The former majesty and prosperity had disappeared from Gnadenfeld and alone on his walk home, Isaak thought about how he could not remember either of them.  His father-in-law sometimes talked about the glorious earlier days of the village but Isaak had never experienced this.  Times had been difficult for every villager since the Communists came to power, when the way of life in the colony changed dramatically.   During the Great War, the revolution had started between the czars’ White army, and the Communist Red army revolutionaries of Lenin.  This Civil War along with the plunder by the victorious Red army had now brought the villages to their knees and nearly to starvation.

Isaak was a boy when violence from the Communist State fell upon the villages and he remembered long periods of hunger and many tears pouring out of his mother’s eyes.  The Mennonites had always trusted in God and would continue to do so. However, it seemed natural to ask God “why” when parents could not provide the basic needs for their children.  The people knew that the events of the day were not God’s choice but the choice of Godless men who wanted power.  Nearly every day, through the tears, God provided miracle after miracle and reminded all of them how He always meets the needs of His own.  Isaak even saw the shoes in his hands as a miracle.  They were a rare commodity.