GNADENHUTTEN, Ohio--Ten people gathered March 8 at the historical site of Gnadenhutten, just west of New Philadelphia.
The name, huts of grace, is still appropriate. Two hundred sixteen years ago to the day, Gnadenhutten was flowing with the blood of massacred Delaware Indians who had converted to Moravian Christianity.
Militiamen from Washington County, Pennsylvania, executed almost everyone in the village within two hours that morning.
At 9 a.m., this March 8, about the same time the killing stopped 216 years earlier, a ceremony of reconciliation was conducted in the restored mission house.
On hand were two ancestors of the Delaware nation, Howard Barnes and Beverley McLaughlin, both Christian Delaware Indians.
Also in attendance was event organizer Mardee Alff, representing the International Reconciliation Coalition for Indigenous People. Their motto is "Healing America's Past Wounds for Our Children's Future."
Representing the Greater Washington Ministries was their secretary, Tom Smith, WCG pastor in Washington, Pennsylvania, and Wheeling, West Virginia.
Three other WCG members were also in attendance.
The representatives of the Delaware Nation heard Scripture readings and received apologies from the Washington delegation and a request for forgiveness for the massacre of the innocent Moravians.
Prayers of and for healing and reconciliation were given by the participants that our land may be washed clean of the sins of hatred and prejudice, that healing may come to all peoples of this land.
The ceremony closed with prayer, communion and song at the mound where the bones of the Delaware Christians were buried years later. Todd Crouch and Tom Smith.
May WN page 20
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