Memoirs are not, strictly speaking, history. Each is a biography, a focus on one life. Their charm lies in the twists and turns of the often unantici-pated events that changed and shaped that life. Memoirs are also full of irony as unexpected consequences come out of carefully planned initiatives. Most of all, memoirs help explain how people became what they were, a product of the story itself or the inferences and nuances between the lines. In that sense memoirs are especially interesting to contemporaries, for the stories sharpen a multi-dimensional picture, providing new planes of understanding. In that sense there is a bit of the voyeuristic about memoirs. 

This, then, is a book about time, events and character. The stories in this book are stories of time and the changes it brought in the lives of the authors. The fundamental reality of history is time—but which time one experiences is critical. The writers of this book were Depression-era babies whose youth and adulthood were bracketed by World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam and the Cold War. They were also observers of the emergence of a new global world made up of a kaleidoscope of new nation-states that flooded the United Nations with a new spirit. Those global events were grounded in their consciousness. 

Specifically, the writers were Mennonites whose lives spanned a social and theological sea change that affected them all. They were born into a Mennonite polity of tightly knit rural communities, and they wrote their memories out of an era in which that reality became fractured. They are now middle class; and their frame of reference in their adult lives has been largely institutional and professional, for most of them were movers and shapers in Mennonite institutions. In fact, most were connected with Eastern Mennonite University. 

The humble self-effacing personalities of the authors are palpable. Writing a memoir was difficult for them, for it involved a focus on the self. This generation grew up in an ethos in which the group (church) trumped the individual. To call attention to oneself was simply unseemly—probably un-Christian. 

Of course, a book of memoirs by people with a common commitment becomes an opportunity to aggregate their shared beliefs. Certainly the overriding generality in this book is a commitment to the Mennonite church, a church that not only governed the authors’ worldview but also offered employment and service. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a group of people whose commonalities are so all encompassing. 

Theologically the writers embrace an evangelicalism rooted in sixteenth-century Anabaptism and a commitment to the Anabaptist Vision of Harold Bender. This group of people was the first to grasp the power of the vision and the possibilities it offered. In a time of sociological change Anabaptism offered both an explanation of what they believed and helped them nourish that centuries-old sense of being an alterna-tive to magisterial Protestantism. 

It also helped them deal with the new American evangelicalism reflected in the aggressive work of groups like the National Association of Evangelicals, a movement with substantial appeal to many Mennonites. While many identified themselves as evangelical Christians, their evangelicalism was tempered by powerful commitments to disciple-ship (Nachfolge Christi) and an ideal of service in the name of Christ. Moreover, the WWII Civilian Service Program (for conscientious objec-tors to war) and the service of many of these people in post-WWII relief work converted them into world citizens transcending boundaries and nation-states. Actually, the accounts in this book reflect the experiences and stories similar to those of literally hundreds of Mennonites in this era who went abroad for service and returned changed persons. In the process they transformed the Mennonite church. No more could Mennonites be Die Stillen im Lande.
Introduction 

Certainly another shared characteristic is their almost compulsive devotion to service to their church. Almost all of the writers did some voluntary service and then spent their adult lives working for the church for a pittance. In 1970 full professors at EMU earned less than half that of assistant professors at state universities. Only in the late 1960s did EMU institute a retirement system for its employees. Yet its faculty served with a sense of vocation not unlike that of priests in Catholic orders. 

For a generation buffeted by such powerful winds of change, the generational question could hardly be avoided. How have their children taken their values and adapted to the new world they inhabit? In ear-lier times they might have become, if not copies of their parents, at least practitioners of their values. Now in what is a confusing and uncentered culture, the remedies of the past simply appear less useful. It thus be-comes a generational responsibility to recite what has been learned and valued most with the hope that some of the things one generation stood for still have some traction with their children. 

Mostly we do memoirs to help orient ourselves and our children to our past. Writing forces us to remember and to take stock of our lives. How did we become what we are? What are the disappointments and the surprises? How does what we are square with what we intended? For some the urgent question is this: What difference did our lives make in the scheme of things? This is not a Mennonite question, but it is present nevertheless. Ultimately we cannot escape the question of the meaning of our lives. 

Life is a mystery, and the best memoirs reflect that mystery. Good lives are those which bring hope and courage in the midst of that mystery. This book reflects that struggle.

—Albert N. Keim, April 2007