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Leaving the Amish / Peggy Lewis

Last updated: 28 March 2010

The oldest Baptist minister in Wales is being buried this week in the valley town of Abertillery, where she had lived the whole of her remarkable life. The Rev Peggy Newell Lewis was 103 when she died last week. She had felt called to be a minister in her teens, but she was 60 before she was ordained; she retired at 80 and was still preaching into her nineties.

On 'All Things Considered' this week (Sunday March 28th at 8.30am, repeated on Wednesday March 31st at 6.30pm) we hear part of a conversation Roy Jenkins had with Peggy Newell Lewis just after she had celebrated her 100th birthday.

Also on this week's programme, we meet Ephraim Stoltzfus, who has been in Wales in the past week and who was brought up in a strict Amish community in Pennsylvania.

The Amish originally fled to America to escape persecution in Europe, and they're probably best known for their distinctive dress, and their rejection of some things many of us would find it hard to be without - mains electricity, or cars, for instance.

They're also pacifists who refuse to take legal action, and have such a mutual commitment that instead of insurance, they support one another in a model of community life which many envy.

But, as Ephraim Stoltzfus knows to his cost, it can be tough being a dissenter in a community founded on dissent.


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