Two weeks ago NBC ran a piece on Mennonites building homes in the Gulf area, post-Katrina. Five years after the fact, it’s easy to forget there is still a rebuilding effort going on down there. The video below shows Mennonites working on homes in Bayou Country in Louisiana. “We don’t have to know somebody to do good for somebody” says one of the young Mennonite…
Mary-Ann Kirkby was raised on a Hutterite colony in Manitoba. When Mary-Ann was 9, her family–parents, herself, and six siblings–left the colony for the world. I Am Hutterite is Mary-Ann’s memoir of life at Fairholme Colony, and her adjustment to living “outside the ark”. The Hutterites Hutterites are spiritual cousins of the Amish. The two groups share roots in the European Anabaptist movement. The Amish,…
Since the mid-1800s, the Hutterites have comprised 3 main groups–the Lehrerleut, the Dariusleut, and the Schmiedeleut. The Lehrerleut are considered the most conservative, with the Schmiedeluet being the most progressive, and Dariusleut somewhere in between. However, in 1992, The Schmiedeleut experienced an internal division, creating 2 separate Schmiedeleut groups. Donald Kraybill’s Concise Encyclopedia of Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites gives some background on the Hutterites…
Dan Miller is a top careers and business consultant, bestselling author, and founder of 48 Days, where he helps people from all walks of life discover fulfilling vocations. He is also a long-time successful businessperson and runs an online community for entrepreneurs at a second site, 48Days.net. Dan has Amish roots, which I first learned a few years ago after reading an article he wrote…
The third-largest Amish community in Indiana Nappanee is what I tend to think of as a ‘prototype’ Amish community, smallish to medium-sized, centered around a single small town. It’s the type of place where once you leave the main town of a few hundred or thousand souls you’ll find Amish homesteads radiating out in a number of miles in any direction. Little or no suburban…
Hutterites are Anabaptist cousins of the Amish who share certain traits in common, including plain dress, the practice of social shunning, and adult baptism. They differ in a few key areas, including technology–Hutterites accept a wide array of technologies, including the automobile, but especially those that help increase yield on the wide parcels of land they farm. While Amish live in individual homes next to…
Shunning is a widely-known yet controversial social practice of the Old Order Amish. How do the Old Order Mennonites, close spiritual cousins of the Amish, approach the matter? An excerpt on the topic: “Members who stray from the teachings and practice of the church are reprimanded by the deacon. Persons who refuse to cooperate with the church may be “set back” from communion. If they…
photo: Rob Ward Richard Stevick, author of Growing up Amish: The Teenage Years, describes eck balle, or cornerball, as ‘the plain peoples’ equivalent of NCAA March Madness.’ From Growing up Amish: ‘Until the 1950s, cornerball flourished among most of the Pennsylvania Dutch communities, both plain and fancy. Although the “fancy” or “church Dutch” eventually abandoned the game, it still thrives among the plainest Amish groups…
Today was the annual auction in Lancaster County benefiting The Clinic for Special Children. The clinic, founded by Dr. Holmes Morton and located in Strasburg, PA, serves Amish and Mennonite children with rare genetic ailments (and others from outside the Amish and Mennonite community as well). There was a large turnout today at the auction house at Leola, and much to keep one busy, including…
photo: Stanisław Ciok Flipping through a recent issue of the Polish news magazine ‘Polityka’, I had a chance to read an article about the Roma people, perhaps better known Stateside by the more colloquial ‘Gypsies’. Entitled ‘Romofobia’, the piece describes the challenging situation of the 8 million-strong Roma minority living within Europe. Poland, where I live for a good chunk of the year, has a…