Almost 6,000 Mennonites gather in Paraguay for Mennonite World Conference Assembly 15.

Are you a Mennonite?” a policeman asked as Ditrich Pana approached the huge white church where 5,800 Anabaptists from around the world had gathered.

In Paraguay, Mennonites are known as fair-skinned, German-speaking farmers and ranchers who live in isolated colonies and produce much of the country’s cheese.

Pana doesn’t fit that profile. He is Enlhet, an indigenous group that—as much as it might surprise most Paraguayans—includes 6,000 Mennonites.

The Enlhet churches—and those of another indigenous group, the Nivacle—grew from mission work by Mennonite immigrants of Germanic and Canadian background who began arriving in Paraguay in the 1920s.

Pana, a radio evangelist, told how he answered his uniformed questioner: “Through the Holy Spirit I said, ‘Yes, I am a Mennonite.’ ”

His story of claiming the Mennonite name as a label of faith rather than of ethnicity captured a leading theme of the 15th Mennonite World Conference assembly July 14-19 in Asunción, Paraguay.

In a sermon to the global Anabaptist gathering—which drew Mennonites and Brethren in Christ from 60 countries—Pana praised Christ’s power to bridge the world’s divisions.

“This gathering unites us with glad hearts,” he said. “We belong to each other and to him [God] this week as brothers and sisters and friends.”

In that spirit of unity, Paraguay’s 32,000 Mennonites hosted a weeklong reunion of the
1.6-million-member global Anabaptist body.

MWC assemblies usually are held every six years but may be less frequent in the future.

Of the 5,838 people who registered for the Asunción conference, 3,109 came from Paraguay, 766 from the United States and 730 from Canada. They gathered twice a day in the Centro Familiar de Adoración, a church with a three-level, 10,000-seat sanctuary in the final stages of construction by a Protestant congregation.

For worship services, the “platform language” was Spanish, so English speakers and others listened to translators through headsets.

They heard sermons and Bible study messages—under the theme “Come Together in the Way of Jesus Christ”—that emphasized living in unity and working for equality and justice, especially within the Anabaptist fellowship.

“Our conduct must reflect a change of thinking and attitude evidenced in how we relate to one another,” said Danisa Ndlovu, bishop of the Brethren in Christ Church in Zimbabwe and the new MWC president, on Saturday night (July 18).

“This is a clarion call for mutual respect, acceptance and, above all, unity in the household of faith.”

Songs in the dark

While sermons needed translation, music crossed language barriers—and turned a sudden difficulty into a joyful moment.

During Thursday morning’s service (July 16), the sanctuary went dark while Clair Brenneman of Palmer Lake, Colo., was telling about the building of Paraguay’s Trans-Chaco Road by Mennonite Central Committee Pax workers in the 1950s and early ’60s.

Songleader Paul Dueck of Canada and his team of musicians bounded to the stage and led the congregation in “Allabare,” “Grosser Gott, wir loben dich,” “We are walking in the light of God” and other songs until power was restored.

On Wednesday morning, a poignant moment with historic overtones occurred when leaders of two global church bodies affirmed the healing of centuries-old wounds.

MWC President Ndlovu embraced Ishmael Noko, general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation, after Noko spoke of Lutherans’ plans to renounce condemnations of Anabaptism in their 16th-century Augsburg Confession.

Lutherans’ persecution and execution of Anabaptists “is a wound we carry with us,” Noko said. “When you meet for your next assembly, we hope to be with you a new relationship.”
Worshipers gave Noko a standing ovation.

Remarkably, Noko and Ndlovu are both from Zimbabwe.

“Divine providence has brought these [two leaders] together,” said Larry Miller, MWC executive secretary.

Forgiving the murderer

Another gesture of reconciliation took place Sunday morning (July 19), when Helmut Isaak of Paraguay read a statement of forgiveness to the man who killed his brother.

“More than 50 years ago, your clan and tribe were resisting us, but now we aren’t enemies anymore but brothers in Christ,” Isaak said to Jonoine, a chief of the Ayoreo tribe.

Jonoine came to the stage in native dress, carrying the spear he used to kill missionary Kornelius Isaak in 1958.

About 8,500 people attended the Sunday service. Local Mennonite churches were closed and encouraged their members to participate.

In addition to the worship services, two workshop sessions were held each afternoon on topics such as violence against women and children in Congo and the shared convictions of global Anabaptists.

Special-interest groups, such as women theologians from Africa and Latin America, held meetings.

Many conference goers spent their free time at the Global Village, an outdoor area featuring displays organized by continents. Global Village visitors stood in long lines to buy ice cream from Lactolanda, a Mennonite-owned dairy, and ate it with tiny spoons while listening to music at the outdoor stage.

Meals were served in the church’s underground parking garage.

Due to health concerns, especially the need to guard against the H1N1 (swine flu) virus, some conference goers wore cloth coverings over their mouths, and volunteers sprayed disinfectant on people’s hands before meals.

Activities for youth, including music and sports, took place in the “Teen Zone,” a fenced field across the street from the church.

Before the assembly, a Global Youth Summit July 10-12 drew more than 700 participants, including 48 delegates from 32 countries.

MWC’s governing body, the General Council, met and accepted four new national churches as MWC members: the Vietnam Mennonite Church, the Brethren in Christ Church in Mozambique, the Gilgal Mission Trust (Mennonite Church) in India and the Bible Missionary Church in Myanmar.

Council members elected Janet Plenert of Canada as vice president for a six-year term. Nancy Heisey of the United States ended her term as president.

The words of a young Nivacle woman may have summed up the assembly for many.

“I learned that God has different gifts for each of us,” said Mirta Perez of Paraguay, reporting on the Global Youth Summit during a worship service.

“My dream is that the Mennonite family can remain in unity, because before God we are all the same, we are all valuable.”

Paul Schrag is editor of Mennonite Weekly Review and wrote this for Meetinghouse, a group of Mennonite editors.