PARAGUAY SECT GETS MILLION IN U.S. GRANT

ASUNCION, Paraguay, Dec. 17 — Deep in the Paraguayan Gran Chaco jungle, 20,000 members of the Mennonite sect have such a flourishing economy that the United States Export-Import bank has advanced them 1 million dollars.

The sect, a Protestant movement founded in 1525, rejects such modern devices as radio, television, cars, and even wristwatches.

“The old is best — the new is of the devil,” they say. Science is regarded as godless.

Ancient Ways Allowed

But the Mennonites here play an important role in the Paraguayan economy. They are allowed to practice their ancient way of life without government interference.

They advocate nonviolence, brotherly love, and the simple life. The men wear plain blue overalls and the women long peasant smocks with wide-brimmed straw hats.

The Mennonites farm 2 million acres of land, long shunned by the Paraguayans as difficult jungle territory.

They have set up vegetable oil works, saw mills, stores, schools, hospitals, and a bank.

Ends at Grade School

But elementary school is the limit of education, and the Bible is used as a textbook.

The sect was founded in the Netherlands by an Anabaptist preacher, Menno Simon. Escaping persecution, the Mennonites went to Germany and Russia, and later to the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

Wherever they went, they refused to accept laws that they believed went against God.

Earlier this year, more than 420 families left their farms in Mexico for uncleared scrubland in Bolivia to avoid compulsory military service.

Arrived in 1926

The main difference between the Mennonites and most other Protestant sects is their insistence on baptizing only adults. Their ministers are laymen — farmers on week days and preachers on Sundays.

The first Mennonites came to Paraguay in 1926. After long argument the government agreed to exempt them from most laws.

They settled down to farming and now own 30,000 cattle.

Among their problems is the rapidly increasing population — 11 or 12 children for one family is not uncommon — and hereditary defects arising from generations of inbreeding.

Altho the Mennonites still speak the lost German language of their ancestors, elders are worried that a new liberal wave could corrupt the young.

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