914 Leaning on the Everlasting Arms

This hymn in 4/4 time with 4 flats is almost 120 years old. Written by Elisha A. Hoffman based on a passage in Deuteronomy 33:27, it can be slow and nasal, or toe tapping, hand clapping and sprightly, “what a blessedness, what a peace is mine, leaning on the everlasting arms.” I came across it today because it was the March 16 selection in the book “Amazing Grace; 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions” (Kregel, 1990).

I don’t recall ever hearing this hymn in my home church in Mt. Morris, Illinois--we rarely sang anything with a strong beat, a waltz tune, or revivalist vigor--and you could almost do a slow jitterbug to this one. So I will forever associate it with a tiny church in Flat Creek, Kentucky, (near Manchester) where my sister Carol served with Brethren Volunteer Service (BVS) in the summer of 1956. The only service I attended in the little church included this hymn, “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms,” but they sang it like a mournful dirge. The small, poor congregation, who leaned not only on God but each other, the nasal harmony, and the heat of that summer have always stayed with me reminding me of Carol when I hear it.

The Church of the Brethren is a small, Anabaptist denomination founded in 1708 in Germany, and is often linked with the Quakers and Mennonites because of its pacifism and service. After WWII the church started a volunteer service program in 1948 with one or two year service opportunities preceded by a training program. Initially, it attracted mostly young people, but in the 60s began drawing more older and retired adults. Click here for history and service information about BVS.

My parents, brother and I had traveled to Flat Creek to visit Carol in the mountains where she lived with another volunteer and a “house mother” who sort of acted as a chaperone and helped with the domestic duties and a garden while the young women taught Sunday School and Bible School, provided recreational programs for the children and programming for adults. The mission also had a minister, but I’m not sure where he lived or if he may have served several churches. We went in July, so we may have driven down to be with her on her birthday.

I don’t know what the area looks like today, but getting there by automobile was quite a challenge in 1956. The unpaved roads seemed to be teetering on the edge, and if you met someone coming the other way. . . well, someone would have to give. The houses on the hillsides seemed to be built on stilts and cars and trucks on blocks shared the yards with chickens and dogs. To get to one of the little mission churches they served (may have been a home rather than a church building), Carol rode there on horseback. Since she’d never shown any interest in my horse, I found the sight of my older sister riding bareback almost more amazing than anything else I saw that week. I also encountered young girls my age who were already married, and some with babies--I was 15. We grew up in rural Illinois, but rural Kentucky in the mountains in the 1950s could have been another country--even the language didn’t sound like anything I’d heard.

We talk about kids growing up fast today because of the media influences, but after Mother's death in 2000 I brought home and re-read her letters to my parents she’d written that year and was just stunned by what the church expected of those very young men and women, many away from home for the first time, and most without even college or work experience. Today’s young adults of that age are in a time warp trapped in fantasy, make-believe and gaming compared to those teens of the mid-50s who were experiencing real life.

Training Unit photo. BVS unit 28

The training period was 8 or 9 weeks in New Windsor, Maryland, on the site of a former Brethren college. While she was still in her training, there was terrible flooding in Pennsylvania, and these kids were pulled from classes to go out and help clean up the disaster, which included finding a dead baby (mentioned in one of her letters). She served as a community surveyor in a suburb of Denver while living in the basement of the pastor’s house (and I believe babysitting was part of that job, too). She was also a guinea pig at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland before being sent to Kentucky. After Carol’s year in BVS she enrolled at Goshen College in Indiana and became an RN. Some years later she earned a master’s degree. She died of a diabetic stroke in 1996.

Looking back at her life that year and her subsequent years of ill health, I think Carol truly must have been “leaning on the everlasting arms.”