It has been said that time and distance sometimes dim and distort our memories. If that is true then it is good that we occasionally reflect on how it was and for how much we have to be grateful. We need reminding because when things go well we tend to forget and take all the good for granted. We also need to tell our stories so that those who come after us might know and understand why we - the older generation - are the way we are and how our experiences have shaped us. It has been said that often the "good times remembered are the hard times". I would like to tell you about such a "good" time during a hard time.

At the start of the war between Germany and Russia in 1941 the German forces occupied the area of the former Mennonite settlements in the Ukraine for two years. In time the fortunes of war turned against the Germans and in Sept. 1943 we - along with some 36,000 other Mennonites - fled to the west. At first to what is now part of western Poland and in Jan. 1945 into West Germany. In the end over 13,000,000 refugees from the eastern areas of Germany would have to be absorbed by West Germany. A few months before the war ended our family came to an area in the southwest of Schleswig - Holstein where the Elbe River flows into the North Sea. It was an area that had been a refuge for Mennonites as early as the 1600s - even today there are traces of their presence here.

The most important needs for refugees are food and shelter, but in the immediate post war era both were in very short supply in Germany. Because of the overcrowding all homeowners had to take in refugees - the numbers depended on the living area of the houses.

Understandably these forced arrangements were not always a happy experience - for both sides. We were fortunate to be assigned to a very tolerant and understanding family. Eventually there would be three refugee families and the owners living in a house not larger than ours is today. But somehow it seemed to work.

Most of all it was the attitude of our host family- the Richard Mehlert family - that made this possible. The understanding, sensitive and caring treatment of their uninvited guests made our stay there not only bearable but, for me at least, enjoyable. We owe them many thanks - I don't think that I could have been as tolerant and decent as they were. Like millions of other refugees we had lost contact with our relatives and friends during the chaotic last few months of the war. We were under the impression that we were the only Mennonites who somehow had managed to avoid capture by the Russians. Most refugees now tried to find their relatives and the Red Cross was the first place to contact, but one of the most effective methods of searching was by reading the " Suchlisten". People would simply write their names and addresses on long lists that were posted most often at railroad stations and many other public buildings and hope that someone would contact them.

And so it was that one day we received a letter from a man from our village in the Ukraine - can you imagine the odds - and he told of some relatives and friends who had also made their way to the west and of an organization called M.C.C

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Our mother wrote to all and soon a letter came from M.C.C with all kinds of information among others that there would be a food parcel for us in Celle - a town just north of Hanover - if mother could pick it up. Both food and clothing could only be purchased with ration cards and especially in 1946 there was seldom enough so we did not need a second invitation. By now everyone in our house knew " Neufelds are getting a parcel from America". When our mother came back that evening we all crowded into the little den that served as Mehlerts’ living room. Our family sat around the table and the others peered over our shoulders as Herr Mehlert slowly and carefully opened the parcel.

Inside were some strange, interesting and wonderful things. There were chocolate bars, little tins of fruit cocktail, canned peaches, crackers, two smaller cans of meat with strange names like "Klick" and "Klym", a larger can of meat similar to ones from the "Meatcanner" but most precious of all was a bag of brown roasted coffee beans and a carton of cigarettes. It may sound odd to call things like coffee and cigarettes "precious" but in the barter economy that existed at that time in Germany these two items were among the most sought after on the " Black Market".

The coffee was traded almost immediately to the landlady for her bread ration cards and the cigarettes were traded soon after for enough cloth for three pair of long pants for us children - these were my very first long pants. I was not too thrilled about the deal for the cloth for our pants - in order to close the deal the man who had the cloth insisted that my rabbit should be included - my rabbit was more like a pet to me. not just a rabbit. I finally relented but did not go to the cage with him. Later, as he rode off on his bicycle I saw the limp body of my rabbit draped over the luggage rack of his bike. I was not a happy boy that day. We would later receive parcels from relatives and periodically from M.C.C but none ever seemed so important as that first one.

That first parcel helped to feed us and indirectly helped to cloth us but the greatest gift in that first parcel was hope. Now we knew that there were people out there who knew of us, who cared about us - there was hope for the future.

To us the visible part of M.C.C were people like C.F.Klassen, Siegfried Janzen, the Dyck brothers Peter and Corny and others - we remember and thank them. But sometimes we forget about the other part of M.C.C - the many people at home who made it possible for others to serve.

Time and again they responded to every appeal for help for the needy and the less fortunate. And this at a time when their pockets were not nearly as deep as ours are today They had experienced a long depression and most had mortgages to pay. For many it must have been a very real sacrifice. I heard a talk on giving once and the speaker made a very clear distinction between the various forms of giving - there is giving out of our abundance or giving out of a sense of guilt but he stressed that our giving should be "because we cannot not give". I think they were the kind of people who could not " not give".

We will always be grateful for their kindness. In Proverbs 14 :31 it says in part -" but whoever is kind to the needy honors God " -helping the needy is not just an act of kindness it is also an act of worship because it honors our Maker. So it is that even in times of chaos, suffering and hardship there are "good times to remember".