I’d like to introduce my friend Mary Ediger. Mary’s mom and dad were named Margarite and Menno. Clearly we had a few things in common when we met. Both her parents were Mennonite pastors and spent their lives in service to that bigger heavenly plan.

They’re gone now, but Mary has written Mennonite Girl, filled with tales of what it was like to grow up as one of five kids (and often as one of ten kids when all the foster kids were counted) of parents with an income that gave ‘poor as church mice’ a new relevance.

When I met Mary in 1983, she had just driven her rusty Dodge Aspen from Chicago to Mission, BC.  In large measure she did this because she’d met another Mennonite friend, Margo Friesen, who was volunteering in Chicago under the Mennonite Voluntary Service program. Margo assured Mary that her hometown back in British Columbia was a nice place. Margo flew home from Chicago and they soon became roommates and great friends.

And now, here we are, decades later, all of us connected because Mary had a hunch that she belonged out West and had the courage to follow her heart.

But back to her new book…Mary became one of those friends that you could always count on for an interesting story…usually about her unusual childhood, her innovative father and his cobbled-together creations and her mother that could make something out of nothing…and of course, all those kids.

She’s done us all a favour and put all those stories into a collection called Mennonite Girl.

Now I can hear Mary’s voice whenever I open those pages 🙂