Introduction

This book leads one through a great odyssey of faith and the immigration of a persecuted people, who without a land, followed the teaching of Father Menno Simon, founder of the Dutch Anabaptist movement.

Their history is filled with persecution, hardships, and blessings upon their work. The historic episodes prior to the immigration to Canada are largely fictional. Many of those stories are presented to allow the reader to understand the serious trials that Mennonites endured.

Catheriina's children, my uncles and aunts told me of things like the stories in the first part of the book. They probably did not happen to one family, but they truly did happen to many of the early Anabaptists.

For the sake of focus, they are grouped together around the Fast family. Catherina, the title character of the book, her husband, and all of her children are carefully drawn figures built on oral histories, memoirs, family records, and research in archives, cemeteries, and visiting places that were a part of the author's childhood. It has been an inspiration to live through the lives of these generations.