Free Growing Up Amish by Ira Wagler Page A

welcomed him into their midst.
    Then it was over. The congregation was dismissed. The young man sat down on the bench. He looked around him, at all the shadowy figures meshing in a hazy blur.
    He was now a preacher.
    Until his death.
    His life would never be the same. Never .
    Nor, for that matter, would my family’s. The young man ordained that day was my oldest brother, Joseph.
    And that’s how it all comes down. An Amish man gets up in the morning, a regular member of the church, goes to the service with his wife and children, and returns home that evening, ordained to the ministry for the rest of his life.
    A preacher.
    Lots of work for no pay.
    Just like that.
    The process is based on the New Testament account of the choosing of Matthias by lot to replace Judas after he betrayed Jesus. The whole thing takes less than an hour. There is no counseling session, no discussion with the ordained to see whether or not he even has a calling. It’s the only system the Amish have ever used.
    It has its flaws, but overall, it works amazingly well. A quiet young man who has never had much to say is ordained, and one month later, with no training whatsoever, gets up to preach for the first time. It’s sink or swim, and somehow, he swims. And over the course of many years, he develops into a gifted speaker and a powerful preacher.
    Of course, sometimes the reverse is also true. I’ve heard many a sermon from preachers who could not speak publicly to save their lives. Men who spent the first ten minutes of their sermons bemoaning the “heavy burden” of their calling. Men who, in my opinion, should never have been ordained. But the lot chose them, just as it chose Matthias. Granted, nothing more is ever written of Matthias, other than the fact that he was ordained by lot. So perhaps he wasn’t that great a speaker either.
    My brother Joseph, it turned out, was a swimmer. He soon developed into the premier preacher in Bloomfield. When he stood to preach, the congregation sat alert, absorbed in his message, and much to the children’s delight, he always stopped on time.
    For me, the other preachers suddenly seemed more human, because now my brother was one of them. And to Joseph’s credit, although he strongly disapproved of my subsequent life choices, he was always there for me through the turmoil that would characterize the next ten years.

11
    It’s a law of human nature. The young will defy and test the previous generation’s boundaries and push them to the limits. It has always been so and will likely always be.
    This is particularly true in the Amish culture, with its austere lifestyle, where the rules prohibit all things modern and, therefore, sinful: cars, radios, and television.
    Very few young Amish kids with a spark of life and an ounce of willpower will simply accept their leaders’ admonitions not to touch “unclean things.” Most need to experiment, experience, and decide for themselves.
    My friends and I were no different.
    There were six of us.
    Marvin and Rudy Yutzy were my first and closest friends in Bloomfield. They were first cousins and had known each other all their lives. I was the new guy on their turf, but they gladly made room for me.
    Rudy, the youngest—and yet somehow the tallest—was the orator of the group. He could weave and stitch and thread the most fascinating, vivid tales from the most mundane, everyday events. No detail was too small. No comment too obscure. He included and expounded on everything in fantastic, colorful narratives that flowed in a continual rolling stream.
    Marvin was a bit more reserved. He was intelligent, thoughtful, and observant, with a keen, dry sense of humor. He could deadpan a joke and move on before the true incisive humor of his observation ever hit you.
    Then there were the Herschberger brothers—Willis and Vern—who moved to Bloomfield from the large, troubled settlement of Arthur, Illinois,