Hooray for the Mennonites!

This week has been a big service project for the local Mennonites: canning meat at the meat cannery on the other side of our hill; the meat gets shipped to other countries of the world to feed hungry people. Many Mennonites from this area have participated--not just the Old Orders. It's been fun to see the cars lined up on top of the hill some days, and even more fun to see the horse and buggies lined up! The other evening as the sun was setting, I couldn't resist and snapped this picture.

Today I was talking with my neighbor Wilma, and she said casually, "Yeah, we were up at the meat shop this morning at 4:30 am cutting up meat. Wednesday we were up there about 4:30, too--well, it was about a quarter to five. This morning there were only a few of us there at 4:30, only 10 or 12. A lot more people came trickling in later until the tables were full of people cutting up meat."

Oh. I can't remember the last time I got up at 4:30 am voluntarily for any reason (calming a crying child doesn't exactly fall into the "voluntarily" category), much less to do a service project. I'm convicted.

Another wonderful thing about the Old Order Mennonites...last Sunday when we were all snowed in and all the church meetings here in the Harrisonburg area were cancelled, guess who was going to church? The Old Order Mennonites, trotting along in their horse and buggies. There may be snow on the roads, it may be freezing cold outside; but they are faithful people and do not forsake the assembly!