After everything I have been learning about Mennonite history and the much stricter traditions of some conservative communities, staying here with Marilyn and her family has given me a rather different perspective.
Marilyn comes from a Mennonite family whose parents were among the founders of a more progressive Mennonite community. They kept many of the principles at the heart of their faith — no war, no weapons, living and working together as a community, being largely self-sufficient and having a strong connection to the land — but they also believed that some things could change with the times.
And change they certainly have.
Looking at their life from the outside, there is very little that would make you think you were living in a particularly unusual community. There are tractors and plenty of machinery, cars, motorbikes and all the other things that make modern farming possible. Marilyn runs a motel and takes people on wildlife tours, while her husband Gerhart is a cattle farmer.
They wear ordinary modern clothes, use modern equipment and get on with life much as you and I do.
There is still, however, that unmistakable thread of tradition. Faith is part of everyday life and grace is said before meals. Community, family, hard work and looking after one another remain important.
Perhaps the most interesting difference for me has been seeing how they deal with people who choose a different path.
Four of Marilyn’s children have decided to leave the church. Yet they have not been cast out of the family. Marilyn still speaks to them regularly, and they visit when they can. Whatever their religious differences, they remain her children.
That has made me realise that there isn’t simply one thing called “the Mennonites”. There are communities that have held very tightly to traditions established generations ago, and there are others that have kept the principles they consider important while allowing the way they live to evolve.
And perhaps that is the simplest way I can describe what I am seeing here.
The faith has changed less than the lifestyle.
For me, that has made the Mennonite story considerably more complicated — and considerably more human.