Influences of Marion are many
The Rev. Jan Hayen, district superintendent of the Parsons District and a native of Marion, spoke Sunday during the Chingawassa Days community church service.
He spoke eloquently and emotionally on how the community had, and continues to, impact his life.
"This is my homecoming, but I won't come back and do it again," he said. "This is too hard."
Hayen said Marion has changed since he left as a teen-ager 44 years ago.
"But regardless of all the change that has gone on, it is still home," he said.
He spoke of the many friends, teachers, and neighbors who influenced him. He particularly spoke of Sadie Bernhardt, whose "love of Jesus that she shared with me was a powerful influence in my young life," he said.
His friends, particularly those with whom he grew up in the Locust and Lincoln Street neighborhood, "touched my life, and molded me in ways I'm still trying to figure out," he said.
But "home" also expands, Hayen said. His daughters and their families are "home" to him, too, for example.
Living a truly Christian life means being open to an expanded view of home, of seeing home in all of humanity. This isn't easy when the world is full of uncertainty, when it seems safer to draw into a small place, Hayen said.
He noted that Christ told people to love their enemies, minister to the sick, reach out to people of different lands and languages.
"He had a choice to stay a carpenter, or follow the path he did," Hayen said.
