Fondest Memories

I am reflecting tonight on what I would call some of my fondest memories growing up Amish. I would have to say seeing my Mom come home with my one and only baby sister has to be one of the top memories. I was 10 years old when my sister was born and so far I only had brothers who loved to torture their sister. Today I am very proud of my sister. She is a great Mom getting prepared for baby #4.

When I was 7 & 8 years old one of my fondest memories is spending time in the sugar shack in way back in the woods watching as my great uncle cooked the sap that eventually became maple syrup. For a treat my great aunt taught us how to make maple cream, which is a very rich, creamy maple candy.

From the time I was about 10 or 11 years old we would go to Sea World in Aurora, OH once a year on a Saturday. We would do the chores before we left in the morning and then have some of the neighbors do the chores in the evening and we would stay until the last skiing event happened with fireworks. We always stayed for the fireworks!

Christmas was always a special time and there were things that became tradition at our house. My Mom would always buy us a book of Lifesavers and she would put together a cup of all kinds of different candies and put them at our place at the table along with our book of Lifesavers. We would always get something fun, but the one thing we always got for Christmas was new underwear and usually I would get a new dress or two and my brothers would get new pants and shirts. Something I really miss and remember especially was getting together with all of the aunts, uncles, and cousins at my grandparents home for Christmas Dinner. My grandparents had 69 grandchildren and 8 children with their spouses. My great aunt and uncle always came as well. They never had any children so they were like a second set of grandparents to all the children. We did the traditional turkey dinner and there would be multiple turkeys, hams, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, cole slaw, dinner rolls and lots and lots of desserts and candies.

My Mom is an amazing cake decorator and the first time I really remember her making a huge cake was for my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary. She made a multiple layer cake and decorated it with gold. It was beautiful! She made all of our birthday cakes and cakes for many special occasions. Today she still makes wedding cakes for the Amish weddings in her area. Something that I will always cherish is that even though my Mom disagrees with the life decisions I have made she still agreed to make my wedding cake and she even brought it to the church which was an hour and a half away from where they lived and set it up in the reception area. That will always be a very special memory. Thanks, Mom.

I will share more memories next time.

Why Do I Do The Things I Do?

This is the question that has been on my mind this week. There are so many things we are taught in our lives by people who are supposed to be there to steer us right. From the parents we have to the teachers to the preachers to the friends and parents of friends and grandparents and other family members. So how do I ever determine who God created me to be? This is the question that has been weighing heavily on my mind of late. I have made it my mission that I am going to spend time alone with God for as long as it takes to answer that question. Apart from influence of church, apart from influence of those who are supposed to be there to teach us the truth. I have decided that I am going to become a student of the Word of God. I am going to rededicate every day of my life to study until I am convinced in whom I believe and until I have the confidence to never again be swayed by those who claim to have your best interest, especially spiritual interests at heart.
I am not convinced anymore that the way we do church in America today is what the early church looked like and what God meant when He said forsake not the assembling of yourselves together. I am on a mission to seek God's heart for His church today. He is coming back to receive a bride spotless and without wrinkle. How many of you want to be a part of that bride?

Legalism is a crutch and a replacement for faith, I am convinced of this fact. Having a list of do's and don'ts takes out any need for walking with God by faith and truly having a real father/child relationship. All I have to do is follow a set of instructions and then I should be OK. All I have to do is to look to the church to tell me what a Christian should look like. I am sorry this is no longer good enough for me. I have a feeling the church cares much more about what I look like and what I do then God does.
I believe God cares about my heart. He cares about my motives of why I do what I do. We sing He is my all in all, but what does that really mean?? I intend to make God, my Father my all in all in everything I do and I pray the Lord will help me to be a leader in bringing people back to the fundamentals of the gospel of Jesus Christ! Most of what is on my heart to do right now will go against the grain of the mainstream Christian today, but that is OK. I have been rejected and austersized before for giving my life over to the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says we should count it all joy when we are persecuted all the day long. Jesus is my joy! He paid the price for my mansion in heaven!! I owe my life to Him and I intend on being radical for Jesus and stop being religious.

A Noble Profession

As promised I will spend the next few moments reflecting on my days as an Amish schoolteacher. As some of you know and others may not know the Amish only allow their children to attend school through the 8th grade. They feel with the professions that are available to the Amish there is no need for an education beyond the 8th grade. So I was done with school at age 14. For the next 2 years I spent my time reading books when I should have been helping my Mom with the cleaning and dishes and gardening and lawncare and baking and laundry. Of course when she caught me reading when I had instructions for doing other things the consequences were never pleasant.

I am a spring baby so the summer after I turned 16 I decided to pursue a career in teaching. I was almost immediately called upon by several schools looking for teachers. I accepted a position at a brand new school as the 5th - 8th grade teacher. I would be teaching students who were just a year or so younger than I was. The Amish schools only have 2 teachers and each one has 4 grades and they can be divided any way the 2 teachers choose to divide them, but the most traditional way is 1st - 4th in one room and 5th - 8th in the other room. I absolutely loved school so I was very excited about this opportunity, but I was also scared to death at first. I did not know any of my students as this school was located in a different part of the community. It was located very close to my maternal grandparents whom I stayed with from time to time during my 3 year stint at Gates Hill School. My co-teacher was someone who had been teaching for several years already and her and I became great friends even after our 3 year stint of teaching together. I still try to go see her whenever I get the chance to go home. It was time for me to move on so I went to teach at another school closer to my home. I was there for 1 year as the 5th - 8th grade teacher again. From there I went to the school in the district next to my home district and I taught at Scout Ridge School for the final 3 years of my teaching career. While at my final position I taught 1st, 6th, 7th, & 8th one year, 1st, 2nd, 7th, & 8th another year, and 3rd, 4th, 7th, & 8th my final year. I ended up teaching every grade during my 7 year teaching career. I decided after 7 years I needed a break from teaching. I was going to take a year off and then I would consider going back to teaching. I did not expect the radical change God would bring into my life that year. I will write about this another time.

During my teaching I absolutely loved to teach and it is obvious God has given me a gift for teaching. There were many challenges, especially when it came to dealing with certain parents, but overall I would say it was a very fulfilling experience. One I look back on with many fond memories. I still think about my many students and I pray for them. I pray that they will first and foremost come to a saving knowledge of our Lord & Savior, Jesus Christ and then I pray their lives would be blessed and that their dreams would come true. I pray that above all they will find truth and freedom. The Bible says "we shall know the truth and the truth shall set us free." Praise God for truth and for freedom!!
I have fond memories of dodge ball games when the weather would not allow us to go outside and play. We would play ping pong, dodge ball, card games, & board games during the winter months. At times we would go outside at recess and play in the snow, but most of the time we would play indoors. In the fall and the spring there would be games of volleyball, softball, prisoner's base, kick the can, and many other running games as well.

Our subjects for the younger ones are Reading, Phonics, Math, English, Writing, and German Phonics. For the older ones there was Reading, Vocabulary, Math, English, Writing, Spelling, Geography, German Phonics, Writing, Spelling & Reading. Most of the curriculum was made especially for the Amish schools with the exception of the Geography and in 8th grade the History books.

There is one other memory that I am glad it is only a memory. The outhouses! There were no indoor bathrooms at our schools. There were only outhouses. We also had a furnace that had to be stoked and logs on the fire at all times and the teachers had to take care of that or else everyone would be cold and find it impossible to study. That is a brief overview of my years as a schoolteacher............BK