1. My Origins
Through December 1965
This Account
As I begin this account, I have just turned sixty years old. That seems strange to me since I was a young man only a short time ago. At the same time, I am nearly halfway through completing what will be the synthesis and culmination of all that God has taught me over many years, the five texts titled Symmorphy.
[I wrote this first chapter at that time; subsequent chapters began around three years later.]
As a writer, as a believer in Jesus, and as a life-long student of the Bible, I have the silly idea that my texts on Symmorphy should and will replace Augustine and the Nicene Council in the thinking of Christians over the next thousand years. I know how ridiculous that claim sounds, thus I call it a “silly idea.”
I have a reason for even imagining such a thing to be God’s intention in the unfolding of history, and that is because I know, at least intellectually, that I am giving you the truth of God as it has never before been released to His church. And I am giving you that truth entirely out from the New Testament and entirely out from the Spirit of God.
So, if you are willing to entertain my foolishness for just a bit, we together must ask the obvious question – Why in God’s good name would He, in fact, pick such a bumbling failure of a man as this unknown “Daniel Yordy” to speak the revelation of Christ as He is to His church?
I write this account for two reasons. First, I intend to prove to you that God has no good reason whatever to speak to His church through me – and many, many good reasons why He would not. And second, I am responsible to lay before you how God has taken me by the hand, step by faltering step, and led me into His own heart, that here, hiding entirely inside the heart of my Father, I might show that heart to you.
God, the God of the Bible, is entirely different from what they say.
If it is true, however, that I am, in fact, showing the Heart of Father to the church, a God never before seen or known as He really is, even in Christianity, then those now and in the future who may consider God through what I share have every right to know the path from which all this has come, all the experiences, all the issues, all the joys and sorrows.
Since my purpose in this account is somewhat academic, I will not attempt to turn these pages towards popular literature, a talent I don’t necessarily have. At the same time, I hope to be complete in my account, that is, I hope to cover those many remembrances that are of meaning and value to me. Most parts of my history I will explore in depth, including the names of the many dear believers in Jesus with whom I have walked and my interactions with them.
I have two perspectives as I look back now over my sixty years of life. First, I see only the Lord Jesus Christ in every moment from my conception until now. Even before I asked Jesus into my heart at the age of seven, He carried me in all ways, and every part of me was found only inside of Him. Whatever actions of sin I may have committed, Jesus had already become upon the cross and taken them into an empty grave. And even though Jesus did not intend those actions of sin in my life, yet He did intend me through whatever those circumstances might have been. Yet it is not sin that I see, but Jesus. Thus, I now see Him revealing Himself in and as every part of me through every moment of my life.
And because I see my life as one seamless history of Christ, the Lord Jesus carrying me entirely inside Himself through all of it, I also look quite differently at all the people and all the circumstances through those years. For I see the same Jesus who carries me, also carrying them. As He reveals Himself through every moment of my own life, so He reveals Himself through theirs.
Sustaining all things by the Word of His power (Hebrews 1:3). Either Christ Jesus is all or He is nothing.
I find at the present moment no offense remaining inside of me. Every word or deed of any other person that I found to be offensive at that time, I no longer see as offense. And it is with joy alone that I place every person and every circumstance into the Mercy Seat of my heart, into the love of my Father for them flowing out of me.
Though I have forgiven all, there is no longer any need to forgive.
At the same time, I am compelled to honesty. For that reason, I must present many of those actions of others that, at that time, I imagined to be hurtful to me. My intention in honesty is in no way to point the finger, but rather to lead you and them by the hand, if it be possible, into knowing the same Mercy Seat of love in which I live, into the same seeing of Christ Jesus in every moment of your life.
On the other hand, I have also most certainly offended many, treated people badly, and acted in inconsiderate ways. I don’t think my intention was ever to be destructive, yet my actions and words many times may well have been just that. For that reason, if any whom I have known might read this, I ask you to forgive me of any sins I may have committed against you. I was completely wrong.
In the joy of your forgiveness graciously extended to me, I begin my account.
One final note first: it is said that no autobiography can be truly accurate since its author is biased to the point of wearing blindfolds regarding many of life’s circumstances. That is as it must be. It is certainly true that any individual who has interacted with me throughout my life will have their own different and personalized view of the circumstances I share, a view that will undoubtedly differ in some respects from mine. Yet I am convinced that they must agree that the general outline of all those events as I give them is accurate. I present things only as I, myself, know them; I can make no other claims.
Yet I also know this. Many who thought they knew me, knew me only by outward appearance. Many knew little of the real person inside of my shell, the one carried by the Lord Jesus through all things.
My Heritage
I was born on October 29, 1956 in a hospital in the small town of Mio, Michigan. My father was Emerson Edwin Yordy and my mother was Rhoda Marie (Handrich) Yordy. My father’s parents were David Yordy and Sarah (Stauffer) Yordy. My mother’s parents were William Handrich and Marie (Troyer) Handrich. We were Mennonites.
Tracing the line of my grandfather, David Yordy, takes us only to his father, John Yordy, born in Bavaria, Germany in 1838, of his mother, Mary Berkey. John was the child of a rape, assumed to be by a soldier. The genealogy of Mary and the Berkey family is well-developed on the Internet.
John immigrated to America at age ten with his mother. In the Mennonite community in Illinois where they settled, Mary met and married Peter Yordy, also newly come from Germany. There is no record of John’s adoption by Peter; nevertheless, we bear his name, Yordy. John, apparently, was not accepted by the much younger children of that marriage, and went his separate way in life. Two things can be said about my great-grandfather, John’s, life, he never stayed in the same situation long, he never felt that he fit. And he loved the Lord Jesus, whose grace was apparent on his life.
My grandfather, John’s son, David Yordy, born in 1875, grew up in the corn country of Nebraska, but moved to Michigan at some point and purchased a farm in the Ashley area, north of Lansing where he became a dairy farmer. My cousin, Wallace Yordy, still runs that farm, though he no longer has a dairy. We visited there last in 2012.
My own father, Emerson Edwin, was the fifth of six children, born in Nebraska before the move to Michigan. Although I grew up in Oregon, I met all of his brothers and sisters in trips back to Michigan during my childhood. Dad grew up on the farm in Michigan. During WWII, dad worked for the government as a conscientious objector, building dams in Oregon, and then testing dairy cattle in Michigan. While conducting that job in Fairview, Michigan, dad attended the local Mennonite church. There he met Rhoda Handrich. He told me that from the first that he saw my mother, he never considered any other woman. They married there in Fairview, Michigan, in 1944; Dad was 27 and Mom was 22. Dad was 6’2” tall and Mom was 5’1”.
My father’s mother, Sarah Stauffer, was descended from a long line of Stauffer’s, whose genealogy is found on the Internet all the way back to the Anabaptists of Switzerland in the 1500’s. Stauffer is taken from Stauffen Mountain in the Bernese Alps. In the last part of the 1500’s, many of the Anabaptists were driven out of Switzerland and found refuge and tolerance in the German states to the north, Alsace and Baden. Some were subsequently influenced by Jacob Amman in Alsace (the Amish) and others were influenced by Menno Simons of Holland (Mennonites). Three of my grandparents trace their ancestry to these same Anabaptists driven out of their homeland because of their faith in Jesus.
I know less about my mother’s parents, even though I spent a few days with them several different times growing up. I liked playing shuffle board with my grandpa. I saw my grandfather, William, last in 1983, just after my grandmother had died. He was 91 and almost as spry as ever.
I did trace William Handrich’s ancestry back once on the Internet. That search led me to the Kreighbol line, through one of the mothers. There I discovered that my mom’s dad, William Handrich, was descended from a Kreighbol who had lived in a Christian community in Switzerland in the mid-1500’s, along with a Stauffer in that same community, from whom came my dad’s mother, Sarah.
I know little about the history of my grandmother, Marie Troyer, though I remember well her cheery smile. My grandmother, Sarah, had held me as a baby; I still have a Christmas card from her to me. She died before I was one.
My Family
Let me give, now, a quick history of my own family, up until the time we moved to Oregon in 1960, when I was three years old. My parents first lived in a little house on my grandfather’s dairy farm, across the way from the big house, with Dad’s mother, Sarah. Dad’s older brother, John, had inherited part of the farm with the main house from their dad, David Yordy, who had been killed by one of his bulls in 1935. My mother was very different from my grandmother, and they did not have an easy time of it in that little house.
David was their first child, born in 1945, then Franz in 1947, Frieda in 1949, and Thomas in 1952. My parents then moved with their four children back up to the Fairview, Michigan area, to a house on the property belonging to my mother’s sister and her husband, Floyd and Donna Esch. Dad bulldozed the road a mile through my uncle’s property back to the house, thus today that road is named Yordy Road. Dad worked for a while as a bulldozer operator. My sister, Cheryl, was born in 1954.
Then, in the fall of 1955, Dad was driving home with David and Thomas in the front seat and Franz and Frieda in the back seat. Not far from my Aunt and Uncle’s farm, there was a slight hill in the gravel road. A car came flying over that hill and hit our car head on. Of course, in those days, there were neither seat belts nor car seats. Tommy and David were killed and Dad, Franz, and Frieda were badly injured. Little baby Cheryl had been home with Mom.
Dad had wanted to be a pastor in the church, a minister of the Lord Jesus, as I always have. Yet, though he prepared himself to that end, he was never really accepted by the Mennonite Church there in Fairview in a ministry role. After the terrible accident and the loss of two of their sons, it was indicated to my parents that this was the “judgment of God” upon them. Why God would exact such judgment upon my kind and generous parents who loved Jesus has never been clear to me.
I was conceived and born during the sorrow of those times, October 29, 1956, Daniel David Yordy, the David in memory of my brother who was lost. In May of 1958, my family moved up to a farm house near Gulliver, Michigan, in the upper peninsula. Dad had grown up as a farmer and wanted to try his hand at farming again. He was not able to make a living by it, though he always held farming close to his heart.
Dad had a number of cousins who had found a home in Oregon. In April of 1960, we moved to Tangent, Oregon and lived first in a little house that had belonged to my Great-Aunt Bella Schrock, who had passed on. That little house was next to the larger farmhouse where my Dad’s cousin was a grass-seed farmer. The only thing I remember there was the big pear tree in the front yard.
In September, 1960, we moved to a larger house several miles north of Lebanon, Oregon. I do have memories from that time, playing with my sister, Cheryl, and sitting on the edge of the cucumber fields as Mom added a bit of income by picking cucumbers, a most nasty job in my childhood mind. Dad had been hired by Wah Chang, a rare metals factory in nearby Albany, Oregon, owned by the Telluride Corporation. He worked at that factory for the remainder of his working years, becoming a zirconium furnace operator. He was paid a decent wage, allowing my very thrifty and hands-on parents to provide a middle-class environment for us.
My family probably attended church at the stricter branch of Mennonites in the area, but Dad would never have taken to legalism. We attended the regular Mennonite church in Lebanon for a few months, but somehow Dad was not satisfied. Finally, we visited a non-Mennonite church called Calvary Community Church, just east of Albany. Dad must have liked it because we attended there for a couple of years.
I want to share one anecdote from this time that illustrates the type of person I would become. The Calvary Community Church had a picnic together near a rocky outcrop, probably Knox Butte. The rocky slope, not quite straight up, but with lots of ledges, was maybe 50 feet high. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before I was found half-way up, determined to reach the top, but unable to go up or down. I might have been five. I was soon spotted, and a young man climbed up to where I was and carried me back to my anxious parents. This need to explore has been a major factor in my life.
Moving to Lacomb
Sometime in the summer of 1961, Dad was able to purchase a property of 29 acres up against the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, two miles east and north of the little village of Lacomb, Oregon. The property had just been logged and Dad bought it at a discount – $2500 at $25 a month.
Not long after, we moved to another house just south of Lebanon. Through my growing up years, I always shared a bedroom with my brother, Franz, who was nine years older than I. That was not easy for either one of us. I do remember that our little bedroom in this farmhouse was in an attic, which in my child’s mind was pretty cool.
In August of 1962, Dad found a large white house for rent in Lacomb, right across from the little grocery store and right next to the little post office. Dad continued to work at Wah Chang, but now it was easier for him to go to our new property on his off times and work with my brother Franz, preparing the site for our new home. That September, I began attending first grade at Lacomb Elementary School, just down the street from us. I was five years old.
I did not know it, of course, but far to the southeast of us, just a few days before I turned six, a little girl was born in a hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her name was Maureen Mack. Her parents were Claude and Roberta Mack; her father was in the U.S. Navy. Almost twenty-eight years later she would become the most important part of my life.
My “little” sister, Jenelle, was born in February, 1963. Dad and Franz began the construction of our new home in earnest that spring. They finished the first part of our new home for us to move in by March of 1965. Thus we were in the Lacomb house for about 2 ½ years.
Just down the street from us lived a boy my age, Randy Thorpe; we became friends. He attended the local Baptist church, just north of Lacomb. My parents, though Mennonite, were not sectarian. Anyone who loved Jesus was always enough for them. Thus I began attending side functions at the Lacomb Baptist Church, such things as Vacation Bible School and the weekly boys club, something I continued doing until my teen years.
Soon after our move to Lacomb, we as a family began to attend another local church in the Lacomb area, Providence Community Church, a historical landmark with a fascinating graveyard behind it.
Thus, in June of 1964 I attended the Vacation Bible School at the Baptist Church. For some reason, it is burned in my mind that my parents also took me to the VBS that summer at the Albany Mennonite Church, across the freeway from Wah Chang. Regardless, I remember distinctly the flannel board, and the teacher placing a black heart on that board, and then a red heart upon the black, and then a white heart upon the red. My own heart was deeply moved.
A few days later I was sitting on the back steps of our home, there in Lacomb, remembering that teaching.
“Jesus, would you come into my heart?” I asked.
As my heart was warmed in that moment, I knew that is exactly what He had done. I was seven years old.
We began attending Albany Mennonite Church in January of 1965, just before moving into our new home on our own property at 34769 East Lacomb Road. At this point in time, my childhood memory had become complete. Thus my childhood from age eight to age fifteen was set, now, in church attendance at Albany Mennonite Church, in growing up on our property next to the mountains and just above Crabtree Creek, and in attendance at Lacomb Elementary through eighth grade, going on, then, to Lebanon Union High School for ninth grade.
Let’s back up a few months, however, to the fall of my third-grade year. Two things happened that fall. My first national memory came when the principal gathered the entire school onto the bleachers of the gym to inform us that our President, John F. Kennedy, had been shot and killed. That was a momentous moment in our hearts. It was also the event that would turn the generation of the sixties into the path of war and rebellion against mindless murder.
The second thing was that they lined us all up at school and shot a smallpox vaccination into our arms. By the time I turned nine, a light had gone out inside of me; of that I will talk later. A little boy who was the star of his school play in second grade, outgoing and friendly became confused and withdrawn, hiding from an internal pain he did not understand.
The final note of my family was the birth of my brother, Glenn Thomas, on Christmas Day, 1965. “Thomas” was in memory of our brother.
God with Me
I wrote the first part of this chapter six years ago, at the same time I was writing Symmorphy III: Kingdom. I did not know then what would happen to me as I wrote this account. Yet as I am finishing my life story, I am sitting here filled with overflowing joy.
But I will not tell you how or why, for this is a path, and you must follow it as I have, a path of entering into the knowledge of God as God speaks it in His Word.
At every step along the way, both in the months and years through which I lived and in the writing of this account, i imagined only that I stumbled from one failure to the next, from one painful experience to the next.
I did not know myself because I did not know my God.
At the beginning of this chapter I raised this question. – Why in God’s good name would He, in fact, pick such a bumbling failure of a man as this unknown “Daniel Yordy” to speak the revelation of Christ as He is to His church?
As I complete this account, I still have no idea "why," yet I know, with all quiet certainty that He has.
My life is a path prepared for you, for your sake, dear reader, that you also might enter into the Joy in whom we live every day.