Life on The Farm

Thus far in these writings we have only occasionally referred to our life on the farm. It was a way of life so different from the 21st century life whether one lives is the country or on a small lot or in any sized city. It was in another world of anything we can imagine today. Country culture was so different in so many ways, and even more so as we lived without many modern conveniences everyone now takes for granted, at least in the United States. So here I will digress in time and begin back at my early life as a young farm boy and growing up and away from the farm.

The barn was central to much farm activity. That is where we had our cattle, horses, and sometimes pigs as well. It was a second story building with a steep hill going up to the second floor. Downstairs were the animals with a large space-room kind of shed where the cattle were, especially in the winter. It was the job of children to help keep this area relatively clean for the cattle. This meant to throw straw down from upstairs each evening in the winter and spread it so the cattle had a nice place to sleep at night. There was always manure in this shed which was dirty for the animals which is why we had to "bed" the shed every night. In the summer the cows might be out in the barnyard and so we had less work inside each evening. Also we had to throw hay down for the cattle each evening and morning when it was too cold for them to be out on the farm.

An important part of the barn was the stables for cows when we milked them. We usually had 8-10 cows and we milked by hand, sitting on 3-legged milk stools, squirting the milk in pails as we sat by the udders of the cows. Young heifers had to get used to this and sometimes they would kick and spill the milk pail, or worse, get their foot in the pail of milk, grossly contaminating it. On rare occasions we might even be kicked over and have to pick ourselves off the floor. My favorite cow was named Daisy. She was so gentle she hardly ever kicked like that. I believe I sometimes even rode on her back as I brought them to the barn. The cows were in the stalls only for milking and in the barn yards or fields grazing, especially in the summer. It was my job to go after the cows in the evenings to milk them. For some years we had a large pony named Nancy that I rode to go after the cows. I rode bare back and the horse got used to chasing the cows and would go back and forth after the slowest cows at the end of the herd. I also rode this pony/horse on errands to neighbors and at least once rode it to school on the last day of school. I remember once riding behind the school bus trying to keep up with the bus.

Harvesting wheat and oat was an exciting thing for us children. First Dad drove the "binder" around the field to cut the standing grain stalks and automatically tie them with heavy string. Then we boys would set them up in shocks to dry, about 10 sheaves upright with one on top to let them dry for a week or two. Then when it was time for thrashing- separating the grain from the straw, the thrashing machine would come to our farm. It was a big, long machine on steel wheels and pulled also buy a tractor with such wheels. It was especially exciting to see the tractor driver push that big machine up the barn hill into the barn. He turned the tractor around and pushed it with the front end of the tractor. When it pushed hard up the hill, he skillfully kept it straight with hands on hand-brakes, to steer it. It never got away from him, but as I think about it now, I realize that if he had gotten into the wrong angle, it could have pushed the machine to the side and perhaps dumping the tractor over and perhaps on him. It never happened, but it was a tense moment for us to see him push it up the hill.

Sometimes when the barn was full of straw, we would make a straw stack outside in the barn yard. My job was to work either to steer the straw blower so that it would make a nice pile or fill the entire straw shed, or watch the grain on the wagon so that it wold fill the wagon without spilling over the edges. Meanwhile, wagons were loading up the shocks in the fields and bringing them to the thrashing machine and pitching them into the machine with forks. When I was old enough, I would help in the fields, pitching up the sheaves or bundles, or work on the wagon arranging the bundles so that we could carry a full load, at least 6-7 feet high.. If one was not careful in loading properly, the bundles could slide off on the way to the barn, or when going up the steep barn hill. Usually 5-6 farmers worked together, helping each other to load the wheat or oats, and the machine would go from farm to farm. The women had a big job to feed all these in the thrashing ring, as we called it, when it was at our house. The thrashers worked up a hunger so that the expressions was that one was hungry as a thrasher. It was a social event, working and eating together. Usually it was with neighbors whose farms were close to each other.

I mentioned work in the barn daily. This we called chores and all boys and sometimes girls helped there. It involved as we mentioned, feeding, milking and bedding the animals. Usually Dad fed the pigs and we did other things and he helped milking. Especially in the winter it was dark inside the barn and we used kerosene lanterns so we could see what we were doing. Some people had gas lanterns which were brighter and we may also have had them at times. We had to be careful with the lanterns as if they fell over, the oil might spill and catch fire. So we always hung them high, which also lighted up the areas better. We did not have electricity in the barn until I was about grown. Younger children helped with chores in feeding the chickens and gathering the eggs. We got up early in the morning to do chores while Mom made breakfast. It had to be worked out before school time during the school year. My parents were good in scheduling the chores so that we could have family devotions together before breakfast before we went to school.

We always farmed the fields with horses instead of tractors. This was the Amish way of doing it as they believed it was “worldly” to use modern equipment. The first I can remember driving horses was when we hauled hay from the fields. I stood on the front rack of the wagon and drove the horses while two persons loading the hay as it came up at the back of the wagon on the hay loader. The horses had to straddle the row of hay which had been raked together in a long windrow. We had to guide the horses especially around the corners so that the row of hay would come right under the loader and we would not miss any. As I grew older I would load the hay carefully so that it could be piled high and not fall off as we left the field for the barn. One other person was usually on the wagon to tread it down and pack it so it would make a good load. As I grew older I also drove the mower around the field cutting the hay as well as the side rake that brought the hay together in a long row to be picked up by the hay loader behind the wagon. At the barn we would unload the wagon by huge forks that held the hay as it was pulled up by ropes on pulleys to the peak of the barn. Then it was slid over above the hay mow on tracks and dropped, where it then had to be scattered as it would just come down on one pile. The whole hay mow had to be filled for the winter for the cattle and horses. The hay mow or loft was a place for kids to play with brothers and sisters and cousins, often jumping down on the soft hay from higher beams in the hayloft. We might also play hide and seek in the barn as well as basket ball at times.

In the spring we hitched 3 or 4 horses to a plow to get the fields ready for planting corn and oats. Wheat was planted in the fall for the following year. We plowed about 2 acres of ground in a good day which hopefully went from 7 in the morning to 5 in the evening with an hour or more off for dinner. As a small child I was often sent to tell my father when it was time to come in for dinner. Dinner was at 12 noon, so I would go back to the field in time that he could bring the horses up and in the barn and feed then and get into the house by 12. That way they were together on when they could expect to eat. As a kid I was always hungry before meal time and my mother could promise that we would eat at 12 if I could wait to eat until then. No wonder I am stills stuck on that schedule.

I suppose I was about 10 when I started to drive the horses in the fields with the harrow. This farm tool had many tines, or iron springs bent around, to stir the ground after plowing to smooth out the ground to prepare it for planting. As a teen I would then also plow the fields. We rode on the plow and sometimes it hit stones and it would jar the plow upward and sometimes we were shaken off the seat. Dad always operated the drill for planting grain or corn. That had to be done carefully and I probably never did it that I can distinctly remember. I remember we had to let the horses rest every ten to fifteen minutes when it was warm. When the corn was up and growing, we cultivated it with two horses pulling the cultivator and with operating the cultivator with our feet, we could insure that we did not cultivate out the little corn plants. One row at a time we took and it was a long job to cover fields of 10-20 acres.

Sometimes after plowing Dad thought there were so may stones in the fields that he sent us to pick them up with a flat stone boat- just a 4-5 2x6's nailed together, perhaps ten feet long and pulled by horses. Once I know we went out and pulled yellow mustard weeds that were growing so thickly in the hay fields.

In the spring as it began to warm up, probably in February or March we tapped the maple trees in our back woods. This involved drilling holes in the trees and placing there, a small pipe with a wire hook around it on which a pail was hung to catch the sweet water, sugar water, we called it. About everyday, in the right kind of weather we would collect this sap in a big tank on a wagon and haul it to the sugar camp to boil it until it would become maple syrup. It took about 35 gallons of sugar water boiled down- evaporated, to make one gallon of syrup. We would have to keep loading the space under the long flat pan with wood to keep the water boiling until it was “boiled down” to the right consistency or thickness. Sometimes when I was working at that, I would go to the hen house and get an egg or two and place it in the boiling water until it was cooked and then eat it. Which reminds me, I would often help my mother butcher chickens, holding then as she stretched out their heads and chopped them off with an ax on a stump or chunk of wood. Then the chickens would jumped around wildly until they were dead. Then she would dip them into a bucket of hot water so that the feathers could be pulled out. She then cleaned them of small feathers and gutted them.

Farming was a way of life. We probably assumed as children we would be farmers when we grew up, but in teen years we began to think of other occupations and felt that farm life was to simple to be challenging, especially with the Spiritual challenges that we were being exposed to. We also began to think about higher education even as only a few of our acquaintances went on after high school. A change of life style, values, and dreams was in the atmosphere and the simple life on the farm would have to shift to something else, where ever God was taking us in our commitment to him..

                                              Getting Rid Of Our Stuff

When we approached the peak of our income and equity between the ages of 60 and 65 and living in Belize, I felt it was time to develop a sound basis for dispersing much of what God has given to us, especially what was in the form of real estate equity. We could leave it to posterity to disperse, or to disperse it in blocks, such as one house at a time to a charitable cause, or as we finally chose, to use some of our equity in our own ministry. This was to help children in education and with their basic life needs which may also involved their mothers. It also involves widows and persons without skills and jobs or having other handicaps; the poorest of the land. Basic is the concept that God still owns everything he has entrusted to us and we are to make the best use of it. This is called Christian stewardship. What criteria did we use to decide what and who to give help? [While we developed this in Belize, we largely followed this after we moved back in 2011]

We help those near us, who knock on our doors and come to us. We do not seek out needy people since that is not necessary in our case in Belize as it might be in the US.

We try to ascertain who may or may not have other resources from friends and family and relatives who should be helping them. We ask whether it helps them or makes them dependent and less likely to try helping themselves.

We are open to the advice of our Christian brothers and sister, and seek to know if needs presented to us are real or fake. We seek to help on a minimum level with basic needs and avoid “needs” of people increasing like an addiction to our money, where they want more and more.

We have special concerns for children who may suffer hunger, medical needs, education inadequacies because of their parents neglect or inability to provide for them. Parents may need to feel deprivation to be motivated to do their greatest to support themselves, but children should not be allowed to suffer because of their parents. Much spiritual discernment is needed here.

For us it is not only how much we can afford according to our income, but how we can help real needs in the best way. We want to help generously without giving carelessly to those who may become dependent like young women who should try to help themselves with counseling.

We can calculate the rate at which we could liquidate our equity over the next 30 years, but we have only recently reached the peak of logical dispersion, given that we won’t be in this ministry for 30 years. Perhaps only 5-10 years. If there is money left over for other ways to distribute later, we will have to decide about that when the time comes. It is a basic conviction that it is a poor stewardship to hold on to our wealth for 20 years when it could be used in the Kingdom business presently. So when I am given the challenge to help someone with daily bread, or with several hundred dollars in medical expenses, or school tuition in the best local Christian school, I don’t feel loss. I don’t worry that God who creates the rain will not also provide if there ever be a rainy day for us. We need to follow our instincts and the Holy Spirit, with our self interests in money not being an issue, but what is best for needy causes now. When we see ourselves as stewards of God who has blessed us; that He cares for all people like for us, we can freely give as we have been given.

                                                How is God Present Today?

At times when I hear people calling the Bible the Word of God, I feel a bit uneasy. It is assumed that the book is the revelation of God for today and what we need to adhere to most seriously. This is fine except it is not the whole truth of God with us today in how he wants to speak to us. It is true the Spirit speaks to us as we may be reading the Bible but there is a further truth we should understand to see the whole matter of God speaking to us today and throughout periods of holy history.

In the Old Testament, we have a record of God's attempt to make his will and nature known through the law and his marvelous deliverance at various times like from Egypt and other enemies. In the prophets we have further revelation of God's will. The prophets also foresaw a further revelation of God's plan in the coming of a Messiah.

The Gospels are the record of God coming to his people and for all the world in the person of Jesus. He made clearer the will of God than the Old Testament, and also presented himself as the sacrifice to replace the Old Testament system. He thus ushered in a New Covenant of how people can relate to God through faith in him, his teachings, and his sacrifice.  We call it the New Testament, or actually, New Covenant.

Jesus however predicted a third step in God revealing his will for his people. He would go away so that the Holy Spirit could come. He said it is good- actually better for him to go, so that the Spirit would come and “Teach you all things.” Jesus would be going away; he was here only for a while. The Spirit will come as the permanent presence of God with his people and guiding them. (Cf. John 14-16. This is where the Old and New Covenant was leading to and was perceived already in Joel where it was prophesied that the Spirit would come on all, young and old, men and women. This is the dispensation of the church and which was inaugurated on the day of Pentecost.

This progression of holy history of God reaching out to man and coming to live with man, raises the question of the use of the Bible and the tendency of many to glorify it as was suggested in the beginning of this discussion. The least we can say is that it is the record of God carrying forth his purposes with his children from the OT law, and the Gospels to ushering in the age of the Spirit. Though it is full of items of true faith and has also examples of the short comings of God's people. Even though David could be considered a “man after God's own heart” many of the Psalms express his hatred for his enemies so contrary to the teaching of Jesus. To glorify the Old Testament, requires gymnastics of interpretation to make it all come out in the Spirit of Jesus.  

Yet without doubt, it is useful to be read and listening to the Holy Spirit for what God us saying to us each day s we follow Christ. But the Spirit is our inner contact with God, and the Bible is more of an intellectual guide to show us God's will with the up-date of the Holy Spirit in us. Jesus said that it is the Spirit that gives life. The Bible is for reference of God's ways in the past not meant to guide us in all of our challenges moment by moment today as well as newer issues of culture.

Example of God revealing his will by his Spirit beyond the Bible is seen in how the church came to recognize over history that polygamy and slavery were not God's will at all, even though Jesus and the NT are not explicit on these. And for our daily discernment and decision, only the Spirit can give us the current will of God for each step of the way.  The Bible is useful in many ways, but it is the Spirit who is our contemporary “Counselor”.

Considering personally how the Spirit is needed for guidance beyond the Bible is illustrated by when I wonder how to help desperately poor people we know well from living in Belize for many years. How to give generously without developing dependency  where it is hard to find jobs and self-support. Only the Spirit can guide me in what is best. My intellect would be clouded by my self-interests and bias. What is God’s way to help them? Certainly intercession is also needed even in seeking the Spirit in how to pray. The Bible has many helpful principals but the Spirit is needed greatly in everyday decisions and guidance. He is God present with us today. 

                                               Is Our God Too Great For Us?

David the Psalmist and poet looked up into the night sky and was amazed. Even with his unaided eye, he marveled at the heavenly bodies of sun, moon and stars. Then he marveled that God, who made all that, could care for people, small seemingly significant in the scale of the universe. Yet he realize that God cared for him.

Today we are awed even more when we learn of the magnificence of the universe, and the sub- microscopic elements of nature as well. Scientists say that there may be 400 billion stars in just the galaxy our earth is a part of. Furthermore, they estimate there maybe 107 billion galaxies, or groups of stars. When they consider how long it takes for light to travel to earth from some of these stars they suggest the universe may be 13.8 years old. As I hear this from scientists, whether they make only estimates or what, I sometimes have to wonder how he could care about little me, an ant, if that much, in his total scope of creation. One children's video we used to have of Jonah's experience explaining to his ship mates that his God was the creator of all things; they said, “You mean one God created all this?” The microscopic world, we know, is just as unfathomable.

I have a feeling God does nor want us to get hung up with all his wonders so that we have a hard time to really believe in him, that he has a personal care for us. Perhaps he want us to only know some part of who he is. I suppose that is why he sent Jesus, his representative, to earth for us to learn what he really wants us to know. Jesus called God “Father”. That is a part God really wants us to know. In nature we see that he is also much more, and so we will worship him, besides just asking favors of this creator-Parent.

Some time ago, I saw a newborn child, less than a day old, my first great-grandson. He was nestling there in the lap of his grandfather, eyes quite wide open when we first saw him. He seemed to feel that there were people around him. But as we passed him around, he closed his eyes and went into a deep sleep, it seemed. He was loved, contend, totally unconcerned that he was the center of attention. Nothing could disturb his rest in those loving arms that cradled him. This little fellow has much to learn about these people around him. But he doesn't care about that now. He is just totally content, being loved.

Can we be that content, not worrying, about all that goes around us, resting also in the strong arms of our heavenly Father? If we knew all about him, we might wonder how he has time for us. We might think he has too many other things to be concerned about- perhaps a thousand earths with people like us, or a million. If he has to covers a million light-years of space, is he also near to each of us? But the child does not wonder about all his people. He feels the kind, warm arms of love around him. Perhaps it is good we do not know too much, or all about God- just that he is totally in control of our little world. That is what he most wants us to know, and that we should let all mankind know that about him, our loving Father.

                                                       The Christian and ISIS

It seems the threat of Isis to humanity and Christians in particular is greater than any opposition we have seen in decades.  It is becoming an issue in more and more countries. It is so revolting that we may wonder if Christian pacifism is still valid position. . I am tempted to applaud under my breath when the US makes a direct hit on an ISIS encampment. Even family members wonder if there is any alternative but to “shoot them”. The reports of ISIS taking over another town in Iraq or Syria and beheading hundreds of men, women and children pushes us to waver on an issue some of us have always felt mostly solved, at least theoretically. But is there another way than how we have always looked at it?

What should the Christian think or do about the whole issue? To ask the question assumes there might be an alternative, however incomplete it may be.

 Observations of our wider faith may point to some direction for us to take. First of all, we know that God knows and sees everything and knows more about what is going on than any of us. He is tolerating it so far. We know also that he is a just God and has judgment in store for all evil doers. Why he is not interrupting this evil is a question for which we have no good answer. It seems at least he should interfere since we can be sure he cares. He knows that Christians and many others are suffering incredibly in the disruption of families, homes, and churches. We may suppose there is some meaning to his apparent absence in the whole confusion. I have little answer for that.

We believe that God could do something to stop this atrocious activity we hear or read about every day. At least we assume he could if he would want to. So where do we go from here?

One thing we personally believe in very strongly is that we can, should, and do pray many times for God to act to frustrate the plans of evil doers so that they fail again and again. It is ironic that God would need our help to act, and that he may just do something more if we pray asking him to do something. Yet our whole belief in intercession is based on the belief that he will do more when we pray. Otherwise, intersession would be groundless. It may be less newsworthy as the networks judge, but I believe ISIS makes many plans that do not succeed, or kill far fewer they had hoped. Sometimes only the killer and a few die- not as many as could easily have died in the setup. We do not know why we are to pray about this but we can pray with the assurance that we should.

We also pray regularly for persons losing family members. It can be test of faith for them. Perhaps it is also a testimony of faith that believers are faithful to death. For refugees we pray a lot- that they find much more than they are pursuing- a new life of knowledge and security in Christ as they flee violence.Sometimes we hear of numerous such persons coming to faith in Christ.

It seems the more ISIS is opposed militarily the wider it expands throughout Europe and even Southern Asia. Self-radicalization brings it next door to us. We should not assume it will run its course and expire from exhaustion. They are recruiting effectively in many countries. Christians need a weapon consistent with God’s ways to fight evil. Jesus said that they who fight with the sword will die by the sword. It is the Sword of the Spirit that can control and overcome evil in all of its designs.  The weapons of carnal warfare will extend the battle a long time. We can do our part as Christians in working with God to overcome evil in many intelligent and loving ways. Christians and nations can do much by undermining the fruitful grounds of poverty and ignorance, dealing with social situations where radical Islam thrives. We do not need to stand on the sidelines of the battle, but seek God’s way of dealing with it. We may not have all the answers but we can move forward with God as he leads us.

                                                            My Father and Me

My earliest recollection of my father is when Christmas would be only a few days or a week away, he would take us little ones on his knees and sing “Silent Night”. Of course he sang it in German as “Stille Nacht”. Then one of us would ask him how many nights until Christmas. It was an expression of love to us to teach us one of his many songs that he loved and wanted us to know. It is not hard to imagine sitting there perhaps as a 2-3 year old, nestled in his arms as he sang to us. Actually I don’t remember his voice as much as the fact that we would slightly excitedly always ask him how long until the Day.

He was enthused about his children, picking them up and sometimes in a high pitched voice call us “lieb kindly”, translated loosely as “beloved child.” From our earliest days, we were important to him and he enjoyed being with us when the day’s work was done, or even when he came in for dinner, or even when we would go out where he was working. I have more feelings about those encounters then actual incidences that come to my mind. It seems he would always talk to us, although he would also be in deep meditation or rehearsing some relationship with some else and talking to himself barely audibly. He was a sociable person, not content to just be tight lipped. He was communicating whether the person spoken to was there or not. Sometimes we would ask him what he said. He was probably surprised and wondering what we had heard.

Occasionally I made the trip to town with him to do some shopping for groceries or what ever else we needed. Our horse Bobby was never in a hurry and would take about an hour to travel the 7 miles to town. As Dad would go from store to store, I would try to keep up with him. I don’t know if he was always in a hurry, but he knew where he was going and wanted to get his business done. He told me some of his business, like going from one grocery store to another because he knew the price of what he frequently bought, literally saving a penny here and there. He knew the value of a few cents. I suppose that thriftiness bid me well when I was in college twenty years later and had my own sense of economy on what was affordable and where I should buy my things.

I was also with Dad many times when he wanted us to help him on the farm. I suppose he both wanted train us and to have our help. I would drive the horses when we put in hay as the loader brought the hay up behind the wagon and he or a brother would load the wagon to get the most on without loosing any on the way to the barn. Later I could do that job of placing the loose hay around the wagon until we had a high load. Dad also wanted us around when he “made fence”, either a new fence, or repairing where the cattle had weakened it. He taught me to use a post hole digger, and to sight up posts in a straight row.

I remember once as we were working on a fence in the lane near the barn, he was teaching me a Bible verse, word by word, having one finger designated for each word- five in the first phrase; German words I can still repeat 65+ years later. Only years later did I learn where we find it or what it meant. Scripture was important to him and he wanted us to know Scripture. He probably helped us memorize verses for Sunday School

also although I don’t recall just what they were. He read to the family a chapter of the New Testament every morning and every evening, and then led in a prayer as we knelt down as a family. Rarely did we go off to bed before he would lead us in this devotional. He cared for our Spiritual discipline in Scripture and prayer, setting an example for us as Mom would help keep it orderly, which was not usually a problem. We realized it was a normal part of our daily life. He did not explain Scripture; he just read it, usually. He did not teach us to pray; he was just an example. It was something he believed in even though it must have taxed him after a day’s work and just before bed. But he never forgot, nor excused himself. Even when we came home from Bible study on Wednesday evenings we knelt to pray, perhaps skipping the reading; after all we had been to Bible study.

It is hard to pinpoint his ideas on the discipline of children. He assumed obedience, but it seems not to have been authoritarian or rigid. I can’t remember threats from him though it may have happened on occasion. Probably I did not often challenge his requests to do something. Certainly he spanked us sometimes, but I can really remember only once. It was when I was in the seventh grade; coming home from school one afternoon, they were nailing together curved rafters for a new shed. I was to help nail. It was not easy to nail those boards which were springy as we bent them to a curve. Probably I was grumbling about the difficulty of the job for me. Perhaps he was frustrated with whatever, or with my grumbling. I just remember he suddenly picked up some kind of whip and whipped me well. But I don’t recollect arbitrariness that we had to obey under the fear of discipline. He was usually rather easy-going and gentle, assuming we would comply.

It is likely a common phenomenon of memory that we remember the pleasant over the unpleasant, except when the negative was especially strong. So in these recollections I recall primarily my good relationships with my father rather than the bad times. It does seem however that my teen years coincided with the most stressful time of Dad’s life and my memories of kind relations are a bit dimmer than of earlier experiences. I sometimes did not feel affirmation when I needed it. The theme of church denomination is one which we differed and it is interesting how this was handled.

When I was 15 or 16, my close friend Vernon was planning to join the Conservative Mennonite Church. Not happy to join the Amish church of which both our parents were members, I agreed to join with him. I only told the family shortly before the first day of instruction in that church. My Dad was very surprised and disappointed. I don’t remember him disparaging that church and the only question I remember him using to dissuade me was, “Isn’t our church and the church of our forefathers good enough for you?” I don’t believe he threatened me in any way but strongly urged me not to go forward that way. It was not a long drawn out discussion and I doubt I argued much. I don’t think he ordered me not to. I don’t know what he would have done if I went ahead anyway. It was just not possible for me to go against his strong wishes.

I remember one time I challenged him on his reactions to my mother, apparently making some painful comments to her. I suggested an apology, something rare for me to suggest to him and equally rare for him to do explicitly. He responded that he expected she would know his change of heart by his actions. It was hard for him to express some feelings explicitly. In my teen years, I recall also standing at their bedroom door one late evening and telling my parents I wish I knew that they loved me. Again, they thought I would know by their actions rather than words.

Some months around the above incident, there was a time for instruction in Dad’s church of which he was bishop. I hesitated knowing that at baptism, the request is made to promise never to leave the church, meaning the Amish Church. I told Dad I was not happy to make that promise, feeling as I did about the Amish Church. He assured me that that promise should really mean a commitment to the church of Christ, not the denomination. With that understanding, I accepted baptism. It was a time of renewal in the church when regulations were shifting and I did my best to help along in changes. Once I asked him what I should say when my co-workers in the factory asked me why we wear beards. He half humorously said that those kinds of things are not at the heart of our beliefs. Later when I was away from the church in voluntary service, and did not wear the prescribed beard, he again in a humorous way would ask me if nothing grows on my chin, or something to that effect. It is hard to know whether he was not too serious about the rules he held up n the church, or whether he was just being kind to me his son. After we left the denomination about 12 years after baptism, it seems we just politely didn’t cross paths for what now seems an incredible length of time, about 6 months When he did come to our house after that, he asked rather shyly with a teasing smile, “Are you still my son?” He did not rebuke me nor do I ever remember that he expressed disappointment of our leaving. Certainly his relationship with that church was rather strained then and may have contributed to his accepting our leaving. But it was never a denominational thing that came between us that I can remember. He respected me and accepted me, trusting me to leave the path he had participated in all his life and walk responsibly in my chosen path.

Sometimes Dad confided to me things in his heart and memory that he could have kept to himself; that Mom had some preference for a girl when I was born; that he had convictions for overseas mission work before marriage, but it was too big a hurdle to perhaps need to leave the Amish church and attend to college; and Mom’s anxiety at some time later, perhaps at the pending birth of a child, the feeling that they had to go to the mission field. He just wanted to spill some secrets even as I find myself doing at times. To these deep feelings I was sometimes the confident.

In the 60’s there was an ordination for the ministry at our church. When I was not even a nominee among 7 others, he comforted me that perhaps those who voted for the successful candidate would likely have voted for me. He also gave be a beautiful affirmation of my sense of call. “I would like nothing more than that you would enter the Christian ministry”, he confided, something most unorthodox for an Amishman to say.

I remember his sadness when we left for Belize in 1986 and in subsequent times. He seemed always conscious that we might not meet again, though it was never expressed openly that I recall. I suppose there was usually a little hug and kiss as had been the practice whenever we parted in younger years. He was always telling stories of bygone days when we were back for vacations. Even after his stroke which hindered his short term memory, he would recall many things of bygone days. Especially interesting to us was his courtship with several women after my mother died. He was so candid and detailed I just had to record some of that at times.

One memory of some sadness remains for me. After he had the stroke and at times was not so rational, he stayed with us for a week one summer as we stayed on Marion Street in Elkhart. At first he did not want to go into the house with us but stayed in the car and on the sidewalk. But when a black man came along, he was persuaded to come in. Most of the time he was rational but rather glum, like we were holding him captive against his will. At one time he said very unkind words about me about how bad I was. I didn’t take it too personal as I understood his mental state. But it was sad because he was my Dad and he did not feel good toward me. His last years were marked by some depression, I believe, as he increasingly had to be dependent on his children and was loosing control of his life. He outlived his better days by a few years. One worker at the home where he spent his last weeks remarked, “That was not the Elam that I knew.” Nor the Dad I once had.

Many times in my memory from my childhood to his old age, it seems Dad treated me like I was special. Not that I was more special than my siblings, but that I was someone he cared about and gave particular attention to. He enjoyed me when I was a child. He lead me the best he could in my growing up years. He respected me above tradition in my mature years. It was not hard to forgive him in his fading years and accountability. In his negative comments on Marion Street, I assured him he was not responsible for his remarks. He insisted he was, to me only proving my point. Dad is now gone 23 years, but his memory will live in my mind as long as I have it. My life no doubt is a fulfillment of some of his dreams to serve the Lord locally or abroad, without the necessity of providing for himself as he sometimes lamented, detracting from ministry. Yes, Thank you Lord for the Dad that brought me into the world, led me, and showed me the way I should go. May I always pursue the path he set before me.

The Times I've Been Alone

I lay alone in a hospital bed,

Pain throbbing up to my head;

Those who served me did not feel

My aloneness, head to heal.

I stood alone in a crowded place,

Friendless, without elbow space;

Building walls with garlic breath,

A walking vacuum, much like death.

I ran alone in woods to hide,

Guilty was I- I cried;

Only God in heaven knew,

Cursed I felt for a tantrum I threw.

I stood alone in  a moral dare,

Would I steal without a care?

I couldn’t do the challenge to sin,

And so my conscience fenced me in.

I stayed alone in the family car,

Sand and sun, near and far;

The sun I had loved far too much,

My skin was burning to the touch.

I sulked alone outside the gates,

When all my friends were having dates;

No one heard me as I moaned,

Refused, dateless, all alone.

There seemed those who always had friends,

Through fault or fate, I met other ends.

Yet I often wondered how it would be,

If others could look through the eyes of ME.

                  For Conrad, February, 1975

(When I tried to write poetry for my son in 

  high school a few years back)