Mark Roth, Anabaptists' Founder and Patriarch

Mark Roth in half
Meet the founder and patriarch of Anabaptists, Mark Roth.

No, not of the Anabaptists -- I mean of this site!

I was born very late in the 1950s, grew up Mexico, and moved back to the US in 1976. In the summer of 1980, the entire 1977 graduating class of Elliott Prairie Christian School wed in a single ceremony. A year later to the day, we (the entire EPCS 1977 graduating class) celebrated our first anniversary in Guadalajara, Mexico. We were stranded there...waiting for the next train to take us on to Mexico City (and language school for all but me). We were part of a three-family team from Hopewell Mennonite Church that had volunteered to serve under Bible Mennonite Fellowship in the establishment of a new mission in northwest Mexico. In the next 10-year span, we served in Guaymas Valley for 5 years or so.

In mid-2003, I retired from service at Elliott Prairie Christian School as principal and high school teacher. That was my twelveth year serving at this school on a day-to-day basis; I also served several years as the part-time principal. In the course of that time, I churned out a few letters to parents, three of which just might interest you:

In fact, since 1982 I have done quite a bit of writing, including Spanish tracts, English and Spanish Sunday School materials, a Spanish marriage-related booklet, a Spanish family-life seminar, and an English ebook.

In the fall of 2012, I retired from 9 years as School Board secretary and returned to part-time duty at our church school as principal and high school Spanish teacher.

As of 2012, God has generously blessed us with five children, a daughter-in-law, two sons-in-law, and six grandchildren.

For somebody else's long-ago perspective, read this ezine article written by Jan Fletcher.

In addition to what we state in our congregation's Statement of Faith, here are some of the other things I believe:

The Internet is a wonderful "place" and a super-handy medium of communication. And all the resources that are available on it continue to multiply!! Much of what can be found would fall in the amoral category. However, we all know that the enemy of mankind continues to introduce monstrous amounts of immoral and evil stuff. So I decided to join those in the service of the King of Kings who are striving to make available material which is moral, safe, healthful and edifying.

I certainly do not make a wholesale recommendation that God's people go on-line. And those that are on-line I encourage to faithfulness. In our home congregation, some of us modem-ites have signed the following covenant (a totally personal, non-congregational move):

I purpose before God and my Brothers to never use my modem to intentionally download or view any file (text or graphic) that is sexual, pornographic, obscene, immoral and/or lustful in nature. I also purpose to avoid newsgroups and mailing lists which disseminate similar material. By signing this covenant of Brotherhood accountability, I give my co-signing Brothers the privilege and responsibility of checking up on my faithfulness in this area.
Quite a number of you out there have written to me to let me know that you have also purposed to abive by this covenant.

Blessings to you,
Mark Roth

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