Lloyd And Orpha, Legends In Their Own Time

They knew true love was far more than a bed
of roses.

Lloyd and Orpha Gingrich's farm along Highway 35 in Juniata County, Pennsylvania, was one of our favorite places to visit when our children were growing up. Not  only did we love working and recreating together in this beautiful rural setting near Shade Mountain, but we were all blessed just being welcome guests of the most gracious and hospitable hosts imaginable.

Once when we were about to leave for home after spending time at their house our son Brent, then very young, was nowhere to be found. He had hidden under his bed covers upstairs as a way of saying he wasn't ready to go home yet, and wanted to stay just another day longer. 

We always wanted to stay longer. As Alma Jean's oldest sister, Orpha was like a second mother to all of us, and Lloyd like a benevolent father.

Monday all of our family but our oldest, Brad (who had not received his first COVID shot until yesterday), attended a memorial service held for the couple at their home congregation, Lauvers Mennonite, just down the road from the Gingrich homestead. After a lingering illness Orpha, age 94, was laid to rest in the Lauvers cemetery beside her husband, who had died nearly a year earlier.

Their seven children, twenty grandchildren, twenty-eight great-grandchildren and even two great-great grandchildren celebrated their life and sang their praises, together with members of their extended family and scores of their friends and fellow congregants.

Orpha, who taught school for several years before their marriage, was a devoted and lifelong mother and grandma whose heart and home were always open to friend and stranger alike. She was also an inspirational Bible teacher who could quote whole chapters of scripture "by heart." 

Lloyd loved church history and collected books of historical interest, served on the board of Eastern Mennonite Missions for much of his adult life, and was active in establishing a Mennonite historical center nearby, as well as being devoted to helping raise their wonderful family.

As I reflected on what made this couple so special, I thought of how they exemplified so many of the qualities described in the "love chapter" of the Bible (I Corinthians 13), consistently manifesting a love "so patient and so kind, not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude, not irritable or resentful, never rejoicing in wrongdoing, but always rejoicing in the truth, bearing all things, believing all things and enduring all things. Their love never gave out or gave up... and their faith, hope and love always remain. But the greatest of their legacies is love."

The world would be blessed by having a lot more people like that.

"Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her." 

- Proverbs 31:28 (NIV)