Hopewell Mennonite Church: Two More Funerals

We have our own cemetery here at Hopewell Mennonite Church. But we rarely have funerals in our meeting house for capacity reasons. Yesterday afternoon, though, we hosted the Oregon funeral for former member Marion Schrock who died in Indiana. And this afternoon we had the funeral for Roger Jones, one of our newest members.

So we have two new graves in our cemetery. Here they are, still empty…

Reminds me of another day about 42 years ago. That day Hopewell had two funerals — one in the morning and the other in the afternoon. My Grandpa Roth was one of the deceased and Amy Yoder was the other.

Back to the present… Marion was buried next to his first wife, Berneice. They organized a house-warming for our little family when we moved to Hubbard from the Mexico mission field back in 1983. Their daughter Chris and several of her children are still members at Hopewell. I was happy to see Marion and Berneice’s son Steve again and give him a hug. I saw Faith Schrock at a distance only.

Roger was buried right close to Dad’s and Aunt Rosie’s graves. In fact, he was buried next to my wife Ruby’s Aunt Ruby who died as a child long, long ago. I’ll miss Roger. I wanted to meet Roger and Carolyn’s families that attended the funeral, but didn’t overcome my natural timidity to push myself forward.

May all know the comfort of the Father.

Here is Marion’s grave. The rosebush is one he had Chris (I think) purchase and put at Berneice’s grave. That was well before Marion died.

And here is Roger’s grave. Aunt Rosie’s gravestone has the wheelbarrow by it and Dad’s next to hers.

In the last two and a half years we’ve had quite a few burials in our small church cemetery: James and Orpha Smucker, Esther Boss, Dad, Aunt Rosie, Eunice King, Susie Strubhar, Marion Schrock, and Roger Jones. Of those, only Eunice and Marion were not members here. We’ve had lots of recent reminders of life’s brevity and of the importance of being prepared for its end.

Are you?

• Sudden Death — Sudden Eternity
• Just for You: If You Have Not Ordered Your Coffin