Knit Together by Differences

Whether as citizens of a nation or members of organizations or congregations, we tend to feel uneasy about people with opposing opinions, and may even see them as dangerous.

But why not see having a diversity of perspectives as a blessing?

I grew up in an Amish family and community that placed a very high value on unity and uniformity. In spite of this (or perhaps because of this) we frequently had people leaving our congregation to join another or leave another church to join ours. The assumption was that if you couldn’t get along or go along, you pulled up your stakes and went elsewhere--or started a new group of your own.

As a member of a Virginia Mennonite Conference congregation for most of my adult life, I’ve seen the same tendency here. It seems ironic that people in a church so dedicated to peace get divorced from each other’s fellowship so frequently over differences they can't seem to resolve.

Our Conference was established here in the Valley nearly 200 years ago as an outgrowth of the Lancaster (Pa) Conference, not as a church split. This new group remained united throughout the turbulence of the Civil War and until 1900, when it experienced its first division, one that resulted in the formation of the Old Order Mennonites.

Today there are twelve different Mennonite-related communions in the Valley.

I find that sad. How might we have been able to stay together and to benefit and learn from each other?

Years ago I heard Mennonite missionary and church planter Donald Jacobs present a version of the above diagram in a seminar on church growth he led at Eastern Mennonite University (then EMC).

Here are the main players in his model:

Preservers: Jacobs stressed that all groups, including churches, need a stable group of members committed to preserving its core values. Around some issues, he said, any of us may find ourselves resisting change and working to preserve the “old order” of things. When conservative minded folks begin to feel their concerns are no longer heard or respected, they may feel strongly enough to leave as a group to form their own separate community.

Pioneers: Healthy groups also need innovators who advocate for change, lest a group become ingrown and stagnant. These folks tend to operate on the outer fringe of the community and are often viewed with suspicion and fear. When these innovators no longer feel heard or respected they may likewise form another group or simply drift off one by one.

Note: In either case, when new groups form, they form alignments similar to the groups they have left, except now some of the more liberal pioneers may find themselves labeled as conservative preservers in the context of the new group.

Settlers: These folks are the more or less silent majority in the group in a given conflict, and are not as strongly aligned with either the pioneers or preservers on a particular issue, but may have varying degrees of sympathy for one or the other--or both.

Note: In a healthy group, individuals are able to change roles depending on the issue. Let me speak personally. On some issues, like advocating for more house churches instead of investing in ever more church real estate, I may be seen as a pioneer, whereas on other issues, like preserving our Mennonite peace stance, I way be seen as a strong preserver. On certain other issues, like what style of church music to use, I’m often in the middle, open to those of either camp. In the case of these examples, in some settings or in some periods of history, house churches would be seen as a decidedly conservative idea, whereas the advocacy of non-violence would be seen as a very radical one. And depending on the issue and on the makeup of the group, we will find ourselves at different places--and therefore aligned with different persons--which is as it should be. This kind of dynamic reshuffling has the effect of bonding us to a variety of different people and tends to have an interlacing quality that makes a group stronger and more division proof.

Mediators: Each of us, whenever possible, needs to serve in intermediary roles within the group. Sometimes we may serve in the role of interpreter for the preservers, promoting good conversation between them and the pioneers and between them and the rank and file middle. At other times we may advocate for the innovators, to help make sure they are clearly understood and their ideas are being respectfully considered.

Final Note: When we see differences as normal, and as actually having potential for making the group healthier and stronger, and when each member feels valued and needed, everyone is better off, and the health and effectiveness of the group is enhanced.

Conclusion: Whenever human beings associate together, conflicts and disagreements are inevitable, but combat and divisions are optional.

Post Election Reflection

On the morning afterward, I wish everyone in the country could just live together in the spirit of two families who live nearby who posted the above signs on their front yards.

Let’s face it, the world is neither going to end nor will the nation be ushered into paradise as a result of this bitterly fought and often ugly race. Voting isn’t some great patriotic duty that assures ideal outcomes. The greater task for all of us, I believe, is to invest in the kind of prayer and persuasion all year round that influences our friends, families, neighbors and nations in good and godly directions.

A part of me agrees with my oldest son, who told me last night that for him voting most often seems like choosing between having a bad case of flu or contracting some unknown form of cancer. In other words, every nation, every world empire, is permeated and controlled by all kinds of evil forces that continue to be at work regardless of which party is in power.

As “resident aliens” we can only influence wherever we can, speak out whenever we must, and keep being a voice for God's lasting “peace on earth and goodwill towards all.”

Meanwhile, can we realize we can all benefit and learn from each other, and find creative ways of becoming "Knit Together by Differences"?

This Is My Story, Part II

photo of the Amish Mennonite meeting house near Stuarts Draft

Regina Harlow, an ordained member of the Church of the Brethren, and I were recently asked by the Brethren-Mennonite Heritage Center to share our stories around four themes, 1) peace, 2) covenant community, 3) alienation from our surrounding culture and 4) being a neighbor in a world of need. She grew up Old Order Mennonite and I was raised in an Amish community. This is the second of my four presentations at the Sunrise Church of the Brethren October 17.

When I was four years old my parents moved to an Amish community in eastern Kansas and slowly began recovering financially from years of drought and the devastating effects of the Great Depression. Nevertheless,  they missed the close knit community life they had experienced in their congregation in Oklahoma’s Nowata County, a close-knit church family that managed to stick together and support each other in extreme hardship and poverty. One of my cousins wrote an article for Mennonite Life about those dustbowl years in Oklahoma, with the title, The Lean Years of Prosperity, referring to the community's spiritual and emotional wealth. 

In Kansas, while we began to do better financially, my parents agonized over fears of the potential negative influence of the young people in that Amish community on our growing family. My older siblings were already in their teens, and my dad and mom worried about whether they would join many of their peers in the kind of partying and “rumspringa” that was all too common there, and how and whether they would find good marriage partners in that congregation.

So just over 75 years ago, my parents Ben and Mary Yoder decided to make a 1400 mile move from Garnett, Kansas, to Stuarts Draft, Virginia, with their family of eight children.

I was six then, the youngest, and my oldest sister was 19. My father accompanied a freight car packed with our furniture and other belongings--including some farm machinery, two of our horses and the family dog--half way across the country to the Shenandoah Valley. My mother herded the rest of us on the long trip east by passenger train.

Their primary reason for moving was to become a part of a church family that would better reflect their values, and not to better themselves financially, though with my uncle Ed Mast's help they were able to build a small dairy and poultry operation on a 120 acre farm that supported our family. We always struggled financially, but when they sold the farm and went into semi-retirement, they found themselves rewarded for their hard work and many sacrifices.

Meanwhile, all but one of my seven older siblings had found good marriage partners in that Augusta County congregation and established stable and healthy families. My one older sister who remained single became an admired nurse and midwife who served in numerous locations both in the states and abroad. My two brothers and I each became ordained ministers, as did eight of my parents' grandchildren.

If it takes a whole village to raise a child, I believe it takes a whole congregation to raise a faithful child of God and a follower of Jesus. The church of some 30 households that nurtured me and my siblings in Augusta County wasn’t perfect. Our Sunday services were unremarkable, the Sunday School classes held every other Sunday had no professionally prepared study material (just the German Bible), the sermons were by untrained and unsalaried ministers, and the singing was slow, unaccompanied and all in unison.

But we grew up with remarkably good people, individuals and families who had moved to Augusta County from communities all over the east coast, and who were constantly doing things for and with each other, threshing, hay making silo, filling quilting, neighboring, doing building projects (events they called “frolics”) and visiting in each others homes virtually every Sunday noon. Our nearest neighbors, Sam and Mattie Yoder, not related to us, became our best friends, and were among the kindest and most Christlike people you could find anywhere, as were many of our Mennonite neighbors.

It was partly through the influence of a Mennonite public school teacher I had in the 7th grade at Stuarts Draft Elementary, Paul Wenger, that I decided to enroll at Eastern Mennonite College, which I did at age 21. After graduation in 1964 I married the wonderful woman I met there who became my wife and together we joined a local Mennonite church. Both of us taught at Eastern Mennonite High School, another highly nurturing group of people.

Our congregation at Zion Mennonite, where we lived and served for over 20 years (while doing part time teaching at EMHS) was a wonderful source of support for us and our children, as was the close-knit house church we’ve been a part of for over 30 years. 

In 2019, after never having had a medical procedure in my life more serious than a tonsillectomy, I had triple bypass surgery at UVA, followed by another surgery several months later to remove the parotid gland in my left jaw that proved to be malignant and required extensive radiation treatments, I/we were overwhelmed by the generous support of our friends and especially of the church community. 

So if I were asked, “Which should come first, one’s biological family or one’ spiritual family?” I’d have to say both--equally--the nuclear family desperately needing the nesting and the nurturing of the family of faith if it is to survive and thrive.

All Life Is Precious--A Conversation With Dr. Roman Miller

source

I sent the following draft of some reflections and questions to EMU biology professor Roman Miller for his response: 

This Great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby, 
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till he shaped it in his own image; 

Then into it he blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul. 

 - James Weldon Johnson's "Creation", from God's Trombones--Negro Sermons in Verse

According to the Genesis creation account, human life begins with the creation of Adam from adamah, or dust. God forms a human prototype, adam, (Hebrew for man) from ordinary clay (adamah), then that God-formed soil becomes a living, God-breathed soul, Adam.  So the progression is from adamah (dust) to adam (generic human) to Adam (individual soul/person.

I understand that in the Bible, a "soul" is not something that comes to inhabit a person, but is a term synonymous with the essential person one becomes, a whole, living human being made "in God's image".

So from the creation event on we might think of human life not so much as "beginning", either at conception or when exiting the womb, but as continuing, in a sequence involving distinct forms somewhat like a swallowtail evolves from pupa to chrysalis to an individual butterfly.

From my perspective, human life at each stage of development is to be respected and guarded as God's special creation. But just as there is a difference between sperm/egg life and fetal life, is there a similar difference between a body in formation (still on life support in the womb) and soul life, or whole life? And might the original creation account offer some helpful perspective?

Certainly neither God nor any other creature would have dreamed of terminating the sculpting and designing process the Creator was engaged in when God "made" the first human adam. All the organic elements of body life were being "knit together", much as they are during each pregnancy. As with the first "adam", we humans are fearfully and wonderfully "made" in that process, formed from existing organic material (adamah, or dust), and with all of the complex physical parts and organs required for human existence.

It is then, after God makes this first human creature (complete with all of its organs and other body parts), that God creates something amazingly wonderful and unique, as in, "And the Lord God formed man from the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being (or 'living soul')." (Genesis 2:7).

The actual Hebrew word for create ("bara") is used only three times in the six stanzas of the original creation hymn (Genesis 1-2:3), first when creating something from nothing (the "heavens and the earth"), then when creating living creatures (sea life), and finally when creating human life (Genesis 1:26-27). In all of the other steps in the creation account, the text uses terms like "Let there be," as if the Creator were setting things in motion and watching them develop. Or the text describes God as having "made" things, presumably with existing material, as in the case of both the heavenly bodies and of human bodies.

Interestingly, I recently learned that the Celtic theologian Pelagius disagreed with Augustine's view that God created everything in the world ex nihilo; out of nothing, but rather that God created the world ex Deo, out of the very essence of God's being.

At any rate, to create is usually thought of as bringing something entirely new into existence. And so it is when God breathes spirit into the generic adam, since it is at this point that the human being (formed from adamah) appears to become a living soul and is named Adam, a formal name that distinguishes that person from all others, including Eve and every other human creature. Thus human beings, male and female, are indeed a special species, bearing God's image.

So should we see pregnancy as a similar process of a human in formation, of our being assembled with all of the amazing organs and body parts needed for the soul life which comes with God's "breath"? Thus we would never dishonor organic (physical) life, would always treat it with utmost reverence and respect, and experience any termination of that form of life (via a miscarriage) with a deep sense of loss and the greatest of regret, especially as it represents the loss of a dream of all that this life could have become. But are there understandable differences of degree between that and the mourning the death of a child or adult who has actually lived and breathed among us?

Societies and cultures from the beginning of time have all seemed to recognize that "difference of degree" in one way or another. For example, we seldom name, christen, or have formal memorial services and burials for a miscarriage in the early stages of pregnancy. Not because we regard this or any form of human life as mere tissue to be discarded. No, an embryo or fetus represents something fearfully and wonderfully God-formed. And we grieve and mourn whenever a life doesn't continue to full term, and never has the opportunity to realize its full potential.

The Torah makes clear, in Exodus 21:22  that any human-caused miscarriage is a wrong that must be atoned for, ^"When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined what the woman’s husband demands, paying as much as the judges determine."  (NRSV)

Meanwhile, while Christians have long been divided over whether the willful terminating of a pregnancy is murder, I pray we would no longer be divided over whether we protect and preserve human life at whatever stage, from the womb to the tomb.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
What follows is Dr. Roman Miller's helpful and thoughtful response:

1) Interesting to link embryonic development to forming adam.  Never thought about it quite in that way before.

2) Using the Johnson's poem creates beautiful imagery which may not necessarily depict reality.

3) Suggesting human life "as continuing" (your 2nd paragraph) resonates with the biological reality.  Living cells (sperm and ova) merge to form a living zygote (single cell) which subsequently divides to form a ball of cells (morula) which hollows out (blastula) and then implants into the maternal endometrial wall as a trilayer early embryo that undergoes continual development forming a fetus and then is birthed as an infant.  In all of those processes, biologically speaking at least, life does not begin, rather it continues.  Usually when people say "When does life begin" what is meant is what is the origination of individualization or sometimes when is the emergence of personhood?

4) Subscribing to the "breathe" idea as central (paragraph 7), i.e. "God breathes spirit into the generic adam" resonates with many Jewish perspectives who see protection for the developing person only when he/she draws a first breath.  (Personally, I disagree with that perspective and think it is short-sighted.)

5) You talk about ensoulment--i.e. becoming a living soul -- (Paragraph 7).  Traditional Roman Catholic view was that God inserts a soul into the developing embryo at some stage -- while the debate is "when" -- but most Catholics put it rather early in development.  In contrast I would think of "ensoulment" as an emergent property of embryonic/fetal development that corresponds with other emergent properties -- e.g. migration of cells to form distinctive tissues and organ seeding, development of sensations, increasing brain activity, complex movements, etc.  All of these happen pre-birth.

6) I think the crux of the discussion on abortion -- embryonic stem cell research etc is really hinged on the concept and value of the embryo (especially the early embryo).  Your discussion values the embryo (more than simple tissue) but probably doesn't value it enough (in my view)!  You refer explicitly to two scriptures (the Genesis creation passage) which is the focus of your piece and then make a side comment about Exodus 21.  Maybe a fuller view of how Scripture portrays the unborn would be helpful?  For example, Luke 1:41 personifying fetal movement or reflecting more on the meaning of the incarnation.  So what was the earliest point (time-wise) of Jesus of Nazareth?  "Quickening"?  Parturition? Or is there another view of ontogeny here?  I think there is and by reflecting on the meaning of the incarnation (assuming a divine conception) we gain an insight into the nature of development. (Consider Luke 1:35; Matt 1:20 for example as starters.)

7) My personal approach (you don't need to buy this) is to talk about personhood as a mark of individual originalization.  I'm not talking about "functional personhood" as frequently described, i.e. cognition, reflection, etc, as evidence of soul or individualization, rather I'm talking about biological personhood establishes the identity of a new individual -- while entirely dependent upon another, still expresses its own individuality.  I think that individuality, soul, personality, thinking, etc are all emergent properties that occur in utero but find fuller expression in infancy, childhood, adulthood, and maturity.  Finally those emergent properties (instead of continual flowering) begin to decline with aging and exit into another existence at death.

************************************

Here's a link to a post on evangelicals and abortion http://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2016/10/until-recently-evangelicals-condoned.html

Mennonites Should Be Able to Work Things Out

Today there are twelve different Mennonite subgroups in Rockingham County alone.

When I became a part of Virginia Mennonite Conference as a part time pastor in 1965 (at Zion Mennonite), there were only four, three of these being Old Order groups at variance with each other. The main Virginia Conference body had at that time experienced only one division since its beginning 130 years earlier.

Since then an increased number of additional groups have formed, mostly through some kind of church split. Here’s the list:

1835 Virginia Conference (formed from Lancaster {PA} Conference)

    1900 Old Order Mennonite Conference (known as Showalter group)

    1953 Wenger Old Order group

    1957 Mt. Pleasant Old Order Church (Horning group)

    1972 Southeastern Mennonite Conference

    1976 Pleasant Valley Mennonite Church

    1985 Timberville Mennonite Church

    1990 Calvary Mennonite Church

    2001 Cornerstone Churches (originally Mennonite)

    2002 Mountain Valley District churches
   
    2003 Broad Street Mennonite Church

    2005 Shalom Mennonite

    2007 Lloyd Wenger Old Order group

As a committed Anabaptist/Mennonite, and as teacher of a JMU Lifelong Learning Class on "Mennonites in the Valley" for the past 15 years I find this multiplicity of divisions beyond embarrassing. We are, after all, supposed to be a church that’s all about peace and reconciliation.

In the past, our church splits were often accompanied by rancorous debates and hard feelings. But those days seem to be largely behind us as we become ever more masterful at conflict evasion and less inclined to do conflict engagement. We tend to “divorce” amicably and continue to get along just fine, remaining exceedingly nice to each other in a way that seems quite OK on the surface.

What we lose as we politely "agree to disagree" and to go our separate ways, however, are the kinds of church family connections that enhance learning and create a sense of needed accountability with each other. More homogeneous but separated groups tend not to experience the kind of healthy growth and maturity they might if they did the hard work of respectfully listening to each other and trying to work things out (see "Knit together by Differences").

My modest proposal for our Conference would be that we agree to something like the following:

In light of Jesus' and the apostle's teachings on church unity, we are committed to steadfastly maintaining our “unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace” and will seek to grow toward an ever stronger “unity of the faith” until death do us part. We will practice redemptive forms of discipline for erring individuals, but we will never again separate as whole church families from one another.

Thirty-One Years Of Church With No Real Estate

We have a re-covenanting service at Pentecost each year.
(photos by Margie Vlasits, at their home this Sunday)

The house church of which Alma Jean and I have been a part since 1988 may never set any records for large numbers, but it has been a vital part of our spiritual journey for over three decades.

Family of Hope is a close knit group currently consisting of twelve covenant members and several associate members. This little group has provided a spiritual home to  many who have sought an alternative to conventional forms of church life.

Together, in each others' living rooms, we experience church stripped to its basic elements--Bible teaching, worship and fellowship, prayer, mutual aid, and the breaking of bread. We have no paid staff (everyone's gifts are needed and used), no organized committee structure (group decisions are made by consensus) and have no real estate to rent, own or maintain.

As a result, 100% of the giving we did through our church treasury last year could go to the various church wide and local ministries and charities we help support rather than for local expenses. We do provide financial help to members with large medical or other needs.

Weekly services consist of an hour of worship and sharing, an hour of Bible study (based on that Sunday's lectionary texts), and a third hour (or more) of fellowship, always with a meal together.

No one way of doing church is perfect, to be sure, but we think there's room for more home-based churches in our community and elsewhere. Meanwhile, we see our mission as not so much about having more people come to our services but to prepare and send people into the world as servants and emissaries of Jesus.

Which Should Come First, Family or Church?

A service in a Meserete Christos (Ethiopian) congregation

"Whenever someone asks me why we’re not going to church, my default answer is that it’s too far (45 minutes) and that Austin has to study (he does). I say this knowing it’s only half true, because even when we lived five minutes away and Austin didn’t have to study, we... slept in and made blueberry pancakes and watched Hulu because that’s what our generation does."
                                                                                                                                           - Motley Mom blog

For most of our child rearing years I was a busy pastor and part time teacher, and our family lived in a parsonage right across from our church. Needless to say, we experienced our share of tension between the demands of church work and our time together as a family.

We all struggle with that tension, and increasingly I hear it resolved by people saying, “We’re putting our family first,” referring, of course, to their nuclear family. This may mean their taking on fewer church responsibilities, taking more family vacations on weekends, and rarely meeting with other believers other than for Sunday worship services.

I understand the need to set priorities. Looking back, we may have needed a better balance ourselves. But I’m also concerned whenever church life tends to get put further and further down the list, after school, athletics, extracurriculars, and a multitude of other competing organizations and meetings. Or has an even lower priority than vegetating around the home entertainment center.

I agree with author Tom Sine that part of the problem is that “church has become confused with buildings, budgets, and programs,” rather than seen as a family of siblings faithfully connecting with each other as followers of Jesus. Having been a part of a close-knit Amish church in the first formative decades of my life, a pastor and member of a truly caring conventional congregation for 20 years, then a member of a living-room-size house church congregation for the past 25 years, I find it regrettable when people pit family and church family against each other. Looking back at 73, I believe being an engaged part of a people who are our spiritual brothers and sisters--and who are spiritual cousins, uncles, aunts and grandparents to our children and grandchildren--is more important today than ever.

Why? Because it is not just healthy families that make strong churches, but healthy faith communities nurture strong families, especially in the absence of clan, village, and/or extended family ties that have been in place for most people in past generations. Perhaps it should come as no surprise us that an increase of breakups in marriage in our society has followed an increased breakdown of community and extended family support.

Nuclear families, and the increasing numbers of single people living alone, urgently need those connections, especially in times of crisis, but also just to help keep themselves spiritually and emotionally healthy. So its a little like asking whether ones personal wellbeing or that of ones marriage and family is more important. The answer is always both.

Some Great Saints Come In Small Packages--Rachel Stoltzfus, 11/5/25--5/13/17

Rachel with daughter Debbie, with whom she
lived in Bethesda, Maryland

On the Saturday just before Mother's Day Rachel Stoltzfus, 91, died peacefully at the Rockingham Memorial Hospital in Harrisonburg, the community she and her late husband Robert had chosen to spend their last years together. On Friday she had become very ill and was admitted to RMH while with her son and daughter-in-law west of town, David and Twila Stoltzfus.

For years Rachel and Robert had lived in a modest home on the corner of Two Penny Drive and Mt. Clinton Pike, where she continued to live after his passing until she moved to Bethesda, Maryland, four years ago. There her home was with her daughter and son-in-law, Debbie and Gonzalo Accame.

I had the privilege of being Rachel's pastor, and along with everyone in our Family of Hope house church grew to deeply love and appreciate her during the many years she was a part of our close-knit congregation. She frequently hosted our church meetings in her home, and was hospitable to scores if not hundreds of international students attending EMU during the years she and her husband lived near the campus. After he died she continued that ministry on her own.

This July 4 her family and her church family will be hosting a celebration of her life at the River of Life Church on Blackberry Lane just off Mt. Clinton Pike. Rachel and Robert had been an active part of the New Covenant Mennonite Fellowship which built that meeting house where the her memorial service will be held.

At that service we will share our fond memories of this remarkable saint, and would welcome your joining us to do so, and/or you may feel free to write some of your reflections as comments below.

We will provide more details about the service as they are available.

Guest Post: Compassion For The Least Of These

I post this with permission from BCS and the
Evangelical Immigration Table.

I was deeply moved by the following piece, "Pray For Unaccompanied Children":

Around 34 million children are forcibly displaced from their homes. They have escaped violence, trafficking, and starvation – horrors that no child should ever experience. Each of these 34 million children are made in the image of God, each of them matter deeply to him, and each of them should matter to us. The Psalmist reminds us of this writing, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful; I know that full well.” (Psalm 139:13-14)

I have been working with organizations that support displaced children for 45 years and have met thousands of children who desperately want to be with their families again. Many others have been orphaned and need temporary families and a little support. I wish you could look into each child’s eyes as they share their story.

I am often reminded of two sisters who I met in 2018. They were 15 and 11 and were raised by their grandmother in Guatemala. Their mom lived in the U.S. and regularly sent money back home so that the girls could be fed, clothed, and attend school. It was not long before gang members visited their home demanding protection money. The price for their protection eventually surpassed their ability to pay; their grandmother was told her innocent granddaughters would be sold into trafficking to pay the debt. The girls fled, desperately searching for safety. As unaccompanied children, they ended up in our care at Bethany Christian Services where we found their mother and helped them become a family again.

Unaccompanied children entering the U.S. need what all children need—a loving environment where they are cared for and safe. But it can take a few months until they are reunited with their family. That is why Bethany Christian Services offers transitional foster care with help from generous, compassionate families who are willing to care for these children in their homes.

If these sisters fled to the U.S. today, this beautiful reunification may not have happened. Since March 20, the law that was designed to protect children like them has been suspended. Instead, children are being expelled to the country they fled from — back into the arms of those who threatened their lives.

Bethany has been able to help thousands of unaccompanied children stay safe with temporary foster families while working to reunify them with their own families. God designed families for children, and a family can change everything for a child.

I urge you to pray for the children who are denied safety at the U.S. – Mexico border, for the children alone in a refugee camp, and for the families who continue to be kept apart. Pray that our elected officials set policies that protect vulnerable children around the world. Pray for the foster families who are caring for refugee children and that many more will answer the call to be the hands and feet of Jesus for the children who need them. Take heart in the words of Jesus when he took a child in his arms and said, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”

Thank you for your prayers,

Dona Abbott

Vice President of Refugee Services

Bethany Christian Services

Richer Than a Rockefeller (Relatively Speaking)

Michael and Alma (Lauver) Wert offspring, from left to right: Alma Jean (my good wife), Lloyd, Ruth Ann, Freda, Harold, Orpha, Gladys, and Alene


“Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.”   - Jane Howard, “Families”

I feel especially blessed having been with some great kinfolk over this past weekend.

On Saturday we gathered with all seven of my wife’s siblings at Landis Homes north of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to spend some time with her oldest brother Harold, age 87. I’ve always felt fortunate being a part of this tight-knit family, who are truly some of the best in-laws a person could have.

From there we headed west for a reunion of some of my Nisly cousins held on the campus of Rosedale Bible College north of Columbus, Ohio, beginning Sunday evening and continuing through yesterday morning. What a trip, in many more ways than one, meeting with fun-loving and warm-hearted offspring of Eli and Fannie (Troyer) Nisly, my mother’s parents.

There is a grand total of 70 in this generation of relatives, but of course a number of these cousins are no longer living. Nevertheless, there were folks present from as far away as Florida in one direction and from the Nisly ancestral home community of Hutchinson, Kansas, in the other.

A core group of eleven of us cousins made this happen this year, all members of a “circle letter” that has made its rounds for 58 years now. For those of you who don’t know, a circle letter is one that when the letters arrive, you remove your last post, add a new one, and send them all to the next of the eleven. We who are members of this pre-facebook circle are around the same age, are from seven states, and represent nine of the Nisly familes. 

All of the original members of this circle letter group are still living, and this is the fourth official reunion we’ve enjoyed together.

If wealth can be measured in terms of the love and support you feel from your family and extended family, I feel rich indeed.

Thanks to brother-in-law Lloyd Wert for the above photo.