Commentary: A spiritual quest leads to humanitarian effort

Several years ago, I went on a search for my Mennonite roots. My sister and I joined a group traveling to the Ukraine, following the path my pacifist forefathers took to escape persecution for their religious beliefs.

In 1804, they had accepted Katherine the Great’s invitation to settle newly acquired lands in the Ukraine and had formed two colonies near the Dnieper River, with assurances of exemptions from the military and from public schooling. But after 70-plus peaceful years, life changed. The men were to be drafted into the military. The children were to attend public schools.

Many, including my great-grandparents, left for the United States. Some remained, only to suffer through horrific events following the Revolution and World War I.

In 1919, my great-uncle (by now living in California) traveled back to Russia, bringing financial aid and trunks of relief goods to the suffering Mennonites.

At the same time, other U.S. Mennonites volunteered with the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, the same group that later became Near East Relief.

Eventually, owing in part to my great-uncle and to those who responded to the call to help the Armenians, the Mennonites formed their own relief organization, the Mennonite Central Committee, “a global nonprofit striving to share God’s love and compassion for all through relief, development and peace,” according to its website.

So when I found a very old, very tiny bottle of rice that had been used as a fundraising tool for Near East Relief, I felt a strong sense of connection.

I’ve learned a lot about the Armenian genocide since then. Like the Mennonite Central Committee, Near East Relief was founded to respond to a humanitarian crisis, more specifically, the crisis caused by the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, as noted on its website.

Near East Relief “did so under the most challenging of circumstances, galvanizing the entire nation, and thereafter, the world, in bringing international attention to the plight of the starving Armenians during the first world war,” according to a tribute on the Armenian National Committee of America Western Region (ANCA-WR) website.

One of the major thrusts of Near East Relief was to establish orphanages and to care for more than 100,000 orphaned Armenian children.

Nearly 1,000 U.S. citizens, including 60 Mennonites, traveled overseas to build orphanages, vocational schools and food-distribution centers. And thousands more volunteered their help here in the United States.

Now, 100 years later, Armenians are saying thank you to the Near East Relief through an initiative called America, We Thank You.

Organized by ANCA-WR, it is a “recognition of the outpouring of generosity by the American people’’ and highlights the pivotal role Near East Relief played in rescuing the Armenian nation, according to the America, We Thank You website.

Last November, ANCA-WR presented its humanitarian award to the Near East Foundation.

“The honor is more than well deserved, as there is perhaps no other organization toward which Armenians everywhere can express greater gratitude,” according to the organization’s website.

Later this month, I’m packing up my bottle of rice, a memento of that historic time when Americans helped rescue a people in need. I’m getting on an airplane and taking that bottle of rice to Yerevan, where I’ll present it to the Genocide Museum as a tribute to my Mennonite background and to the great country in which we live.

KATHERINE YAMADA writes for Times Community News in Los Angeles County.