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We went home to Mama’s house last night.  The usual first Sunday get together had been postponed because of communion last week at our church.  It was one of the smallest times together ever, and we keenly miss those of our family circle who couldn’t make it — but it was still so precious.  I still cannot call it “Mama’s House” without pang when I think of it. 

At one corner, Chris, Jess and Josh

Mark and Polly

Raph and Regina

Daniel and Mary Ann

Frieda and Clint

Our Sweet Mama

As a family, we are dealing with grief in a “familial” sort of way.  Our Daddy’s twin brother, Luke, is struggling with a strange muscular disorder that has changed life for him so drastically.  (If tears about this could fix it, believe me, it certainly would be improved!)   His brother, Dan, has been in the hospital and rehab for a couple of weeks, and deals with pain on a daily basis.  His sister, Ruth, and her husband, Eli, have been dealing with serious age-related issues for a couple of years.  His brother, Amos, is in Landis Homes, needing twenty four hour supervision because of Alzheimers disease. . .

Sometimes I think about my Aunts and Uncles and realize that the days are running out.  The ten oldest children were born in a little over 13 years.  They really are not so far apart in age.  Aunt Ruth, the oldest, is now 90.  Uncle Jesse, the youngest of those ten, is now 77.  (Aunt Miriam is 71) That’s not exactly what you would call a “young bunch” I guess.  But they are my aunts and uncles.  And most of the grandchildren are not so much younger.  The days for us are going just as fast.

This morning, I’ve got Heaven on my mind.  There is this scent to the air I breathe, this gorgeous autumn that compels me to think about  how glorious can be the ending, this thought about my Daddy — already there.  Yesterday morning, Middle Daughter made some comment about how excited Grandpa is to be watching over the edge of Heaven and realizing that it probably won’t be long . . .

I said, “Oh, Deborah!  It probably seems but an hour to Grandpa since he got there.  He has barely had time to turn around. . .”

She said, “Maybe, but maybe it seems like a thousand years.  Maybe he’s had time to learn all sorts of things and explore all manner of stuff that he just can’t wait to share with the people he loves!  It’s so exciting for me to think about!”

It did not comfort me much at that point.  I was crying copious tears over my beloved Uncle Luke.  But it has settled into my heart and made me think so much about that place that will someday be my home.  I guess it already is my home, I’m just not there yet.

And when I get together down here for a evening of sitting around the table with people that I love it makes me think about getting together over there — We can sit and talk forever and a day, and no one will have to leave, and the food won’t make us fat, and we won’t run out of the favorite stuff, and there will be no more sorrow, no more pain, no more tears.

But what I pray most is that no one will be missing.

There’s a mean wind blowing tonight in Delaware.  There has been rain for most of the evening and the fire feels good.  Cecelia has been running a fever, and even though I am not sick, I think it would be nice to just climb in bed for a day or so.

I’ve been studying my Bible Study lesson for tomorrow.  The Thursday Morning Bible Study group that meets at Shady Acres is going to study a very short, four lesson study on “How to Beat the Doldrums” from ChristianBibleStudies.com.  I’ve had lots to think about over the past few weeks as I have read and tried to prepare.  The first lesson is Getting Right (Repentance) and it talks about how that when God calls us to repent, we often envision His disapproval.  In fact, when God calls us to repent, it is God, running to meet us with His arms open wide.

I love that picture, and it is probably more accurate than most of us would be able to admit.  But I also have to say that there isn’t any easy way to deal with sin — my sin.  And as we study Jeremiah 14:19-22, I realize that there is value in identifying, confessing, and even repenting of the generational sins that have affected our family.  This thought is quite overwhelming.  (Of course, those would be the Yutzy side, not the Yoder.  Right?  WRONG!)

I wish (selfishly, humanly and sinfully) that there was some way to skip over this foundational lesson.  Let’s get on with some of the other lessons:  Living Right (Obedience)  oops!!!  Staying Right (Perseverance)  and Thinking Right (Gratefulness).  Come to think of it, none of the rest of the lessons will be of any use to me if I don’t get this foundational thing right:  Repentance.  A good word with a bad rap.

The thing these lessons deal with on the whole is how ignoring any of these aspects of our lives will cause us to be unhappy.  H-m-m-m-m.   There is much for me to ponder.

I taught Sunday School this morning for Middle Daughter.  She teaches the youngest class at our church, and she often regales us with stories about her precious little people.  She hates to miss teaching her class and after this morning, I really know why.  They are quite endearing.

The day has been a roller coaster of emotions for me.  For one thing, I’ve not had the best week physically — and even though I am feeling better with mega antibiotics, I still feel very teary.

It’s kinda strange, really, but I’m missing our offspringin’s quite mightily.  On Thursday evening all the local ones (Christina and Jesse, Raph and Regina, Deborah and Rachel) headed for Ohio in the family’s trusty mini-van.  They dropped Rachel off at the airport for her very first flight ever.  She was headed to Dayton, Ohio and Lem and Jessica’s house for Senior Friday at Cedarville University.  The rest of them were headed for Holmes County, Ohio, and the stomping grounds of Regina’s homefolk.  After Rachel finished her day, Lem got off school and Jessica got off work, the three of them were heading up to Holmes County for what they were calling “A Sibs’ Weekend.”

“A Sibs’ Weekend?!?!?” I asked Deborah the other day.  “What brought this on?”

She looked at me as if I had two heads.  “Mom!” She said, indignantly.  “We haven’t been together since Raph and Regina’s wedding!!!”

“How come I wasn’t invited?  Daddy and I?  I mean, maybe we would have liked to get together with you kids, too.”

She looked guilty, looked nonplussed, then said, “Well, Mom, do you want to come?  We didn’t know you would want to come.  We didn’t know you could come.  I mean . . .”

“That’s okay, Deborah.  It’s communion weekend, and we do have lots of things to do here, but it still would have been nice to be with you.”

“Sorry, Mom.  We thought it would be neat to all be together.”  (She didn’t say “without parents” but she might as well have.)

So they’ve been gone all weekend.  The house is dead quiet.  Certain Man has worked on some household things, trimmed some trees, fixed some leaks, worked at cleaning out a shed.  I’ve kinda moped around, did laundry, changed some sheets, hung out some laundry in the beautiful Autumn sunshine, did kitchen stuff, worked on bookwork, emptied some flower boxes that got caught in the frost this week, listened to my classical music without opposition, and even shed some tears.  Both Nettie and Cecilia seem to be subdued, and it is funny how much I feel the same way.

Certain Man and I have wondered if the days of no children will be harder than we expected, and after today, I’m suspicious that they will.  I usually don’t feel quite like this when they are gone, but the idea that they are all together without us is making me melancholy.

Now we may be getting to the crux of the matter:

I’m afraid I’m missing something!

And when I really get sane about it, I am pretty pleased that our children like each other enough to want to get together for a weekend.  They seem to be starting a tradition of family togetherness rather early in their lives, and for that, I am grateful.

And Lord willing, they will be coming home tomorrow night.  And then the stories will be so sweet.

    There was wind whistling through the cracks and crevices in Virginia’s mountain house.  “Shack” would have been a more apt description of the place she called home.  The house was clean, but there was little else positive to say about it. The plaster was falling from the ceiling  and walls, the roof leaked, and she shivered in the dark and cold that was a part of her everyday existence.
    But the holes in her heart were even larger.  She was a “war rat” – an unwanted, unloved, and ignored child.  When her mother’s husband came home from the war and found his wife had borne a baby girl to his brother in his absence, he isolated the child and eventually sent her to live with a grandmother.  As the years passed, she walked the tight rope of life with little to balance her and even less to cushion her many falls.  Marriage, children, divorce, remarriage, his children, her children, their children until the numbers were in the double digits, and in it all, poverty that colored her life and the life of her family with a desperation that is as familiar to the poor as living and breathing.
    In the little town where she lived there was a small Mennonite church.  The kindly pastor and his wife also ran the local general store.  Virginia often stopped to chat and found a friendly welcome with the family who ran the store.  But her husband was unequivocally opposed to church.  He was the proverbial Mountain man who tore through the town, engine at full throttle, to disrupt prayer meeting or whatever meeting that was going on at the little mountain church.
    And then the little church found itself in the middle of the hardest thing that can happen to a church.  There was a painful split and they found themselves with hardly any members and reeling from the pain and confusion that always happens when there is discord in the family of God.  The church house, newly remodeled and beautiful was useless unless it had people to fill it.
    Slowly, in the hearts of Faith, the pastor’s wife, and Rose, the fine wife of my brother Nelson, a dream began to form.  They longed to touch the lives of the many women in their small town for Jesus, and they believed that there should be some way of learning to know them better, earning the right to speak to their lives, share in their sorrows and joys.  They struggled against the temptation to turn inward and purposed that they would reach out in any way that was appropriate for Christian women in their situation.
    So they began to meet on Thursday mornings in the colorful fellowship hall of their church.  They posted some notices, spread the word by mouth and prayed.  They had material for comforts, they had quilt frames that could be used, they encouraged ladies to bring their hand work and crafts and they made a cozy and comfortable and a safe place for women to get together and talk and sew and laugh and cry.  They served a hot lunch to the women and demanded nothing in return.  And it was into such a gathering as this, that Virginia (now in her late 50’s) crept one morning, trusting that an invitation from the pastor’s wife meant that she just might be welcome there.
    Nothing could have prepared her for what happened to her in the months that followed.  She was prayed for, she was loved, she was accepted, her work had value to the friends that she made in “Women’s Group” as together they put together “ugly blankets” used by the local homeless shelter, and pieced and knotted comforts for the needy in the area.  But most importantly, a spark of Faith lying dormant in her heart began to be fanned into a holy fire, and the time came when she became a member of the church
    Her house was still cold, dark and inadequate, but the light of the Lord Jesus was shining in her heart and it began to make a difference in how she related to her husband and to the many children they shared.  And she enjoyed so much the time in the sunny and warm fellowship hall at the church.  Virginia had a generous and giving heart and she longed to give back to the people who had taken her into the circle of friendship that defined her life.
    On Thursdays, she often asked if she could please do the dishes after the meal that was served.  The leaders of the group would usually say, “No, Virginia, we can do the dishes.  You just go on and enjoy the sewing.” but she kept on asking until the day when they decided to let her do them.  There is a large opening between the kitchen and the fellowship hall in their church and it soon became evident that Virginia was having a really good time in there doing dishes.  She was bouncing around, singing and getting dishes done at an unusual speed.
    Rose went into the kitchen and said, “Wow, Virginia!  You surely act like you are happy to be doing dishes!”
    She stopped and turned her face to Rose.  “You don’t understand,” she said with a huge smile.  “I’m doing dishes in my dream kitchen.  All my life I’ve dreamed of doing dishes in a kitchen as nice as this one, and today, I’m living my dream!”
    As the ladies listened to her life story, heard the incredible work of grace in her life and learned to love her, they pondered how they could help somehow with the living situation she found herself in.  As a church, they began to discuss what they could do for her.  And then there was a fire.  In most houses, a chimney fire is reason for concern, but in an old, already falling down house, it is catastrophic.  The house didn’t burn down, but the damage made living in it even more unsuitable.  However, the family had no where to go, so they continued their meager existence in the shack on the side of the mountain.
    But then the church, motivated by the Women’s Group, really felt strongly that they needed to something to help, and they hatched up a plan to replace the shack with a newer, brighter house trailer parked higher on the mountain.  It was an endeavor blessed by the Lord on almost every hand.  They found a trailer – not anything extra fancy, but in good condition, and they moved it in and began the seemingly endless task of getting things hooked up.
    Down in the shack, Virginia watched longingly as the details worked themselves out.  She could hardly believe that this wondrous place was going to be hers.  Some days she would climb the hill behind her house to where the trailer was parked and she would sit in the sunny trailer and dream of the day when it would be her home.  It took some doings, but that day finally came, and Virginia and her husband and some of their sundry children moved in.
    If you meet Virginia, you would see a mountain woman, old before her time.  She has plucky smile that belies the heartache she feels about the husband and the children that she has loved so long, but she is a woman with purpose.  She knows where to go with her concerns and problems, she brings them to the Father, and she tells her friends that she made at church and encourages them to pray.  She is a part of the body of Christ and she is needed and loved and appreciated.  And that ornery mountain man, still not willing to come to church, has become softer and friendlier and even quieter towards the people his wife has taken into her heart.
    The one thing that my sister in law says that hits me every time I hear it is this: “Sewing Circle (or whatever we want to call it) is not nearly as much about sewing as it is about building relationships.”  Ladies, think for a minute about our calling.  And why it is important that we form relationships.  As women, it is so important that we are involved in things that have eternal value.  That we affirm each other and validate each other, that we encourage each other that we “sharpen” each other.  All of this happens, quite frankly, in the context of relationships.  And we should, for that very reason, nurture relationships with people around us who don’t know Jesus.  What is it that we have in our hands?  Is it a needle and thread?  Is it the ingredients for supper for someone?  Is it a Bible study lesson?  Is it a mop and a broom?  Is it a love for children?  Is it a pen and paper? Is it a computer?  Is it a job that brings us into contact with people who are hurting?  Any of these things can be the seed for a harvest of friendships.  Friendships that we can (and should)  use as an avenue for spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  A relationship provides a tool, a vehicle if you will, for the good news of salvation, and anytime we are blessed with the opportunity, we ought not let it slip.
        
~As told to Mary Ann Yutzy 10/30/08

Another Week Has Passed . . .

Last Monday was a gorgeous day.  The skies were spectacular, and it was warm.  Certain Man had a brush pile to burn, and we had invited the church for a hot dog roast and a hay ride.  There were some extra friends who joined us, and we had a great time.  It was almost full moon and it was a perfect night for a hay ride.  The slide show is from that night.  It was not such a perfect night for pictures, but what I’m posting what I took.

Tuesday, the ladies of our church were invited to help clean a trailer for an elderly lady in our church.  That was a most rewarding day.

Wednesday — My Birthday!!!  I am now 55.  I can legally join our local senior center (with restricted benefits, but Hey!  It’s a wonderful Senior Center, and I just might join when I can get a full year for a year’s dues.  I spent that day making applesauce.  We got the nicest Jona-gold apples from Pennsylvania.  Out of 3½ bushels we got over 90 quarts of applesauce!  The troops were really out that day!  Sister Sarah, Elmer and Edi, Eldest Daughter, Friend Lynn Lee and Friend Ada Lee.  It was a wonderful time.

Thursday.  More Apples.  This day, we made apple pie filling for Sister Sarah,  Eldest Daughter and some even for me.   (I had done some previously, so I didn’t need so much). Eldest Son’s Fair Spouse joined us and was a most welcome addition to
the other busy hands of Sister Sarah, Elmer and Edi, Eldest and Middle
Daughters and myself.   This day we got over 64 quarts of apple pie filling from 2 bushel, and I have another ½ bushel to use.  So I made some up into apple dumplings, but we have some left to use up somehow.  In the evening was a chorus program at Youngest Daughter’s school, and a very nice program it was.  Those youngun’s are GOOD!

Friday — Certain Man wasn’t feeling good, and he took a sick day.  I ran some errands for him, and had an exchange that just might lead to a secretary/receptionist job for Oldest Son’s Fair Spouse.  It was a day of catching up and putting away and there was one very tired gal by evening.  Oh, and My Sweet Mama came home from Pennsylvania.  It’s so good to have her home.

Saturday — This was the day to cook all day.  We were co-ordinating food for the memorial service for our neighbor and I was cooking stuff for that.  I had good help for it, and everything went well.

Sunday — Church and then we flew home to get ready for the Memorial Service.  It was a warm and special time and I loved hearing all the stories about our friend and neighbor, Mr. Willey.  Again, there was a great helper in the form of Lisa Marieder who lightened my load and gave incredible assistance at the house where we fed probably 50 people.  I came home, found my kitchen all cleaned up by my daughters, fed my ladies and crashed.  Then, in the evening, we had some company to play games and finally, it was time to call it a night.  I slept like a rock and feel so much better this morning.  But now it is off to the dentist and another full week.   I haven’t been able to be as active as I would like on here, but as you can see, there really were some valid reasons.