Rocky Cape Christian Community

Breaking land in the Cayo District, Belize, settled by radical Anabaptist groups during the 1960s and 70s.

Every so often I hear comments like, “You Anabaptists have it easy. You grew up surrounded by people following Christ, so everything just comes automatically for you.”

While I agree we had godly examples around us during our childhood, and that they taught us many good things, I must tell you that following Christ has never come automatically, or without a life and death struggle. For sure not if we choose to follow him in a radically all-or-nothing way.

For many years I have written about Anabaptists that lived long ago — what  they said, and how they stuck to the narrow way, no matter what it cost. This time round, to demonstrate how we must all “take the Kingdom of God with violence” (Matthew 11:12), how much tenacity, daring, and inner resolution it really takes (regardless of our backgrounds) to follow Christ and not turn back, I will write about real Anabaptists of our generation. Common people, like us, that broke out of the mould, losing all they had for Christ and his Kingdom on earth in our time. 

Where, if you went out looking for them, would you find such people? In church colleges or smoothly running institutions? In grand relief projects or popular Christian missions, publishing glossy newsletters to bring in the funds? More often than not, modern believers running nicely-organised programs, mission-minded churches highly visible to the world, least resemble the rough-and-tumble radicals that have kept Christ’s Kingdom community alive through two thousand years.

Real Christians have always done — and do — really surprising things, sometimes accomplishing awesome feats in the power of God, at other times miscalculating or making shocking blunders along the way. Forget about rocking the boat. Jesus’ followers persist in upsetting the boats of Christian denominations, over and over. Forget about keeping traditions or keeping a status quo. The only thing real Christians know how to keep, is how to keep Jesus always in view — a challenge that keeps life exciting, for themselves as for all with whom they have to do. And to be sure, without really radical Christians, the saving faith we profess would certainly have died out centuries ago.

To reassure you that Christians of this type have not gone extinct in our time, let me tell you about Junior Wanner’s Mom and Dad. . . .

One Anabaptist Family

Cruising about Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, with his friends, on long summer evenings, nothing seemed too serious for Harry Wanner. True, his parents, Daniel and Jennie Wanner, would not have liked for him to own or drive a car. Neither did they approve of his friends or what they did together. But not yet baptised — nor converted — Harry did not care. That is, he tried not to care.

Until the day he got his draft papers.

Suddenly, faced with the reality of fighting in Korea (dreadful reports still coming back of the slaughter at Pork Chop Hill), Harry’s outlook changed. He knew he could not serve in the army, dropping bombs on frightened villagers, or shoot another man. Even though he would not have admitted it among his friends, deep in his heart he feared God.

The letter from the Draft Board came on a Tuesday morning. That night after chores, Harry rushed over to David Horsts to see their daughter Grace. Startled, she nevertheless agreed to marry him, and on the fifth of June, 1954, they made their vows before a Justice of Peace. Harry was nineteen. Grace had also turned nineteen three months before.

As a married man, Harry stood a stronger chance of getting a military deferment, but how could he claim Conscientious Objector status without belonging to a Historic Peace Church (the Mennonites, the Quakers, the Dunkers or the Amish)? Even Harry’s parents had not belonged to any church for ten years, having left the Old Order Mennonites during World War II when Civilian Public Service and the buying of war bonds had caused disunity there. Talking it over, the newlyweds decided to sell their car, get a horse and buggy, and ask for baptism among the Stauffer Mennonites that met in an old meetinghouse on the Ephrata Pike, just out of Hinkletown, in Lancaster County. Grace’s parents belonged to this congregation and it seemed to make sense.

Pike Meetinghouse of the Stauffer Mennonites at Hinkletown, Pennsylvania.

A year later a son, Christian Wanner, joined the family. In another year, a boy they called Warren. The next year a daughter, Virginia, and the year following, in 1958, Harry Wanner Jr. With so many children in a short time both Harry and Grace earnestly sought the Lord and prayed for their spiritual welfare. Harry turned to reading Menno Simons and spoke with the ministers of the Pike congregation about his concerns. “Is it necessary that our young people get their own money when they turn sixteen, and spend so many wild years before they settle down?” he asked them. Rather than listen to his concerns, bishop Jacob Stauffer set the Wanners back (excommunicated them) in 1962, for their lack of submission.

What now?Almost a hundred years before Harry Wanner expressed his concern, a minister among the Stauffer Mennonites had asked the same things. Samuel Bowman, with a group of supporters, including the Rissler family, believed it unnecessary for young people to grow up “wild.” Where parents bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, he said, where fathers and sons, mothers and daughters work together in love, most young people will want to serve Christ and get baptised at an early age. In 1886, for the same reason, the Stauffers had put the Bowmans and Risslers out. For nearly a century, they had kept on meeting in their homes and by 1962 their little group consisted of only three families (all Risslers), with a few single girls.

Church at the Risslers

To their great joy, when Harry and Grace Wanner decided to join the Risslers, Harry’s parents joined too. The little group revived and ordained Harry to the ministry (after some trepidation about not being able to use the lot — he being the only eligible person in the group). Then, in search of cheaper land and better farming possibilities, Harry and Grace bought a farm in Snyder County, Pennsylvania, two hours drive to the north-west. His parents, Daniel and Jenny Wanner moved up too. Regular meetings continued with the Risslers, one Sunday a month in Snyder County and one a month in Lancaster — until Harry grew a beard.

In Snyder County, for the first time, Harry made friends with the Amish. Unlike the Amish of Lancaster County, these people seemed humble, down-to-earth and sincere. Earnestly trying to live out what they believed. Sam Troyer, the Amish man from whom the Wanners had bought their farm, became an especially good friend, often coming over in the evenings to speak about the Scriptures and hold challenging discussions.

One discussion involved the shaving of the beard. “Why should men shave off their beards?” Sam asked Harry, “Aren’t we satisfied with how God made us? Why should we want to look like women, like the popes in Rome, or like the Greeks who shaved themselves because of their immoral perversions?”

Harry could not answer, but when he let his beard grow, the Risslers stopped meeting with him. Once more the two Wanner families in Snyder County found themselves on their own. Sometimes they attended Amish meetings and enjoyed them. But the group that most appealed to them was led by a fellow-Mennonite, Titus B. Hoover, who had moved from Lancaster to Snyder County fifteen years earlier.

Titus and Fannie Hoover, with their large family, along with the Peter Peters family that had moved in from Laird (Waldheim), Saskatchewan, were meeting with a small group of members, in their homes. But when Harry realised they did not stand in good unity among themselves he stopped taking his family there.

A New Church in Snyder County

Many times the Wanners attended meetings with Noah Hoover, David Graber and Enoch Habegger, leaders of a fair-sized group in Snyder County — very earnest, spiritually-minded and eager to bring in converts. Like Harry, most of the people in the merged Hoover-Graber church (formerly united with Titus B. Hoover) had once owned cars and lived contemporary lives. Most of them, with names like Mazelin, Habegger, Graber, Amstutz, Steury, and Schrock, had come from a remarkable group that had lived in Lawrence County, Tennessee, earlier in Adams County, Indiana. With roots in Switzerland and still speaking the Emmentaler Swiss dialect, they had called themselves Amish Christians. Over the years they had lost their plain lifestyle, but now (during the 1950s) they had gotten rid of their cars, their electricity, and everything they felt had tied themselves to the world. Their women and girls had stopped cutting their hair and put on head coverings. Their men had grown beards and everyone wore simple home-made clothing again.

Unlike the Amish, families in Snyder County used open steel-tyred carriages for transportation.

In an attitude of deep repentance and spiritual renewal the Lord was doing great things among Noah Hoover and David Graber’s followers. Members came, day or night, confessing their sins and crying out to God for deliverance. The young people, even the children, had gotten deeply affected. Conversion followed conversion, and some that had previously gotten baptised in an unconverted state now asked for baptism again.

Russian Mennonites from Western Canada, Old Order Mennonite, Amish, and German Baptist people had moved into Snyder County from many localities to become part of the revival. Some from Ontario Canada (of the emerging Orthodox Mennonite community) had moved in and become influential, both in spiritual renewal and in a practical way. One day when Harry was at Abe Hoovers (a family from Canada, my uncle and aunt) the women were sewing blankets to give to the needy. Their sewing machine gave them much grief. Finally they went out to call Harry to see if he could fix it. But on re-entering the room, one of the girls exclaimed, “Ach, en Engel  (Oh, an angel)!” The rest could still see the curtain waving where he had flown out the window.

The sewing machine, miraculously, was fixed and did not cause trouble again.

In Harry and Grace’s lives, deep repentance, seeking for the Lord, and newfound trust in him, also bore immediate fruit. They started having family devotions and the first Scripture Harry read, making an indelible impression on his children’s minds, was “Tut Buße, das Himmelreich ist nahe herbeigekommen (Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand)!”

Only one thing — to the Wanners — seemed a bit inconsistent about the renewed church in Snyder County. Noah Hoover and David Graber recognised other churches as also being Christian. When converts, previously baptised on confession of faith, came in from the outside (and many had) Noah and David took them in without rebaptising them. Yet if anyone left to join another church, they would excommunicate them. “How can this be?” Harry wondered. “They recognise the baptism of others, yet they don’t recognise others as part of the Church of Christ.”

Harry was not the only person to ask this question. The issue of rebaptism, or true baptism (deciding who, if anyone, still had the true baptism, passed on generation after generation from the time of the Apostles) became the biggest challenge of the new church. On one hand, the Amish Christians believed themselves to stand in a direct line of Apostolic Succession. On the other hand the Lancaster County Mennonites (the Hoovers) believed themselves to have just as good, or better, a claim — as if it mattered. In their minds, the issue revolved more around whether a person truly followed Christ after baptism, regardless of who did the baptising or how.

In 1965, three years after getting themselves rebaptised, the families from Canada, Abe and Sarah Hoover, Daniel Bauman (both of them my uncles) and Josh and Magdalena Bauman moved with around a dozen families, including the Habeggers, Mazelins, Guenthers, Troyers, Schrocks, and the school teacher, Mabel Steury, to establish a radically “pure church” community at a place called Muddy Pond, Tennessee.

Those that stayed behind in Snyder County, including Harry and Grace Wanner (who never joined the group as members), settled down to a more peaceful existence. For a while.

The Church Re-Born

Two years after the Muddy Pond people left, they humbly sought forgiveness and became reconciled with the church in Snyder County. For the sake of peace they agreed to drop the “true baptism” issue, and some (David Grabers and John Troyers) moved back to Pennsylvania.

A year later an Amish family, Victor and Esther Stoll, moved into Pennsylvania from Allen County, Indiana. Hoping to find a conservative (horse and buggy driving) but spiritually-minded, evangelistic church community, keeping itself unspotted from the world, they felt a bit let-down by the reunited group under Noah Hoover and David Graber. Their compromise on baptism seemed somewhat less than the best. But in Harry and Grace Wanner the Stolls found earnest believers with a vision exactly like their own. What a joy for both families to find in one another just what they had been looking for!

The Wanners and Stolls began meeting in their homes. One thing led to the next until in deep conviction, “just like Conrad Grebel and Felix Manz,” they baptised one another and started all over again with the Christian Church. First Harry baptised Victor, then Victor baptised him, and they both proceeded with the baptism of Esther and Grace.

Things moved fast.

Eighteen years earlier, in 1951, Victor’s father, Albert Stoll (brother to Pete Stoll who settled in Honduras, and uncle to Elmo Stoll of the Christian communities), had moved from Michigan to St. Joe, Arkansas. Attracted by the writings of John W. Martin — a Mennonite writer and printer, who had left Lancaster County, moved to Mexico, joined the Amish, and eventually settled in Arkansas — the Stolls and the Martins had become closely linked, numerous pairs of their sons and daughters marrying one another. Now, after John W. Martin’s death from asthma, they had all moved to the Cayo District in British Honduras (Belize). “Pilgrimage Valley,” they called their new community.

Victor Stoll’s brother Harold, a minister at Pilgrimage Valley, found what he heard from Snyder County of special interest. Like the newly-baptised Stolls and Wanners he had longed for many years to see Christ’s great commission, his radical teachings on self-denial, and the joy of salvation through his blood, coming together in totally einfach (simple-living) church community. In view of the general apostasy among modern Anabaptists he had also wondered if it wasn’t about time to start altogether from the beginning once more.

Right after they got Harold’s encouraging letter, Victor Stoll and Harry Wanner travelled by bus all the way through Mexico (Matamoros and Veracruz) to British Honduras. How utterly unlike Pennsylania everything appeared! But their joy at finding unity and kindred spirits among a few of the families at Pilgrimage Valley (Harold and Bill Stolls) far outshone any hardships the long trip entailed. More baptisms took place, and the families from Pennsylvania made plans to move as soon as possible.

Pilgrimage Valley

Harry and Grace, who by now had thirteen children, sold their farm and packed their belongings into crates (filling up the cracks with seed grain) to ship from Newark, New Jersey, to Belize City. The Jerry Troyer family, already living in British Honduras but up for a visit, travelled down with them in an old school bus, driven by Harold Horst and Roy Zeiset. Christian, the oldest of the children had turned fourteen. Next came Warren, then Virginia (already a big help to Grace), Harry Jr., Kathy, Edward, Philip, Darlene, Timothy, Daniel, Rosanna, Grace, and the baby Mary, not quite six months old.

On leaving, they stopped in at Lancaster County for tearful good-byes at Grace’s parents’ place, David and Annie (Stauffer) Horst. Grandma Horst, who loved the children and to whose house they had always eagerly come, individually gave every one of them a little gift to remember her by. Grandma found it especially hard to see her daughter, Grace, setting out on such a long trip, knowing how she suffered from car-sickness. But the time for parting came, and the bus pulled out the lane, leaving Pennsylvania like Abraham had once left Ur in the land of the Chaldees.

The long trip to Central America, stopping at numerous places along the way, crossing the border and following the Gulf Coast of Mexico, filled the little ones’ eyes with wonder. Sea mist rolling in through palm trees along the coastal plain. Thatched-roofed villages among expanses of sugar cane, flat and green, beneath the shimmering snow-crowned peak of Citlaltépetl.

Vendors in shaded stands along the road sold bananas and the Wanners found plenty of fresh fruit to go with the meals Grace and Virginia prepared from “bent and dent” cans they had brought along.

Crossing the Rio Hondo into British Honduras the children noted a marked contrast at once. Crudely hand-painted road signs greeted them, indeed, in English. But the villages, if anything, looked even more like something out of Jungle Doctor than the ones in Mexico. Especially since the children playing under breadfruit trees and giant blooming hibiscus were black. Lurching southward through pot holes and bus-sized puddles on the white caliche road, dodging pigs and chickens, everyone, on arrival was exhausted. And hungry.

But the special treat, papaya ice-cream, served by the welcoming families of the Pilgrimage Valley Community, tasted so unusual the children did not know if they could eat it. Edward’s ninth birthday, 20 November 1969—the day of their arrival in British Honduras would forever be engraved upon their minds.

The house on the farm the Wanners had purchased, stood on stilts, with a little kitchen off to the side. Chickens ran about beneath it, and clusters of banana plants, some already drooping heavy with fruit, stood around the outside. In the days following, Harry and the boys eagerly set to work on the land, planted in pineapples, while Grace and the girls unpacked as best as they could in the tiny house with all the little ones. The house had one main room and two bedrooms — not much sleeping space for seven boys and six girls.

Two weeks after their arrival, Grace and the children worked in the garden when a messenger came in with a letter. A letter from North America! Eagerly opening it, Grace’s eyes flew open, when a lock of hair fell out of a note written to comfort her. What could it mean? Only the next letter, that had travelled more slowly than the first, explained how Grandma Horst had died suddenly after their departure — one day, in fact, after their arrival in Central America. Grace cried, but had to get over it quickly. So much to do! So many lesser sorrows to attend to, and joys to share with the little ones around her day after day.

The atmosphere at Pilgrimage Valley, the Wanners soon learned, was one of living expectation for the downfall of Western society, for Jesus’ return and redemption through his blood. That Jesus would soon snatch his bride — prepared and kept shining pure — out of this sinful world to him, everyone earnestly believed. And under the fiery preaching of the Stoll brothers, Victor and Harold (Harold serving as bishop), who could have doubted that the new church at Pilgrimage Valley was indeed the surviving remnant of Jesus’ Church in 1969? Harry Wanner also preached to the little group, Victor and Esther Stoll with their family, Harold and Mary Stoll with theirs, Bill and Sally (Martin) Stoll and the Wanner tribe, barefooted but dressed in clean everyday clothes, that met in one another’s homes, and visitors began to show up from far and near.

Daniel Bauman from Canada, who had taken part in the move to Muddy Pond, got rebaptised (for the fourth time) among the renewed Church in Pilgrimage Valley. Other visitors arrived from North America, but the biggest number, every Lord’s Day morning, came from scattered farms and villages around them.

Eager, smiling, attentive to the lively preaching, even though their understanding of English stayed minimal, Belizean farmers and their families came week after week, from 25 to 30 or more people, every time.

Harry and Grace, with their children, found quick and wonderful rapport with the Belizeans (British Honduras changed its name to Belize in 1973). Working with hand tools in pineapple fields and gardens, they found togetherness with their neighbours in a way they had never known. Sitting on one another’s verandas on tropical evenings when night birds called and the fireflies came out, they shared what they had, both material or spiritual, one as easily as the other. Fruits in ready abundance. Help where needed. Kerosene for lamps that dimly glowed in open-walled kitchens under palm thatch, after dark. Words of comfort and direction from the Word of God.

When Juan, one of the neighbours, needed a way to take his produce to town, Harry made a wooden cart for his horse. Juan’s double-grip handclasp, his tears of gratitude more than paid the effort.

Nevertheless, all the Wanners were startled when a young father, Rafael, brought his sick child for them to attend. Having no money or transportation, far from whatever medical attention the baby could have received, he felt it his only hope. Grace did what she could. But the baby died within days, and the parents gratefully buried it in a wooden casket Harry made.

Pilgrimage Valley — what a great opportunity to serve Jesus and build on earth a model of the Kingdom of Heaven! But to keep all the Wanner children decently clothed and fed, during the pioneer stage, did not prove so easy. In the summer of 1970 Harry and Grace hired two Belizean drivers to take them north in the old school-bus to pick tomatoes and apples as migrant labourers on Pennsylvania farms.

To America and Back Again

The Belizean drivers, on entry into the United States, drew back in terror. Such busy highways, and fast driving! One refused to go any faster than 35 mph on unfamiliar highways. By the time they got to San Antonio, Texas, both had given up and returned home. Harry called a former neighbour, Gene Nace from Snyder County (once a member of the Hoover-Graber group, now with the Holdeman Mennonites), who flew down to bring the bus the rest of the way home.

After a busy and profitable summer — during which Harry and Grace’s oldest son, Christian, found the Lord, they cheerfully returned to Central America, eager to continue with the new friends they had made. But things did not continue as they had begun. Paul Lavy, a minister from Mammoth Springs, Arkansas (who later established a church community near Lobelville, Tennessee), had been seeking fellowship with the new group in Pilgrimage Valley. But a misunderstanding regarding one of his letters (a letter Harry had received but failed to share with the rest) led to disunity and disappointment among the believers.

The first they knew, Harry and Grace found themselves once more outside the fellowship. They thanked the Lord, however, that those of the old group in Pilgrimage Valley lived nearby. In an open-walled palm thatched meetinghouse just down the road the Jerry and Joe Troyer families, old Albert Stolls, David Martins, John W. Martin's widow, Fannie, with her children, and Chris Millers met to worship. Harold and Orpha Kratzer, with their family, moved in a little later. Some distance to the east John Shirks and Titus Martins had settled with some Plattdeutsch-speaking families from the Shipyard and Spanish Lookout Mennonite colonies. Right next to the Wanners lived Joe and Mary Ellen Miller from Hartville, Ohio, with their eight children, and with them, the Wanners became fast friends.

The Millers loved to sing. So did their children, and meetings with them, if anything, were even more joyous and meaningful than before — albeit with their focus slightly changed. The more Harry talked with Joe, the more the idea of starting all over again with the Church of Christ — establishing an “only Church” — did not seem like such a good one. Yet in the hearts of both the Wanners and the Millers the longing for a spiritually-minded fellowship, truly separated from the world, reaching out to the lost, had grown stronger than ever. “Why not go back to Pennsylvania and join the group under Noah Hoover and David Graber?” they finally asked one another. Plans soon took shape and with another driver (Ervin Stoll) the old bus set out, rattling and lurching on white dirt roads to the north again.

Change of Plans

Reaching the Mexican border at the Río Hondo Harry dug about in his bag for the bus registration papers. What? Why should they not lie in their place with the rest? Everyone grew quiet as the search went on.

Grace shook her head, “They’re not here.”
 

Nothing left to do but for everyone to sit at the border in the sweltering heat, waiting, while Harry paid a Belizean with a small vehicle to race back with him to Pilgrimage Valley and look for them. Stepping into their abandoned house he found two things. The bus papers plus a letter from Daniel Byers, a River Brethren friend from Franklin County, Pennsylvania.

Several years earlier the Daniel Byers family, who had tried living in Snyder County (where they came to know the Wanners), had rented a farm and moved to Campbellsburg, Indiana. There she had turned sick, things had not gone well on the farm, and in the letter Harry now held in his hands, the Byers pled with him to come and visit them, at least, on their way north.

Harry and Grace could not refuse. How would the Lord bless their further plans if they left the Byers, in distress? So, after a little conference at the Santa Elena border crossing into Mexico, they decided to go first to Indiana.

That was as far as they got.

The Wanners found the Byers in unhandy circumstances indeed. But what they had not bargained for was how much they would like the Campbellsburg area themselves. Level farms between wooded ranges of hills, 120 miles south of Indianapolis, toward Nashville, Tennessee. Almost before they knew what was happening, they had made arrangements for the Byers to live in a rented house nearby and by March, 1971, the Wanners took over the job on the dairy farm themselves.

Church at Salem

All of the Wanners enjoyed their peaceful new life at Campbellsburg, near Salem, Indiana. Joe and Mary Ellen Miller with their family also moved in from Pilgrimage Valley, even though they had hoped to join the group in Snyder County, Pennsylvania. Once more the Wanners and their friends set out joyfully, with good hopes, to build a model on earth of the Kingdom of Heaven. A church detached from the world as far as possible (farming with horse-drawn equipment, living without electricity), yet spiritually-minded, evangelistic, actively involving its children and young people until they caught the vision on their own.

Everything appeared to work well. Both Harry and Joe preached to a growing community. That first summer they baptised the three oldest Wanners — Christian, Warren and Virginia — who had found the Lord and thrown themselves into the cause. Christian, at sixteen, took on the job of teaching school and did well.

What is more, with the idea of “one true church” left to the side, the prospects for wider fellowship seemed good. From Snyder County and Muddy Pond, the Wanners heard, a number of families (Troyers, Shrocks, Mazelins and eventually David Graber himself) had moved to Moore County, Tennessee. There they had found a very earnest, simple-living fellowship, founded by non-conference and Wissler Mennonites from South Carolina and Ohio. Very plain, yet driving cars and with electricity in their homes.

For some time the little group at Salem considered unity with the new church in Tennessee (Altamont and Lynchburg) and Harry, who still remembered how to drive a car from his unconverted days, arranged to buy a truck from Roger Hess, a neighbour. Setting out on his bicycle to fetch it, however, he could not complete his mission. In his heart he felt the Lord speaking to him, “Like this, I cannot use you.” So he turned around and came home on his bicycle, leaving the motor vehicle behind.

Punxsutawney

Determined to find more fellowship in Christ, the families at Salem heard of an interesting Amish group at Punxsutawney, in west-central Pennyslvania. Committed to radical Nachfolge (following Jesus) these people, led by Nicky Stoltzfus, Joe Eicher, and Gerald Hochstetler (later of Cookeville, Tennessee) had settled on small farms among the Allegheny Mountains. Living simply, but witnessing boldly, they had attracted a variety of people into their circle, including the Leo Schrock family, former sleeping-preacher Mennonites from Buffalo, Missouri.

On a trip east, Harry Wanner and Joe Miller found the fellowship at Punxsutawney so intriguing they decided at once to bring their families and live there. With the brothers Leo Schrock and Ed Schlabach Harry felt an especially close bond in the Spirit. But right before Harry and Joe left for home these two confided they were not planning on staying at Punxsutawney. They felt uncertain about the direction of the church there.

In a sudden switch of affairs, Harry and Joe dropped their plans to move east. The Schrocks, Schlabachs and other families (including Nicky Stoltzfus himself) moved west instead, all settling at Salem, Indiana, in 1973.

The Honduras Connection

Still seeking fellowship, Harry Wanner and the church at Salem contacted a minister, Ira Headings, with a small group of followers in South Carolina. But they developed their strongest bond with a group of zealous Amish missionary families at Guaimaca, in Honduras, Central America. Ed Schlabach’s brother-in-law, Monroe Hochstetler, served as bishop there, and visits back and forth convinced both sides they had discovered kindred spirits on the Pilgrim Way.

On the first of January, 1974, Monroe Hochstetler from Honduras assisted in a baptismal meeting at Salem, and from that point onward the church grew rapidly. Families moved in from Ohio, from Maryland, and from Central America. From all directions they came to join a truly awakened spiritually-minded Anabaptist community, holding to the narrow way.

Only that way did not stay narrow enough for some — the Schrocks and the Wickys — that chose to leave for Mansfield, Kentucky. Joe and Mary Ellen Miller, long-time friends of the Wanners, also left the church at Salem to join a radical, partially itinerant, fellowship with Daniel Bauman from Canada, whom they had known in Pilgrimage Valley.

During this time at Salem, the Lord allowed Harry and Grace Wanner to experience their last and greatest earthly trial together. On 20 April, 1976, their seventeenth child, a son they named Jason, joined the family. Unlike the rest, this birth brought dreadful complications. Even though an ambulance rushed Grace to the hospital she did not survive. So with seven girls and ten boys, the oldest twenty, the youngest newborn, Harry faced an uncertain future.

A year later, at a wedding in Ohio, he met a kind single sister, Mattie Troyer. The older children thought she would make a wonderful mother, and she did. After their marriage she lovingly assumed responsibility for the little ones, and the Lord blessed Harry and Mattie’s marriage with five more, bringing the total of Wanner children to twenty-two.

Church at Le Roy, Michigan

In twelve years the church at Salem, Indiana, had flourished and matured. Many families had joined and thanks to the Spirit’s work among them, the Gospel earnestly presented meeting after meeting, many young souls had found peace with God. Yet challenges remained. Harry Wanner, while he appreciated the church’s radical separation from the world, wished for more English preaching so he could bring the neighbours in. (New arrivals had largely come from solid German communities.) True, a few “outsiders” kept showing interest, but Harry longed to throw open the doors for many more.

Along with this, the old “true baptism”/rebaptism question resurfaced — only this time in a slightly different guise. One sister, on joining the church at Salem, requested rebaptism, as she had not been converted, she said, when previously baptised among the Amish. Some did not think it necessary. Harry felt it important.

Differences grew until 1981 when Harry, with his married son Warren, took a scouting trip to Michigan where they bought farms near Le Roy, in the rolling farmland of the central part of the state. Eric and Leah Kraly with their family, Edward and Junior Wanners, Alfred Gingerichs, Ernest  and Virginia (Wanner) Helmuth, with a steadily-growing number of other families followed.

An enlightened church, sold out to Christ, eagerly evangelistic, yet holding to the narrow way, the new group at Le Roy promptly attracted seekers of all kinds. Joe and Susie (Martin) Troyer, formerly from Pilgrimage Valley, now living in Tennessee, sold their car and joined. So did contacts from near and far, both individuals and families, some of Anabaptist background, with a remarkable number straight from “the world.”

Under Harry Wanner’s guidance the church at Le Roy built itself a meetinghouse and put out a sign to welcome visitors. Junior Wanner and Mahlon Byler began an evangelistic paper, The Midnight Cry. With preaching in English, evening meetings, and with Urie Shetler a well-known Mennonite evangelist holding a week of revival meetings — to which all the members came trotting in with horses and carriages — the neighbourhood could not fail but take note of the Lord’s work in their midst.

At the same time, Harry continued his search for like-minded brothers and sisters in the Lord, on fire for the Kingdom of Heaven. In particular he looked for a mature brother to help out with baptisms, church councils and communions. For a while he corresponded with John Sherk, bishop of the Orthodox Mennonites at Gorrie, Ontario, Canada. But when they had too many questions about how the church at Le Roy planned to keep house, he turned to Mose Miller, bishop of Peniel Christian Fellowship, a spiritually-minded car-driving group in Holmes County, Ohio.

After this, many more baptisms (and rebaptisms) took place at Le Roy, while the church’s influence spread.

Revival among the Amish
 

Five years after the church at Le Roy got started, word came of a spiritual breakthrough among the Amish of Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Seven families, Kauffmans, Lapps, Bylers and Eshes found new life in Christ. A minister, Melvin Kauffman, with his brother Leroy and family, along with David Lapps, moved to Michigan and joined the Le Roy church. The Eshes (who recently got killed in a bad accident in Kentucky) moved to North Carolina.

A year later, in 1987, another wave of renewal hit the Amish community in Snyder County, Pennsylvania. Some of the Amish, including preacher Amos Troyer and deacon Danny Troyer welcomed it. Others did not and opposed it. A committee, including bishop Elmo Stoll from Canada, came in and put the renewal-minded families into the ban. Harry Wanner, still a close friend of the Troyers (from whom he and Grace had bought their farm twenty years earlier) responded to their call for help and spent six months teaching and counselling in Snyder County.

With three families from Franklin County (Emanuel Lapps, Sam and Joe Bylers) the Troyers from Snyder County eventually founded a new community at Ghent, Kentucky. Joe Tindall, an eager convert from Bedford, Pennsylvania, joined them. For a while they worked with a congregation under bishop Robert Bates at Mt. Hermon, Kentucky. Then some moved to Hestand, Kentucky, under the direction of Simon Beachy from Lobelville (Cane Creek), Tennessee, while the rest, with Denny Kenaston’s help, joined Charity Christian Fellowship.

Stirrings at Home

While Harry Wanner (ordained bishop in 1990 by Mose Miller from Peniel Fellowship) travelled and worked among the awakened Amish, other influences, not so welcome, affected his home church at Le Roy, Michigan.

Some time after Harry’s son Timothy married a young convert from Chicago, the two of them simply disappeared, leaving nothing but a note explaining why they had gone. Although the family learned of their whereabouts later, their situation did not improve. The young woman left him and married another. Timothy, by now in an Evangelical setting, eventually did the same, bringing his aging father an exceptionally keenly-felt grief. Was this the price of doing mission work among the world?

Another convert at Le Roy, Dan Loudon, from a charismatic background, became fast friends of Harry’s son Edward, married and living nearby. Over and over Dan kept talking to Edward about the “deeper life” God would give him if he asked for it. “There is more,” Dan kept telling him. “Greater victory over sin, more love for souls. . . .” If only Edward would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and start speaking in tongues.

One night while out cooking maple syrup together, Edward finally knelt and Dan laid hands on him, praying for him to receive the gift. Nothing happened. But when Edward walked out, looking up to the stars on the cold spring night it suddenly came, with a rush. He could speak in tongues, and his relationship with the church began to deteriorate. Things moved quickly, and before long Edward served as pastor of a charismatic church in nearby Reed City, Michigan.

Because of the rapid growth of the church at Le Roy, the believers had started a new community at Manton, Michigan, also a farming area, fifty miles to the north. The ministers Alfred Gingerich and Melvin Kauffman moved up with David Lapps, Philip Wanners, Thomas and Grace (Wanner) Gingerich. A convert family, Richard Suttons, and others followed.

Things progressed normally until David Lapps expressed a desire to take part in a mission to Poland, under the direction of Peniel Fellowship in Ohio. This brought earnest questions of lifestyle, fellowship, and direction into sharp focus. The churches at Le Roy and Manton continued as horse-and-buggy-driving radically non-conformed fellowships. The people at Peniel drove cars and seemed to be accommodating themselves more and more to fast-flowing American culture. Which of the two would become the way of the believers in Michigan?

Some had thought this way. Others had thought that way. At a memorable meeting in November, 1994, everyone shared what they had in mind and sadly, but realistically, concluded, like Paul and Barnabas, that they needed to go their separate ways. David Lapp went off to establish a new Charity-type fellowship at Bear Lake, Michigan. Melvin Kauffmans moved to Bainbridge and eventually Philadelphia, New York. Leroy Kauffmans, John Schmuckers and Joe P. Millers moved to Yanceyville, North Carolina. Mahlon Bylers and Richard Suttons moved to Perkins, Oklahoma. Earlier, the Nicky Stoltzfus, Eric Kraly and Joe Troyer families had already moved to Scottsville, Kentucky (the group originally led by Noah Hoover and David Graber in Snyder County, Pennsylvania). The families that remained at Manton chose to fellowship with the Christian communities led by Elmo Stoll. Six of Harry Wanner’s married children moved to Tennessee, where the oldest, Christian, had lived for some time. One son, Daniel Wanner, moved with his family to North Carolina. A number of families (including another four pairs of Harry’s children) joined the Michigan Amish, while the rest of the families scattered.

Once again, at sixty years of age, with the last of his twenty-two children still going to school, Harry Wanner found himself alone.

Perplexed but not Cast Down

After the collapse of the church at Le Roy, Harry learned of the Dan Schrock family from Albion, New York, in somewhat similar circumstances. With Dan, he travelled to Wisconsin on a scouting trip and the two men bought farms. At brief intervals the vision of a spiritually-minded, evangelistic church, keeping to the narrow way, resurfaced. But working with the Schrocks did not go well. Harry and Mattie’s children, still at home, needed fellowship. Finally, invited by an old friend, Eli Mast, the Wanners moved into the Cane Creek community at Lobelville, Tennessee.

"Believers in Christ," the people at Cane Creek, under Lewis Beachy’s leadership, had come to call themselves. Established in the early 1970s by minister Paul Lavy from Mammoth Springs, Arkansas, this group had grown into a sizeable fellowship, zealous for the Lord, keeping to the narrow way without explicit rules or high-handed church administration. Driving horses and carriages, but also owning a few vehicles for community use, the group of over forty families welcomed converts from the outside and boldly proclaimed the Way of Christ in Elvis Presley’s Tennessee.

For a number of years the Wanners lived and worked with the Believers in Christ at Cane Creek (neighbours to Michael and Debbie Pearl). But in his heart, Harry could not find his place among them, or feel assured the Lord wanted him there. In 2006, he and Mattie with their youngest daughter Martha, moved into an extra house on Joe Troyer’s place at Holland, Kentucky.

Joe and Susie Troyer (she being printer John W. Martin’s daughter), who like them had lived in Pilgrimage Valley, Belize. After leaving Le Roy, Michigan, and moving to Scottsville, Kentucky, they had founded the Holland community in fellowship with Elmo Stoll and his community at Cookeville, Tennessee. Now they were back in fellowship with the group under David Hoover and Harry Habegger (the original Hoover-Graber group) that had moved from Snyder County, Pennsylvania, to Kentucky, in 1978.

Thirty-five years, exactly, since the Wanners had left Belize to join that group, but gotten side-tracked along the way. Thirty-five years, numberless adventures later, and who knows, they may not yet be over.

Harry and Mattie, still in reasonable health, continue to live at Holland, Kentucky, today. Still zealous for the Lord, eager to visit with all in whom the light of Christ’s Kingdom burns, he now has more time than ever to read the Scriptures, the early writings with which he started his pilgrim journey, and to pray.

Because the Wanners belong to a church fellowship without personal telephones, electricity, or motor vehicles (no combustion engines of any sort), they do not travel much. But they love to read the letters of their children, all of them listed below, their grand-children, and a growing multitude of great-grandchildren. A vast body of descendants, nearly all of whom fear and love the Lord. 

1. Christian Wanner lives with his wife Regina (Gottschall) and family at Woodbury, Tennessee, where he leads a small fellowship.

2. Warren and Barbara Wanner (he was ordained minister at Le Roy, Michigan) live with their family at Lewisburg, Tennessee. They belong to the conservative Mennonite Church of Tennessee (Altamont and Lynchburg).

3. Virginia and her husband Ernest Helmuth live with their family at Flemingsburg, Kentucky — Mount Carmel Christian Fellowship (Beachy Amish). They have served as missionaries in Honduras, and a book, Whisper of Wings, was written about them.

4. Harry Wanner Jr. and his wife Mary Anne, live at Marion, Michigan, with their family. They belong to the Amish.

5. Kathy and Henry Yoder live at Beaver Springs, Pennsylvania, where they belong to Shade Mountain Christian Fellowship (Beachy Amish).

6. Edward and Darlene Wanner live with their family at Reed City, Michigan.

7. Philip and Ada Wanner, with their family, live at Rock Springs, Tennessee, and belong to the Tennessee Mennonite Churches.

8. Darlene and Edward Gingerich live at Manton, Michigan, with their family. They belong to the Amish.

9. Timothy lives in Reed City, Michigan.

10. Daniel and Naomi Wanner also live at Rock Springs, where he is a minister among the Tennessee Churches.

11. Rosanna, married to Mark Hershberger, also lives at Rock Springs, Tennessee, with her family, members of the conservative (Tennessee) Mennonite church.

12. Grace, married to Thomas Gingerich lives at Manton, Michigan, with her family. They are with the Amish.

13. Mary, the baby when the Wanners moved to Belize, married Joseph Gingerich. They also live at Manton, Michigan, with their family and belong to the Amish.

14. David and Catherine Wanner, live at Altamont, Tennessee, with their family and belong to the conservative (Tennessee) Mennonite Church.

15. Faith married David Keeney and lives with her family at Grandin, Missouri, where they belong to the Nationwide Fellowship conservative Mennonites.

16. Steven and Emilia (Child) Wanner live with their family at Altamont, Tennessee, where he is a deacon in the conservative (Tennessee) Mennonite Church.

17. Jason and Ruth Wanner live with their family at Conneautville, Pennsylvania and belong to the New Order Amish.

18. Nancy with her husband Timothy Wise and family live in Rock Springs, Tennessee and belong to the conservative (Tennessee) Mennonite Church.

19. Martha lives with her parents at Holland, Kentucky. She is a member of the Mt. Olive conservative Mennonite Church, nearby.

20. James and Adrienne Wanner live in the Cane Creek community at Lobelville, Tennessee. They are members of the Believers in Christ.

21. Joseph Wanner married Melissa Dodi (sister to Adrienne) at Cane Creek, this past Sunday, 16 May 2010. They belong to the Believers in Christ.

22. Matthew and Leah Wanner also live at Cane Creek, Lobelville, Tennessee, members of the Believers in Christ.

Many years have passed since the Wanners and our family moved in the same circles. Two weeks ago when I called Harry Wanner Jr.’s place at Marion, Michigan (Junior being about my age), a young boy answered the phone. He sounded a bit breathless, as if he had come running from a distance (being Amish, they have the phone out the end of the lane), but he was polite, somewhat inquisitive, and friendly. I guessed him about the age of my fifteen-year-old son, Justin, and later learned I was correct. When I asked him his name he told me his parents also called him Harry — Harry Wanner III.

Quite a name to live up to.

May the Lord Jesus be your light and strength, Harry Jr.’s Junior, for the next lap of the race. And may he bless you, Harry Sr., with the courage to finish triumphantly what you began in faith and followed through, in the face of great adversities and challenges, for well over fifty years.

Even though you may not know it, or understand how it could be true, by your vision and faithful example, by what you dared and did and discovered along the way, you are helping us build a new church community at Rocky Cape in Tasmania.

Thank you,

Peter Hoover

P.S. Thanks also to all members of the Wanner family that contributed to this story. In some cases you did not remember all facts and dates alike, so I went by majority opinion. If anyone else reading this letter has further corrections to make, please let me know. This is a story worth recording accurately.

Rocky Cape Christian Community
19509 Bass Highway
Detention River, Tasmania 7321
Australia
www.thecommonlife.com.au