Sunday in Amish Country

March 15

On Saturday afternoon we asked Katie for as suggestion for a church service to attend in the morning. I was pretty sure she would not invite us to their Amish worship and equally sure I would not want to attend. Though I wouldn't mind being the proverbial “fly on the wall” during their three hour service, I could not imagine myself sitting on a backless bench with zero comprehension of the word spoken. Katie confirmed my feelings by saying, “We'll just be walking over to the Beiler's for our service but you wouldn't want to come and sit on a bench through three hours of German.” She recommended the nearby Leola Mennonite Church. When we left to go find some supper, we drove past the church to confirm the 9:00 service time.

The very spare looking building sat in a largely unpopulated gravel lot. We pulled into a spot between a few cars and immediately I wondered if I would fit. I saw that everyone else had backed into their spot but I had pulled forward in. As I struggled with insecurities, my desire to worship on this Lord's day became stronger and we went in. As the only women with uncovered heads and me the only blond, we did attract a few looks but many went out of their way to shake our hands and welcome us.


The service ended up being only a half hour shorter than the Amish one would have been but it was a wonderful service. Women sat on the left and men on the right, with children scattered here and there. The teenagers sat in short center-facing pews up front, facing the pulpit on each side on the respective male/female sides. Since it was the third Sunday, there was extra songs (I'm assuming that was because of the meal warming in the ovens). What beautiful songs they were. I don't think I've ever attended a worship service where the singing was so ethereally beautiful. There was no choir, only a single (numerically, not maritally) man with a pitch pipe and precise hand direction. Their voices rose and swelled with impeccable timing, picking up harmonies and little extra pieces, the segregation of the genders making it only more beautiful. We sat on the aisle, a few pews up on the ladies side. Since the church was quite full, we were surrounded by the sound. I knew the majority of the hymns (taken from two different hymnals) and the remaining ones were pretty easy to follow.


Prior to the main message, there was a morning devotional, scripture readings by the teen boys and then a Sunday school lesson for all ages. For the lesson, the children left with their teachers to corners of the basement, etc. The teens and adults stayed for an in-depth study of 1 Timothy 3, regarding the qualifications of elders, etc. A woman behind me handed me a study book to follow along with. Questions were asked of the male side of the congregation but the leader never even looked toward the women.


The main message was given by a guest speaker from Mississippi over a variety of passages. It was one of the best messages I have ever heard directed to both parents and children regarding mutual respect and child raising. It became obvious that the Mennonite church struggles with some of the same issues that many others do...substituting cell phones and social media for face-to-face relationships, wanting to grow up too soon, ignoring parental advice, etc. During the service the young girl in front of us turned around repeatedly to stare at us, occasionally hanging her head (slightly disconcertingly) backward over the pew.


When the last hymn was sung we stood for the final blessing. It was a bit of a relief not to kneel as there seemed to be a bit of a contest (at least with some of the youngsters beside us) of how fast one could get down, turn around, and then get back up and front-facing again. As the pews were fairly close together with generous sized wooden book racks, it got to be more gymnastic than spiritual and once I got a charlie horse in my leg while kneeling. It didn't help that the girl who had been seated in front of us was now playing with my shoe.


After the service many others came up and welcomed us and invited us to the meal. We considered staying but they weren't ready to eat for a while so it would have made for some awkward standing around. Okay, I'll admit that the other reason we didn't stay is that when we used the ladies room, I observed that no one washed their hands. On a long trip it's not worth inviting sickness but I'm sure it would have been a wonderful meal with great fellowship.


In the meantime, Chris, Katie and their two still-at-home children, Kathryn and Michael, had walked down the road to have a service at the Beiler's. On our way home from church we drove by the house and saw all the buggies parked near the road and the service still underway.

Knowing we had a full kitchen at our disposal but not wanting to buy too many groceries, we had picked up a few things on our way to Katie's farm. Sadly, due to the way they bag their groceries, the store neglected to give us the bag containing our canned soup and block of cheese. Thus, on Sunday evening, when we found our replacement block of Kerrygold Dubliner cheese moldy, we sat down to a pity party of a whole bag of $2 cheese puffs. And suddenly, all the adventure of it all fell away and I was unabashedly lonely. We listened to Adventures in Odyssey on Alyssa's phone and then, just as we finished an episode, there came a loud banging on the French door that separated us from the main house.


It was Katie, wanting to know if we wanted company. Did we ever! I told her that she was most welcome and soon she and her husband, Chris, slipped through the door and then squeezed by the daybed, to come and join us at the table. Electricity was added to the house only in recent years and they didn't bother with overhead lights. We had pulled a pole lamp over near the table so the one dim bulb was the only light in the cozy kitchen as we sat around the table chatting. We had been supplementing our cheese puff supper with foil-wrapped butterfinger eggs (must have some protein, right?). We pushed the bag over so our host could share and then watched Chris with his thick, farm-roughened fingers try to peel off the foil. Later, after some good conversation, Chris quipped that we'd find we made a mistake in sharing the candy with him as he ate so many.