Would any Mennonite church group ever invite a group of Muslims to use their meeting house on Fridays? I wondered this as I stood last month in the Kyk Ota Mosque in Serabulak, Uzbekistan, because it happened in reverse in 1881, when the imam offered refuge for nine months to a wandering and very needy bunch of Mennonites.

I was in Uzbekistan with 15 other Mennonites from the U.S. and Canada to visit scenes from an amazing 2,000-mile journey a group of German/Russian Mennonites took by horse and wagon in the late 1800s. After a punishing months-long trip from Ukraine through Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, they had one nine-month stopover in Serabulak, Uzbekistan. There, the local imam gave them temporary shelter in the area around the mosque. They dealt with typhoid fever, their off-again, on-again hopes for settlement nearby, and the sad news of the deaths of two former advocates, General Kaufmann and Czar Alexander II. After leaving Serabulak and traveling for 40 more days, mostly through the desert, the surviving members finally established a colony near Khiva, which became their home for the next 50 years.

It is a tale of vision, of charismatic leadership gone astray, of courage, and of much suffering. We learned details from the diaries of leadership types -- all men; how I wished there were more remaining of the Mennonite Mama story!

Our trip followed that same Great Silk Road that had been traveled by this amazing bunch of pilgrims. We were welcomed at this mosque by local leaders who still have the local memory of the Mennonites' stay. Amazingly, the travelers at this location were even invited by the local imam to use the mosque for their worship services on Sundays -- in that same space used by Muslims on Friday! 

Standing together in this same mosque, we listened to three tour-group members read from diaries written by a grandfather and a great-grandfather, and a hymn from an account by Frank Bartsch -- all three had been part of the trek. After receiving permission from our hosts, we sang, "Come We That Love the Lord."  Tears surprised me as we sang, as those who "love the Lord" and as "children of the heavenly king." It was a holy moment shared with our new Muslim friends. The imam responded by thanking us for singing and added gracious words of peace and blessing for us and for the world. (This was interpreted for us by our expert and warm-hearted local Christian guide, Marina).

It was a time of discovery and pondering -- what made those Mennos behave as they did? Were they foolhardy? Courageous? Certainly interesting! What lessons should we take home?

But it is also a wondrous story of friendships between Christians and Muslims at that time -- with the Muslims offering hospitality and refuge. 

Helen Lapp lives in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, and is a retired administrator of the Mennonite Association of Retired Persons. Read about the end-times visions that fueled the 1880s trek, and the intercultural understanding that followed, in "Through the Desert Goes Our Journey," in the July issue of Sojourners.