.” If MWC offered to pay her, she said, “I could say no because I don’t need the money.”

Next came Kitchener, Ont., in 1962, then Amsterdam, Netherlands, in 1967. Her plane was not allowed to land in Curitiba, Brazil, in 1972, so she went to Paraguay first. Next was Wichita, Kan., in 1978, then Strasbourg, France, where organizers put Foth in charge of coordinating the translations of information sheets each day.

In 1990 in Winnipeg, Man., Foth planned to attend as a tourist, but she was asked to interpret. Calcutta, India, in 1997 was her first since 1952 that she did not work as a volunteer. Then came Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, in 2003, then Asunción, her 11th MWC meeting.

Foth’s father was a Mennonite, her mother a Baptist, and Foth grew up going to a Methodist Sunday school. But for most of her life she has been a member of the Mennonite congregation in Ludwigshafen, which began in 1702.

(Photo by Gordon Houser for Meetinghouse)

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