There was more anxiety, and more impatience, and less food. They have cut back on what they are giving out, because the first line of supplies, “those kept ready for an emergency,” are beginning to run out. One angry man began shouting when he was stopped from taking more than his share. The guardsmen tried to send him off, but he punched a market volunteer, and then tried to take one of the guards’ rifles, and so they subdued and arrested him and then took him off somewhere.
“It really is getting worse,” Jon said. “On the ride back, I heard that there was a big firefight between police and National Guard and some armed gangs from Philadelphia. Not like street gangs, these were just armed men who had gathered together to take what they needed. The gangs had moved from looting stores to moving through neighborhoods, taking food from every house, and shooting anyone who wouldn’t give them what they wanted.
“Some had made it to Norristown, and there a neighborhood militia had begun fighting back, and then the Guard arrived, and many were killed. So many desperate people, and not enough food. The sergeant who gave me a ride back told me that they are talking about not just closing the highways, but shutting down the borders of the state. People aren’t just fighting inside the cities. Many are starting to leave, he hears. Thousands of them, hungry and carrying what they can, moving out toward the countryside, especially in the south. Everyone, fleeing the city, coming out to where they think they might be able to find something to eat.”
It was terrible news, but it did not surprise me.
IT IS STRANGE, TO live in a time like this, when things feel so dangerous. But things have been very hard in the past, too. Every day, every day since I have been here in this settlement, I read from the Martyrs Mirror. That old book was a favorite of my father and especially my uncle, who, when he preached, would refer again and again to the sufferings of the martyrs throughout the ages. When I was a young man, the taste of the book had grown bitter in my mouth.
Yet when I came here, and in a time of testing and prayer Jonas Beiler heard of my spiritual struggle, it was he who told me to set aside that bitterness. Do not let the poison of your spirit keep you from the truth. Do not forget the power of a time of testing.
And so as I write, every day, I remember. Writing the words helps me remember.
All of those stories—of the martyrs, of faith in the crucible of suffering, of how good Christians have experienced and endured times of terrible torture and privation—I remember thinking to myself, so often, about how far away all of those things seemed. Here we were, and we prospered. Our hard work and diligence was rewarded by Providence. There was food, there was plenty, and our faith was without trial. It was easy to become prideful, or to become convinced of God’s protection.
Yes, we had to be disciplined, and yes, being among our brethren and renouncing the easy path of the English required strength of purpose. But the kind of strength to endure times of trial, and to stand unwilling to turn a hand against those who would harm us? Would starve us? Would destroy our bodies, even as our souls remain intact? That, for a while, has been a trial that we have not had to endure in this country.
Now, though, the time has shifted. The world itself has shifted. I must trust in my faith, that it will endure this testing.
Is that not the purpose of faith? Surely it is.
I PREPARE TO MAKE more jerky. I think I will do so on Saturday. Today I inspected the drying houses and found that my newest one had been a little beaten up in the storm. One of the side windows had been smashed, which is fixable. I will need to get replacement glass, or perhaps even just clear plastic. I would prefer to stay with glass, as it does not need to be insulated and there is much old single-pane to be had still. I do not think this will be a problem. In fact, I am sure I know where to get it.
As I thought about the drying houses, I found myself flipping back through my last journal, to the beginning, to remember something. It was when I built this last of the houses that I had tried to persuade Bishop Schrock to let me build something new.
I found the entries, from July and August one year ago.
I wanted to try a new design, one I’d seen in other settlements, after I had built the passive radiator houses. It was a tunnel dryer, one that heated air across a long chamber, which was then force-fed into the drying house by a solar-powered fan array.
It dried much faster, and in larger quantities, and I was eager to find a way to expand my business. I could see four or five of them, and maybe expanding so that selling dried meat could become my main business. Carpentry was so inconsistent, as useful as it was, and it felt like the right thing to do to ensure that our household had income.
But Bishop Schrock had balked. He felt it seemed unnecessarily complex, more potentially prideful. He told me I needed to pray over it, and to set such thoughts aside for a while.
Back then, I really did not quite grasp why he felt this way. Other communities in nearby districts used the same method, I argued, ones that we are in fellowship with. I did not see why I should not do the same.
We have already allowed one solar array, he had said. We do not yet know how that array will test us, or if it will be something the Order can make a larger part of our path.
And so he had told me that I should not put in the tunnel dryers, that I needed to wait.
I remember feeling that this might not be fair, and that to wait did not make sense. Yet I did, and instead of building a tunnel dryer, I built another passive panel dryer.
And now I am glad that it happened as it did. If I had built those dryers, they would not work now. The solar storm had shorted out the one array that existed in the settlement, in a way that could not be repaired.
And so now, instead of being down one drying house, I have all three working. Strange how Providence can work, with hardship proving to be the thing that strengthens us.
I MARVEL, THIS EVENING, at Sadie. She is still a slender and flighty bird, a delicate thing. But her change over these last few weeks has been a miracle, the kind of change that Hannah and I had been praying for since first she had her seizures. There have been none, not since the Blackout began. I do not know how that can be.
She seems more at ease, and it is as if the tension has flown from her face. It is fuller, softer, younger. When she speaks, in passing or to her mother, I can hear a difference. Or I think I can.
I am thankful, certainly. It is a blessing.
October 16
This afternoon, Mike arrived again. I had been wondering about him, and praying over him, and worrying over him. It had been long since I saw him, as I had not been able to see him when I went to Lancaster.
And then, as I was finishing up some repair work to one of the meat dryers, there he was. He came trudging up the drive, pushing that bicycle, behind which was a makeshift trailer. He was not alone.
Behind him, just a few strides back, were his two sons, Derek and Tad, sixteen and fourteen, each with a large pack, each pulling a wagon filled with supplies. One, a child’s red wagon, the other, a two-wheeled lawn cart. And behind them, a woman I knew from a picture I had seen once.
Shauna, his ex-wife. She was a little older, and quite a bit heavier than in the picture, but it was her.