by J. F. Krause
The kids, including Chanelle, but not Dinah who will be staying with Lydia, want to come, too, and that means Kevin will have to take some time away from his job in the middle of all these births, but Dr. Mary says it won’t be a problem. I was a little anxious about going off to Paraguay’s hinterland, but April tells me it is a very settled area. We’re going to be spending time in Asuncion before flying by a smaller plane to the Mennonite community of Filadelfia where we’ll have a meeting with the whole group. It should be interesting.
One other thing of interest is the number of weddings we’re having here in SLO. To be sure, there are more births than marriages, but Lydia assures me that the weddings will catch up to the births before too long. It seems to be the American way for parents to marry. That isn’t the case everywhere, though. There are very few marriages taking place in some of the European communities. There are just as many babies being born, just not the marriages. The Swedish rep to the Coalition told me that even before The Sickness, about half the babies born in Scandinavia were born to unmarried couples. It didn’t make their homes any less secure and loving, it was just that marriage just wasn’t something they entered into the way Americans did. We’ve pretty much borrowed the Scandinavian approach to sex education so maybe that will become a more common attitude here in SLO as well.
Irma and Carl are an old married couple by our standards. Avery and Dr. Mary were married in November, and Lydia and Marco are planning on marrying in April. I’ve already been asked by the TV news program if they can televise Kevin’s and my wedding, but we aren’t even engaged! I never thought I would be married to anyone, and the very thought of being married to another man seems a little weird, even if it’s to Kevin whom I love more than I thought possible. Besides, who asks whom? Which one of us wears white? What do we do with the bouquet? Who gets given away? It’s a puzzle, especially if you haven’t spent a lifetime dreaming about it. What if I ask and Kevin suddenly turns Scandinavian about it and doesn’t want to get married?
January 22
We got through the anniversary, and here in SLO we didn’t have any suicides, but across the Coalition, there were eight. Only the most essential work was done and we held a very quiet candlelight service at the basketball stadium. I gave a short speech. There’s no way to prepare for something like this. As I was finishing up, I suddenly felt completely deflated, and I just wept. Kevin said that there was silence in the crowd as I did that, and it looked like almost everyone did the same thing. After a moments I asked them to be kind to themselves and to each other. Then I sang the first phrase of Dona Nobis Pacem. I don’t have a particularly pretty voice, but I sing in tune and all I had to remember was to start the song not too high and not too low. After a couple of words, lots of people joined in, and we did all three segments. Then I sat down. Lydia spoke for a couple of minutes and we adjourned to go our own ways.
Tomorrow, we leave for Filadelfia.
February 4
We got back from South America a couple of days ago. Our journey started out when we left LAX for Atlanta where we changed planes for the trip to Buenos Aires, a flight that was much easier than I expected. In Atlanta, we were met by the Atlanta Leadership Team at the Airport, and for the first time, I met someone I knew before The Sickness. Dr. Jerome Chartier was one of my European History professors back in college. Dr. Chartier is still teaching at the reconstituted university there in Atlanta. His campus has changed, but he’s still doing what he enjoyed before. I liked him as a teacher and experienced a thrill seeing a familiar face. After all, it was only a few years ago that I sat in one of his classes. He was nice enough to say he remembered me, but I don’t mind if he didn’t. It was just such a nice and different feeling to see him there to greet me.
We had dinner and visited about his life before and now. He’s not as old as I remember so one of us has changed in the last couple or so years. This trip is about Filadelfia, not Atlanta, and I’m just a bit nervous. I can’t imagine that a room full of Mennonites won’t have problems with the ‘leader’ of the Coalition being gay.
All in all, we spent the better part of a day and one night in Buenos Aires after we landed. The Buenos Aires community is fairly large since metropolitan BA was one of South America’s largest urban areas. For some reason we didn’t have jet lag and we felt pretty rested when we arrived. It has something to do with flying south rather than east. At least I think that’s what I was told. The welcoming committee showed us several of the sights in town and we spent the night in a lovely hotel. BA has often been compared to Paris, and is, in fact, one of the prettiest cities I’ve seen. Of course, like all our cities, it’s mostly empty, but Avery has been here a number of times and there is an active preservation society at work here making sure some of the best treasures are preserved for posterity.
The Speaker for BA was pregnant. April told me she was literally due any minute. After April told me that, I half expected our host to go into labor as we stood there talking. Fortunately, that didn’t happen. She waited until after we were on the plane on our way to Asuncion. She didn’t come with us.
As in Buenos Aires, we spent the night in Asuncion where the Speaker there filled me in on what he thought the Filadelfia community wanted from us. For one, they want to be able to avoid anything to do with our military and the local militias. They also wanted the right to teach their children in their dialect of German and to use German in their local government and communities. Finally, they wanted to be able to establish their schools’ curriculums without interference from the Coalition.
Since Filadelfia is so small and obviously preferred to be separated from their neighbors, I was curious why they wanted to even bother with the Coalition. That’s when I began to see how complicated things can get even when we are trying our best to keep our rules and government at a minimum . Relations with outsiders are complicated enough for Mennonites, but evidently, the worldwide Mennonite movement is somewhat fractured as well. While there are lots of issues that tend to divide them into different factions the biggest and most obvious one to the rest of us is the division between the ‘modern’ Mennonites and the ‘traditional’ Mennonites. The ‘moderns’ drive cars and tend to look like modest, regular Protestants. The ‘traditionals’ eschew modern conveniences for personal use. They are also very recognizable by their manner of dress. There are other differences, of course, but they manage them internally and wouldn’t impact the discussion of whether to join the Coalition or not. The Asuncion Speaker introduced me to Gerte Schmidt, a mostly ‘modern’ Mennonite from the Cuahtemoc area in Chihuahua, Mexico. Gerte hoped to move to Filadelfia with several others from the Mexico and Belizean Mennonite communities. They’re a mixed group of moderns and traditionals, and in order to strengthen and maintain their Mennonite way of life, they want to make Filadelfia their Mennonite hub, so to speak. Evidently, Mennonites all over the world have come to some sort of agreement to make the Chaco region in Paraguay their go to place for Mennonites. This includes the thirty or so Mexican and Belizean Mennonite survivors, and the forty or so German survivors, and also survivors from Canada and the US. Along with singles, doubles, and triples from here and there, all told, there might be more than a hundred Mennonite survivors, both modern and traditional, who want to join the existing Filadefia community. Since many of the pre-sickness Mennonite communities were small, a community of over 100 will be just about normal for many of them. But for many of these potential immigrants to Filadelfia, Coalition membership is a requirement.
The need for membership in the Coalition is also based on other factors, though. Several of the survivors are dependent children. In Mexico, for instance, it was pretty obvious who the Mennonite children were: they were towheads who spoke German and wore very identifiable clothing upon their discovery. There was no dispute that they were Mennonite children. In the Mexican Coalition communities, these little survivors are all currently living with Mennonite guardians. There are no problems with that. Their religion and
traditions are respected. But…… Coalition communities don’t allow orphaned children to be taken to non Coalition communities. We’ve had some pretty horrific experiences with children being molested and treated badly by evil people living secretly and away from organized communities.
Unfortunately, there are also some horrible, documented cases of Mennonite men raping and molesting Mennonite women and girls from the days before The Sickness. So no Coalition group will ever allow orphaned children to be taken to a non Coalition Community. We’re no saints ourselves, but while our system isn’t perfect, it’s open to scrutiny. What this means to Gerte is that she herself can leave for Filadelfia any time, but until Filadelfia is granted Coalition membership she can’t take her three wards. That also means that none of the other Mennonite adult survivors can take their wards with them, either.
Anyone can talk to anyone nowadays so Gerte has been chosen to lobby whoever she needs to lobby in order to get this problem resolved so that all the Mennonites can converge on the Chaco region in Paraguay where they will make a fresh start at creating a separate Mennonite homeland that somehow manages to blend Moderns and Traditionals. Not my problem, thank goodness.
Our last leg on our journey to Filadelfia, we were flown in a couple of propeller driven airplanes with a local Mennonite man as pilot of one and a young woman from Florianopolis, Brazil piloting the other. The Asuncion Speaker and his pregnant bride accompanied us. She was there to be the Guarani translator so her husband could devote his attention to our discussions. We still needed a Plautdietsch translator and for that purpose we had Gerte. Gerte was both a translator and a participant. There were a couple of Brazilian Mennonites there and also a couple of observers from Bolivia and Mexico. All in all, the discussions would be held in English (mostly for me), Plautdietsch, Spanish, and Guarani. There was a fair amount of interest in Filadefia, particularly from outside the immediate area, but, personally, I think it was mostly curiosity. No matter what happens over the next few weeks and months regarding the future of Filadelfia, they will remain a very small farming community. Aside from curiosity, I also think there is some concern that Filadefia will not join the Coalition and there would end up being an independent community with no connection to their neighbors. The crux of the matter comes down to this: If Filadelfia doesn’t join the Coalition, they won’t be getting many new additions from the Mennonite diaspora, and they may well lose some of their own members to a startup Coalition Community in one of the other abandoned Mennonite Colonias nearby.
It was summer there in South America and the Chaco region of Paraguay was hot. The kids and Kevin were immediately whisked off by a couple of teenagers who took them away in a horse and buggy. Now that Jovantha is off at her Gap Year, I was being guarded again, at least temporarily, by Enrique who had just completed his truncated Gap Year. He had literally walked from his Pendleton shuttle to our airplane at LAX. Several of our young people in the military were already in good condition and didn’t need practice in weapons safety and self-defense, so they opted for a shortened Gap Year.
Enrique has been quite the celebrity after the TV program Gap Year featured him on their show for several episodes. He took it in stride, but I could see he would rather have been somewhere a little further in the background. And since almost none of the Filadelfians had seen Enrique on television, he was as far in the background as he could get. Anyway, not needing Enrique, I sent him off with Kevin and the kids while I went to meet all the adult community members inside a good sized Mennonite church there in Filadelfia.
After meeting the local leaders, I was asked to go up on the platform at the front of the church where I could sit or stand to answer questions from the leaders, and, then, in a sort of open forum, take questions from the members of the larger community. In addition to the community members from the local area, there were questions permitted from the interested observers as well. Everyone was asked to give their name and their home community as well as some minimal background as to why they had asked their particular question. In very little time I was already fascinated, and I’d not answered a single question. This was a very diverse group of people, Mennonite or not. The church was empty except for the first few pews, something that never happens in a regular religious service, at least not in my experience, and the participants sat next to their preferred translator, even if they could speak English.
The first question I answered came from the man who was the de facto Speaker of Filadelfia. “Mr. Caldwell, what are the conditions for membership in the Coalition?”
“Well, Coalition Communities must sign on to the ‘Rights and Responsibilities’ of the Coalition. These are guaranteed rights for not only the communities, but also for the residents of the communities. There are also required responsibilities of the communities to fulfill.”
“Would you go over the list for us, please?”
“You have the list in front of you, and I think it’s very clear, but, I’d like to cover the ones that have been the most troublesome for some of our members communities. After I’m finished, if you see anything else that is of concern to you, please bring it up.
So, one of the ones that has confused people is the language question. Every community speaks whatever language it chooses. That’s pretty clear, at least, sort of. Let me tell you how I think it would work for you. You might choose, say, to speak Plautdietsch in your homes and in your schools. That will be fine, but if you have Spanish or Guarani speaking residents in Filadelfia in your community, you cannot compel them to speak in Plautdietsch, anywhere. That sounds like it could become a problem, but what will probably happen is that the non Plautdietsch speakers, if they feel unwelcome or disadvantaged, will do one of two things. They’ll learn Plautdietsch, or they’ll leave. That’s the right of both your community and the various residents. In fact, it’s two rights. One is freedom of speech, and the other is the right to move from one place to another. The right to leave a community belongs to everyone above the age of 16. It is also the right of all parents and guardians to decide on behalf of their children under the age of 16. Natural parents have the natural right to make that decision alone, but adoptive parents must have the permission of their local community’s leadership team to make that decision on behalf of their adopted children. In general, if adults wish to leave for any community, whether the community is a coalition member or not, they may leave at will, but if they wish to leave with one of their wards, they must have their community’s permission and the ward will not be allowed to go to a non-coalition community, at least not until they are 16 or older. I hope that is clear.”
The speaker from Filadelfia had a follow-up question. “Is that the reason why some of our fellow Mennonites have not been allowed to bring Mennonite children from other communities to Filadelfia?”
“I don’t want to make a blanket statement without all the facts, but it probably is the main part of the reason. If you remain outside the Coalition, I don’t believe you will be able to retrieve orphaned children who are presumed to be of Mennonite background. On the other hand, I believe that if you do join the Coalition, there is a likelihood that they may be able to come here to live with their guardians. I can tell you that, of my four children, only one had a previous religious heritage, at least that we know of. My husband and I have decided to expose all of our children to that heritage in order to both honor that child’s parents’ presumed wishes and to help create a sense of family for all four of them. For what it’s worth, we all attend the local Episcopal Church in San Luis Obispo.” I could see the wave of emotions that swept the religious side of the room when I used the term ‘husband’ to describe Kevin. Since we’re technically not officially married, were they discomfited by my loose application of the term ‘husband’ for Kevin when technically we may be living in sin as an unmarried couple? I decided to go with that as my explanation to myself, but I suspected that they may never be able to bring themselves to accept that Kevin and I are married under any circumstance.
“Are you saying that we may not be able to claim these children even if we join the Coalition as a community?”
“I can only say that you will be able to petition their present communities for their relocation to your community.”
“If it were left up to you, how would you decide the issue?”
“It will not be left up to me. Hopefully, I will not be involved.” I wish that were completely true, but I know that if there’s a disagreement between two communities or regions, it will be handed over to the Representatives, and they will inevitably ask me for advice which will inevitably be followed. In this case, I would side with the guardian, and that means I would be siding with the Filadelfians. That being said, I knew there were lots of permutations to this topic, but I decided not to bring them up.
Seeing a pause had opened up, I decided to press on with another issue I thought would be important to them. “Another right that residents have is freedom of religion. You cannot make any religion your official community religion including one that every single one of you agrees with. Religion is a choice made by individuals. Groups do not have religions. Individuals have religions. Now and then, the governing body of a group of individuals’ interests and the group’s members’ individual beliefs coincide. That is merely happenstance. Religion can never be the motivator of governing restrictions. That, however, does not mean that group interests and group beliefs don’t, on occasion, walk hand in hand.
Your schools’ curriculums can be taught in whatever language your community deems best. But it is the group’s nonreligious interests and not their religious beliefs that must dictate that curriculum. Should you wish to teach your religious beliefs to your children, you may do that outside of the school curriculum. That is freedom of religion. It is also freedom from religion. I suspect that your guardians will choose to have after school religious instruction for their adoptive children should that be offered, but it will be the choice of the guardians for their wards, not the requirement of the community leadership.”