Raber's Almanac

A while back I wrote a post on Raber’s Almanac, an annual guide used by the Amish.

The Almanac includes an extensive listing of Amish church districts and their ministers.  It also includes a Scripture and hymn schedule for church service as well as some folk wisdom and even a dab of astrology, which I examined in the original post.

The other day I came across a nice piece on the Almanac which you might find interesting, from Mennonite Weekly Review.

In it, one learns that the almanac has been printed since 1930 in its German version, and since 1970 in its English version.  Also, at one time Hutterite ministers were listed as well, along with Old Colony Mennonite congregations in Latin America, though this seems to no longer be the case*.

Apparently the content differences between the German and the English versions can be significant as well–with a light inspirational poem in the English version replaced by a theological essay in the German edition, for example.

(*Just double-checked, and found a single page listing names of ministers of Old Colony Mennonite communities in the 2008 Almanac, so I assume this is the case with the most recent edition.  Hutterite ministers are not listed, however).

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