PAOLI, Indiana (Mennonite Mission Network) – A church can respond in many ways when White supremacists put their town on national news. One of these ways is to overwhelm evil with good, said Wendell Lantz of Paoli Mennonite Fellowship in southern Indiana.
Lantz illustrated his point using a behavior learned in childhood. In his family, not only did the kids have to take some of each dish served at a meal, they had to eat everything on their plate. And Lantz hated peas. His solution? Take a piece of bread for every pea. If the pea was folded into the bread, the bread would overwhelm the pea.
"We don’t need to spend our time driving White nationalists out of our community. We need to stop worrying about who is right and just do right," Lantz said.
Lantz was referring to Matthew Heimbach and his supporters, who helped promote the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Aug. 11-12. Heimbach made Paoli his home base for a while. However, it seems that Heimbach recently moved out of the state to comply with a court order requiring anger management classes following a conviction for assaulting an African-American woman at a Trump rally.
Paoli Mennonite Fellowship invests deeply in living out God’s love. When media attention pegged the area around their town as a hub of White supremacist activity, people of color and their families and friends felt increasingly threatened. In response, Paoli’s Mennonites worked together with other concerned community members to adapt a sign created by Immanuel Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
"We dropped the Arabic and Spanish languages because they don’t apply to our context," said Espri Bender-Beauregard, who designed the Paoli sign to read:
No matter what color your skin,
No matter where you are from,
No matter what you believe,
We’re glad you are our neighbor!
The phrase, "no matter what you believe," is both the most important and the most challenging one for Bender-Beauregard.
"I’m not sure that I literally am ‘glad’ that we have community members who are White supremacists, or that I have neighbors who fly the Confederate flag, but I try to love them, and I believe that everyone deserves to feel welcome," she said.
The Paoli community, consisting of less than 4,000 residents, loved the signs. Stori Sullivan, also of the Mennonite Fellowship, has overseen the production of 300 of the colorful gestures of goodwill that now bloom in yards and the windows of businesses. Two others in the community wanted to make a more emphatic statement, and enlarged the sign to about four times its original size.
It was into this context that Paoli Mennonite Fellowship invited Mission Network’s "Work in Progress," a choral ensemble that seeks to build relationships across diverse racial and ethnic communities. Sept. 24, Work in Progress led the congregation in praise and in listening to God’s word.
"Worship is a tool for anti-racism work," said Rebecca Kauffman, pastor at Paoli Mennonite Fellowship.
Work in Progress chose Revelation 7:9-12 as the text. The message emphasized that undoing racism is not an easy task, but is essential as we move toward heaven, where people of every nation and language gather around God’s throne.
"We see diversity as God’s gift to the church," said Ann Jacobs, one of the ensemble’s co-leaders and organizer of the Paoli visit. "When we bring our worship to God, powerful things happen. The angels join us. Even when it’s hard to love, when we don’t know how to love, worship helps us to love."
Heimbach and his supporters in the Traditionalist Worker Party have promised free clinics in order to attract more followers. However, Mennonites in Paoli have a 43-year head start on the White nationalists. In 1974, several Mennonite doctors and their families moved to this economically deprived area to serve its people and live out a holistic gospel. Paoli Mennonite Fellowship grew out of this service to the community that had few medical resources.
While health practitioners in the congregation continue to carry on this vision, other ministries have also developed. Church members use their gifts to mentor youth, maintain a community garden, engage in prayer and counseling, and organize politically to limit the impact of hate groups.
Dessica Albertson, a member of Paoli Mennonite Fellowship and one of the founders of Progressive Women of Orange County, works through Facebook, as well as through face-to-face encounters, to unmask the motives and false claims of White nationalists.
Darren and Espri Bender-Beauregard’s organic farm and nursery create a natural meeting place to interact with White supremacists from a large geographic area that includes Louisville, Kentucky. Many of their clients are preppers, survivalists who believe a catastrophic disaster is imminent.
"They are preparing by trying to become self-sufficient through homesteading activities such as planting orchards and raising livestock, which is a point of connection for us," Darren said. "But prepping often includes stockpiling arms and ammunition, which is contrary to our beliefs."
The Bender-Beauregards struggle with how to best be prophetic in their business contacts. They try not to be confrontational, but welcoming, despite their different beliefs and political stances. Mostly, they let their "We’re glad you are our neighbor" sign do the talking.
"We at Paoli Mennonite Fellowship seem to do church more during the week than on Sunday," Darren said.
Dave and Marlene Beachy have made Paoli their home. For years, Dave served as a family physician, and now he works in the emergency room. Marlene accompanies people through healing prayer.
"When [difficulty] arises, whether in our outward journey or our inward journey, it means something has come into the light that is ready for some truth and healing; we need to pay attention to this," Marlene said.
She sees the current situation as a time that is ripe for healing, and her congregation, Paoli Mennonite Fellowship, is paying attention. They are shining God’s light on the alienation in their community and throughout the United States, overcoming divisive hate with God’s welcoming love, and inviting others to join them.
