WATSONTOWN — Tim and Linda Stoltzfus, both born into the Mennonite faith, have been married for 16 years, and their family is everything to them.

They have seven children ranging in age from 1 to 14.

“We love the family. We feel our family is a ministry,” Tim said. Sadly, there are so many families that have been broken. The family unit is under assault, he said.

Amish and Mennonite churches in the region may have varying degrees of tolerance for technology, but they share a world view which is focused on building strong families and living as the Bible commands.

The Mennonite church has taken a strong stand against the area of divorce and remarriage. “As long as you both shall live,” included in the wedding vows is taken very seriously, so the church frowns upon someone marrying another while his or her spouse is still living.

“We respect others, and living this way, we do not condemn or judge others because they are not as we are,” Tim said. “We live the way we do because we love the world, and we generally live our faith and our convictions.”

The Mennonites believe in a strict, literal interpretation of scripture.

One distinguishing feature of the Mennonites in the Stoltzfus’s church is the head covering that the women wear. “Paul speaks of the women’s head to be covered; we take that literally for today,” Tim said. “Others say that is cultural or for back then.”