FAITH OF OUR FATHERS
God never blessed me with a family of material wealth, but He greatly blessed me with a rich spiritual heritage. I can trace my lineage back for generations on both my maternal and paternal sides. They were rich in faith.
Pappy and Mammy Gehman lived into the mid 1940s. They were Pennsylvania Dutch, born and reared on a farm. My grandfather became an entrepreneur of the first order but above all he was a staunch Christian. He was generally quiet except when it came to his Christian faith. My dad always took my mother and me on an annual pilgrimage to visit his parents and siblings. Pappy Gehman died when I was eight years old. So I knew him a wee bit. In the last few years I interviewed many of my cousins who knew him well. What a treasure of Christian faith.
He knew the Lord and wanted ever so much for his children to know God as well. In their Mennonite home they had a family altar where all the children gathered for Bible reading and prayer. In their farm house they gathered around their pump organ and sang hymns. The words of one song which Pappy loved were, “Will the circle be unbroken in the sky, in the sky?”
God did work. All his nine children knew and served the Lord. One became a preacher; one married a preacher; and one became a lay Bible teacher in a youth camp for many years. But especially among his grandchildren, many became ministers of the Gospel. Fifteen of his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren became “full time” servants of the Lord as preachers, missionaries, and Bible College teachers. Numerous others served actively in the church as lay leaders.
The riches of being born in a vibrant Christian home cannot be calculated. When father and mother teach their children God’s Word, and inculcate in their children the basic precepts of God’s Word, the fruit leads to a rich and rewarding life in this world and eternal life beyond.
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Dt 6:4f).
My own father led our family in family worship and taught me Scripture to memorize. This Christian tradition I carried on when rearing Nathan and Joy. The result is evident.
Most of our society’s ills are due to the poor heritage that so many have these days – absentee parents, working parents, single parents, alcohol and drug abuse, absence of godly teaching and example, absence of prayer and Bible reading in the family. When children grow up with this kind of poverty, government can do little. Society deteriorates. Christian families are the bedrock of society.
How blessed to have this Christian heritage passed on to me through the Gehmans, the Woodrings, the Ziegenfusses, the Hollingers and others.
[All my genealogy and history can be found in my 308 page book, “FAITH OF OUR FATHERS: FROM BARBARIAN TO MENNONITE AND BEYOND,” published by Masthof Press. You can purchase the book directly from the publishers or from me. Send a check for $15.00 to Richard Gehman, 1011 Media Road, Minneola, FL 34715]
Showing posts with label Woodring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Woodring. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Learning from Genealogy
For two years I labored to trace my genealogy by names back to the 1500s – my paternal ancestors: Gehman, Hollinger, Horning, Bowman, Huber; and my maternal ancestors: Woodring, Ziegenfuss, Kemmerer, and Handwerk; then tracing my blood ancestors back to the German barbarians. It was exciting and fulfilling and I made some fascinating discoveries.
On my mother’s side, they were all Lutherans, Reformed and French Huguenots by religious conviction. They were also upper class and aristocratic. Vautrins (Woodring) were mayors of towns for generations who spoke several languages, owners of grist mills, successful entrepreneurs. The Kemmerers were the treasurers, the keepers of the wealth of royalty – the immediate officers of the Counts. A Kemmerer trudged off to the Holy Land as a knight during the First Crusade, bearing the official crest which symbolized crowned royalty. The Handwerk family can trace their ancestry to Count Handwerck who bore the title of nobility, whose abode was a forecastle of Greifenstein.
In contrast, all my father’s ancestors were German Swiss who professed their Christian faith as Swiss Brethren, several thrown into prison by Zwingli’s followers. They eventually became Mennonites. They were the peasants, the humble workers of the field – the low class which was ill treated by the landed aristocracy.
[All this genealogy and history can be found in my 308 page book, “FAITH OF OUR FATHERS: FROM BARBARIAN TO MENNONITE AND BEYOND,” published by Masthof Press. You can purchase the book directly from the publishers or from me. Send a check for $15.00 to Richard Gehman, 1011 Media Road, Minneola, FL 34715]
In Scripture we find that BOTH HIGH CLASS AND LOW CLASS stand on level ground before the cross. All are sinners and all need the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. One of the Scriptures I have memorized in retirement is Psalm 36:5-9, a marvelously beautiful description of our great God who blesses BOTH HIGH CLASS AND LOW CLASS in one blessed family.
“Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the sky.
“Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep.
“O LORD, you preserve both man and beast. How priceless is your unfailing love.
“Both HIGH and LOW among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings.
“They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights.
“For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.”
Both the HIGH CLASS among my maternal ancestors, and the LOW CLASS among my father’s ancestors, feasted on the abundance of God’s house, and drank from the river of delights that flows from God. Both my maternal ancestors in the Lutheran, Reformed and French Huguenot churches, and my paternal ancestors in the Mennonite church had a vibrant testimony hundreds of years ago. What a rich heritage God has given to me.
On my mother’s side, they were all Lutherans, Reformed and French Huguenots by religious conviction. They were also upper class and aristocratic. Vautrins (Woodring) were mayors of towns for generations who spoke several languages, owners of grist mills, successful entrepreneurs. The Kemmerers were the treasurers, the keepers of the wealth of royalty – the immediate officers of the Counts. A Kemmerer trudged off to the Holy Land as a knight during the First Crusade, bearing the official crest which symbolized crowned royalty. The Handwerk family can trace their ancestry to Count Handwerck who bore the title of nobility, whose abode was a forecastle of Greifenstein.
In contrast, all my father’s ancestors were German Swiss who professed their Christian faith as Swiss Brethren, several thrown into prison by Zwingli’s followers. They eventually became Mennonites. They were the peasants, the humble workers of the field – the low class which was ill treated by the landed aristocracy.
[All this genealogy and history can be found in my 308 page book, “FAITH OF OUR FATHERS: FROM BARBARIAN TO MENNONITE AND BEYOND,” published by Masthof Press. You can purchase the book directly from the publishers or from me. Send a check for $15.00 to Richard Gehman, 1011 Media Road, Minneola, FL 34715]
In Scripture we find that BOTH HIGH CLASS AND LOW CLASS stand on level ground before the cross. All are sinners and all need the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. One of the Scriptures I have memorized in retirement is Psalm 36:5-9, a marvelously beautiful description of our great God who blesses BOTH HIGH CLASS AND LOW CLASS in one blessed family.
“Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the sky.
“Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep.
“O LORD, you preserve both man and beast. How priceless is your unfailing love.
“Both HIGH and LOW among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings.
“They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights.
“For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.”
Both the HIGH CLASS among my maternal ancestors, and the LOW CLASS among my father’s ancestors, feasted on the abundance of God’s house, and drank from the river of delights that flows from God. Both my maternal ancestors in the Lutheran, Reformed and French Huguenot churches, and my paternal ancestors in the Mennonite church had a vibrant testimony hundreds of years ago. What a rich heritage God has given to me.
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