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Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Fall Corn Maze

I came across our favorite local corn maze today and wanted to share it. We go every year with our kids and enjoy it's closeness and making a family tradition that is quite repeatable. This new tradition helps us look forward to fall and at least 1 thing we can feel is ours. This might make a great Transplant field trip!
 
Limited Deals Available!

Buy It Today, Use It Today

$ 1500
$30.00 Reg Price
$15 For A Family 4-Pack Of Tickets To The Regular Or Flashlight Corn Maze (Reg. $30)
About this deal...
Being asked to “Get lost” should generally be taken as an insult, but at Oregon Dairy’s “The Farmstead” Corn Maze, the proprietors (in the most polite way possible) invite you and your friends to do just that. You’ll be swallowed up by a field of corn for a fun Flashlight Maze nighttime adventure using only flashlights, your innate sense of direction and the Doppler effect to judge the direction of other maze-goers’ cries for help. Find your way to some serious fun with this deal, good for a family 4-pack of tickets to the regular or flashlight corn maze for only $15, a $30 value.
Open every Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from September 15, 16, 17 and 18 through October 27, 28, 29 and 30, Oregon Dairy’s family-friendly farm fun gets a little corny, as guests are invited to find their way through the acres and acres of tassel-topped twists and turns that make up the famous Corn Maze. Flashlight Maze hours are Friday and Saturday nights from 6pm to 10pm, with the last admissions into the maze at 9pm. You’ll also find a food trailer with burgers, pulled BBQ sandwiches and whoopie pies, garden tractor barrel rides, pedal tractor rides, jump pad, straw tunnel and strawmound playground, plus Kids’ Pumpkin Pickin’ Days every weekend afternoon in October.
About this business...
Oregon Dairy is a family friendly supermarket, restaurant, gift shoppe, ice cream shoppe and award-winning bakery - all on a real working Lancaster County Dairy Farm. We are committed to providing high quality local produce, meats and seafood, custom designed wedding & birthday cakes and baked goods to our customers in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and the surrounding areas. Oregon Dairy specializes in seasonal events throughout the year from free concerts on the deck in the summer to the amazing corn maze and kids' pumpkin pickin' days in the fall.
Certificates are valid FROM THE DAY OF PURCHASE until 10/30/2016
The Fine Print
Certificates can be used during regular maze hours. Merchant will abide by gift certificate state laws. No cash or credit back. Each certificate must be used in one visit. Not valid on tax or gratuity. Limit one certificate per visit. Certificate cannot be used in conjunction with any other certificate, coupon, special or promotion.

Sunday, August 21, 2016

Meeting at my house!

You all are welcome to come to my house Friday the 26th at 7pm for tea/coffee and conversation. I live at 11 Andrew Ave. Ephrata PA 17522. Be sure to check out our meeting on meetup.com/arriveandthrive/ to rsvp.
 

Thursday, August 11, 2016

Meet at Zig's cafe Saturday at 9am then let's enjoy the Lititz Craft Show. 8-13-2016

Zig's bakery is beautiful and the perfect place to eat brunch and talk. I hope you can join us! We can drive to the Craft Show parking together divide up if needed and find some treasures too.

Ten Thousand Villages Friday night at 6. 8-12-16


Join us at 6 for a visit then hang around to here local jazz artists. There's a café, tea and of course shopping. See you there.


Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Going Native



Welcome to Transplants



Our Mission-

Our goal is to provide a group where women new to Lancaster County can make connections and flourish.

How to make friends after moving   -The Social Success Method
Going Native-   

 “One of the most important things you need to do when you’re about to move to  a new country (or even a new region in the same country) is to research local customs and traditions. This is important whether you’re a trailing spouse, or the one whose job has prompted the move- especially if that job involves managing people. When trying to get to know people who are native to your new home, taking the time to ask about (and understand) their values, upbringing and culture is a vital part of forming lasting friendships.”

From my experience and research I’ve come to understand the most important value of the Amish/Mennonite culture is simply family.

Here is an article from Direction A Mennonite Brethren Forum- to help us understand the dynamics of the Mennonite family structure.

"Each one of us has experienced, in his own unique way, the powerful influence of the family. Those of us who are Mennonite in background and upbringing can easily recall the distinctive influence that the family had upon us. Indeed, to a certain degree, we have tasted a slightly different flavor of that substance known as the family because we were Mennonites.

For example, we have always been closely in touch with our extended family. Not only have grandparents and uncles and aunts exerted considerable influence upon our upbringing, but we have also included relatives of more distant degrees in our family-consciousness. Consequently, at many family functions there were great-uncles, second or even third cousins, and other more distant relatives, who were called “uncles” and “aunts” not only out of respect, but also to emphasize that they were still “family.” I still remember the time that a friend, in talking about his family, identified one of his sixth cousins as still having family connections with him!

A second distinctive feature of the Mennonite family is the deep concern for the family “image.” The activities of an individual were seldom considered in isolation from those of the rest of his family. An individual was considered to reflect his entire family, and we all remember those who were frequently described as bearing certain blessings or blemishes solely because of their family connections.

The third and most pervading distinctive of the Mennonite family is the extremely complex overlapping between the family and the faith. Indeed, this close, interlocking relationship between one’s faith and one’s family has existed from the earliest days of the Anabaptist movement. Despite the fact that the Anabaptist-Mennonite churches have always emphasized that faith must be a voluntary, individual response to God, nevertheless the influence of family upon faith, and faith upon family, have always been keenly recognized.

Thus, the early Mennonites held that excommunicated members were to be shunned even by the members of their own families. Likewise, if a member of the church married a person outside the fellowship, the member was to be excommunicated.”

I found this article interesting because it summed up the importance of family and the Mennonite culture and the attitudes I encounter every day.  I had approached the Mennonite church as just another denomination I could become a part of by joining their church. I neglected to realize that family, faith, and church all overlapped here and joining the church did not mean I shared their heritage or family.

Here is a quote from  themennonite.org/feature/Mennonite/ evaluating the Mennonite church.

“Yet because most of those who have carried the Mennonite torch for so long in the eastern United States have been Swiss-Germans, our particular incarnation of Mennonite values came to be confused with what it means to be Mennonite. John Howard Yoder concluded in 1970 that the primary focus of the Mennonite denomination had become the preservation of ethnic Mennonitism rather than the proclamation of the true gospel in word and deed.”

I started asking questions and realized that the people I met all had either Amish or Mennonite roots. Many grew up in plain dress. Several have mothers who still wear a covering. Most can trace their family heritage back several hundred years. When they tell me their extended family are going to the beach they mean all 40 of them. I began to see that their church was an extension of their family, their heritage, their ethnic group.

This helped me realize I would not find the instant “Spiritual Family” I took for granted when I joined a new church. Joining church up here was easy to physically do but to be accepted into an established ethnic group with it’s values and expectations tightly woven into their blood family was another thing entirely.

Going Native in Lancaster County means recognizing the power of culture, heritage and family in the lives of the people I meet. It also means not being offended when no one invites me to the wedding, when the church forgets to tell me they changed their meeting place that night, when Christmas approaches and the friendships I was cultivating disappear until after the New Year. Family reigns in Lancaster County.


Understanding the culture of Lancaster County can help us have realistic expectations and value the people who reach out to us in friendship. An offer of friendship here is a precious thing whether it is from a native or from a Transplant.


“I think if I’ve learned anything about friendship, it’s to hang in, stay connected, fight for them, and let them fight for you. Don’t walk away, don’t be distracted, don’t be too busy or tired, don’t take them for granted. Friends are part of the glue that holds life and faith together. Powerful stuff.” ~ Jon Katz