Pennsylvania Scenes

"Stop" in Pennsylvania Dutch!!

This sign is at the end of the road Fain's family lives on.

Every morning and evening, Sammy went with Fain's boys to help with chores at their Amish neighbor's farm. This scene is one Sammy snapped from the top of the silo. The white house in the middle of the scene is Fain's home.

Fain's home, where we stayed while back in PA, up closer.

The silo Sammy climbed up inside to snap photos.



Bro. Tim Keep, director of Bible Methodist missions, had a thought-provoking and compelling message on the last night of missions convention at Penn View, on a couple of the "hard sayings" of Jesus.

"Strive to enter the narrow gate."

Perhaps this rugged but rustic trellis gateway that Fain built (along with the rustic log clothesline posts) could illustrate this verse.

Rugged, narrow, only-gained-by-stooping--is the way that leads to life.  

And only he who hates his own life in this world shall obtain life in the next, Bro. Keep reminded us.

"If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple."

What does it mean to "hate" our life in this world? Bro. Keep asked.  How can we win others when we live selfish, indulgent lives,

when we make more of our relatives and "stuff" than we do of Christ?

Hating our lives, Bro. Keep reminded us,  requires taking the lowest place, inviting the poor, the maimed, the blind to our "feasts," instead of just our rich relatives and the people we like.

How about Christmas feasts?

Another speaker, a Mennonite minister who has worked effectively with Muslims for years,  talked about inviting Muslim or other international students to homes for Christmas because one of the biggest leaders in the terrorist movement went back to Egypt from America, embittered by loneliness and how no one reached out to him from their affluent homes and immaculate lawns. City lawns near the university he attended in Greeley, Colorado, were like fences.

What if a Christian had invited him home for Christmas?

The world might be a different place.

I leaned over and whispered to Jonathan,

"That is what I wish we could do for Christmas."

Here is an empty church near Gabriel's home.  

Bro. Keep said how Jesus shames religious people who test the winds of acceptance rather than finding out what God wants.

How "territorial" are we? Bro. Tim asked, telling of a robin who pecked and pecked at the window because he thought the reflection was an enemy.

Those most familiar with Jesus were often the ones He said would not be able to enter in "because they mistook familiarity for relationship and did not pay the price of discipleship."
Convicting thoughts.
Lord, show us how to live this kind of life in our day and culture.

Here is Gabriel's country home as several of us went over one day.

What a blessing for Crystal to have some time with her cousins, Candace and Natasha.

Here they are taking a walk on the road and pausing to watch the rippling stream at the bridge.

Fain and Regina were so hospitable when several of us converged on them at once over the Easter weekend, moving out of their own beds and some sleeping on the floor.

The girls spent part of one day cutting out fabric pieces for about 18 or 20 school bags to send to Haiti through Christian Aid Ministries.

Pennsylvania crocuses.

 I wish spring could have sprung more while we were there, but it was a treat to visit

my home state again after 10 years.