Once in a while I hear someone say that they have visited the Mennonite Heritage Village already and don’t need to come again.
This Canada Day was my first one as Executive Director at the Mennonite Heritage Village. Visiting as a child on this day, I remember my fascination as I roamed the grounds and came upon a concert in the schoolhouse and saw an endless line of ‘dinosaur tractors’ in a shed.
There are many things I enjoy about the work that I get to do at Mennonite Heritage Village and one of these is the ability to sit in the living rooms of strangers in front of some object the person is donating to the museum’s artefact collection and to hear its story.
It was great to meet some of you at our Mennonite Heritage Village Waffle Booth in ‘Summer in the City’ and again on Sunday at our Father’s Day buffet at the Livery Barn Restaurant.
When I consider where my Mennonite ancestors have lived, I wonder if they have always been at ‘the right place, at the right time’? Did some leave Russia too soon?
To really know someone is one of the most precious gifts in this world. It takes time. It takes setting aside our own self and entering into someone else’s story.
On May 25th we hosted our Russländer Tribute Fundraising Banquet with a full house and a full program.
One rainy day last week, I was working on some finishing details of the new exhibit, “The Russländer,” in our Gerhard Ens Gallery.
Trains are salient in the plight of the Russländer, the 24,000 Mennonites who had to flee their homes in 1920’s Russia for the security of Canada.
Last Saturday my family joined 2245 volunteers in our community’s annual ‘pick up and walk’ event. What would take three full-time City Employees a year of garbage collection around the city we did in three hours.
