A Family Retreat Sharing

Our daughter Rachel spoke earlier of the courage. faith and determination of our great, great, great, great, grandfather Jacob in leaving his home and most of his family to cross the ocean to begin a new in life where his faith could be lived out for his family and descendents. He had a commitment on which he based his whole future life which he left as a challenge to all his descendents.

Almost 200 years later, my father was a young man of 19-21 who also had a dream. He imagined going to India, half way around the world and be a missionary. It was a time when there were very few Mennonite missionaries yet, and to have such a dream for an Amish youth was just too much. It never happened to him.

However, less than 25 years later, my father begin to see his children go out to  Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Arkansas, Colorado, Texas, Virginia, and Ohio. Even Red Lake Ontario, Brazil, and Belize. What he dreamed about in his youth was greatly expanded by his children in ways he would never have imagined when he was young.

The challenge today for my generation and especially the generation following us is to live by example and conviction so that the work of God will continue to be done around a world which is getting smaller and smaller. Loretta and I pray frequently for our grandchildren that they will respond to what ever call God has for them. None of our own grandchildren are married- yet. Thus we are very mindful that there are likely more than a dozen youth and children “out there” who will some day link to our grandchildren. So we pray for them also like as for our own, that they will join in the call of God on their lives. As the Scripture says,“So the next generation would know…even the children yet to be born, and they in turn will tell their children.

Let me then turn to our life in Belize. W knew that it was a risk to do something very different in mid life, going 2,000 miles away in a country we only heard about ( Next door compare to our father Jacob’s daring venture) But we have never regretted going there in almost 25 years. It was life with enough challenges and rewards to stay and stay, so that sometimes I wasn’t even too excited to return back to the States every year. Let me just tell you one story, bits of which some will already know.

About 30 years ago there was a young, 13 year old girl in the town of Georgetown. Her father was abusive, she told me, especially when he was drinking. So she sneaked off to the town we later came to, and when her parents pursued her, she went on to Belize City. You can imaging the girl was ill-equipped to live on her own, especially so far from her mother who would have had much to teach her. I am not sure that she ever retuned to live with her family. Instead, over the next 20 years she had 8 children, from several men. The first child served time in prison before he was twenty. The third, also served some months, and the latest I heard, the police were looking for him. But, the second son, while we were here last summer, e-mailed us that he had turned his life over to God completely. There is one daughter. While she was in catholic confirmation classes some years ago, it seems she made a serious commitment to Christ and this year she told me that with her husband, they were attending a church, at least some. She is a fine Christian character, a most kind friend of ours; so near and dear like a daughter.

Here is where some of you know bits of the story. The last 4 children, preschool boys were with us in Dangriga when the mother had left them with us to go to the city, supposedly to escape someone. While there she called us and said we could give the children to the welfare. (She denied she said that later) For 9 months we cared for them as our own. I was likely more involved with them then I had been with our own, perhaps as Loretta had others to care for. Each evening I put them to bed, praying for the older ones sleeping in a big bed, and then kneeling over the younger ones on the floor, praying that they would grow up learning to know God’s love. In the daytime they were always with me, if they could be, and when I would sit on the sofa, they would pile on me sometimes until I had to beg for space to breathe.

After nine months we received legal custody of the kids and brought three of them to the States with us for 6 months. When we returned to Belize with them, two couples came to Belize to adopt them. (7 years ago Aug 2. We were reminded last Sunday by a father.)

One of them wanted to be baptized several years ago- when we were here, he requested.

To experience this family and be to there for them in crucial; times, which was continuous at times, certainly was a high plateau of our experience as to both challenging and rewarding. To see 6 out 8 children now on the track for God, where only God would know where they would be otherwise.

It was hard for me to think over the years about leaving Belize. I wondered what could compare to the life in Belize. Perhaps two years ago we began to think about it a bit more. But in a journal where I keep some of my personal thought, in December 2008 I asked,”Is there life after Belize?” Slowly and gently God showed me that there may be life after Belize. One of the encouraging points was when I realized that the work of God would go on around the world after me, and that some of the grandchildren were already committing them selves to that. My father had a dream which he could never fulfill in his life. Now I have a vision that is realistic and just over the horizon, with the light of a new team of workers from the grandchildren of all my brothers and sisters. Already some have been in Thailand, Zambia, Jamaica, Mexico, Belize, Brazil and Paraguay. Likely more countries then come to my memory.

The challenge for my generation and the one right after is to be most supportive to the next generation to carry out the work of God in what ever vocation they choose. I expect some will make mid life shifts in vocation like we did as God calls them in His timing. At mid life I ask myself and God, what might I do that I will have few regrets when I turn 65. God had the answer. He also has the answer for each of us, if we ask him in all sincerity. Each of us is a chain link in the purposes and work of God in generations to follow us. May each of us dedicate our selves continually to God’s work for each of us, and persist in prayer and be an example as we teach our children.

                                           Stories of My Early Childhood

The earliest recollection I have is of a Christmas day, very long ago. Apparently my mother's family was at our house. After dinner, most likely, when the men were sitting around in the living room, and the women clearing the dishes, I was sitting there on the floor, perhaps six or eight feet from the door to the kitchen, playing with some wooden blocks. Some big person came along and asked me if I know who gave me those blocks. Was it Aunt Esther who asked me? I indicated I did not know. They told me, "Grandpa Bender." I was named after him. It was special to him that I had his name and thus he blessed me with that gift. I know that was a very early Christmas for me, as soon after my third birthday in May the following year, Grandpa was gone.

Life wasn't easy for me in those days. Other things happened which I know about only by hearsay and family legends. They say I did not look like the rest when I was born. I had light brown hair and all the other children had dark brown hair. I was different! The first time I went to church, we had a wild horse that was so unmanageable, they stopped on the way to church to get a sharper bit so they could control the horse. Obviously I survived. But I was very sick my first winter, perhaps of pneumonia. I was so sick they had to hold me a lot, and the doctor said I would not get better until spring came. My sisters would hold me sitting, in the sun when it was warm enough. On the lighter side, at least to others, once when a pet rooster died and my siblings were burying him, I insisted, actually with crying and screaming (according to Sister Miriam), that they bury him with his head out of the ground so he could breathe! This was after they had had a funeral for him. It is not known who preached at that time.

Another story was what happened when my baby sister died. She was only about 6 months old, and two years behind me. Such a lovely baby with long dark brown hair, very responsive to everyone. I really don't remember her. But they say that at the grave, I was very agitated. "They dare not put her in the ground," I cried. So I was left without her, again the youngest child, being cared for by a grieving mother, who after all was very hopeful for the baby girl. In the rhythm of boy/girl again and again, I had broken the regular cycle. Now she had had the little girl I wasn't and she lost it. How despairing it must have been for her and for also losing her father that same year. Fortunately a year and a half later, she had another baby girl who seemed to her to be a replacement for the one she lost. I believe I remember when she was born. I was about 4 and a half and recall going upstairs that morning telling the older brothers that we had a new baby. Now Mom felt a little better.

Sometimes I was treated like a baby even when I was no longer one. Once I was with my older brother and sister walking in the back lane, back there close to where there was a patch of tea along the lane. For some reason, they were carrying me between them, whether it was my idea or theirs, I don't know. There was always conversation on those walks, although I wonder what they were talking about. It was probably above my head.

I also remember that in my preschool years, we would put Mom's wash tub out in the yard and fill it with water. How we "suddled", splashing each other and just having great time jumping in and out of the tub! It may well have been in my 3 year as I recalled that first happening.

In those days also, once I was entrusted to carry home from Daudy's (Grandpa Hochstetler) something special. Somewhere from the deep recesses of my memory, it seems it was goat meat. I carried it in a small granite bucket. I think it was a speckled bucket, as I know they also had a dark blue bucket. Anyway, after I had walked through the big field and was nearing our house, I stopped to play at a trash pile where we disposed of some things like old tin cans and junk. I set the bucket there on one of the large rocks, right by the fence. When I left, I forgot to pick it up. Mom, likely, asked me about the meat. I told her it was by the rocks at the trash pile. She sent someone to fetch it. They couldn't find it; so I had to go and show them where it was. I don't remember how we liked the goat meat. It must have been OK.

We were close to our Miller cousins who were about the age of us children. Once we were back in the truck patch where we had crops such as sweet corn and behind where we had a big raspberry patch, and we were all discussing deep things of interest. We wondered about God, what was he like or where was he? I just remember that we agreed that he can see us but we cannot see him. My mother taught us to pray as well. We would kneel at the bedside by her knees as she sat there and said the prayer that she taught us. I don't remember praying after I had learned the prayer, if I prayed it by myself. Every morning and every evening Dad read a chapter of the New Testament, usually without comment and then we all knelt for prayer. If he was away or traveling, Mom would read and pray. Dad could probably have told you what was in every chapter of the New Testament. He read it so much and so many times from beginning to end- in German.

Before I started school, we had a big patch of pickles in the 20 acre field west of our house; 2 acres. They had to be picked every other day. Usually I would help my father, taking the other half-width of a row with him. It was a whole family endeavor. As an incentive, or encouragement to all of us, Dad gave us a cent per bucket. We had whole wagon loads of pickles in feed bags. I don't remember whether we hauled them to the house or if a truck came to pick them up in the farm. I just know that a truck came and picked them up.

Once Uncle Elmer gave us a pony. There we were right in front of the house, circling it and admiring it. Apparently I was too close at the wrong end and suddenly became rather dazed. They supposed the pony had kicked me in the head as I seemed a bit stunned, No one saw it happen. But now you know what happened to me!

It seems I was not very responsive to my mother's requests for doing something. Probably I was usually engrossed in my own day dreaming or playing and did not find it easy to shift and listen to her. She felt it was her duty both to teach me and train me to obey her like all good children should obey. I was more independent than she felt I should be. I know it was hard on her and she did not like to spank me although she felt she had to train me right. One time she insisted that I take the strap and spank her and we were both crying. I doubt that I struck her. Often her threatening to get the leather "strap" was enough to bring me to compliance- but not always. (The strap was kept handy in the compartment above the stove where food was kept warm until meal time.) My sisters agreed in later years that I was disciplined more than any other child. At times my mother told me that my oldest brother was never like that. For a variety of punishment, at least once each, I had to sit in the stair entrance or on a chair for an hour to learn a lesson, no doubt on obedience.

I know that I was also a restless child in church which was a problem for my mother. Once she warned me about taking me outside and spanking me if I didn't behave. I suppose I teased my younger sister or something. But what was a kid to do in a 2-3 hour service that had nothing for children? One person from church said he never saw such a restless child like me. Fortunately, they usually did pass around white crackers and cookies somewhere in the middle of the service for children. I remember once I was so tired and as mom had another child to hold, a woman offered to let me sleep with my head on her lap. I just remember that it was fairly comfortable, probably a bit more cushiony than my mother's lap.

We knew that my father loved us very much. I remember him bending over a small child, cooing something like "beloved child". As Christmas neared each year, I would sit on his lap and he would ask us how long it was until "Silent Night". Then he would sing it to us in German. I was often with him as he was out working. Once as he was repairing or building a fence between the house and barn, he taught me a Bible verse in German I still know. Seems he was often talking to himself, or to some imaginary person which seemed a bit odd to us.

It was always special when church was at our place, like the Amish still have church services in homes. The benches were brought to our house on Saturdays before church on 

Sunday and the furniture set off to a side or stored elsewhere. The benches were stacked in the living room and we might make our bed under the benches for the night. The next day, after worship services the benches were made into tables and everyone sat to eat the simple meal of peanut butter on bread, pickles and red beets. Coffee, if you were big enough. The preacher would announce that everyone should "hold quietly" for prayer- a silent prayer before we dug in. It was amazing how many slices of bread a small boy could put away. I know my father would buy a large box of loaves of bread on the Saturday before to feed everyone. It probably took more bread because the services were so long! After dinner there was time for the big people to talk about anything they would think up while we children were somewhere else playing, perhaps out in the yard or in the barn in the hayloft until it was time to go home.

When my next brother was born, when I was 7, Grandma Hochstetler was there to deliver the baby that night. They just lived up the fields from us, "up", as it was a slight upgrade in the field between our farm houses. We were there overnight and coming back from Grandpa’s that morning where we had been kept out of sight overnight. Daudy wanted to tell us that we had a new baby, but couldn't just come out and tell us. "If you had a new baby," he teased, "would you wish for brother or a sister?" I don't remember our response. We soon found out about that. There is the story that when Mom would go into labor, she would hang a white sheet on the wash line behind our house as a sign for "Mommy" Hochstetler that it was time to come and help.

It seems that even though I was slow in minding my mother, I did have some motivation for doing what was right in my childhood. On my eighth birthday, May 8,1945 I sat down and wrote my commitment for life. Basically I wrote that I want to be a better person than I had been before. Someone, probably Uncle Elmer, had told me that when there is a sameness of the birth date and your age, that is a critical time of life; I took it seriously. I can't say I was converted then, but at least I made a determination about my life that I was going to seek the better way.

Certainly my most memorable story of my childhood is of a trip to the East coast when I was 5 years old. But that is another story.