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Springfield | |
|---|---|
| Country |  Belize |
| District | Cayo District |
| Population (2010) | |
| • Total | 270 [1] |
| Time zone | UTC-6 (Central) |
Springfield is a Mennonite village in Cayo District, Belize, some 15 km south of the capital Belmopan.
Springfield was founded around 1996 as a daughter colony of the Upper Barton Creek settlement of very conservative Mennonites, who mainly live in the United States. These Mennonites, that belong to the Noah Hoover branch of Old Order Mennonites, are in many outward aspects similar to Old Order Amish, but clearly distinct from them. Norris Hall, a photojournalist who in 2011 made a photo documentary about the people of Springfield, erroneously refers to them as "Amish". [2]
In Springfield there is a fruit tree nursery and a horse powered saw mill. [3] [4]
The village population of 270 residents is composed of 40 families of Plautdietsch and Pennsylvania German speaking Mennonites. They have large families, in average 6.8 persons per household. [1]
The Mennonites are members of certain Christian groups belonging to the church communities of Anabaptist denominations named after Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland. Through his writings, Simons articulated and formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss founders, with the early teachings of the Mennonites founded on the belief in both the mission and ministry of Jesus, which the original Anabaptist followers held with great conviction, despite persecution by various Roman Catholic and Protestant states. An early set of Mennonite beliefs was codified in the Dordrecht Confession of Faith in 1632, but the various groups do not hold to a common confession or creed.
Kalona is a city in Washington County, Iowa, United States. It is part of the Iowa City, Iowa Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,363 at the 2010 census. Kalona is the second largest city in Washington County.
Penn Yan is an incorporated village in Yates County, New York, United States. The population was 5,159 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Yates County and lies at the north end of the east branch of Keuka Lake, one of the Finger Lakes. Penn Yan, New York is home to one of the oldest mills in the United States, The Birkett Mills founded in 1797. The Birkett Mills produces Buckwheat products, mainly Buckwheat Pancake mixes.
Pennsylvania German, usually referred to as Pennsylvania Dutch, is a variety of West Central German spoken by the Old Order Amish, Old Order Mennonites and other descendants of German immigrants in the United States and Canada, closely related to the Palatine dialects. There are possibly more than 300,000 native speakers in the United States and Canada. In Pennsylvania, 29.9% of the population currently claim German ancestry.
Shipyard, also called Shipyard Colony, is a Mennonite settlement that is also an administrative village in the Orange Walk District of Belize.
Plain people are Christian groups characterized by separation from the world and by simple living, including plain dressing in modest clothing. Many Plain people have an Anabaptist background. These denominations are largely of German, Swiss German, Dutch or other European ancestry. Conservative Friends are traditional Quakers who are also considered plain people; they come from a variety of different ethnic backgrounds.
Old Order Mennonites form a branch of the Mennonite tradition. Old Order are those Mennonite groups of Swiss German and south German heritage who practice a lifestyle without some elements of modern technology, who dress plainly and who have retained the old forms of worship, baptism and communion.
The Ordnung is a set of rules for Amish, Old Order Mennonite and Conservative Mennonite living. Ordnung is the German word for order, discipline, rule, arrangement, organization, or system. Because the Amish have no central church government, each assembly is autonomous and is its own governing authority. Thus, every local church maintains an individual set of rules, adhering to its own Ordnung, which may vary from district to district as each community administers its own guidelines. These rules are largely unwritten, yet they define the very essence of Amish identity. Conservative Mennonites refer to Ordnung by the English terms "discipline" or "standard" and are usually written.
The Amish blueprint for expected behavior, called the Ordnung, regulates private, public, and ceremonial life. Ordnung does not translate readily into English. Sometimes rendered as ordinance or discipline, the Ordnung is best thought of as an ordering of the whole way of life ... a code of conduct which the church maintains by tradition rather than by systematic or explicit rules. A member noted: The order is not written down. The people just know it, that's all. Rather than a packet of rules to memorize, the Ordnung is the understood behavior by which the Amish are expected to live. In the same way that the rules of grammar are learned by children, so the Ordnung, the grammar of order, is learned by Amish youth. The Ordnung evolved gradually over the decades as the church sought to strike a delicate balance between tradition and change. Specific details of the Ordnung vary across church districts and settlements.
A horse mill is a mill, sometimes used in conjunction with a watermill or windmill, that uses a horse engine as the power source. Any milling process can be powered in this way, but the most frequent use of animal power in horse mills was for grinding grain and pumping water. Other animal engines for powering mills are powered by dogs, donkeys, oxen or camels. Treadwheels are engines powered by humans.
The Beachy Amish Mennonites are formally a subgroup of Amish but they are much less traditional than other Amish. Even though they have retained the name "Amish" they are quite different from the common idea of Amish: they do not use horse and buggy for transportation, with a few exceptions they do not speak Pennsylvania German anymore, nor do they have restrictions on technology except for radio and television. In the years 1946 to 1977 a majority was transformed into an evangelical revivalist denomination. The traditionalists who wanted to preserve the old Beachy Amish ways then withdrew and formed their own congregations. Today they are known as Midwest Beachy Amish Mennonites or Old Beachy Amish.
The Groffdale Conference Mennonite Church, also called Wenger Mennonites, is the largest Old Order Mennonite group to use horse-drawn carriages for transportation. Along with the automobile, they reject many modern conveniences, while allowing electricity in their homes and steel-wheeled tractors to till the fields. Initially concentrated in eastern Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, their numbers had grown to 22,305 people resided in eight other states as of 2015. They share the pulpit with the Ontario Mennonite Conference but have some differences in Ordnung.
The Amish are a group of traditionalist Christian church fellowships with Swiss German and Alsatian Anabaptist origins. They are closely related to Mennonite churches. The Amish are known for simple living, plain dress, Christian pacifism, and slowness to adopt many conveniences of modern technology, with a view to not interrupt family time, nor replace face-to-face conversations whenever possible.
Mennonites in Belize form different religious bodies and come from different ethnic backgrounds. There are groups of Mennonites living in Belize who are quite traditional and conservative, while others have modernized to various degrees.
Subgroups of Amish developed over the years, as Amish churches have divided many times over doctrinal disputes. The 'Old Order' Amish, a conservative faction that withdrew from fellowship with the wider body of Amish in the 1860s, are those that have most emphasized traditional practices and beliefs. There are many different subgroups of Amish with most belonging, in ascending order of conservatism, to the Beachy Amish, New Order, Old Order, or Swartzentruber Amish groups.
Barton Creek is the name of a small river and the area it flows through in Cayo District, Belize. The river is a right tributary of Belize River. In the area with this name there are two Mennonite settlements: Lower and Upper Barton Creek. Both are settlements of very conservative Mennonites in Belize. Barton Creek Cave can also be found here.
The Noah Hoover Mennonites, called "Old Order Mennonite Church (Hoover)" by the Mennonite World Conference, and sometimes called "Scottsville Mennonites”, are a group of very plain Old Order Mennonites that originally came from the Stauffer Mennonites and later merged with several other groups. Today it is seen as an independent branch of Old Order Mennonites. The group differs from other Old Order Mennonites by having settlements outside the US and Canada and by attracting new members from other groups on a larger scale. They have more restrictions on modern technology than all other Old Order Mennonite groups. They are rather intentionalist minded than ultra traditional.
Upper Barton Creek is a Mennonite settlement in Cayo District in Belize in the area of the Barton Creek. The Mennonites in Upper Barton Creek are ethnic Mennonites of the Noah Hoover group.
Pilgrimage Valley is a small Mennonite settlement in Cayo District, Belize, some 5 km east of San Ignacio.
Pine Hill is a Mennonite village in Toledo District, Belize, some 15 km north of the district capital Punta Gorda.
A Seeker is a person likely to join an Old Order Anabaptist community, like the Amish, the Old Order Mennonites, the Hutterites, the Old Order Schwarzenau Brethren or the Old Order River Brethren. Among the 500,000 members of such communities in the United States there are only an estimated 1,200 to 1,300 outsiders who have joined them.
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