Beachy Amish Mennonite Fellowships, Belize

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Beachy Amish Mennonite Fellowships, Belize
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Congregaciones

6

Número de Miembros

175

Directivo

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Dirección

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Teléfono

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E-mail

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Website- Página Web

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Inmediatamente después de la destrucción causada por el huracán Hattie en 1961, Amish Mennonite Aid, una agencia de ayuda, empezó a trabajar en reconstrucción en Belize y organizó la primera congregación de menonitas Beachy Amish en 1962. Este grupo tiene seis congregaciones con alrededor de 175 miembros. El grupo tiene congregaciones relacionadas en Canadá, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, y los Estados Unidos.[1]


Stories

Several Important Past Church Leaders (Deceased):

John Stoltzfus: the bishop of the Lancaster church that fellowshipped with Moses Beachy's group shortly after the division. Stoltzfus withdrew with Christian King from the Old Order Amish in 1909. In the 1920s, Christian King withdrew from Stoltzfus' group. Stoltzfus was then ordained to be a bishop. He had been a minister.

David O. Burkholder: an Amish bishop from Nappanee, Indiana, he was instrumental in starting a number of Beachy churches in the Midwest during the 1940s and 1950s; he also had a burden for Amish and Beachy young people, which in part led to the formation of the Youth Fellowship Meetings.

Eli Tice: the successor of Moses Beachy in the Mountain View congregation. He wrote an English-German parallel Bible that was widely distributed in Beachy, Amish, and other circles.

Jacob Hershberger: a bishop for the Kempsville Amish Mennonite congregation in Virginia Beach during the 1950s and 1960s. He was one of the founders of Amish Mennonite Aid. A prolific writer, he published a number of books and had a regular column in the Budget. Hershberger was killed in an automobile accident in 1965 while on an expedition trip to Alabama to search for a new church site.

Ervin Hershberger: an instrumental deacon in the Mountain View congregation. He assisted in the beginnings of Calvary Bible School, and was influential in work of Amish Mennonite Aid. An avid writer, he started the Beachy periodical Calvary Messenger and served as editor for about 30 years. He also helped compile and write Into the Highways and Hedges, AMA's first book, as well as a number of other books.

Link to official website: http://www.beachyam.org/general.htm

History

In 1912, Moses Beachy was ordained to the position of minister. In 1916, Moses Yoder was old enough that he accepted the position of inactive bishop. Moses Beachy did not like the idea of strong shunning. Tension between Beachy and Yoder arose and Beachy broke off from the Yoders making a new and first but unofficial Beachy Amish church.[2].

Origins

The Beachy Amish Mennonites came to Belize because of Hurricane Hattie in 1961.[3]. Many Amish Mennonite Aid workers went to Belize to help the hurricanes victims. "Amish Mennonite Aid is the mission organization of the Beachy Amish Mennonites and Belize was one of the first countries the organization went to for mission work[4]." After AMA had done there work with helping the hurricane victims the Belizean people asked them to stay. According to Roessingh,"This way the initial Beachy Amish Mennonite response to the cleanup and assistance of the homeless in Belize led to continued involvement in rebuilding and assisting the people of Belize spiritually[5]." The Beachy Amish Mennonite Fellowships in belize are still continuing to grow and create a mixture of American Beachy Mennonites and Belizean converts.

Contemporary

"In Homestead Acres, Esperanza village, Belize a young married couple, an Amer- ican man and a Belizean woman sit on the porch of their house built by Amer- ican hands in Belizean style (built on wooden poles). The man still wears his ‘work clothes’, a dark shirt and jeans. His wife wears a long, covering pink dress with puff sleeves, and a white veil. They are relaxing now and enjoying the time together, after a hard day of work. The man has been working at the chicken business next to the house all day and his wife had her ‘washing day’ and she also finished her rice and beans for the upcoming unit meeting. They have been looking forward to this moment and enjoy every minute of it. On the volleyball field below, the youths have started a game of volleyball. They gathered an hour ago at the church, for singing English and Spanish hymns, to listen to devotions of a Belizean youth, and to pray in their separate prayer groups. Now they are on the volleyball field and one of the boys is telling the girls to stand on one side of the field, while the boys stand on the other side, so he can give everybody their team number. After a short while, there are teams on each side of the net and the boys give every team member a position in the field and start the game. The couple listens to the encouragement of the young people: ‘nice try’, ‘good hit’. They remember the days when they used to play volleyball with their youth group and think about the day when their child will play the same game with the church people his age. The sound of the porch fence makes the young couple look in that direction. A family is climbing the stairs, an American missionary family. They run the mission post next to the chicken busi- ness. The couple saw the family eat on their little porch with their ten children a few hours ago. The woman carries her youngest child, while her other nine chil- dren are already downstairs to play and watch the volleyball game. The Belizean and American women sit together and talk about working on a quilt tomorrow for a poor family at the sowing fellowship of church women the next morning. The men wander off together to discuss the situation of a young couple that wants to join the church." [6].


This is what an average day might be like for someone who is part of the Beachy Amish living in belize. A person who is part of the Beachy Amish has a very traditional life. The women can only wear plain dresses with little to no ornaments and must also be wearing a white head covering at all times, which is used as a praying veil.[7] The Beachy Amish Mennonite men wear trousers and a shirt. The Beachy Amish of Belize live in modern houses and are allowed to use electricity and drive cars but many still dont. The Beachy Amish Mennonites do not feel they have to have a hard time on earth to deserve a place in heaven but they do believe that they have to keep away from the seductions of the world..[8]

Personas importantes en la vida de la iglesia

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Recursos Electrónicos

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Bibliografía anotada

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Archivos y Bibliotecas

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Enlaces Externos

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Citas

  1. Donald B. Kraybill, Concise Encyclopedia of Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), 227. Translation by Daniel Moya.
  2. Anderson, Cory A. "General Information." The Beachy Amish Mennonite Churches. Web. 17 Apr. 2011. <http://www.beachyam.org/general.htm>.
  3. roessingh, Carel Henning. "7.2 Homestead Acres." Between Horse & Buggy and Four-wheel Drive: Change and Diversity among Mennonite Settlements in Belize, Central America. Amsterdam: VU Univ., 2009. 176. Print.
  4. Roessingh, Carel Henning. "7.2 Homestead Acres." Between Horse & Buggy and Four-wheel Drive: Change and Diversity among Mennonite Settlements in Belize, Central America. Amsterdam: VU Univ., 2009. 176. Print.
  5. roessingh, Carel Henning. "7.2 Homestead Acres." Between Horse & Buggy and Four-wheel Drive: Change and Diversity among Mennonite Settlements in Belize, Central America. Amsterdam: VU Univ., 2009. 176. Print.
  6. roessingh, Carel Henning. "7.2 Homestead Acres." Between Horse & Buggy and Four-wheel Drive: Change and Diversity among Mennonite Settlements in Belize, Central America. Amsterdam: VU Univ., 2009. 171-72. Print.
  7. oessingh, Carel Henning. "7.2 Homestead Acres." Between Horse & Buggy and Four-wheel Drive: Change and Diversity among Mennonite Settlements in Belize, Central America. Amsterdam: VU Univ., 2009. 171-73. Print.
  8. oessingh, Carel Henning. "7.2 Homestead Acres." Between Horse & Buggy and Four-wheel Drive: Change and Diversity among Mennonite Settlements in Belize, Central America. Amsterdam: VU Univ., 2009. 171-72. Print.