Chapel address given virtually at EMS on September 18, 2020.
Hello, my EMS friends, my name is Don Clymer. I retired several years ago from teaching Spanish and other things just up the hill at EMU. Previous to that, I worked with Virginia Mennonite Conference and Missions, which is also located close to you. My daughter and her husband both graduated from EMS as did my son. In fact, my son Mattias, is on the alumni board of EMS. I also had several nieces and nephews graduate from here. My wife and I have been fans of your touring choir for many years, even before our children sang in it. In fact, when my son was in the choir, we spent several days with them in Switzerland during their European tour. My wife is from Switzerland and both of my children are Swiss citizens as well.Speaking of Switzerland, the roots of my family lie there. Most
of you, if not ALL of you, are from families of immigrants as well. Our
families came here from every part of the globe. We have been cut off from the
roots of our family tree, and because of this, many of us have a longing to
find out where we belong. And to whom we belong. After I married a Swiss woman,
I was quite interested in knowing more about where my family had come from
since we were always told that we were either from Swiss or German background.
I had a longing to know this link to my past, to belong to somewhere. So, I
started to do some research.
I discovered that Thoman Klymer, the earliest ancestor that
I could find, was born around 1536 in Montbeliard, France. That’s a long time
ago! Over 480 years ago. This was right
near the beginning of the Reformation and the establishment of the Protestant
Church. Thoman became a Protestant in France. They were called Huguenots. The
French government didn’t take too keenly to the Protestant movement, so Thoman
Klymer had to flee for his life, so he fled to Affoltern am Albis in
Switzerland, where his great-great grandson, my immigrant ancestor, Valentine
Klemmer, (Klemmer and Klymer have been interchanged throughout the centuries) was
born in 1665. Somewhere around 1685, he became an Anabaptist. Now it was his
turn to have to flee for his life! Something in my background makes me a bit of
a radical! He fled to Germany for about 20 years then immigrated to the USA in
1717. More than 300 years ago!
Finding all this information made me feel like I belong! I
belong to a family tribe that goes back to at least 1560! I also belong to the Anabaptist/Mennonite
faith, which for me stretches back 340 years. My longing to belong has been
satisfied! However, if you only stick to your tribe, you exclude a lot of people!
They feel unwelcome in your presence!
I got abruptly kicked out of my tribes when I went to
Honduras for two years as a 19-year old to serve in voluntary service with the
Mennonite Church. When I got there, I felt completely alien, like I didn’t belong!
I recently had a book published about my two years there.
When I first arrived, I didn’t know the language, I didn’t
know all the cultural nuances, and I felt like a duck out of water. I made
plenty of cultural mistakes, but, as the years went by, I began to feel more at
home, if not ever completely. My language improved, I made many friendships
with Hondurans, and I began to really love the food.
As I developed closer friendships with Hondurans, I
discovered that the way I viewed the world, and many of the assumptions that I
made about faith and life, were not understood the same way as Hondurans. I had
a very arrogant view of my country and how blessed by God we were for all the
wealth and material blessings we had.
However, they pointed out to me that much of the wealth of
the USA came thorough exploitation of Honduran and other Latin American people
and their natural resources. In Honduras it was bananas. We typically pay under
a dollar for a pound of bananas in the US. In order for them to be so cheap for
us, workers slave in the hot tropical sun in the fields for a mere 2 US dollars
a day. While thousands of acres of the best land are planted with bananas,
people in the villages surrounding these plantations are malnourished. Was my
blessing their curse?
In
Harrisonburg, I have met many Hondurans living here. We immediately connect with
each other when they hear about my time in their homeland. Most of them are
here to improve their economic situation. However, they don’t really feel
connected to the wider culture that surrounds them here. They often feel
hateful stares and racial slurs thrown at them. They certainly don’t feel like
they belong. So, they stick together in their neighborhoods seldom mixing with
the broader community.
Many of
those in the white majority here in the US think that our country belongs only
to certain groups of people from Europe, and our language is English. These
people haven’t studied their history very well. The first city found in the USA
was St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 as a Spanish-speaking settlement. Pretty interesting
that that date is about the same date as my earliest discovered ancestor was born.
By the time
the first British colony was founded in 1607 in Jamestown, there were Spanish
missions already established in all of the southwest from Texas to California
and north to Oregon, as well as in Georgia, Mississippi and Louisiana. Spanish
was already spoken in a large area of the United States before English got a
toehold. Today, after Mexico, the United States is the second largest
Spanish-speaking country in the world!
My longing
for belonging took me from my sheltered life to Switzerland, Germany and then
to Honduras. I developed skills in culture and language in each of these
places. In addition, my Mennonite tribe has been extended to belong in all of
these countries. I have found where I belong and then opened my tribes to
others different from me. I have been truly blessed, but not in the way I had
originally thought.
Where do
you belong? Where do you long to belong? Will you include those who don’t speak
and look like you as well?
