Tour de Burnett: Thankful for freedom of religion

Our last stop in Indiana was in northern Indiana. We thought about touring Notre Dame, but they don’t let you go through the stadium and they are extra protective during football season so it didn’t sound very fun. But the Amish area did sound fun. There’s a 90 mile loop through different towns so we picked up a cd from the visitor center and drove through the area looking and learning. We stopped and picked up some goodies along the way- noodles, cheese and snacks for a picnic lunch.

We spent a few hours at the Menno-hof visitor center and learned about the start of the Anabaptist groups 500 years ago. The center took us through different rooms in history including one set up as a dungeon since they were persecuted for their beliefs. It had an Anabaptist catcher and a tongue screw- they give me the chills.

William Penn invited the different groups that were being persecuted in Europe to come to Pennsylvania so another room was a ”boat” about their trip that took three months.

We learned about Dirk Willems who was running from his persecutor over ice when his persecutor fell in. The man’s friends didn’t help him, but Dirk went back to rescue him. Even though he’d rescued him, Dirk was later persecuted and burned by the man.

We were able to “step” into an Amish kitchen and dining room and listen to normal dinner chatter.

It was fun seeing the horse and buggies in town. The Amish don’t want any graven images of them so they don’t want their photo taken. Can you imagine not having photos of your relatives to remember them? Photos are such a big part of my life so I thought it was sad. Which would be harder to live without- photos or electricity? This day trip resulted in some good conversations with the kids the past few days.