Zion Seniors Renew Ties, Remember Blessings

Front row: Daryl Byler with mother Betty Byler, Martha Whissen, Francis Showalter

Second row: Gerry Rush,  Helen Shank, Shirley Kuykendall, Harvey and Alma Jean Yoder, Dorothy and Norman Kreider

Rear left rows: Nellie Alger, Rowland Shank, Stuart Shank (next to wife Helen) Jim Rush, Deward Brenneman

Sixteen members and former members of Zion Mennonite Church met at the Burkholder House at VMRC's new Woodland Park yesterday to celebrate Martha Whissen's recent birthday, her 104th. We spent well over an hour sharing memories of our experiences as a part of this congregation south of Broadway that was our own family's spiritual home from the time I was asked to serve as pastor there in 1965 until the fall of 1988.

Martha Shank Whissen was a wonderful neighbor and supportive parishioner, as well as a beloved teacher in Broadway area public schools for a total of 22 years. Her recollections of past history, laced with her unique good humor, made for a fascinating and enlightening conversation, and led many others to share their stories as well.

Almost everyone there was a part of the Zion church well before (and many well after) our two decades there. And it was as if the spirits of Zion members and ministers now passed on also entered the circle in which we met and added their presence and blessing. 

Jesse Byler, a pastor and best ever mentor at Zion and at
Eastern Mennonite High School, where we both worked
when I was first called to serve at Zion (family photo taken
in Phoenix not long before they moved to Harrisonburg).

Jesse Byler, for example, was a loved former pastor and the late husband of Betty, now a VMRC resident. And there are so many others, named and unnamed, who joined this church from other communities and who added to its life and health, good people like the Kreiders, Kuykendalls, Brennemans, Hottingers, Lantz's, Millers, and many, many more.

But we also recalled scores of other church leaders and loyal members who were a part of the Alger, Shank and Showalter families that represented some of the deep ancestral roots that helped sustain this loving and nurturing congregation from its beginning.

It was enough to evoke bittersweet tears over a heritage for which we can never be sufficiently grateful. This was a congregation that was truly a family, sisters and brothers with whom we shared love and loss, pain and pleasure, times of worship and celebrations of weddings. We shared experiences of funerals and sad farewells, birthdays, baptisms and summer Bible Schools, potluck meals and service projects innumerable--and ever memorable.

Thanks and praise be to God.

This photo, provided by Daryl Byler, is of his mother Betty and sisters Cheryl and Judy, taken by Jesse in 1960 at the site of the original Virginia Mennonite Home (not visible, but on the left) and now the location of the Burkholder House where we met yesterday. The Bylers lived in a renovated milking parlor on the left at the turn of the road.