Yoder Trivia

Recently my sister Becky went sleuthing for a turkey, not an easy task in Yemen, where Americans have been known to spend $60 for a bird for Thanksgiving. This year, by a series of connections, she found an embassy family with a turkey for sale. And the family's last name was, of all things, Yoder.

So Becky had fun connecting with these Yoders, and afterwards she wrote this:

I thought you might be interested in some Yoder trivia. As I have written some of you, we recently discovered that there is a couple here working at the American Embassy by the name of John and Susan Yoder. When they found out I was a Yoder they very much wanted to connect. So last night we had them here for supper.
John calls himself and his dad, who is a judge in Wash. DC, "Yoder junkies". They look for Yoders wherever they go, on the internet, on movie credits, books, etc. The two of them even took a trip to Switzerland to look up the Yoder roots.
In Switzerland they found a chapel dedicated to "Saint Yoder" and this is the story that came with it: In the first century after Christ a monk by the name of Theodor came from Rome to the area of Switzerland to evangelize it. When the locals took the name Theodor and made it German?? it sounded more like Yoder and gradually it became "Yoder". This monk then either had a lot of children (monks weren't celibate then) or the people liked him so much they began to take on the name of Yoder. He supposedly did miracles and was very loved by the people and was eventually made a saint.
This chapel is covered in paintings of his miracles as well as with pelicans. Supposedly the pelican is the "Yoder bird". The reason is that it is a self-sacrificing bird, known to rip out it's own flesh to feed it's young if there is no food around.
John also had stories of Yoders being martyred. His dad has a large painting of Yoders being thrown off a cliff for their faith. He also had a story of some Yoders who were captured by the Romans and made to be soldiers. When they refused to destroy a village as they were ordered, they were all executed and thrown in a mass grave. No one knew where this grave was until St.Yoder in one of his "miracles" discovered the grave and gave them all Christian burials.

Quote of the Day:

The Yoder sisters are funny girls
They make all sorts of jigs and swirls
Sometimes they're sad and sometimes they're glad
But very seldom they're very mad.

Each of them has a lot of trash.
If their mother sees it she makes it hash.
They each have a box to put it in,
And on top of one is a big safety pin.

--Becky and I, when she was 10 and I was 9. As you can see we showed great promise at this young age. Amazing that neither of us went into poetry writing for a career.