No Ordinary Life (Among the Hutterites)

 "Here," my Grandpa handed me a new small pair of work gloves, though they were still slightly too large for my small hands, I was proud as punch as I walked along next to him to his field pickup. He was the colony farm boss, he managed the fields, and today he needed all hands on deck as we were baling and bringing the bales back from the field.  10 year-old me was probably only going to get underfoot, but I jumped into his pickup with glee as together we drove to the field where they had started baling. As my eyes roamed the field I could see the tractor combing through and producing a bale every few meters. My cousin Becky was there with her dad as well as a few others, my dad and youngest brother. My grandpa was a believer in giving life experiences, and how they shaped your life in immeasurable ways. Which is my cousins and I got to tag along with him to check the combines, look at the land, set fire to fields on occasion, see bears in the corn fields, or carry food and ...

About 50 years ago my Grandparents lost their 5 year old daughter when she tragically drowned in the river that runs alongside our colony. After days of searching the body was recovered and laid into my Grandmas arms. My mother also lost her 6 year old brother, after a tractor tipped over and left him submerged in the river that ran on the outskirts of their community. 30 years ago a couple of boys were playing in the river and two of them were swept away by the current, the third ran for help but it was too late, two sets of parents had to watch as they searched for days to recover the bodies of their young sons aged 11 and 10.  With the stories that I've heard of the two events I've put together a short story that I hope will show not only how Hutterites view death but how they go about healing.  "Mary." My Grandma says the name so silently, it was as if it was just the wind whistling by my ear, impossible to hear unless you were listening for it. I look down as I s...

 Holly stood on the banks of the shallow river, clutching her book bag in one hand and her suitcase in the other. Even in the pitch black she could see that the water of the river had dried up enough so that she could walk over without getting the bottom of her jeans wet. She wished she could trade the colony for the world just as easily as she had traded her ankle length dress for the jeans that her friend Grace had given her, but as much as her heart longed to be a part of a world that she had only caught glimpses of, it was still stuck in the shelter of her Hutterite life, clinging to the fact that if she stayed her heart would find contentment eventually. But Holly knew that of she didn't at least try the regret would haunt her for the rest of her life, she knew that she could always come back home if her heart longed too.  Holly also knew that if she stepped across the river, her entire life would change. Her heart had already found peace with that, but Holly's heart was ...

When one thinks about radical Christian movements their mind usually goes to the Amish, Mennonites or Mormons, the latter of which Hutterites have absolutely no connection with. And in thinking about marriages in Christian subcultures they oftentimes think of polygamy and arranged marriages, both of which Hutterites don't condone. In a Hutterite marriage there is one man and one woman, and both have to be willing to marry the other in order for the marriage to be viewed as good in the eyes of God, so it can't be a one sided deal, and it can't be arranged or pressured into. So in other words we do marry for love and for life, as divorce is strictly prohibited in the church. But in order to understand how it works we should go back to when a couple first meets shall we ... So as the story goes guy meets girl, girl falls for guy, guy falls for girl ... well that's basically how it goes. They get to know each other, through courting and phone calls, because most couples com...

 I wanted to create a blog about the everyday life of the Hutterite people, because I felt that there was not enough positive literature about the people I'm happy to call my own.  A little bit about me is ... I grew up on a Hutterite colony near Winnipeg. I'm as the title of this blog says, a teenager. For a Hutterite, (who are very outspoken) I'm quite shy and timid. My passion for writing started in 9th grade when one of my teachers told me I should consider trying to publish some of my work, so here I am a good three years later jumping into the blogging world hoping some soul will find a tiny grain of interest in my very unusual life.  For those of you that aren't familiar with Hutterites, they are a group of Anabaptist Believers, living communally, that came to North America during the first World War after their Pacifistic belief's were threatened, and they were forced to make the choice, either leave or join the German army, they chose to leave by ship to th...