Mennonite buggy in Rich Hill, Missouri. This week it is "Mennonites in the News"
By Kevin Williams
There's no Amish in Amish in the News this week, but that doesn't make this week's slate of stuff any less interesting. I should have renamed it Mennonites in the News this week.
MENNONITE CEMETERY PROBLEMS: SIGH, Mitchell County, Iowa administrators keep clashing with their Mennonite residents. The past couple of years they've been cracking down on Mennonite farmers using steel-wheeled farm equipment. Now the issues seems to be Mennonite cemeteries. Apparently the local Mennonites aren't complying with local regulations overseeing cemeteries. I gather from the article that there's nothing wrong with the cemetery per se, it's more the lack of proper paperwork being filed. Okay, the Mennonites should file the right paperwork, but, sheesh, it seems like Mitchell County supervisors have just been going out of their way to harass area Mennonites. Click here to read.
MENNONITES IN NEVADA: This is a superb article exploring a small Mennonite settlement in rural Nevada. I really, really like this article and encourage you to read it. Because it just really is rich in detail. The names of the Mennonites in the article are classic Amish-Mennonite (Grabers and Martins) but it also just illustrates the "spectrum" of Mennonites well...the most conservative Old Order Mennonites are horse and buggy and Plain, but then there are plenty of more progressive groups. This group isn't horse and buggy but they are Plain. Click here to read.
HUTTERITES IN MANITOBA: This is a SUPERB photo-essay that appeared in the New York Times over the weekend. Gosh, in some ways Hutterite life seems like the most perfect existence (no, I am not saying it is, and I'm not romanticizing it...I'm just saying seems)...there are no bills to pay, no keeping-up-with-the-Joneses, no cutthroat career advancement to worry about.....it's a communal existence where you sacrifice the individual for the good of the colony. Click here to see this superb 22-photo slideshow.
MENNONITES IN ARGENTINA: This is another superb photo essay, this depicting Old Order Mennonite life in Argentina. I wasn't even aware there was a Plain presence that far south in the Americas, but apparently around 1000 call Argentina home. It's just so fascinating to me to see these Plain customs in a Latin America setting. Click here to read the story and see the awesome
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