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Mennonites seemed to need to move somewhere every century, and ME AND MY HOUSE is almost a travelog, as it takes us from one part of Europe to another many kilometres away. As it moves from one generation to another, the nature of life in each location becomes the focus of our story. Beginning in the recently-created West Prussia of 1788, we accompany various members of the Derksen clan to Chortiza, the new colony beginning in South Russia at the invitation of Catherine the Great. It does not take long for that colony to exhaust the land it had been granted, and Molotschna was added to the list of Mennonite settlements. As this land, too, became used up, another colony, Berthal, was founded; this time the land was bought from Russian nobles, but the same privileges were granted to these settlers, mostly from Chortiza. Most of the Derksen clan found themselves having settled there in 1836, and our story concludes with everyone in that colony planning on a move to southern Manitoba, Canada. During their time in South Russia, Mennonite values that had been well-established in the Werder were under new challenges as society changed, and new inventions made work more productive. Religious stresses put pressure on the Old Church to examine itself, but it did not prevent new branches of the Mennonite Church to evolve.
