Our life together gives us opportunities to show love to one another at every stage of life, from welcoming a newborn baby to attending older brothers and sisters in their last years. Deeds of love are not routine but personal – a matter of following Christ’s command to “wash one another’s feet.” We want to “bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

In doing this, we seek to remember especially those with burdens to carry: widows and widowers, orphans, the disabled and sick, those with mental and emotional ailments, and those who are lonely. Then Jesus’ promise will come true: that everyone who has left family and home for his sake will receive back “a hundredfold…houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands.”

We are grateful for the God-given help of medical science to preserve life and alleviate suffering. We seek to ensure that a high standard of medical care is provided to all brothers, sisters, and children in the church community. Many of our Bruderhofs have doctors and dentists who provide professional care whenever this is appropriate, or support patients who require attention in a hospital.

At the same time, we acknowledge the limits of medicine, particularly at the end of life, recognizing that ultimately our lifespan is determined by God. If a brother or sister decides to decline aggressive medical intervention, for example when facing a terminal illness, that decision is respected. All the more, such a person is surrounded by the prayers, care, and support of brothers and sisters.

Upon a death in our communities, brothers and sisters keep a constant watch around the one who has died during the time before burial, while as many as possible come to take leave. Then the church community gathers to do the last service of love: carrying the body to one of our burial grounds and laying it to rest in the earth until the day of resurrection.

* This online version of Foundations is for reference only. For the authoritative version, see the print edition.