Jul 05, 2008 - 04:06:14 CDT
RURAL REGENT - Company's coming, and there's been a frenzy of cleaning and cooking to get ready.It's only family, but even so, it's important to polish the old brass lamps, dab on a coat of fresh paint and put a shine on the sturdy oak pews.
This is family formed by heritage and circumstance, not marriage. It is close-knit all the same, for having been the living body of the last rural church in Hettinger County.
The church is 100 this year. On Sunday, people will drive down country roads past mown hay and growing grains to celebrate with food for soul, thought and body.
It'll be a summer Sunday kind of party.
Zion Lutheran's is the same story of hundreds of prairie churches out here, formed by settlers who brought their beliefs and dreams for a new life.
Zion's story hasn't ended, though. Depending on the season, the furnace is turned up in winter and the windows flung open in summer, every Sunday.
The same 20 families still come.
It is those original families, mainly, spread to the four corners and new generations gone from the farm, who will gather Sunday. The family of the church's builder, Max Trzynka, will come, too. The congregation met in farm houses until Trzynka built the church in 1913.
Shannay and Keith Witte, now of New England, have been in charge of sending the invitations.
They were amazed when so many acceptances started pouring in.
"I could hardly believe it," Shannay Witte said, when the number topped 100 and the mailbox was still full of replies.
They're prepared to feed 150 a catered lunch and have squeezed extra chairs in alongside the pews to make room for everybody during the 11 a.m. service.
It'll be hot, no doubt, and perhaps the Rev. J. Burgess will be inspired to keep things moving right along.
The meal and program will be outside, under tents, where the breeze can blow.
The church building is original, though its four basement walls were rebuilt several years ago.
Keith Witte, church president, said no one ever wanted to change the church, except for adding electricity in the '40s and plumbing when new walls went in.
It still has the original tin walls and ceiling - an antiquer's dream - and Keith Witte has managed to track down four of the original kerosene glass lamps that softly illuminated the church in bygone years, buying back a couple that had been sold at auction.
There are eight still out there somewhere and he hopes to eventually bring them all back home.
"People have always said, 'Don't touch a thing. Leave it the same,'" he said.
And so, for the most part, they have, "same" being another word for beloved.
Keith Witte's father, Louis, says the church is a symbol for that sentiment.
"It's home," he said. "Rock solid."
(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 888-303-5511 or lauren@westriv.com.)
NoDak John wrote on Jul 5, 2008 4:54 AM:
May your time together be blessed and a blessing to all. "
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