Charged with Power

Peter Dyck, of Henry's Red Sea fame, when he spoke in our church a number of years ago, told many memorable stories. Among them were tales of the Russian Mennonite refugees of German descent who were driven from their homes during World War II. Large numbers of them eventually filtered back into Germany, only to be trapped there in Berlin after it was closed off from the rest of Germany in the parting out that took place between the United States, England, France, and Russia. Without documentation they could not immigrate easily. Even with proper papers, they still had the problem of transportation. For many months, Mennonite Central Committee provided them with food and shelter, and worked hard to find a way for them to leave. When finally a tiny window of permission opened, they boarded a nighttime train with only a few hours notice, and traveled into the western sector of Germany into freedom. It was their "Red Sea" journey. Then the search began for a country abroad that would admit them. Some went to Canada, one of the few places that opened their doors. But others were denied entry there for various reasons. For those people, Paraguay became a refuge.

A refuge of sorts, that is. They settled in the Chaco, an extremely inhospitable environment. Time after time, the political leaders of Paraguay had seen people of various nationalities come and go through this region, none of them able to survive for long in the desert-like place. But for some of the Mennonites, it was their only recourse.

Relief at having found a place to settle soon gave way to the struggle to establish homes and a means of making a living. These battered people faced long odds. Many families were incomplete, fathers having been taken during the war, and never heard from again. Some of the women had died. So, even after they had a place to live, many families struggled to find normalcy. In their churches, they worked together to find answers to problems they had never encountered before, especially with regard to the permanence of marriage. What if one could not know whether he or she was widowed?

The search for information about the disappeared ones continued for a long time, and some families were eventually reunited. In one case, a couple who had been married only six weeks before the war separated them, met again in Europe after years of effort to locate each other, and found they no longer had anything in common. She returned to Paraguay to live alone, and he remained in Europe. Miah hen nuhnuh ahs gvoksa is how I remember Peter Dyck's quotation of her report. (We had outgrown each other.)

But things were different for others. One woman, who was alone with her children, lived near a man who was alone also. At least one of them was in the separated-with-no-information-about- the-spouse category. As others were doing, both of them helped their neighbors when they needed help.

One day the man came over to repair something inside the woman's house, and she noticed that his shirt was missing a button. She offered to sew it back on for him. More mutually beneficial exchanges of practical help followed, and they began to love each other and desire a future together. There was, however, the problem of the missing first spouse. Were they free to marry--these people who believed strongly in not putting asunder what God had joined together?

Finally they joined households, perhaps without formalizing the marriage. They continued to stay involved in their church community, and others struggled with them to find a way to settle the question of marriage in the case of a disappeared spouse. Finally the group decided together that if, after diligent searching, and the passage of seven years, no evidence of the missing person's survival had surfaced, the remaining partner could remarry freely. Unfortunately, the couple in question did not qualify for marriage under the new guidelines.

Peter Dyck was present in the church gathering when they settled what was to be done with the couple. These people understood how high the stakes were. Everyone had been through deep fear and anguish together, and each was tied to their brothers and sisters through the strong bonds of shared faith, and common adversity. They understood the crying need for companionship and practical help that had drawn the couple together. A spirit of compassion prevailed, and Peter Dyck wept as he recalled that everyone there was in tears during the discussion. But when the leader asked all those to stand who believed the couple should separate, everyone stood. One of the two soon moved to Canada, and the other stayed behind.

I weep too, imagining what it cost everyone involved to wrestle with this remarriage question in the context of loyalty to the Scriptures and the reality of human need. However, I love what the story tells me. As is often the case, an out-of-the-ordinary situation like the Paraguayan Chaco Mennonite case brings perspective to far more run-of-the-mill scenarios.

It's true, of course, that no marriage crisis is ordinary for those involved. If anything has ever been right in a marriage, parting is a grief-filled process. If nothing was ever right, the emotional and practical implications still create feelings of sadness and loss. Usually a combination of right and wrong is present, and sorting things out is confusing. The difference between what often happens in America and elsewhere, and what happened in the Chaco, is that people who have experienced such loss here often find a way to justify remarriage. Sometimes they do so with the blessing of the church body they associate with. Tacitly or otherwise, people seem to have decided that having endured wrongs or merely having outgrown each other justifies a counter-measure which is legal, but not defensible from Scripture: remarriage under more promising conditions.

For us all, the example of those brave people in Paraguay is instructive. Preserving a Biblical view of marriage is important, extenuating circumstances notwithstanding. A church community can both stand with those who are hurting and stand with Scripture. Those who suffer can go on alone without bitterness, given the help of God and a caring brotherhood. Compassion and loyalty to the Scriptures are not mutually exclusive, and the combination is charged with power. When forgiveness is added, enough power is present to survive singleness without hope of remarriage. The memory of all those crying people standing together, and the cooperation of that "couple" living in Paraguay and Canada shows us that.