ELMER'S POST

We were sitting up the tables for the Mother's Day Dinner at Bishop Eli's house when he said to me you did give Marilyn a post for this week didn't you.  I said nope, I forgot.  He said I will let you use your cell phone.  Get it on and call her NOW.  So here I am.

We are setting the tables up in Bishop Eli's garage because we aren't sure if it is going to rain or not.  Bishop Eli's farm was an Englisher farm when he bought it.  The previous owner had a two car garage on it.  It comes in handy like now.  The garage is closer to the house than the barn, so it makes bringing food from the house to the tables closer.  Also, it is a place for Bishop Eli to put his buggies.  We may have to serve in shifts, but his house is big enough so those can wait inside.  If it doesn't rain, we can feed everyone at once.

Usually we serve the ladies chicken on Mother's Day.  We had some complaints last year that they always serve us beef and we serve them chicken.  So this year, we are serving steaks.  Each of us men had to bring a dish to pass or desert.  Michael, Jean's son, handled the organization of who brought what.  Also, who is doing the cooking, serving, cleaning up, etc.  Jean and Grandmother Olive taught him well.

It has been a tradition that we, Old Order Amish and the Old Order Mennonite have our Mother's Day and Father's Day dinners together.  Today, we do not have church, but they do.  We are setting up so it will be ready when they get here.  As usual, we also got a rose for each of the Mother's at the meal.  Us men do everything from start to finish including cleaning up.  This is the one day of the year the ladies get to sit, relax, talk, be waited on and we men do all the work.

We have had a great deal of rain in our area.  The plowing got done in our field.  We have done some planting, but not all of it.  Some crops don't grow well in this much water.  We hope the rain eases up a little.

Although, we are having a hard time, others are having a worse time than we are.  John, our driver, was over talking about friends of his who own a home on Lake Ontario that the water is raising almost into.  He said they are filling sand bags to put around it.  I was telling Bishop Eli this and he asked if they needed men to fill sand bags.  John called his friend, who said he could use all the help he could get.  So, Bishop Eli got a group of us together to fill John's van and we all went over to help fill sand bags.

Filling sand bags is hard work.  We all did it.  Not all the sand bags we filled went to John's friend, but to others that were having the same problem.  We heard stories of how some of these people bought the house to retire in and now look at it.  Others were still working people but this house was their dream house and now it was slowly going into the water.  Some of these people had homes as cottages and another place to live in - some didn't.  Some didn't know if their house became unliveable, where they would go.  Some had flood insurance, some didn't.  We prayed with some of the people.

We don't believe in insurance.  We believe things are God's will.  Whether they had insurance or not, it's hard seeing your house slowly sinking.  You try to do what you can to save it.

Thought all this, the people thought of us.  There was a place we go to get coffee, tea, and water.  They also had sandwitches, potato chips, cookies and other deserts.  We tried to pay, but they wouldn't take the money.  They appreciated what we were doing for them.

We were tired when we got good, but felt that we had helped them in our small way.  They are still in our thoughts and prayers.

All my chores were done, when I got home.  Anna, a couple of my sons and son-in-laws had done them all for me.  Bishop Eli's family had done his, too.  So we got to relax before dinner.

You are getting this after Mother's Day, but we wish all of the ladies a Happy Mother's Day.

Trust God's Wisdom,
Elmer