Helped start one of the first MYFs
by Vernon Schertz, Atlanta
I read with interest your Oct. 6 article "Learning from the Past," since I was a part of that past. About three months after that Mennonite conference meeting in August 1947, four young people—Delbert Erb, Mary Kay Nofsinger, Ada Schrock and Edgar Metzler—showed up unannounced at my workshop door as I was welding a part on my corn picker.
Peering out from under my welding helmet, I was informed that these folk were from the Mennonite Mission Board in Elkhart, Ind., planning to meet with a group of young people from Metamora (Ill.) Mennonite Church that evening. It was then around 3 p.m., and I, by some quirk of fate, was the guy who was to get them together. The goal was to have an initial meeting of something called Mennonite Youth Fellowship (MYF) that evening.
We had the meeting after I called Henry R. Schertz, pastor of Metamora Mennonite. He confessed he had forgotten to tell me that the church council had suggested my name as a person to lead this initial gathering of MYF. So Betty, my wife, and I did some intensive work on the phone and managed to collect about a dozen young folk in our front room to launch what I believe was one of the first meetings of MYF.
We had an exciting first few years that even included a church planting. But that is another story.
Associated Issue: The faith of Mennonite youth - Oct. 6, 2009
Associated Article: Learning from the past
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