Mennonite Weekly Review

ASUNCION, Paraguay — Travel the streets of Asuncion and you’ll see a lot of motorcycles — some small and frisky, others big and sporty.

Assembled motorcycles in the Asuncion warehouse of Inverfin, co-owned by Eduard Rempel and Ernst Bergen. Bergen is also the new treasurer of Mennonite World Conference. — Photo by Wally Kroeker/The Marketplace

They’re the conveyance of choice for those who can’t afford cars.

When you see all these cycles you could “think Mennonite,” for it’s Mennonite entrepreneurs who supply a good chunk of them to this country’s 6 million people.

Nearly half of the cycles you see come from two Mennonite-owned firms — Chacomer, the top producer with a volume of 60,000 units a year, and Inverfin, which made 28,000 last year.

Both companies are serious about motorcycles, which they assemble from Chinese parts in sizes ranging from 108 to 300 cc and prices from $500 to $1,300 U.S.

Their owners are equally serious about their Christian faith, and aren’t shy to talk about it.

Take a tour of Chacomer, Inverfin or Record Electric, another leading Mennonite-owned business in Asuncion, and conversation shifts easily from product lines and market share to how faith gives spine to business.

Some North American tastes may find the talk a bit blunt, but Paraguayans say their predominantly Catholic country is, in its own way, very religious, and overt faith language is less jarring than in more pluralistic places.

During this summer’s assembly of Mennonite World Conference, considerable attention was focused on Asuncion companies connected with two owners who had held high-profile cabinet positions in the government of the previous president, Nicanor Duarte (whose wife belongs to a Mennonite Brethren congregation in the capital).

Carlos Walde served several years as an economic adviser, and Ernst Bergen as minister of industry and commerce and later minister of finance. Both men are often in the spotlight, not only for their government involvements but also as owners of businesses that openly declare their Christian underpinnings. Tours of their companies were included in Assembly activities.