WILLARD, Box Elder County -- The modest house is filled with a tangible contentment that permeates each room. A small boy sleeps on the living room rug while his brother plays quietly close by.
Furnished with life's necessities, but none of its luxuries, it is a simple, homey place filled with the smell of baking pies and freshly-laundered shirts, starched and hung next to the ironing board. Vegetables and fruits sprout in the acreage behind, and chickens meander through the yard.No TV blaring, no Nintendo hypnotizing, no talk radio chattering, no computer beckoning. All by design.
It's the life Philip and Elsie Lehman brought with them when they came to Utah two years ago to help establish a Mennonite community here. The Lehmans are one of 11 families who now operate their own enterprises in northern Utah that include everything from carpentry and cattle ranching to jam-making.
On this particular day, Philip takes a break from his farming chores to describe his own small business. Leaning over a large kettle he recently installed in the garage outside, he details how the bounty from area fruit farms is processed here to become "Utah Traffic Jams," a new marketing name for the two of Lehman's 25 flavors.
He and his wife process the product from start to finish, and he markets it at various specialty and grocery stores along with Wasatch Front. Yet unlike most businessmen with a good product and an adcampaign to match, Philip doesn't yearn to move beyond his small, home-based manufacturing operation.
"We're doing it as a means of providing for our family. I'm not interested in getting rich or becoming a millionaire. If the business were to really take off, I'd be inclined to sell it and do something more simple."
Indeed, simplicity is the byword of the Mennonite lifestyle -- in dress, deportment and daily living.
"We never wear slacks," says Elsie, motioning to the homemade dress and dark shoes she's attired in. "There's a verse in the Bible that says women are not to wear that which pertaineth unto a man." Women also wear a white head covering, and both men and women are careful to be modestly clothed.
While the simplicity of their lifestyle sets them apart, Mennonites are quick to emphasize that they have chosen to do so solely because their devotion to God dictates it.
Confused with polygamists
Judy Dent of Clearfield says her conversion to the faith tested that devotion in very specific ways, including the "painful confusion" that results when people assume she is a polygamist. "We appreciate very much that they do dress that way, but does cause some pain in our hearts that people look at us and think maybe that we are."
As the only member of her family to embrace the religion at a time when there was no congregation in Utah, Dent wrestled with the challenges that came with changing her lifestyle.
"Putting the head covering on didn't go over real well at my house," she recalls. "My husband has always allowed me to practice my beliefs, and he's never stood in my way, but that was one thing he didn't like very well. I think he has since accepted it and even respects it now, and the teachings that go with it.
Not fitting in
"When I started making real radical changes -- dressing more modestly, putting away the TV, avoiding places of worldly entertainment -- I had a young teenager at the time, and it was very hard for him. It seemed to him like I was doing nothing but taking things away. . . . It was very hard facing friends and family members dressing the way we dress because it's not the norm. Everybody wants to feel like they fit in with a group and you don't --I didn't fit in anywhere anymore."
Converted after searching for something more meaningful that the "lukewarm" Christianity she had known before, she came in contact with Mennonite beliefs through the faith's curriculum for children that a friend had procured. She began corresponding with Mennonites, adopted the faith as her own and received constant letters of support from them as a lone believer.
She credits God with bringing her through it all, and for sending fellow believers to Utah. Now she finds great support and satisfaction in having a congregation close by, though she lives about an hour south of the church and the other Mennonites.
A church to support her
"They moved here for me and hopefully others like me. There are others with some interest here, but none who were members or looking seriously to be members. It's kind of unique -- I've never run across a church that would actually do that for someone."
Their simplicity and sincerity is what attracted Dent.
"They applied scripture to their lives in a very real way. They were serious about going to heaven, about getting their children to heaven, and I just didn't find the lukewarmness there, but people really living their faith instead of just on Sundays."
The Mennonites are part of the Anabaptist tradition, which practices baptism by sprinkling or pouring for adult believers. Men and women sit on separate sides of the church during worship, and men officiate.
Linked by many to the Amish because of their style of dress and abstinence from "worldliness," the Mennonites do use modern conveniences and electricity but stay away from anything that would bring a worldly influence into their homes.
Homespun entertainment
Philip says he occasionally will buy a newspaper, "but it's not something we have coming in on a regular basis." They eschew organized sports and instrumental music, and entertainment consists of "family time, working in the garden together, reading the Bible together, singing and visiting together.
"That's a big difference between us and modern America," Philip says. "They are looking for play. We wouldn't stress that. When you become a man, you put away childish things.
The simplicity has attracted Gracia Roemer, a free-lance writer who has examined several religious traditions looking for a church home she's comfortable with.
"I like the fact that Mennonite parents think about the consequences of their actions. They don't bow to worldly pressures to buy Barbies and guns for their kids. Their social conscience prohibits them from submitting to popular culture in ways that possibly others do."
Elsie Lehman has befriended Roemer, who sees her as "clearly a very happy woman. For her I think joy is found in relationship rather in possession of nonessential things. She delights in her children, her pet geraniums and the chickens. She also finds great pleasure in serving others. It provides a rare richness for life that I find appealing -- her emphasis on spirit rather than self."