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From a Scattered Few Families to Ten Thousand Villages
From Refugee Recluses to Global Justice Activists
A Sermon for Prairie Crossing Unitarian Universalist Congregation
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Linda Wiens

Sermon Outline:

1. Thank you. I welcome the invitation to speak to you about Ten Thousand Villages and who the Mennonites are - two main reasons:

• Your request required me to think through some issues I've generally taken for granted, or even ignored - my own spiritual growth and its tangible expression.
• I thought about how I might connect with your experience as intellectuals and humanitarians, your readiness to give personal service and make contributions based on your recognition of global issues.

2. Mennonites - who are they? A brief history

• 16th Century Protestant reformation - more radical than Martin Luther
• Started with Menno Simons, a Dutch priest who espoused
• Anabaptism: adult believer baptism; pacifism; personal interpretation of Biblical truth, living in community, giving service to demonstrate faith
• Persecuted to Switzerland, Germany, Russia (welcome under Catherine the Great but later expelled), North America - successive waves
• Some wanted a simpler, communal life unfettered by the ways of the world including public school attendance and a judicial system
• Some in Canada, some went to Paraguay and later Mexico, forming colonies first living in seclusion but now battered by the world around them

3. My own family

• Born near Gdansk in then-Germany, now Poland
• Substantial Mennonite area and relatively secure life
• Father was well-to-do farmer & lay minister, eventually a bishop
• Became WW2 refugees in '44, settled in West Germany
• Poor - lost everything; no chance at getting a farm, no chance at education - but parents were determined!

4. New opportunity in Canada - 1956

• Sponsorship system with 2-year work requirement worked well for us: two brothers came first, then pulled rest of family
• Went to high school
• Joined an organized church - large, German speaking, comfortable at first

5. But issues of salvation vs. education emerged:

• Revival meetings - powerful emotional impact but reason prevailed
• Went to public secondary school, not the church-based alternative
• Part of the earliest contingent going to university in Toronto not nursing or teachers' college nearby - due to parents being faithful but not pious

6. Found out about different expressions of Mennonite faith

• Social dynamics are different in different groups - secluded to worldly & all that encompasses
• General Conference (liberal), Mennonite Brethren, Brethren in Christ), Old Order Mennonites, Amish - and variations of them all, with differences in dogma and prescriptions for how to live
• It seems easier for humans to split into new groups than to resolve their differences when it's about religious beliefs - seems ironic!
• Fortunately there are also unifying forces, such as yours.

7. Mennonite expansion & variety of expression has increased over the centuries

• Now over 1 million world wide (not much overall, but a lot compared to the start of 100 or so)
• More than half in Africa - initially through missions but then self-perpetuated
• From extreme poverty to considerable wealth, no schooling at all to PhD's and politicians
• From peace loving to peace keeping, to justice activism, to making the world a good place for all living things

8. Back to my own life: I've had various eye openers to the human condition

• Living & working in rural India - CUSO volunteer; experience with poverty and the caste system
• First China trip '73: 98% poverty, relatively equal
• Jamaica, Paraguay, Zimbabwe
• Poverty and what it means - my conclusion: poverty is not a big problem unless it is abject, and unless people see other possibilities but not for themselves - both conditions exist now
• Bulawayo 2003: Requested support from brothers & sisters partly to show that's how we see ourselves and them
• 4000 World Conference participants kept the economy going for a year!
• Individuals who break out of poverty often become marginal people - it's generally not wise to concentrate on that, and also much too slow
• Missions - the historic change agent in the Third World - often violate the existing culture - also marginalizes

9. Why so important to get involved? Plight of the Third World

• Rampant unemployment & underemployment
• Political instability, internal and external wars
• Natural disasters - no resources to cope
• Famine due to many causes
• Illness epidemics
• 50% of World is living on $2/day, 20% is living on $1/day
• That's not new, but now people know how rich we are in comparison

10. What to do?

• We now try to avoid hand-outs - makes no long-term difference
• Many self-help programs
• Many micro-business lending programs
• Support the whole community rather than one or a few persons (even Foster Children's Plan)
• Connect positively across cultures and economies - e.g., Inter Pares

11. TTV one of many schemes to help people help themselves

• Includes $ lending, business learning, education, sustaining family & community, connects across cultures
• Starts with finding people who can do things & are doing them, but cannot break into the economy - low quality, no resources, no market

12. What is TTV? (International Fair Trade Association)

• Ten Thousand Villages is part of a worldwide movement striving to practice fair trade. TTV is one of over 200 IFAT members in 55 countries. The members agree that fair trade is an alternative approach to conventional international trade. It is a trading partnership aimed at sustainable development for excluded and disadvantaged producers. It seeks to do this by providing better trading conditions, by raising awareness and by campaigning.
• Key principles of IFAT

1. Creating opportunities for economically disadvantaged producers
2. Transparency and accountability
3. Capacity building
4. Payment of a fair price
5. Gender equity
6. Good working conditions
7. Care for the environment

13. TTV a chance to join with those of other faith to share our privileges & increase equity

• Market for beautiful, well-made goods
• Up-front payment so artisans can buy supplies
• Low-cost distribution and sales system to provide more income to artisan families & villages
• Joy of volunteering and expressing community locally & internationally
• Chance to travel and connect with producers in their settings

14. My topic was: From a scattered few families to Ten Thousand Villages, from refugee recluses to global justice activists. TTV was started by Mennonites under a different name, and fortunately it is now strongly supported by many faith-based groups, including yours.

15. TTV fits well with Unitarian principles - I want to highlight these three:

• We believe in the worth and dignity of each human being. All people on earth have an equal claim to life, liberty, and justice--and no idea, ideal, or philosophy is superior to a single human life.
• We believe in the ethical application of religion. Good works are the natural product of a good faith, the evidence of an inner grace that finds completion in social and community involvement.
• We believe in the motive force of love. The governing principle in human relationships is the principle of love, which always seeks the welfare of others and never seeks to hurt or destroy.