a spell that laid him up for a while.
A bachelor lived in a small house in our woods. When the house was moved to another location, Dad decided to build a cabin where the house had been. He wanted a place where he could be all by himself to study and meditate on the word of God. Dad spent many hours at that cabin in communion with God. People far and wide heard Dad’s messages expounding the plan of salvation and new birth through Jesus Christ.
Dad was known among the business people he dealt with, preachers and leaders in the church, and the everyday working man. Even though people didn’t always agree with him, they usually respected him. To this day, if you mention the name “Orpha Jake” among the Amish and Conservative community in Holmes County, people will remember the man who was my dad.
I remember a home missionary who was a frequent guest at our house; he always wore a Salvation Army-style hat that read “Moyer Home Missions”. There was an Amish homeless man called “Slow Johnny” who had some peculiar ways, but he knew he could always get a bed and a meal at the Yoder house. There were many other visitors at our house, and sometimes preachers stayed and discussed doctrine and theology from the Word of God until the wee hours of the morn. This was all very interesting for me as a young boy, and I would sit on the stair steps in rapt attention, trying to comprehend what it all meant.
Dad wasn’t known for a great mind like Einstein or Newton or great wealth like Rockefeller or Warren Buffet. No, Dad was known for the faith that was born in him through the saving power of Jesus Christ. I once wrote this, in reflecting on Dad’s life and faith.
My Dad
He wasn’t well known
As some men are
Like presidents and movie stars
What really mattered
To him you know,
Was God, the Bible
And the love you show
Many were the trials
He had to face
It was God not men
Who showed him grace
Dad’s faith grew because of his desire to know Christ and the power of His resurrection, not only the resurrection of the body, but the resurrection that brought a new life with Christ here and now on this earth. His faith moved him to preach the plan of salvation and the new birth, messages that came from the love Jesus had planted in his heart.
Dad’s faith compelled him to stand against the tide of the ritualistic culture that he grew up with in the Amish church and helped him live out his conviction to pray from his heart instead of reading the customary prayers from a book. His faith caused him to lose friendships, but he gained new ones. His faith moved him to help people in need and open his home to strangers. His faith gave him an enduring hope not only in this life, but in the life that is to come.
Dad didn’t believe in eternal security, the doctrine that says that once you are saved, you are always saved. He didn’t believe that once you accepted Christ as your Savior, you received the keys to heaven and then you did good works to earn your rewards. No, it took faith in Jesus Christ to save you from your sins and to keep you saved by the power of Jesus Christ living in you.
As I grew up and watched my brothers and sisters getting married and having homes of their own, I felt an ache inside me. I wanted to have a wife and a family and a home of my own. I wanted children to play with and a wife who loved me. I even had plans for the house I was going to build. I saw it all as such a pretty picture. Little did I know how long it would be before that dream could become reality.
At our church, we were not permitted to date until we were eighteen. At a youth convention at our local high school, I got up enough nerve to ask a girl out. We started dating and eventually I fell in love. I wanted to get married, but she wasn’t ready to make that step and one night she told me she had decided we shouldn’t see each other anymore.
I was devastated and tried to analyze what went wrong. I guessed she just didn’t love me the way I loved her. I remember even contemplating running my car off the road and killing myself.
My life had more stress besides the broken heart. The brick plant where I worked required hard labor, and we were putting in extra hours. Then every evening I attended our church’s revival meetings. It was all too much for an eighteen-year-old boy. Walking off the job one day, I decided to get away from it all. I needed the warm rays of the sun and the sand of Siesta Key beach to heal my depressed mind.
Without telling Mom and Dad or anyone else, I decided to book my first plane ride. I visited a travel agent in Dover and asked if she could book me on a flight to Sarasota, Florida, that very same day. Driving to Cleveland and boarding an airplane was an entirely new experience for me.
As we flew through severe thunderstorms all the way from Cleveland to Atlanta, I felt like Jonah in the whale, running away from all my problems. The plane dipped and rocked so much that the stewardess had to kneel in the aisle while serving drinks. I ordered a little bottle of whiskey to calm my nerves.
We finally landed at Atlanta, only to learn that our plane to Sarasota was broken down and we had to wait for another plane. Finally arriving at the small Bradenton airport at 4 a.m., I slept at the terminal until morning and then took a shuttle to Pinecraft where my aunt and uncle lived. I called Mom right away and told her where I was.
The warm sun and sand of Florida worked its healing magic. I did not kill myself and I would not die of a broken heart. No, I would just guard my heart from ever being broken again.
I dated a few Conservative Mennonite girls, but none of the relationships lasted. Something always seemed to break us apart.
Between the ages of ten to fifteen, I began to doubt whether there really was a God. Even if there was, I reasoned, I didn’t really need Him in my life because I had a brain and physical abilities and I could run my own life. I thought church was just a religion and that it didn’t really mean anything.
But in church one Sunday night, the Spirit of conviction was on me as the preacher was preaching; and when the invitation was given, I went forward and accepted Christ as my Savior.
I was sixteen. I would try to live a Christian life, but there were many failures and many ups and downs.
In 1970, Mom and Dad had public auction on September 5, sold the farm, and moved to town. They kept the cabin in the woods, and it wasn’t far from our house in town.
Soon after we moved from the farm, I bought a quarter horse. It wasn’t long before some of the girls in town were interested in riding and talked their parents into buying them horses. We soon started our own horse club, and there I was, the only guy with a bunch of girls. The girls were not Conservative girls; and as you can imagine, Dad was not thrilled about the whole thing. We even used the cabin for our club meetings,
