Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

A calling from the Lord

One couple's journey leads them from Amish roots to a Baptist church.

By GAIL HOLLENBECK
Published November 20, 2006

Large, happy families are a part of the heritage of Al and Emma Mast of Dunnellon.

Al, 73, was the sixth of 10 siblings. Emma, 69, was the 16th of 18.

With seven of their own children - three of whom make up the Mast Brothers, an award-winning gospel singing trio that will perform next month in Beverly Hills - the couple say they have lived a busy but full and enjoyable life.

The Masts grew up in Amish farming communities in northeast Ohio.

"We had a very happy childhood," Mrs. Mast said. "There was a lot of work, but we thought it was wonderful and had a lot of fun."

About 20 miles from Mrs. Mast's community was one in which her future husband was being reared.

"My parents were very happy," Al Mast said. "We did the normal things that children did. We had a lot of fun and always enjoyed it."

When Al was 23 and Emma was 19, they met at an Amish party. A year later they married in the Amish church.

The years passed by and Emma had three children. At age 23 and pregnant with her fourth child, she began to feel a longing for something more.

A memory haunted her.

"I was about 13 when two Mennonite ministers came to my home to talk to my mom about receiving Christ," she said. "I heard them talking in the kitchen and my mother was afraid of getting into trouble with the church, so she asked them to leave. But I remember thinking as they left that someday I wanted to have what they had. From that time on, I knew the Lord was calling me."

Although it was against the rules of their church, the young couple had purchased a radio.

"With everything else we had done as the church wanted, but it didn't bring us satisfaction or happiness," Mrs. Mast said. "I was lacking something in my life. I had a wonderful husband and three beautiful children, but I was just not happy, not satisfied. There was an emptiness."

She began reading Christian books loaned to her by an older sister. One day she heard an evangelist on the radio.

"I listened to Oliver B. Greene on the radio and through that I accepted the Lord Jesus as my savior," she said.

Al noticed a change in his young wife. At night he would try to read the newspaper, but his eyes would wander to a plaque on the wall, a gift from Emma's mother.

"The verse on the wall was John 3:16," Mast said. "I kept looking at it. Finally I got my Bible down and started reading it and other Scriptures. I thought, 'If this is true, why wouldn't I want to do that?' One night while I was reading the Bible the Holy Spirit convicted me that I needed to do it, so I asked the Lord Jesus to come into my heart."

The Masts' lives changed dramatically. Their first thought was to go back to their Amish church and share what had happened to them.

"We were taught in our Amish faith that you cannot know you're saved," Mrs. Mast said. "The community we came from taught that if you joined the church and abide by the rules, you have a good hope of getting to heaven, but that was it. That's contrary to what the Bible teaches. When we said we'd accepted Jesus Christ as our savior and that we knew we were saved, it was not well-received at all."

Though the couple had the blessing of their parents, they were excommunicated from their local church.

Emma is quick to point out that while that was the reaction of their home church, there are different beliefs and teachings in each Amish community and many of them teach and agree with the beliefs they came to embrace.

"The Amish people have a wonderful way of life," Mrs. Mast said. "It's slow, quiet and they taught us a lot of good things. They are a close-knit family and take care of their own. They have so many good qualities."

The couple began attending a Mennonite church and eventually chose to become Baptists.

It was the early 1960s. Al Mast was out of work and times were hard. When an opportunity came along for the couple to purchase 3 acres of property, they prayed they could get a loan.

"We talked to an officer at the bank and told him I was unemployed but we'd like to buy the property," Mast said. "He said, 'I don't know why I'm giving you this loan, but I am.' I told him as soon as I got a job I would catch up the payments. We just had faith that we'd get it."

Soon, Mast had a job and made good on his word.

Mast said that was just the first of many times it was apparent that God had his hand on their lives. There was the time he and five of his children were in a serious car accident, running into a semitrailer truck that had no lights on one night after church.

"Our station wagon had gone underneath that thing," he said. "The window was peeled back and it knocked me out. I did get a cut on my head and had to have stitches and my son had a ruptured saliva gland, but everything turned out all right. We've just seen so many times how the Lord has watched over us."

Now retired and living in Citrus County, the Masts attend First Baptist Church of Dunnellon. Mrs. Mast sings in the choir and works in the Awana program.

Al Mast is the manager for his sons as they present gospel concerts in Ohio, plus Florida and other Southeastern states.

Mrs. Mast said she is a contented woman.

"Before I was saved I had no peace," she said, "and yet when the Lord saved me, we just had such faith and such peace, even though from a materialistic standpoint, we had nothing. Religion cannot give you that peace and contentment. Only knowing the Lord can."

Al Mast agrees.

In June he and Emma will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.

"With seven children it was hard," Al Mast said. "But we just had so much fun. I tell my wife every day, I'd do it all over again."

[Last modified November 19, 2006, 22:46:53]