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2009-11-03 issue:

Church remembers bombing anniversary

Nanih Waiya Indian Mennonite Church gathers after 45 years since tragedy.

by mma Myers, Carol Roth, Dave Weaver and others contributed.

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More than 120 people worshiped together Sept. 20 at Nanih Waiya Indian Mennonite Church near Philadelphia, Miss., to commemorate God’s faithfulness during tragic events of the 1960s. It had been 45 years since the first of three racially motivated bombings to the same church facility. Two others occurred in 1966.

This is Nanih Waiya’s story.

Dorothy Thompson was one of the first Choctaw natives who attended Nanih Waiya Indian Mennonite Church as a child. Today she is part of the congregation. Photo by Carol Roth.

In the early 1960s Mennonites Nevin and Esther Bender from Greenwood, Del., were in ministry among the Choctaw people in Neshoba County. The Benders' two daughters, Millie and Emma, with Emma’s husband, Glenn Myers, were assisting them.

In 1963, volunteers helped the congregation build the Nanih Waiya Mennonite Church building about a mile from the historic Indian mound by the same name. Nanih Waiya means "leaning hill" in Choctaw.

Then came midnight on Sept. 19, 1964, when the small cement church building exploded from dynamite. Glenn Myers, who attended the service, remembered coming home from a football game, getting a call about the bombing of the church and going to see it. The church was destroyed; part of the roof remained, held up by studs.

The next day, people from the community and others arrived to view the destruction. Plans were made to clean up the mess immediately, to salvage what they could and rebuild. Hatred and bitterness were absent on the part of the church community, according to those who were in the congregation at the time. Even though they were sad and couldn't understand why this had happened, all were committed to the church.

Church members, local volunteers and Mennonite Disaster Service volunteers worked together to clean up and rebuild the church. Only 23 days after the bombing, the congregation met for the first time in the partially finished building. Fifty-nine people were there to celebrate the belief that love and hope are stronger than violence.

The group continued to meet, and they needed more room, so they added to the building, again with the help of volunteers, including college students. A dedication was held in November 1965.

"It was quite a shock when on Feb. 19, 1966, the building was dynamited again," Emma Myers said. "This happened soon after the youth group had a Valentine's Day banquet in the building. Again the group rallied together to clean up and rebuild. This time it wasn’t completely destroyed, so the annex was saved, and with the help of volunteers, the building was rebuilt."

Ten months after the second bombing, Dec. 23, 1966, the youth were caroling late at night.

"We were together in a church bus visiting the various homes of church members and singing Christmas carols. We planned to go back to the church for a party. There were food and drinks waiting for us there. When we returned to the church, we found a pile of rubble with the dust still settling," remembers Dave Weaver, Jr., who was 17 at the time. "There was a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach."

This time most of the annex was saved, but the main part of the church would have to be rebuilt.

During the service of remembrance, pastor Harvey Yoder invited the people to a time of sharing. About a half dozen people who were there the night of the December 1966 bombing spoke during the service of the shock they felt. "Who would do this?" was a repeated question. And while the community feels no hatred for the unknown perpetrators, another question remains: Why?

"Today we still pray for the people who bombed our church," said Weaver, who lives now in Gulfport, Miss.

Doug Herring, Louisville, Miss., who lived near the church in the 1960s and was invited to speak during the service about the church’s future, was a local volunteer who helped repair the roof after one of the bombings.

He reminded the congregation that it is only when we genuinely love our enemies that we can truly forgive.

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