In the fall of 2017, I saw a Mennonite family at the Hampton Fall Harvest Festival. I went up to the woman and introduced myself. She told me her family was buying a home in Hampton. I told her I looked forward to getting to know her. In the spring of 2018, I was in my flower garden and looked up the driveway to see a woman in a dress that went to the ground and a small white hat that tied under the chin. She was walking a Jack Russell terrier. I ran up to her and asked if she would let me show her my garden. She assented and came down the driveway. When I asked her what her husband did, she said construction, but he used to do landscaping. I asked if I could hire him to edge my garden and put mulch on it, since I had just had shoulder surgery. She said she would speak to him. Later I contacted him, and we set a date. Lo and behold, not only did he show up, but his wife did too, and her parents who were visiting from out of state. When lunch time came, I suggested that they come in for lunch. The men kept working, but the women went home and came back with cookies (Mennonite cookies are yummy), carrot sticks, and peanut butter dip (healthy and yummy). I asked the women to strip my left-over chicken for me so we could have chicken sandwiches, because it hurt my shoulder too much to do that. They cheerfully did that, and we all ate, and the men went back to work.
Eight Mennonite families have moved to Hampton. Two more are committed to come here. The Mennonites rent the basement of the Hampton Town Hall to hold church services on Sunday morning and to hold school for their children during the week. One married couple and one single lady teach children in the school. Mennonites are Anabaptists, which means they do not practice infant or young child baptism. To them the act of baptism requires someone mature enough to understand the difference between good and bad and old enough to have self-knowledge that he has sinned and wants God to forgive him. He is repenting. You cannot join the Mennonite church until you are baptized. A Bible passage supporting this comes from Mark 1: 4-8.
Many of us have seen Amish families. There are Amish colonies in many states. My grandparents raised me, and my early years were in a suburb of Philadelphia. On weekends we drove to Lancaster and went to Amish food stands. My grandparents bought, directly from Amish farms, fresh vegetables, fruit, homemade egg noodles and pies (pies are good for you!). The Amish and the Mennonites differ in dress and habits. In getting ready to do this first article on Mennonites I discovered that there is an entire spectrum of different types of Amish and different types of Mennonites. Of the eight Mennonite families that are here in Hampton, some of the heads of household were born and raised Amish, and some were born and raised Mennonites. This Hampton Mennonite Church is the type known as Beachy, after Moses Beachy.
The old order Amish use a horse to plow. No tractor, no electricity, no cars are allowed to members, although if you want to hire old order Amish to build you a barn, they are allowed to hire someone to drive them in a car to a bus station or train station to get to where you live. The new order Amish allow tractors. Old order Mennonites use tractors with steel wheels, electricity, and horse and buggy (no cars). The Hampton Mennonites use cars, computers, phones, cameras, tractors, but no television and no radio because TV and radio are seen as showing a way of living that is sinful and inappropriate for believers (the conflict between Jesus’ kingdom and the kingdom of this world). Amish and Mennonites are non-resistant.
The current minister of the Hampton Mennonite Church is Jonas Lapp. He explained that ministers do not get paid, do not go to a seminary. Mennonites study Scripture and get chosen for ordination by a combined method of the congregation voting, then the use of lot. Both men and women vote, but only a man can be minister. The vote is by lot. Candidates who receive a pre-determined minimum number of votes choose a book, and the one who chooses the book that has a slip of paper in it is ordained. The one chosen by lot is then ordained by prayer while laying on of hands by other leaders. The use of the lot is found in the book of Acts. While there are no term limits, someone from within the congregation will eventually succeed him as a minister. They plan to ordain another minister within a year to form a leadership team. They will eventually have a team of three or more ministers.
Four churches in Lancaster, Pennsylvania are helping support the Hampton Mennonite school and Choice Books up here. Stop and Shop in Willimantic have some Choice Books, and the congregation is renting book storage for Choice Books in Pomfret. Choice Books are inspirational, wholesome reading materials. To learn more about Beachy Mennonites see beachyam.org on your computer.
The Hampton Mennonite Church has services every Sunday at 10 AM. The services last two hours. On most Sundays the service is followed with lunch to which people bring food from home. I have attended some services and found them meaningful (and the food yummy!). The feeling of fellowship is excellent, and the services have non-members attending plus visitors from other Mennonite congregations. A recent service I attended had a Mennonite family from Wisconsin, one from Massachusetts, and one from Pennsylvania.
Angela Hawkins Fichter
The Gazette extends a warm welcome to the Mennonite community. How good it is to hear children’s laughter again in the building which schooled some of us, to see the baseball fields utilized as they once were, to have the Congregational Church fill with the spiritual music of their concerts, and our community events fill with our new neighbors and their gentle, and generous, presence.