Through Streets Broad and Narrow

A Woman's Ongoing Search To Find A Christian Pacifist Lifestyle, Including A 17-Year Sojourn In The Bruderhof Communities

by Belinda Manley

Volume III of the "Women From Utopia" Series, Gertrude E. Huntington, Series Editor

Introduction by Gertrude Enders Huntington

Foreword by Julius H. Rubin, author of Religious Melancholy and Protestant Experience in America

Published 1996, paperback, perfect bound, 272 pages including 72 pages of photos. Cover

Born in England in 1908, Belinda Manley's loss of her brother Percy in the final weeks of World War I triggered her growing interest in pacifism. Her commitment deepened when she fell in love. Although her friend also shared her pacifist beliefs, he felt unable to commit himself to the Bruderhof community's religious model. Belinda decided that if she followed her calling, some day he might follow her lead. She responded to the Bruderhof's challenge to "live out her pacifism" and joined the group in 1941 on the eve of World War II. A few years later, she was transferred to the Bruderhof's backwoods communities in Paraguay where she spent the next 12 years as a single woman.

The author describes her life within these pioneering communities set amidst lush tropical jungles and grasslands. Finally her ignored concerns regarding the children's education, money-raising and arrogance towards their Mennonite neighbors prompted her departure. After an adventuresome journey by wagon and river boat, she landed in Asuncion very short of funds. Her family bought her a ticket back to England, but the Bruderhof refused her the money to travel to the ship. Belinda sought refuge in the local Salvation Army children's center to await next month's sailing. Home after 17 years, she recommitted herself to her family and the Anglican faith in which she had been reared. Today she writes children's stories about "The Holy Squeaker Mice" and lives outside Canterbury.

"Belinda... celebrates the idea of living one's life with intensity, creativity, and wider purpose." -- Julius H. Rubin

List price: $17 ISBN Number: 1- 882260 08-2

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