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What is the Day of Remembrance for the Schwenkfelders? · Centrally Speaking

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Centrally speaking, is the Central Schwenfelder Church's podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: It speaks about issues that would be of interest to our society.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: In particular, it addresses how a Christian worldview intersects with Western secular culture.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: In the spirit of the church's founder, we take the perspective of the middle way, which is in agreement with the historic Christian Church.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Dr.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: Drake Williams, Minister of Mission and Theology at the Church.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: Our website is www.cscfamily.org.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: In this podcast, we're going to consider a small Protestant German Reform denomination called the Schweinfelders and a very special date for them called the Day of Remembrance.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_02: The Schweinfelders came from Silesia, Germany in the 1500s.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: They followed a man named Caspar Schweinfeld von Oassen.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: But as a result of persecution in Silesia, Germany, they fled through to Saxony, Germany, then onto the Netherlands.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: And then they had a series of migrations onto Pennsylvania, the largest being in September of 1734.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: It was when the Schweinfelders, this large group of Schweinfelders, came in 1734 that they landed at Ens Landing in Philadelphia.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: And on the very next day, they held what is known as the Day of Remembrance, the Gedectus Tag.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: It is the longest standing, continuous running Thanksgiving service in America.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, it continues on into now this day, into 2022.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: And Schweinckfelder pastors take their congregations to a special service at one of the Schweinckfelder churches.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: In this podcast, we'll hear from several of the Schweinckfelder pastors as to their experience at this service, why Thanksgiving is important, and why the day of remembrance is an important date, not only for Schweinfelder, but for other church communities as they remember the goodness and the providence of God.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'm very pleased to have uh Reverend Leslie Mamas from the Olivet Schweinfelder United Church of Christ here with me to share some of her impressions and uh feelings about Day of Remembrance.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: Reverend Leslie has been a pastor at Olivet Schweinfelder United Church of Christ for over 13 years.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: She has a husband and two stepchildren.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: She's extremely interested in local Christian tradition as well as genealogy.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: And before she came to serve at Olivet, her ancestral church had seven generations of her family being a church up in the Bethlehem area.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: Although her family name is Hoffman, she laments that the Hoffmans did not come with the Schweinckfelders back in 1734, I think several years beforehand.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: Reverend Leslie, welcome to the show.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: We're very glad to have you.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's an honor and privilege to be here.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: We're fortunate to be able to have you and uh want to talk with you about your impressions of the Schweinckfelder Day of Remembrance and Thanksgiving.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: But starting first before the actual day, how important do you feel it is for Christians to give thanks?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: How important is remembrance in the Christian tradition, at least from your perspective?
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think Thanksgiving itself is actually extremely important.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Christ teaches that the two most important commandments are what?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: To love God and to love each other.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: So gratitude, thanksgiving, I believe personally, is a huge part of loving.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, are we truly loving God with our whole hearts if we're not expressing gratitude, if we're not giving thanks to God?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I think as Christians, thanksgiving is a really key part of loving our God as well as our neighbors.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think those go hand in hand.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, as for remembrance, I think it's also really important to remember where we came from so that we can better plot where we're going, honestly.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think we learn from remembering, we learn from the wonderful, faithful decisions of the past.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think we also learn, honestly, from the mistakes and the sins of the past, too.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: As somebody that loves family genealogy and local history, I've heard it said that no one is ever truly dead so long as they're remembered.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that also goes for our rituals and our institutions as well.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: I do think sometimes people can fall into the trap of making an idol of the past, like wanting to go back to times that we view through rose-colored lenses.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a balance between remembering and honoring those who came before versus worshiping what came before.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: But I think the day of remembrance does an amazing job of the former.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: It honors the memories of the past in order to inspire our futures together.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't whitewash our history, nor does it somehow make the past more important than the present.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that's one of the things that I love about this tradition.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I guess I'm inferring here a little bit.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the Schweinfeller uh day of remembrance has gone on for such a long time.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I guess in church circles, sometimes it seems like maybe we've always done it that way before, and maybe these programs just continue on.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm implying from your answer that the day of remembrance isn't just uh something that's continued on because nobody's willing to cut it off, but it's actually an important part of Christian expression.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I feel like it's a living tradition that it continues to evolve into the current and present as well as hopefully into the future while upholding its purpose, which is to honor and remember and to just give thanks, which I said previously, I think is at the very heart of our tradition and our call to love God.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: When was your first day of remembrance service?
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: Where was it as we as Schweinfelders moved the service around to various places?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: When was your first one and where was it?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I began serving the congregation of Olivet Schweinfelder United Church of Christ in May of 2009.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: I was ordained on Sunday, May 3rd.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: I started at Olivet.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: And literally a week later, I remember gathering at 20th and Reed Streets with the Schweinfelder Missionary Church.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: But when I looked back at my old calendars that I still have from that year, that was actually the spring general conference of the Schweinfelder Church.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: My very first day of remembrance came four months later in 2009.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it was at Olivet, and I was the preacher.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Now, normally the task of hosting the day of remembrance, it cycles between our congregations.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: And that year, 2009, was Olivet's turn.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: But we, the Schweinfelder clergy, we sort of have an unspoken rule that you always have a different clergy person preach.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like if the servants was going to be held at Olivet, normally Pastor Nick, Pastor David would have been the one to give the message.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: However, the ministerium, I guess, thought it would be fun to have the new gal host and preach just four months into her ministry.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what I actually remember most about my first day of remembrance.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: I was nervous as all get out, and I remember not really knowing for sure what I was doing.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: I was so new to the tradition, and I had never previously been at one.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: Along with that, this is also cute.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: I remember the apple butter.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Our traditional meal at the day of remembrance is one of bread and apple butter.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: And all when I was growing up, my mother would eat apple butter with cottage cheese.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought it was the most disgusting thing in the world.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I never ate the stuff.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: I never touched apple butter.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: That service in 2009 was the first time I tried apple butter as an adult.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I have to say, I have been hooked ever since.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Apple butter is now once again a staple in my adult household.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: So those are the two things that stick out to me from my very first day of remembrance service.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: Well, welcome to the tradition that way.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm sure uh you found Schweckfelder to be pretty gracious with you uh not only hosting, but also uh having the message that day.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: Glad that you've also acquired a taste for the apple butter.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: That, of course, is a unique part of the Schwenkfelder tradition.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have anything about the apple butter remembrance that is special from your vantage point?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's something that's definitely going to stay with me.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: I was originally from a German reformed now UCC congregation, whose specific fundraiser and dish of that congregation was always shoefly pie.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so from the time I was a little girl, just the smell or taste of shoe fly pie I associated with my home church.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I have to say, over the past 13 years of celebrating the Day of Remembrance, I truly believe for the rest of my life, I will associate the smell and the taste of apple butter with that time of fellowship.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: And in many ways, the beautiful thing about Day of Remembrance is that it's not just the worship service, the time of fellowship afterwards, that meal, it almost feels like a family reunion.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: There are members coming from all of our different churches, getting to catch up and see one another, sitting together, breaking bread quite literally together.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so that taste of apple butter, that smell of apple butter, I think, is going to be permanently marked in my mind as a very special thing from these services from this time together.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm glad that you mentioned too that people do come far and wide for this service, not only from the Schwenkfelder congregations, but if they've moved away from Montgomery County area, they come in from out of town for this too.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: Now, if someone's uh never attended a day of remembrance service with the Schwankfelders, what should they expect?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: You should expect a fairly typical worship service with scriptures, with a message, a sermon.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: There is hymn singing, although I have to say, if you're not used to singing in German, you will be asked to at least try your best to sing a verse in German, which again, I think is a wonderful and rich part of the experience.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: And something that a lot of folks don't normally get these days when they attend a worship service here in Pennsylvania.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think you should expect to hear some wonderful first-person accounts.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: There's always a retelling of the narrative, the story of what those Schwankfelder immigrants went through, where they moved through Europe, how they boarded the boats, and what the actual physical journey on those boats was like, the trials, the tribulations.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: It was harrowing.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so you should expect to hear those stories retold and retold with love.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: And finally, like I said, it feels like a family reunion.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's a wonderful opportunity to sit and eat and just be with one another.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: So absolutely expect the fellowship afterwards as people come from all over.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: If somebody's never attended before, I'm sure you're encouraging that they should, whether they're Schwankfeld or maybe even if not.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, absolutely.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Just this past year, we had someone attend a day of remembrance service who does not regularly attend a church and was honestly not particularly a part of a religious tradition, but who had traced their ancestry to the Schwankfelder immigrants and was interested in hearing the tale of their arrival and wanted to experience that worship service.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: And what a beautiful thing that is, someone who may not be, you know, very involved with a church tradition entering into worship specifically because of this unique service.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's wonderful.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, all are welcome.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: What in your opinion, Reverend Leslie, is unique about the Schwenkfeller migration as well as the Thanksgiving service?
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think one of the most unique things is the fact that we as a denomination intentionally celebrate refugees and immigrants.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, our Bible is full of narratives about foreigners coming to another land.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: We had Jacob and his family, who were food refugees, fleeing the Middle East into Africa during famine.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: We had the ancestor of Christ, Ruth, who crossed the river from Moab into Judah in search of a new life.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, we worship a Christ who was himself a child refugee, fleeing with his parents from the Herodian regime into Egypt.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so here in our very own tradition, we honor and celebrate ancestors of faith who fled persecution and sought better lives in the new world.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I think today a lot of well-meaning Christians, we struggle with God's command to treat the foreigner in our midst as a native-born citizen.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yet our day of remembrance, it retells the story of just that how the residents of Philadelphia welcomed these people getting off a boat, you know, brought them food and drink, expecting no repayment, celebrated that they were safe and made them feel welcome.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's at the heart, too, of the Schwenkfelder Day of Remembrance.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: And the fact that every year we retell the story and intentionally focus on welcoming the foreigner.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think that's really unique to our Schweckfelder tradition.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: Reverend Leslie Mamas, thank you so much for giving us your time and sharing us your experiences and encouraging us to attend the annual Day of Remembrance service with the Schwankfelders.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: We're very privileged today to have Reverend Nick Pence join us from the Palm Schwankfelder Church.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: He's been a pastor at Palm Schwankfelder since 2007.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: He was ordained in 1999 and served St.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: Paul's United Church of Christ in Schuylkill County for eight years before coming to pastor at Palm.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: His wife is the Reverend Barbara Pence, and she serves as a pastor at Peace in Zion, United Church of Christ, and does supply preaching at St.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: Luke's in Obelisk.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: Together they have three children and live up in Palm, Pennsylvania.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Centrally Speaking.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you very much, Drake.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_03: I appreciate it.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: We're very glad to have you and to talk with you about the Day of Remembrance, a long-standing Schwenkfelder tradition, and wanted to ask you a few questions about your experience with the Day of Remembrance, this long-standing Thanksgiving service.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: Why don't we first start with the importance of Thanksgiving or the importance of remembrance in your perspective as being a Christian pastor?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: How important are those ideas to you?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_03: If I had to pick one, I would talk about Thanksgiving, but I'm not going to do that and talk about talk about both.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_03: But for folks, if they're listening and have any friends coming out of either the um Episcopalian tradition or maybe even some higher church uh Lutheran congregation, they might have encountered the word Eucharist before related to the sacrament of communion.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_03: Eucharist literally means Thanksgiving.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_03: And it particularly when we use the word Eucharist, we think about the Last Supper.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_03: Thanksgiving is inherent and intrinsic to the Christian faith.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_03: For us to be able to express our gratitude to God regardless of the circumstances that we have been living through, or in the case of Dave Remember's journeying through, it is handamount to the gospel.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_03: It's our opportunity to faithfully express what we have been given and ultimately where our hope lies.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_03: I was really intrigued when I did my interview with Tom when I started here, and this was like around April of 2007, because when we got together, we were actually having sacramental conversations.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, with me coming from a reformed tradition, we were really trying to figure out how this thing was going to work, but it elicited important conversations.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_03: The day of remembrance is not a sacrament with the Protestant church.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_03: The Schwankfelders acknowledge baptism and communion as the only two.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_03: But I always find that some of those sacramental conversations, some of those sacred times very much come up for me as we come to the Day of Remembrance.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_03: To be clear, bread and apple butter is not the sacrament of the Schwankbilder Church, but it is one of these times for us to remember and to reflect and to share.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_03: Interestingly, too, when we talk about communion, to a certain degree, we are remembering a time of Jesus.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_03: And so inherently in ourselves, we're doing this reconstruction of a moment that we were not physically present for initially, but that we are welcomed into.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_03: And very similarly to Day of Remembrance, it is taking this time to remember a journey, but then also recognizing the significance of us being invited into this journey and ultimately continuing this journey and longing to give thanks as we remember the ways that God has connected with us, that God has led us to this place, and that God's grace continues to shower upon us.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's a pretty good expression that you have there.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: You weren't born a Schwankfelder, nor were you raised in a Schwenkfelder church, as some of us were, but yet you still find the benefit of Thanksgiving and remembrance in a service that uh really doesn't have anything to do with your particular background and heritage.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_03: It's absolutely unique.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_03: So my first day of remembrance was in 2007.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_03: It was actually hosted at Central Schwenckfelder Church because I look back in the uh celestial calendar.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_03: And the crazy thing for me is, I mean, I started in August of 2007 at Palm.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_03: I've been in the position for probably about eight weeks before my first day of remembrance.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_03: And then this community has been celebrating this moment for centuries, uh, for multiple centuries, invites me to preach.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_03: Now, I'm sure part of that dynamic is sort of new kid on the block and you know, the new person coming in and this opportunity to engage.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_03: But that sense of being willing to share this story was critical.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_03: When I first started at Pong, and I think in the different congregations, this timeline might, you know, might not necessarily be the same, but when I started here in 2007, I would still hear the phrase boat people being used.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_03: And it and if folks are not familiar with that dynamic, earlier on in the life of the Schweinfelder Church, there was an identification of those who were direct descendants of the immigrants who came over predominantly in the years from 1730 to 1734, with the largest coming in 1734 when we commemorate our our day of remembrance.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_03: And it it was interesting for me just in this long-standing sense of the welcome which I received as someone not coming out.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_03: And there's a duality to that too.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_03: So part of it for me is the recognition that this is a community of faith which I needed to and continue to need to listen to if I want to understand who they are at their beginnings and their foundation.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_03: But then there's also the importance of openness for me to be able to receive the gifts of this congregation and the perspective.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_03: It's always interesting for me to think about okay, so am I a Schwank daughter now?
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_03: Because there's there's still that concept of kind of vote people in the background.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, ultimately, you know, I I feel a very great sense of connection to this tradition.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_03: But it's also as one who was adopted in to use one of Paul's images from from the epistles, and just the welcome that I received is hopefully the welcome that we all can receive as we gather together for this this time.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: Day of Remembrance, the longest standing Thanksgiving service running in the States.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: Those uh around church circles, one might say, Well, has this just gone on because you weren't willing to cut a program or pare things down?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: But no, uh, I myself not uh a blood Schwankfelder, but having grown up in uh the Schwankfelder Church, still find it very important that there's a time of thanksgiving for the blessings that have been given for safe passage to a country where you can worship freely, and that that's it's valuable to take some time to say thank you, even if you weren't directly related to somebody uh who made that journey.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: What stood out to you as being unique, that very first day of remembrance service that you had?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_03: There are a couple things that always stand out in my mind.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_03: One, you know, and even just approaching the word Thanksgiving, um, I think for most of us living in this country, immediately think about Thanksgiving in November, which in most cases are these huge preparations and family gatherings and all sorts of food, gathering around football games, getting so doped up on turkey and tryptophan that we can't hardly breathe or move.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_03: This simple meal of bread and apple butter, and I mean, and actually experiencing people just eating this as they're gathering around the table was wonderful.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_03: I have the same experience when we uh do worship in some of our outlying meeting houses here at Palm, or in the case of the general conference with South or Pilgrimage.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_03: It's one of those opportunities that we have to connect and remember a simpler time, and that we bring a heck of a lot of complexity into our lives that is not necessitated by the gospel.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_03: So there's that aspect of simplicity that I think is a part of the Schweinfilter tradition and understanding.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_03: The other piece that I always love for every single day of remembrance, and it's something that I've heard your dad do numerous times now, but there's very often we will share part of the uh the green course of study book and the diary attributed to Christopher Schultz, and there's a section.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: In that story where it talks about a storm coming, they are tossing to and fro for like multiple hours.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_03: The sky kind of opens up, and then the storm comes right back again, and they're swaying to a degree where they don't think they can last much longer.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_03: They literally nail all the openings in the boat shut because water's coming in.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_03: The crew basically drops the sail, you know, lashes everything down because there's nothing they're going to be doing in the boat.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_03: What Drake the Elder points out, and what I completely agree with them on, is I am fairly certain that they were in the middle of a hurricane.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_03: And with that little moment of lapse that they are describing, I think that's most likely the eye of the hurricane passing over this little boat with hundreds of people on it.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_03: You that sense of coming through the storms, the reminder to me as a pastor as we deal with things that arise or challenges within the church, that voice of Jesus calling out, be still, that is a wonderful challenge and reminder to me in my faith journey and walk with God.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's a great moment.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it's uh a key part of the migration.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, are there some other aspects of the migration or of the Thanksgiving service that you find to be uh particularly unique and uh and meaningful?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_03: Uh related to the diary.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_03: So there is a line where Christopher Schultz is talking about the journey, and he describes some immigrants from the Palatinate that are on board, and they are basically arguing and driving everyone nuts.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_03: So the Palatinate was the home for the German Reformed folks that are going, which are my ancestors of faith, and uh yeah, and they're the ones bickering on the boat while the Schweinkfelders are trying to go.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_03: So that's that that's kind of a funny placement.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_03: The the reality that there were people born and that there were people who died upon this journey is incredibly significant.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_03: There's almost an inherent sense of grace to the story because we have the Schwenkfelders provided hospitality and welcome in multiple moments of their journey.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_03: Part of that was with von Zenzendorf and being kind of welcomed into a Moravian community for a little bit of it.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_03: And I've always struggled with the pronunciation of the name, and I don't know if we've ever identified it, but there was actually a set of uh the volushants brothers who actually provided financially for the passage of the vast majority of those Schweinfelders coming over into the US.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_03: And just uh, I mean, my goodness, I am not aware of any financial benefit that they were facing for this, but really just a commitment to see people being able to go into a place where they would be able to worship, where they would be able to establish uh new lives.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_03: And thanks be to God for that part of the journey.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_03: And that draws us all to the place where we where we are now.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: If someone's never attended a day of remembrance service, what would you tell them to expect from a service like this?
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_03: Depends on the year.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_03: Because it's different, you know, like the Schwankvot or church, you know, while we strive for unity, we are not uniform in our worship expressions or congregations, but uh the day of remembrance will be held at missionary church.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_03: And so we always have a worship experience as part of that, and that worship experience is always reflective of the place in which we are being hosted.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_03: The things that we can count on happening, one are a time of remembering the journey, a time of reflecting upon all of our journeys that draw us together in this community of faith, and then also the sharing of a very simple meal of bread and apple butter.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_03: I do remember one year we were down at missionary church when Ed Winslow and uh and Charlotte were still leading the congregation, and you know, doing the bread and apple butter wasn't quiet enough, so they wanted to welcome everybody to Philadelphia and you know, there was fried chicken and just all that, all the fixings and everything, which was which was great as well.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, this this opportunity to see the church and ultimately for me, I think seeing the Schwenkfilter Church at its best in this unique day.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_03: As we were preparing for this, I was thinking about you kind of my most significant moment within the day of remembrance.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_03: We do still occasionally throw around the word gadetnist dog here at Palm.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_03: I am from the South and have a southern accent, so I slay all sorts of pronunciations, whether it's familiar or not, and there's debates about how the word is spelled.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_03: So back in 2020, so two years ago, we were still dealing with a lot of the challenges of the pandemic.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_03: I think Palm had just started back to offering in-person worship a couple of months before Day of Remembrance was going to be happening.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_03: We were really trying to think about a way to connect people with the story.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_03: We wound up focusing on a book that Reverend Kieran Gallagher, now the late Reverend Kieran Gallagher, had written called Threat of Faith, which tells the story of three children at different points within the Schwankfelder history.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_03: So one was a kid who was a contemporary with Schwenkfeld and talked about him coming to the house.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_03: We had a girl who was actually making the voyage over, and then we had a boy Christopher at the end who was helping to set up the farm and community life as it's going through.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_03: In commemoration of that, for the folks at Palm who had been a part of that book, and the deal was they invited actual Schwankfelders and people who were in the Schwankfelder church to serve as models for this story.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_03: And so when you look at the children's book and the illustrations in it, you see multi-ethnic faces, and they wanted to, you know, portray in this modern perspective this community from the 1730s and before.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_03: It's a really neat opportunity just to see, see in a more broad way what it means to be a part of a faith tradition and what it means to be connected and woven and bred together, which is something that I continued to come back to.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_03: That actually became the focus of my newsletter article for the palm leaves for this past month.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_03: It also included the link for the video that we had originally done as we were sharing that in 2020.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_03: That thread of faith.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: That's a great story and certainly a uniqueness for thinking about uh day of remembrance.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have anything else you'd like to share with us about Day of Remembrance and its importance for you or the importance for Palm or uh for the Schwenkfeller community?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_03: For the first time in my ministry this year, I'm actually not going to be physically present for Day of Remembrance.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_03: One of my parishioners is getting married in Arizona and invited me out to do the ceremony.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_03: So it's just a couple days before this day of remembrance, and Barbara and I will be heading out, but we are looking forward to sharing in that.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_03: The irony is that getting ready to miss this for the first time really prompted some of my thoughts on the significance of this day.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I have debated taking some bread and apple butter along with me out to Arizona, and we might try to find some.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_03: Hopefully, it's one of those moments of absence making the heart grow fonder.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: And I think still the challenge of recognizing the connection, even over geographic distance, is exactly what we do for even over the course of a time span of millennia and trying to continue to remember and connect both with Schweinfelder ancestors, but even more with God at work in the gospel and how that continues to flow through us, to engage us, and to enlist us in a far greater story than our individual lives.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: We will certainly miss you at this uh day of remembrance uh service.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but for those who are listening, uh, you're warmly welcome to the service on the 25th of September at three o'clock at the Allenbach House on Talpahawken Street in Germantown in Philadelphia.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: There's a service and then a commemorative meal, a short meal where we serve bread and apple butter.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: You're warmly welcome uh to join us.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you again, Pastor Nick, and uh may God's blessing be with you.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_03: And with you, great.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much.