Amish Originals Furniture Co.: Miriam's Journal March 19, 2009

Dear Journal,

We have been doing our annual Spring cleaning early this year as it is our turn to have the church services in our home.  We have 16 households in our district, and we each take turns providing a place and the meal for services.  We have four church districts in this initial area and we try to keep all the rules and regulations the same.  In the Americas there are many, many different church districts among the Amish and Mennonites.  To me, it's very interesting to learn about different ones.  Even I don't know them all.

We clean in much the same way that we did last fall when Marie got married except the shop isn't shut down.  We have it in the house.  Weddings we have approximately 250-300 people; for church we have 120-150 people.  Church meals are also very different than that of a wedding.  We have meat and cheese sandwiches, peanut butter spread, pickles, pickled beets, cookies, coffee, and occasionally someone serves tea.  Since the services are three hours we serve cokkies, pretzels, and Ritz crackers to the little children.  It keeps them occupied and from getting too hungry for lunch.

The songs that we sing in church are German and were written hundreds of years ago by people who were in prison because of their beliefs.  Some were also tortured and put to death.  Our culture was started by some men who were well taught in the old Roman Catholic Church overseas, and they started interpreting the Bible differently.   The biggest change was that we don't baptize our babies.  That is the reason that our forefathers were the Anabaptists.   Anabaptists were formed from a group of people who were re-baptized.  (Baptized on belief)  There is a big book that is called The Martyr's Mirror that has lots of history in it of the origin of our culture.  Of course through the generations many changes have been made in the dress, church services, etc.  Even the fellowship has changed.

Even with all the changes I still cherish our heritage.

God bless all.............Miriam