Tabor College’s Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies (CMBS) will lead a Mennonite Heritage Tour on Saturday, April 22, and host its Annual Dinner on Sunday, April 23.
The Mennonite Heritage Tour, set for 11:45 a.m.-5 p.m., will include multiple historic sites: Brunk Cemetery, Gnadenau Village and Orphanage, Ebenfeld Mennonite Brethren Church and Cemetery, Peabody Train Station and Prisoner of War (P.O.W.) Building, and Alexanderwohl Mennonite Church.
The tour is $35 and will leave from the Historic Church on the Tabor campus and include a Faspa lunch.
The Annual Dinner is $20 and will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the Franz Family Heritage Lobby of the Shari Flaming Center for the Arts. It will include a keynote address from Christopher Dick, Ph.D., professor of English at Tabor.
He will present “(In)active Activist: The Remarkable Life of J.G. Ewert.” Ewert was a Tabor faculty member (1914-20) and writer and editor for the German-language newspaper, Vorwärts. He was an active worker for South Russia relief until he died in 1923. He was also recognized by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! as the “Most Amazing Invalid in All History,” as he still taught and worked despite being confined to his bed for 26 years.
“J.G. Ewert did not let his disability of ‘creeping paralysis’ define him,” said Peggy Goertzen, CMBS director. “He was known for his deep compassion for suffering mankind.”
Reservations for the tour and dinner/program are due April 14. Contact Goertzen at peggyg@tabor.edu or 620-947-3121 (ext. 1211/1212).