Harmon Stoltzfus III awoke with a start. He’d been in the middle of a bad dream. He was at Arvilla and Karl’s wedding. They were married and as soon as they walked out of the church, Harmon saw them through the 4^th window on the left side of the church. What they were doing caused a sick feeling to form deep within Harmon’s stomach. Why didn’t I stand when the preacher asked if anyone has a problem with this union? Why didn’t I do something?

  Lucky for you, me, and our hero, the nightmare ended with Matt Nisley letting out a loud burp in the bathroom. Harmon rolled over and moaned. “No, no,” he muttered. “It can’t be.” He opened his eyes and looked at the alarm clock. It was 6:15 and time for all residents at Nazereth Bible School to awake, get dressed, and learn about the Bible.

  Harmon got up and said nothing to his dorm mates. Matt and John were already gone to breakfast and Harmon didn’t want any breakfast so he dressed slowly and then read his Bible a little bit before going to his first class.

  The class was a study on the book of Ecclesiastes. It was a lot about laws and killings and Harmon couldn’t understand why it was even being studied. The teacher was Ralph Beiler from Aroda, Virginia. Harmon thought he looked like a Billy goat and he couldn’t understand a thing the guy was saying. Harmon was thinking about the bad dream he’d had the night before. Ralph was talking about the 9^th commandment.

  There were 13 people in the class. Harmon was sitting behind and to the left of Rebecca from Goshen and he and the other guys in the class were sneaking peaks at her whenever they could. Wisps of her dark hair protruded from beneath her covering and her eyelashes were neat looking. Harmon wondered if she used eye shadow. Her cute little nose turned up slightly at the end and Harmon wished she’d look his way. But she didn’t. He watched as she looked attentively at Ralph and wrote notes with her left hand. Rebecca was the cutest girl at NBC. She may have been even cuter than Arvilla. But Harmon was in love with Arvilla. Harmon sighed and looked down at his Bible. Rebecca had a boyfriend.

  Harmon was jolted from his reverie when he heard his name coming from Ralph’s mouth. “Harmon, did you find any similarities between the Israelites and today’s church?”

  Harmon was caught off guard. He looked at the floor. He looked at the Bible. He looked at his notes. He looked at Rebecca. She was looking at him with a twinkle in her eye. Harmon stammered, “Well, I uh, I uh, didn’t really find anything.” I mean I found some things, but uh, I don’t really remember. “I mean, I remember, but uh.”

  Suddenly Matt Nisley piped up, “In the research I did, both in the Bible and in the commentary I was reading that the Beachy Church is similar to the Isrealites in that they were both God’s chosen people.”

  The class turned their attention to Matt and Harmon breathed a sigh of relief. He missed Bird-in-Hand and he wanted to go home.

  After the first class Harmon joined Willard and Henry in a music class and his day went better.

  That evening the children all gathered in the dining room for supper. The cooks usually cooked up a decent meal. Harmon, Willard, and Henry got their food and went to sit down at a table. According to NBC tradition the girls always sat on one side of the table and the boys sat on the other side. Sometimes boys and girls ate their entire meals without saying a word to each other. The boys always tried to be first in line to get food so they could sit across from the cool girls. 
  On this fateful evening Harmon and his two buddies managed to sit at the cool girls’ table. The girls were talking about something in hushed tones and Harmon was almost finished eating his mashed potatoes before he mustered the courage to say anything to his table mates. “So how was your day,” he said quietly to Susan from Holmes County, who was sitting right across the table. 
    Susan kept talking to her friends, not even acknowledging Harmon. He felt awful and took another bite of mashed potatoes. He finished the mashed potatoes and stared on the meatloaf. After about 46 seconds he again mustered some courage and looked directly at Susan saying, “How was your day?”
    Susan looked up and pointed at her mouth. She was daintily chewing something. Finally she said, “Oh it was ok.” How was yours.”

  “It was fine.”

  All the other girls and the boys at the table looked over in shock to see the conversation Harmon was having with Susan. The girls started snickering and Harmon wished he could crawl under the table. Finally Rebecca pointed to her chin and said, “You’ve got something.”

  Harmon quickly grabbed a napkin and slammed it against his chin, wiping away some gravy that had found its way there. The girls snickered some more and the boys laughed out loud.

  But even in his darkest hour, our hero recovered quickly and also began laughing. “Sorry, I can be a sloppy eater sometimes.” I’m not quite as refined as some other people.”

  The girls quit snickering and the boys quit laughing. “That was pretty funny in Ecclesiastes class today,” Rebecca said turning her sweet face toward Harmon. “You were so in trouble.”

  “Yeah I was until Matt saved me.” I had no idea what I was supposed to say.”

“What happened?” asked one of the other girls.

Rebecca related the story to the others and everyone got a good chuckle out of it. This seemed to break the ice and the table was filled with lively discussion for the next ten minutes.

Then all the children jumped up and ran outside to play volleyball. The cool girls were in front of the boys and as they went outside Harmon thought he heard Susan say to Rebecca, “He’s so clueless but I kinda like him.” Then Willard said something to him and Harmon couldn’t hear the rest of the girls’ conversation.

They gathered on the volleyball court and in a shocking turn of events, the cool girls came on the same side of the net as Harmon and his buddies. This is amazing, thought Harmon as he stood beside Susan. Here I thought these girls are so stuck up and now I know that all it took was some mashed potatoes on my chin to open up a whole new world of opportunity. Our hero jumped high and spiked a perfect set from Susan. He smiled as they high-fived and rotated. 

The volleyball game lasted 31 minutes and then the children departed to get ready for evening church which was boring as usual and Harmon spent the time casting looks across the aisle at Susan and Charity. They were whispering and so on. Arvilla was a mile from his mind as he watched Susan’s pretty face and wondered what was behind those dark blue eyes. Her blond hair was combed neatly and on top of her head was an awfully big covering with strings attached in the back. The covering, according to NBC standards, had to touch the ears. She trimmed her eyebrows so she also shaved her legs. She was cute, funny, and popular. But mostly pretty and Harmon liked that.

 After church they played more volleyball. Harmon wasn’t on Susan’s team but played against her. When they rotated to where they were directly across from each other he remembered the night he had messed up 17 times so he could stay across from Arvilla. Why does everything have to be about her? He thought. His brief moment of sadness was interrupted when Susan smiled at him and pointed to her chin. Harmon quickly rubbed his chin, trying to wipe off whatever was there. 
    Susan chuckled and quipped, “Just kidding.” Harmon laughed too as the ball came to him and he whammed it into the net. But the next time the ball came he didn’t mess up on purpose, but slammed it over and hit a girl in the back row on the nose. Our hero was maturing. 
    Then volleyball was over and all the children went to their rooms to study for awhile before bed. Harmon didn’t feel like studying. He thought about girls. He studied a little. He was filling out a paper about dating and oh how he wanted to date. The seventeenth question on the page read, “Dating is not __________.” Harmon was tired of studying and didn’t feel like looking through his notes for the correct answer so he wrote something in the blank. Harmon looked at the paper and chuckled. It read, “Dating is not mating.” That’s funny thought Harmon as he stuffed the paper away, turned out the light and left his dorm room.  

 Late that night Harmon, Willard, Henry, and Mark Miller from Ohio were in a prayer room. According to NBC rules, boys were allowed to gather in prayer rooms to pray until 11:00 on Tuesday and Thursday nights. The boys were not praying, however. They had a list of all the girls at NBC and they were rating them on a scale of 1 to 10. Most girls rated below 5 but a few were as high as 8 and 3 were 9s. These were Susan, Charity from Iowa, and Martha from Gap. Rebecca was the only 10 but she had a boyfriend. Harmon wanted to give Susan a 10 too but he didn’t want to reveal the crush he’d developed on her. One poor girl from Kansas received a 1 from the raters and we can all agree that wasn’t very nice. Harmon felt bad for her.

 Back in Lancaster life was going on without our Hero. On the Wednesday night after Valentines Day, the youth gathered at Sam Lapps for bible study. Arvilla and Karl were there. Arvilla had a smile on her face as she walked into the house. Karl had taken her to a nice restaurant for Valentines Day. When they reached her house Karl had taken her hand and said those three little words that every woman wants to hear. “I love you too,” she’d replied and the relationship had officially reached another level. Now she felt as if Karl was the one. She’d thought about him all day long. How wonderful it was to know that someone loved her. He loved her despite all her faults and now it was only a matter of time till he’d say those 4 words that every woman wants to hear even more than the 3 little words she’d already heard. 
    Millie was there too and she was looking as fine as a girl like Millie could look. She’d made up her mind to forget about Harmon and move on. Her friends had had long chats with her and together they’d decided that Harmon was immature and dumb and didn’t know what he was doing. Breaking up with him was the best thing that’d ever happened to her. She walked into the room and sat down beside a boy she wanted to sit beside. The boy looked at her and grinned awkwardly when she walked in and Millie knew what he was thinking. Halfway through Bible Study the boy burped and Millie chuckled. She was happy and Harmon was far from her mind. 

    The next day at NBC was an odd one for Harmon. He dredged through his first 3 classes, angry that Susan wasn’t in any. Finally the fourth class arrived and Harmon walked in scanning the room for Susan. He found her near the front and sat behind her so he could watch her. Thoughts of her permeated his mind as he pulled out the paper he’d filled out the night before. 
    The teacher read the questions and students raised their hands to fill in the blanks. When question 17 came around Harmon looked at his paper and chuckled when he saw, “Dating is not  mating_”. The teacher, a Mr. John Stoltzfus from Leon, IA looked at Harmon and when he saw Harmon chuckling said, “Why are you laughing.”
Everyone in the class turned their heads toward Harmon. “Oh it was nothing.”
    “It had to be something or you wouldn’t be laughing.” Was it me?”
    “Nah, it’s just something I wrote down, “Harmon replied.
    “What did you write?” asked Mr. Stoltzfus in an increasingly agitated tone.
    “Oh it’s nothing.”
    “Please share it with the class.” 
    “I don’t think it’s appropriate.”
    “I command you to share what you have written or I will disbar you from the class.”
    Our hero sighed and without thinking he said, “Dating is not mating.” (by iw 1/26/08 to be continued)
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 Read Our Hero Harmon next week to see what the class’s reaction was. PLUS a startling development 1,000 miles away.