Forum Your Non-Stop Source for News in Nodaway County
maryville Daily
Online at:
F
Online
maryvilledailyforum.com
Volume 104 • Number 55 • Friday, March 21, 2014 • PO Box 188 • 111 E. Jenkins • Maryville, MO
75¢
Neighbors in faith help family rebuild By TONY BROWN News editor
Theologians will tell you that faith exists, but that you can’t see it. But sometimes you can see it. Faith looks like a carpenter’s hammer. It also looks like a table saw operating smooth as silk under the guidance of skilled, callused hands. And it looks like a framed wall seemingly snapped together in minutes then raised high by clean-muscled, broadshouldered men on a clear, chilly March morning. Faith can also be found in the serene, wise face of Dale Byler, who appears to be anyone else in the world besides a 47-year-old man who, less than a week ago, lost almost everything he owned in a devastating fire 12 miles northwest of Maryville. The blaze destroyed both his family’s home and his business. The fire that leveled the Bylers’ residence, as well as the showroom and workshop that served as headquarters for Byler’s Woodworking, a custom furniture and cabinet shop, began shortly before midnight Saturday when an engine heater hooked up to a tractor parked inside malfunctioned. Byler, his wife, Mildred — an old Anglo-Saxon name that means “gentle strength” — and their children were in Montana at the time attending a wedding and taking a few days’ vacation. After the phone call came, the family hastened back to Missouri to find their home transformed into a charred ruin.
PHIL COBB/DAILY FORUM
Rising to the occasion
A crew of Mennonite carpenters raises a newly framed wall earlier this week at the home of the Dale Byler family, which was destroyed by fire over the weekend. Then faith took over. The hammer kind of faith. The kind you can see. It’s impossible to describe what is occurring on the Byler homesite unless you know something about their Mennonite religion. The Mennonites are a Christian group consisting of church communities that trace their history back to Menno Simons (1496-
1561), a religious leader from what is now the Netherlands. Simons believed in a simple faith emphasizing the virtues of peace, simplicity, kindness, charity and brotherhood found at the core of Jesus’ teachings in the New Testament — the Sermon on the Mount. Though Mennonite tradition today has divided into a number of different forms
— from the relatively mainstream Mennonite Brethren to Old Order “horse-andbuggy” believers — this core remains and is perhaps best expressed by the biblical command to “love your neighbor as yourself.” And right now at the Byler place that ancient precept is turning invisible faith into action as solid and real as a two-by-four.
As members of their tradition have done since the Protestant Reformation, the Bylers’ Mennonite “neighbors,” which is to say about 60 people from three states, many of them skilled builders and carpenters, have rallied around a brother and sister in need. Less than two days after the fire, the rubble of the gutted home and workshop
was completely cleared. Then lumber and other materials started arriving by the truckload as volunteer crews transformed the property from a disaster area into a construction site humming like a well-ordered beehive. Thursday morning, as one group of men hoisted the framed north wall of what will be the new workshop See BYLER Page 12
Spring break safety being encouraged at Bobbypalooza By KEVIN BIRDSELL Staff writer
Safe spring break
KEVIN BIRDSELL/DAILY FORUM
Sara Parks, a member of the Community Emergency Response Team at Northwest Missouri State University, shows students how to react if they come across an injured person. The demonstration was part of the Bobbypalooza safe spring break event held on campus Thursday.
OFFICE NUMBER
660-562-2424
INSIDE
Safe Spring Break Week at Northwest Missouri State University came to a climax Thursday with Bobbypalooza, a combination cookout and educational encounter designed to encourage students to make responsible life choices while away from campus March 22-30, a time when many young people traditionally head for warm-weather beaches and other resort destinations. The safety carnival took place on the Memorial Bell Tower lawn. Organizations represented included the Community Emergency Response Team, University Police, the Northwest Student Dietetics Association, To Write Love on Her Arms, Greeks Advocating for Mature Management of Alcohol, International Affairs, and Safe Rides.
Record....................... 2 Community Life...... 3 Opinion..................... 4
Religion..................... 5 Sports.................... 7, 8 Classifieds......... 10, 11
“There’s quite a bit going on,” Jennifer Kennymore, a health educator at Northwest, said. “Things that students are excited about. Free food, free T-shirts and lots of fun free giveaways.” Booths, tables and activities covered such topics as water safety, impaired and distracted driving, international travel and the “buddy system.” University police officers grilled burgers and hot dogs, which were served free of charge. “It’s a way we educate and promote a safe spring break,” University Police Chief Clarence Green said. “It’s where we get all the students, faculty and staff out. We’re getting a lot of awareness about safe spring break activities and (the dangers of) driving while intoxicated. We have other information on STD’s, safe sex and safe party See SAFETY Page 3
OUTSIDE
Today High: 60° Low: 30°