Maryland

This weekend, we traveled to western Maryland for a family reunion. The family is my husband's. My mother-in-law's, to be specific. A man named Lewis migrated to America, docked in Baltimore and walked (yes, on foot) from Baltimore to a place just over the Pennsylvania state line from western Maryland. Here, he decided to settle. That man was my husband's grandfather's grandfather. The reunion was a gathering of the family of Lewis' grandson (my husband's grandfather). You all are just going to have to get used to the way I explain things.

My husband's grandfather had 9 daughters (one of which is my mother-in-law). They had 25 children (one of which is my husband). Those children have had 80-some children (including Sam and Sadie). And, a handful of them have had children of their own. Yep- big family. We had a wonderful time catching up with Jamey's cousins and aunts on Saturday at a church where the kids got barrel rides (a lawnmower that pulls a train of barrels-turned-train-cars), Jamey played horse shoes and I visited with cousins and talked about kids and chickens and tried to answer everyone's questions about Jamey's ultramarathons:-).

Between events, Jamey drove me out to his grandfather's farm, which I had never seen before. Below are pictures of the lane, the house, the shed where they boiled down maple sap to make syrup, the chicken house and a few descendants of his grandfather's herd of Highland Cattle that one of Jamey's cousins inherited (and still keeps on the farm). What a beautiful place....






Saturday night, everyone was invited to another cousin's house for homemade soft serve ice cream and popcorn. It was, hands down, the best popcorn I have ever tasted. Here is a few photos of how it came to be...




Sunday morning, we had church in this building- the church where Jamey's mother went when she was a little girl.


And, here is the cabin we stayed in with Jamey's parents. It was built and is owned by another one of Jamey's cousins and sits on his cousin's property overlooking a pond. Sam enjoyed fishing in the pond every moment he wasn't reunion-ing. He didn't even care that on the end of his line was a toy plastic fish and not a real hook.


It was so encouraging to see a family this large make the effort to come together for fellowship, stories and good food. Many of Jamey's cousins and their families are conservative Mennonite (The women wear long dresses and coverings). Jamey and I are Mennonite, too, but have been raised in such a way that we blend in with the rest of the world (in dress). I respect their calling to be set apart, not in an attention seeking way, but as a witness of a people living in the world, but not of it. I believe this and pray that the people who know us see us as different as well- as people striving to do our best to live as Christ did. Pin It