For thirty seven years I served in Africa with Africans in mind. In retirement the Lord gave me a desire to do some research on my own family. "Faith of our Fathers: From Barbarian to Mennonite" is the result. Following is the introduction to that book which explains how this book all came about.

INTRODUCTION
As I was growing up in my father’s church, The Mennonite Brethren in Christ, we used to sing this moving tribute, "Faith of our Fathers."

"Faith of our fathers, living still in spite of dungeon, fire and sword – O how our hearts beat high with joy whene’er we hear that glorious word! Faith of our fathers, holy faith, We will be true to thee till death."
"Our fathers, chained in prisons dark, were still in heart and conscience free; How sweet would be their children’s fate if they, like them, could die for thee!"

A deep impression was etched on my tender consciousness of the vibrant, living faith of our forefathers. In childhood my mother would read stories of faith and martyrdom from the Martyrs Mirror. “For Mennonites in their 465 years of history, no book except the Bible has been more influential in perpetuating and nurturing their faith than the Martyrs Mirror.” The second edition of 1685 had many illustrations which left memorable impressions. These faithful, stalwart Christians, who bore their testimony to the point of death at the hand of fellow “Christians,” were my heroes.

When I reached adolescence I hung on the wall of my upstairs bedroom in the parsonage of the MBC in Mt. Carmel, Pennsylvania, a replica of a painting which represented my ideal – no hero from sports or pop culture but a hardy, stalwart farmer in a man’s overalls standing with his wife in front of a Gothic window of his farm house. This couple represented to me the serious-minded, devout, hardworking ancestors of yesteryear.

The blood of the Swiss German Mennonites courses through my veins and coalesces with the blood of the French Huguenots and German Lutherans. My paternal grandparents (Gehman, or Göuman in Switzerland) and all my paternal ancestry hailed from the German speaking Swiss Brethren; my maternal grandfather (Woodring, or Vautrin in Lorraine), descended from the Franks in Lorraine and became Huguenot Calvinists; and my maternal grandmother (Ziegenfuss, or Seiefus from Darmstadt, Germany) with other family branches were German Lutherans. Eventually, they all migrated to Pennsylvania Dutch speaking country in America. Their life was not easy. Backbreaking toil and persistent endurance were their lot. To learn of the faith of my forefathers has been an interest all of my life.

But my interest goes beyond the Mennonites, Huguenots and Lutherans. Those who trace their lineage usually stop with their European ancestors after the Reformation. My interest goes back further to their pagan past.

During our thirty-six years of ministry in Kenya, friends would occasionally ask me, “What is your tribe?” At first I was taken aback; tribes in America?

No, we do not have tribalism in America, but we do have ethnic diversity. Wave after wave of immigrants came from the Old Country – English, Germans, Swiss, Holland Dutch, Irish and others. America not only welcomed these West European immigrants; they bought enslaved Africans to serve on the plantations in the South. All these ethnic differences remain to this day.
Genealogists trace families by name back to the sixteenth or seventeenth century. But then the genealogical trail disappears because written family records don’t exist. Only the names of royalty and nobility can be traced into the first millennium after Christ.

The question of our own family’s distant past intrigues me. What were my pre-Christian ancestors like? How did they live? What did they believe? These fascinating questions have driven me to explore my ancestral roots in antiquity.

At first, the intention of my research was to satisfy my own curiosity and provide our own kids with a treasured account of our family history. But as I explored ever deeper I came to realize that this story transcends my own personal family history and applies to millions. For all who trace their ancestry back to Germanic roots, this narrative of the Faith of our Fathers is insightful and illuminating. They include English, German, French, Dutch, and others.

The purpose of this book is twofold:
First, to recount the life and faith of our ancestors over the past two thousand years. Having explored this subject, I am deeply grateful for God’s mercy in sparing me from the darkness and hardships that our ancestors have endured. This book sheds light on the miry pit from whence we were all dug.
Secondly, to glorify God by relating how the Christian faith was taken to our ancestors – how they received God’s grace wherein we stand today. To know the amazing grace of God that saved us from both paganism and nominal Christendom is the subject of this book.

As the apostle Peter wrote, “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” This is the story of the Faith of our Fathers. By grace the gospel has been brought to us. “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (2 Peter 2:9,10).

Though the book tells the history of the Gehmans, Hollingers, Hornings, Bowmans, Hubers; the Woodrings, Kemmerers, Ziegenfuss, and Handwerks. This book entails much more. The historical narrative of the Germanic tribes, moving from barbarian to a vibrant faith, is the journey that many Germanic peoples have taken. Come; join me as we travel through time, tracing our Faith.