A Little Service With My Baptist Friend And Meeting An Amish Farmer

The last time I saw our Baptist friend, he mentioned that he had brought several truckloads of wood to our neighbor. This neighbor is a single mom with a son who is a Junior in High School. This neighbor also owns a large parrot for a pet. The first time we attended a local high school football game to watch her son play, we saw her at the game with a large parrot on her shoulder. That is something you don’t see every day. This is a big bird and I kept thinking to myself, "Is he potty trained?"

My Baptist friend said he was planning to get another load of wood for this neighbor and asked if I would like to help. It turns out that this neighbor was homeless at one time, and I think our friend and others from the Baptist church had done a lot to help her. I told him I would be happy to help and so last Tuesday, he picked me up and we went out to an Amish farm where he had gotten the wood before. This farm had a mill on it and they sold the scrap wood for 15 dollars a truckload. I was blown away. On the farm were large piles of scrap hardwoods - oak and other. It is difficult to get hard wood out west, but if a person could find it, I suspect that same truck load would go for 70 to 80 dollars.

The day we were there, the Amish were all working the farm in their plain dress. I believe they do community home schools and we saw a number of the children out doing some activity. They still use horses to plow the fields and for transportation. 

Some years ago, when we lived back east, there were some large Amish populations in Pennsylvania and we visited that area. It was still interesting to revisit that lifestyle. These people seem to be doing just fine without the conveniences of modern technology. However, if we ever experienced a Nuclear EMP event, the Amish could continue their daily activities as if nothing happened.

Minister and His Wife Moved In As Neighbors

Several weeks ago as we were on our Sunday walk, we met a person working on one of the many empty lots around the Lake. We introduced ourselves and he told us that he was a minister. He had served in Peru as a missionary for a Baptist church, then as a pastor for the Church of God as I recall, and then as a nondenominational Chaplain in a prison system. He said he is still doing some of that, but that work is winding down. He told us at the time that he was going to move a trailer in and then build a log cabin on the lot. Last week Sister Anderson and I noticed the trailer was in so we stopped by to visit with them.

It was a beautiful sunny day but not too hot and this minister and his wife were sitting in chairs just outside the trailer. We reintroduced ourselves and met his wife for the first time. He found a couple more chairs and invited us to sit. We had a nice conversation with them. He mentioned that his view was that a person’s relationship with Christ was more important than which church one belonged to. We talked a little about our Church and Sister Anderson invited them to come and check it out. He knew a little about our church. He mentioned that he believed that scripture stopped with the book of revelation. We shared a little of the message of the restoration.

He said that when he was serving as a missionary in Peru, he believed he may have been the only English-speaking person in the area at the time. He said shortly thereafter, our church sent in 8 young elders to this part of Peru.

He shared a story that we found interesting. He said that a family that he taught in Peru who had come to Christ and participated with his Church, decided to move to Canada. He said that they were in Canada for 4 or 5 years and then moved back to this same part of Peru. When they came back, they explained to him that after arriving in Canada, they went to a number of churches to try to find one that taught similar to what he taught. They said they were unsuccessful until they found the Mormon Church which they joined. I said to him, “So I guess we should thank you for your efforts with that family!”  He was open to visiting some more, so we will try to find a time to invite them over for dinner.