Claude named the beautiful farm with rolling, spacious fields, two white barns at right angles to one another and two tall silos, "Valley Brook Farm". The lettered sign was proudly displayed across the top of the garage next to the milk house. There was also an abandoned chicken house my dad used at one time for sheep, a shop, a machine shed and a corn crib. We had about forty cows we milked twice a day. It was this setting that was my mental image when writing "Biff and Becka's Springtime Adventures". [The book is very close to being released.]
I loved the delightful babbling creek running from the neighboring farm across a wide field near the road along our property line, under our lane and through the woods situated down over a hill from our house. More than once on a Sunday afternoon I made my way carefully down over the steep hill until I reached the bottom where the creek was running. I loved to sit on the bank of the rippling brook beneath the regal Quaking Aspen tree that I deemed the centerpiece of my spot of "heaven".
Sometimes I wanted more privacy, as if God was drawing me aside deeper into the woods where no one could see me and I'd sit on a log and just talk to Him. Those times seemed so special and I remember one distinct occasion my heart was so full of love and thanksgivng to Jesus that I began to speak strange-sounding words that seemed to me were some Indian language. I could tell it was something special, but I kept it to myself. Instead of talking about it, I went back to the house, and wrote them as best I could on thin wooden 1 x 3 tiles and slipped them into a small wooden box. Every once in a while I'd take them out of the box and wonder what it meant as I read them. I don't know what became of them, but the experience stayed with me.
I sensed God's presence because of what had happened some time earlier one special Sunay morning.
The living room walls could tell you of that special Sunday morning when I was eleven years old. I was ready for church earlier than the rest of my family, and always enjoyed listening to "The Radio Kids Bible Class" with J. C. Brumfield. I was by myself, and when the announcer gave the invitation at the end of the broadcast for receiving Jesus, I bowed my heart before the Lord and said "Yes". I didn't tell anyone.
In August of that year, the First Mennonite Church in Meyersdale where we attended had revival meetings, and it was at the close of one of those services that I stood, weeping, and publicly made known my decision to follow Jesus.
My grandparents attended the Mountain View Amish-Mennonite church as it was called at that time, so they didn't know anything about my decision. But I remember how surprised I was when Ollie walked down the lane with me and asked, "You've become a Christian, haven't you?" I said I had, and asked her how she could tell. She smiled and quietly replied, "I could just tell." : o) I was amazed and wondered what she saw that was different about me. A few weeks later I was baptized by "the pouring method" of our Anabaptist forefathers as I knelt in front of the church.
If those blue painted board living room walls could talk, I think they would rejoice with me for that most important special Sunday of my life. I know the angels in Heaven did.
Copyright © 2012 Elaine Beachy
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