Giving meaning to life

Johanna Sutter can still envision the day, Sept. 23, 1943, when, amid World War II, allied forces bombed the city in which her family lived, Frankenthal, Germany, along the Rhine River. More than 60 people died that day, she says.

“In my mind I can still see the city burning,” Sutter says. “The center of the city was destroyed, including schools.”

As a result, for several years, Sutter had to commute to a school in another city.

Sutter says she recalls many days when she wished, “I hope they don’t come and bomb us today.”

“I remember thinking, ‘Oh, good, it’s rainy and foggy, so maybe they won’t come tonight,” she says. “It was a joy to know tonight you could go to bed and your parents didn’t have to pull you out of bed and go to the air raid shelter in the basement.”

On some days, she says, she went several times into that air raid shelter, which was reinforced with several feet of concrete.

Food was rationed, and humor was invoked. For example, Sutter’s family received dried beans and lentils from the U.S. government, and she remembers there were bugs in them, perhaps due to the way they were stored.

“We would sit around and pick out the bugs,” she says. “My mother would soak the beans and lentils in salt water overnight and some more would come out. After she cooked them, when we ate them, we would still see bugs, and we would laugh. We would say, ‘We need more protein anyway.’”

Every piece of humanitarian assistance her family received “meant a lot to us,” Sutter says. They received fish from Christians in Nordic countries, yarn from others. “To experience a war and hunger and not having things has made me who I am,” she says.

In the aftermath of the war, Sutter and her family received a Christmas bundle of supplies from MCC. Sutter vividly remembers the details of the package she received as a 12-year-old, that included clothing, school supplies, hygiene items and a toy.

“One thing in the package was a nylon comb that was hot pink with rhinestones. I thought it was the most wonderful thing,” she says. “And I still have the little blue and white eraser nub.” She and her siblings even tested the big bar of Ivory soap to make sure it lived up to its promise of being able to float, much to the chagrin of their father.

Sutter’s aunt and great aunt had lost their homes during a bombing in the city, so they had also come to live with her and her family during the war. This meant that Sutter and her sister were relegated to an extra room in the apartment downstairs. The feathers in the feather bed she was covered with slid to the side so she was only covered with the ticking. She woke up cold and uncomfortable.

The pastor at a local church heard her telling this story to some of her friends and later presented her with a comforter from MCC. “Just like MCC works with partners now, they worked with churches there,” says Sutter.

Sutter remembers well the blue and pink plaid comforter with flowers, but she says what drew her attention most was the little orange tag that said, “Mennonite Central Committee: In the name of Christ.”

When Sutter was 16, she began working at a newly established MCC children’s home at Bad Dürkheim, near her city. The home took care of children while their displaced families worked to get their lives back together after the war. “I learned a lot about MCC during that time,” she says. “Everything in the children’s home came from MCC–bedding, clothing, shoes and food.”

Her connection with MCC continued three years later, when she came to the United States as part of a year-long exchange program in which she spent time in Indiana, Kansas and Nebraska. She returned to work at the MCC children’s home in Germany for another three years before going back to Indiana in 1956.

With her education and using the skills she learned at the children’s home, she taught at Clinton Christian School in Goshen for five years. She then earned her teaching degree at Goshen College and went on to receive her master’s in education from Indiana University South Bend in the early 1970s.

Over the next 34 years, Sutter taught mostly first- and second-graders in the public school system. Throughout this time, she remained connected with MCC and regularly donated items for Christmas bundles and other kits.

Since her retirement from teaching in 2001, Sutter has dedicated her life to volunteering at the MCC Material Resources Center at The Depot in Goshen. She spends hundreds of hours each year helping prepare for groups, sorting through donations, putting together kits and speaking to groups. Not to mention the countless shopping trips to get the best deals on kit supplies.

“The area stores know me when I come in,” she says with a smile. And she’s always sure to make certain the items are of high quality for those receiving them.

Nadine Zook Miller, material resources coordinator at The Depot, values Sutter as a colleague and friend.

“She willingly tells her story of receiving material resources and how it changed her life,” says Zook Miller. “It gives a real-life context to what they are doing as volunteers and clearly shows the value of their time at the material resources center.”

Sutter even developed a relationship with some of the folks who sent the Christmas bundle to her family in Germany. The bundle included a card from Lola and Marie Brunk, Sunday school teachers from a class at Pike Mennonite Church in Elida, Ohio, who put together the bundle. Sutter and the Brunk sisters first met in the 1970s and stayed in touch for decades and exchanged annual Christmas cards. Sutter hosted them in her home outside of Goshen, Ind., when they came to town. The last time Sutter saw the Brunks was in the 1990s.

In May 2015, Sutter visited Pike Mennonite for the first time and shared her life story, including how the Christmas bundle from that congregation touched her life in a profound way. Sutter has spoken to many church groups, but she says this one was special.

The Christmas bundle and comforter she received so many years ago continues to shape how Sutter lives out her faith.

This story was originally published in the December 2018 issue of The Mennonite magazine.