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2009-11-17 issue:

WDC serves Low German Mennonites

Kansas Farmworker Program reaches about 4,000 LGM clients per year.

by Anna Groff

Print Article

The Low German Mennonites from Mexico Support Task Force will mark its sixth anniversary in January 2010. Western District Conference sponsors the task force.

"Not often are 'low German' and 'missional' used in the same sentence," says chairperson Willmar Harder. "But the task force combines both in an innovational and cutting-edge ministry."

Harder is pastor of Hoffnungsau Mennonite Church in Inman, Kan.

The task force continues to partner with the Kansas Statewide Farmworker Health Program—a program of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

The program reaches about 4,000 Low German Mennonite (LGM) clients per year. These LGMs tend to be Old Colony Mennonites who migrated from Canada to Mexico in the mid-1920s.

Many left because of Canadian nationalism at that time that limited their educational freedoms, among other reasons. Most maintained Canadian citizenship and travel extensively between Mexico and Canada.

Later generations of these LGM families left Mexico due to the economy, land shortages and drought, says Harder, and moved to Kansas, Texas and other states. Many of these places were on the routes from Mexico to Canada, so LGMs made job connections there.

The school systems in Kansas noticed the large population of LGM children and worked to connect them to other Anabaptist groups, Bethel College in North Newton and others in Newton. The task force of 11 people grew out of these efforts.

Mennonite Central Committee Canada has an LGM ministry based in Steinbach, Manitoba.

The task force uses MCC's statement: “MCC seeks to share God’s love with LGM people by working in a mutually beneficial relationship with local leaders, communities and organizations to enhance their capacity to address such issues as poverty, conflict, literacy, health and natural disasters.”

MCC names three goals:
-improve the literacy of people in LGM communities
-provide resources for community-building projects
-coordinate a hemispheric approach in programs with LGM people.

The WDC task force added a fourth goal, "to share our common spiritual background and faith."

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