'Pray every day, falling upon your knees'
By: Rebecca Mabry
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Early in the dark of morning, long before dawn, Ben and Betty Graber gather five of their children together in the basement kitchen of their farmhouse.
The light from the propane gas lamp overhead casts stark shadows as they gather and kneel and, speaking in Pennsylvania Dutch, say a prayer of worship and thanksgiving to God.
Ben's voice then leads them in a slow German hymn, and this day Ben follows it by reading a sad story about a child who had been mocked and teased at school.
On the days when their father doesn't read a lesson story, the children – Aden, 22, Brandon, 20, Marcus, 14, Marty, 12, and Darlene, 10 – take turns reading Bible stories out loud.
As breakfast is put on the table, but before they eat, the children and their parents pray again. Then after the meal they say thanks to God for their blessings once more. All is accomplished before Aden, Brandon and Ben leave for work at 5:30. The younger children help clean up breakfast dishes, curry the pony and hitch him to the cart for the two-mile drive to their country parochial school. On Saturdays and Sundays, the family might rise a little later, but again the prayers are said; hymns sung.
Setting aside this time for worship each morning – seven days a week no matter what – is what the Amish call their family or daily devotions. Nearly every Amish home has a similar ritual of joining together, kneeling, bowing their heads in prayer and singing a hymn or two. It is such an important ritual they arrange their lives around it.
The Grabers rise each morning at 4:15 so they can have the 15 to 20 minutes for devotions and breakfast. Most Amish families bow their heads and pray silently before their meals; and after each meal, more prayers. And most families make time before bed for prayers, maybe family singing, and if there are children, Bible stories. Their Bibles often bear witness to daily use.
One church leader's Bible, worn thin from his workman's hands riffling daily through its delicate pages, is held together with strips of duct tape and marked in the margins with hundreds of ink notations.
Though a changing farm economy toppled their longstanding tradition of making their livings off the land, the time they make in their lives for daily devotions is the rock-solid foundation that keeps the Amish – Amish. Less than 15 percent of the young people in the community decide against becoming members of the church, so scores of young men and women are baptized each year. The Amish population in the Arthur-Arcola area is flourishing.
Some 3,000 to 4,000 Amish live in Moultrie-Douglas counties, extending as far southwest as Sullivan and also into Coles County, east to Arcola, as far north as Atwood and Garrett, and to a distance 5 to 6 miles west of Arthur.
The population has nearly doubled since 1990, when 2,400 Amish lived in the area. In 1953, the number was 800.
And the settlement in Moultrie-Douglas counties is no longer the only one in the state. Since 1990, there have been 18 new Amish settlements created, mostly in western and southern Illinois.
Though farming doesn't support the majority of families, the economy hums to the sounds of air-powered sanders and saws as their woodworking and cabinet shops, pallet and truss-building and cottage industries contribute some $100 million a year to the local economy.
Unemployment is zero.
In fact, the Amish shops have so many job openings, they fill some with non-Amish. It's not unusual in the summertime to see Spanish-speaking immigrants walking or riding bikes home to Arcola after spending a day in an Amish cabinet shop.
And at the end of the lanes leading to most Amish farms are signs selling goods or services – potatoes, tree removal, wind chimes.
The Amish community is unique among the large Amish settlements because it is old, dating back to 1865, and it remains isolated in the rural countryside, unlike some of the Amish communities in Ohio and Pennsylvania that are being surrounded by sprawling cities.
Pioneers Moses Yoder, Daniel Miller and Daniel Otto brought their families to Arthur in 1865 from Summit Mills, Pa., buying land for $8.10 an acre. The town of Arthur didn't exist then, but today, hundreds of people passing through the town drive past the pioneer Amish cemetery that sits alongside Illinois 133, across the street from Yoder's Kitchen.
Other families moved in from Ohio, Indiana, Iowa and Pennsylvania and by 1888 the settlement had grown so large they needed to divide into two church districts. Today there are 27.
The Amish hold their church services in homes, so they keep the number of families in a church district small – about 25. That means 100 to 150 people might show up at a home for a Sunday church service, and in Amish circles that's a manageable crowd. The small church districts maintain a closeness among members because they're all living in the same rural neighborhoods. The church leaders in each district live down the road or across the section. "You know everybody," a bishop said. "We see them every two weeks for church and we also neighbor with them. If there's something going on in the neighborhood they're part of it and we're part of it. We see them all the time."
The Amish strongly believe God has a hand in their lives, and he can see the goodness – and weakness – in their hearts.
Some are ordained in their 50s, but many are in their 20s. Several in the Arthur-Arcola area have been ordained as young as 22.
The bishop, the two ministers and the deacon in each district have distinct responsibilities.
"The bishop is considered the leader," said a bishop. "He's not the boss, he's the leader. There's a difference." Bishops marry couples and bishops baptize. As leaders of their districts, all the bishops meet once or twice a year to talk about issues in the community. But there is no central overseer of the church districts. Each district makes its own rules, though it would be rare for one district's rules to be much different from a neighboring district within the same community.
The deacons oversee the church district's finances, like a treasurer, and since the Amish do not have health insurance the deacon also helps families if they need it with medical bills. The Amish don't tithe a certain percentage of their income, but they are generous with their contributions to their church district's treasury. The deacon is also the one who makes the first visit to a family if they are doing something that is against church rules. "The deacon is the one who goes to help the guy see the error of his ways and help him to mend his ways," a bishop said. "But he doesn't do it without counsel (of the bishop and minister)."
The minister's main focus is on preparing for the Sunday worship service, in which he might be called on to present either the short (30-minute) sermon or the longer one that can go on an hour to an hour-and-a-half.
The Amish don't like spotlights or stages. They like uniformity. They are not interested in opportunities for individualism that could lead to one-upmanship. That's why women don't wear buttons on their dresses or jewelry or barrettes.
Those kinds of adornments aren't needed and could lead to one woman having nicer, prettier buttons than the other women. That's why all the men's hats are alike, why all buggies are the same and don't have a little chrome here or there, and why the houses are white, without shutters. Their focus is to be on their faith and their families, not on trying to make impressions.
And the Amish live by a set of rules that change very slowly, if at all.
The rules the Amish live by are called the Ordnung, which is German for order, and they are not written in a book. The obvious ones forbid using public electricity or owning a vehicle, and they set dress codes and require the use of horses and buggies for transportation. Married men wear beards, girls and women keep their heads covered, and the children do not go to school after eighth grade.
From state to state and Amish community to Amish community, variations of the rules occur. In Pennsylvania, buggies can be gray but must be black in Illinois. Likewise in Pennsylvania, Amish men wear their hats into the church service and remove them before the service begins; Illinois Amish men remove their hats before entering a house.
The colors that the Illinois Amish women choose for their dresses are always solid colors and most often dark shades of blue, green, burgundy and gray.The styles and hemlines and necklines are very similar and are made from patterns generations old. No creativity is allowed in finishing dresses – no fancy stitching, rick-rac or other garnishment.
"We don't like showy or loud," one bishop explained. "Anything that draws attention."
And what's wrong with drawing attention to yourself?
The bishop wrinkled his brow. "Well, why would you want to?"
"Why not stay with something that's practical and simple?" he asked. "You don't have to be different from your neighbor. We're trying to maintain a uniformity. The rich don't look different from the poor."
So the Amish purses and shoes are plain black. The men and boys all wear homemade denim breeches; most men wear black leather suspenders. Parents cut their little boy's hair so that it's short on the sides and all one length – a cut the boys wear into manhood. There's no room for crewcuts or ponytails.
The bishops said they try to encourage their people to ask the question: How does my decision look to God? "Ask – Is this what I should be doing?"
The rules and restrictions keep some positive statistics in the district. The Amish do not approve of divorce, and a divorced couple cannot remarry. The divorce rate among the Amish is very low; in the Amish parochial schools, few of the children come from broken homes.
The community has annual marriage meetings that routinely draw 150 couples or more. They talk about the kinds of issues that help marriages become strong: the man being a good Christian leader of the household, and the woman being a partner but submitting to the husband's final decision. And the focus of the family is to be raising the children to be good Christians and good Amish men and women.
Having those family devotions each morning, like Ben and Betty Graber and thousands of other Amish families, is the key to instilling that desire in the young. "We were brought up by our parents to be Amish," Ben said. "The whole idea is – we teach by example."