Canadian Mennonite
Volume 10, No. 19
October 2, 2006


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Son recalls mother’s years of Christian service

Waterloo, Ont.

Harder

Marie Petrovna Tiessen was born Nov. 8, 1913, in the Mennonite colony of Schoenfeld, South Russia. She described her early childhood on the family’s large estate as idyllic.

In August 1914 everything began to change, however. Her oldest brother, Jacob, was conscripted to go to the Caucusus on the Turkish front with the ambulance corps. Three years later, the Tsar was overthrown and the Russian revolution had begun. In 1924, the Tiessen family first stepped onto Canadian soil.

Arriving by boxcar in Waterloo, Ont., the family was dispersed among the many Swiss Mennonite farms of Waterloo County. In the spring of 1924, Tiessen, together with all her family, moved to Essex County in southwestern Ontario. Active in the newly established Mennonite Church on Oak Street, Leamington, she began, at 14, to teach Sunday School—which she would do continuously for the next 68 years.

Feeling a responsibility to contribute to the family’s livelihood, Tiessen left school and, at the age of 16, began working at the H.J. Heinz factory in Leamington. At 29, in the middle of the Second World War, she resumed her schooling at the Mennonite Collegiate Institute in Gretna. She later attended “Normal School” at the University of Toronto and become a teacher.

In the spring of 1950, Tiessen got a letter from John Harder, postmarked Arnaud, Man. His intent was clear and to the point. Widowed three years earlier, he needed a mother for his three “lovely” daughters and a wife for himself. Several letters were exchanged and in July of that year Mary Tiessen—immigrant, factory worker, student and teacher—became Mary Harder.

Die Frauen Missions Verein (Women in Mission) was important to Harder and she assumed leadership roles in her congregational group as well as the Ontario, Canadian and North American women’s conferences during the 1960s and ’70s.

In the early 1970s, she began to display overseas arts and crafts in churches to help out Mennonite Central Committee (MCC).

In 1971, Harder participated in a small delegation to Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, to meet with churchwomen there. The next year, when she and her husband sold the family store in Arnaud, she became the founding president of the Christian Benefit Shops in St. Catharines, Ont., which, in addition to providing low-cost merchandise to the poorer areas of town, has raised tens of thousands of dollars for MCC—the very organization which had fed her family in Russia so many years before.

Harder was also a long-time correspondent for Der Bote; in her later years she served on the paper’s board of directors.

Trying to sum up nearly 93 years of my mother’s life journey and character, I was taken with a couple of verses in Galatians 5: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control…. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.”

When I visited my mother just before Mother’s Day, she took my hand as I got up to leave and said, “When you come back and I’m not here anymore, know that I am still with you and we will meet each other again.”

Mary Harder passed away on July 25 in Waterloo.

—Adapted from an obituary by V. Peter Harder, Ottawa

My life as a willow

Janzen

The willow tree is a fitting image for my long journey to ministry. My roots sink deep into the ground, representing both family and faith. Roots of tradition are so entwined that they are sometimes difficult to separate. Stories of the Ukraine shaped my life and thinking.

I claimed the faith of my parents as my own. Classes at Canadian Mennonite Bible College, Bethel College and Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS) clarified Mennonite Anabaptist history and theology. They became an integral part of my life.

Willows often are found beside a water source; my source is God. There have been some desert times, but spiritual disciplines have been nurturing.

There are treasured branches of church life. A profound experience was in the Rwandan refugee camp in 1994.

Other branches are the good years of my first career as a medical technologist teaching microbiology and parasitology in Congo and Toronto.

The long, narrow leaves remind me of tears and important and influential friends.

Newer, more slender branches represent all I learned at AMBS. The newest branches are those of my experience as a pastor in a small congregation. They were incredibly kind and generous. I finally came “home.”

The willow tree has a sturdy trunk, bending with the wind, but not breaking. Ministry is life-long. Although I have given up pastoring this congregation, I hope to remain in ministry. New branches and leaves will appear.

Psalm 16 has long been a favourite. I can say that I truly “have a goodly heritage.” I can say clearly and without hesitation: “God has shown me the path of life. In his presence is fullness and joy.” Amen.

—Anita Janzen

Anita Janzen retired recently from pastoring at Hanover (Ont.) Mennonite Church.


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