Mennonites We Have Known

One of the great blessings of our lives has been to know and work with Mennonites, first in Vietnam in the 1960s and later in all the countries where we lived and worked in Latin America.   Many of the Mennonites with whom we worked became friends and examples to us, witnesses to living gently on the earth, serving the poor, and, above all, following their conscience as pacifists and peacemakers. 

When we arrived in Saigon in 1966 we were warmly welcomed by a young Mennonite couple by the name of Paul and Doris Longacre.  As I close my eyes now and scan back almost fifty years I see the images of these two humble and dedicated servants of the Lord - Paul as a wise and good humored program director of Vietnam Christian Service (a mentor to me) and Doris as the hostess of the guest house and language center where many of us lived during our fist weeks in Saigon.  

About 8 months ago we got the news from another Mennonite friend, Earl Martin, that Paul has been dealing with lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) for a number of years , and after quite a few hospitalizations, Paul had decided not to go to the hospital again. He is at peace with facing the end of his life and ready, when the time comes, to enter "the land of the living", as Jesus referred to heaven.  

This news prompted a world-wide exchange of emails across the miles and years - dozens of us sharing thoughts and reflections from the transformative experiences that we shared in Vietnam over the ten year period between 1965 to 1975.

Yesterday I was looking on the book shelf for something to read and I came across the book Doris began writing in January 1979 - "Living More with Less" - a compilation of hundreds of stories, anecdotes, advice, and even games submitted by Mennonites from all over the world on the subject of living more simply.  She was unable to finish this book before she died from cancer eleven months later at the age of 39.  Paul and a number of friends took up the challenge of finishing and publishing it the next year.   

I have not looked at this book for 30 years or so but as I paged through it I saw a number of passages we had underlined and highlighted - on justice, ideas for family life, living more simply, breast feeding, and lessons learned from the poor of the world community.  There were so many offerings here - we probably did not read the entire book - but it was the accumulated thrust of the whole that added bits and pieces to a philosophy of life that we have tried to adopt over the years - part of which we can attribute to what we learned from Mennonites. 

   

Doris' first book, the "More with Less Cookbook" still sits on Judy's book shelf in the kitchen... tattered and worn from many years of looking into it for good and creative recipes for preparing nutritious food and ideas on living a healthy life-style.  Certainly there are thousands of such tattered copies of this book in kitchens around the world.

A few days ago we received an email message from Paul in response to our annual letter.  When we got this Judy said, "what a good way to live, and what a good way to die"....

Paul wrote:

Thank you for your New Years Greetings. Greetings and blessings to you. This morning it was one degree below zero when I woke up. I usually take a short walk in mid morning around our house with my rolater and one of our church members or friends to accompany me but today we went to the gym to walk around the track.

I am doing fairly well but my strength is slowly failing. I live on one floor of our house. I have no pain and sleep well. We have a hospice nurse come once a week to check on me. We have a family friend living in our basement apartment and he has begun studying in a Master of Arts program on line for his MA in Public health. I can bang on the floor or yell if I need help when Nancy is not here. 

(Daughters) Cara and Marta and their families visit us occasionally from Pennsylvania. Tonight and most Tuesday evenings we go to Earl and Pat's house about a mile from us to eat dinner with them and several other friends. We rotate the cooking. Other friends from church stop in periodically so I am not bored or have to spend all my time sleeping or reading.

Love and blessings to you.

It is not customary that an intelligent person clothes and cares for one part of the body and leaves the rest naked.  The intelligent person is solicitous for all his members.  Thus, it should be for those who serve the Lord's church and body.  All those born of God are called into one body and are prepared by love to serve their neighbors.

 Menno Simons, 1552 - early reformer and leader of those who became known as Mennonites.