As Idella and Emory Otto sit in their Harvest View apartment, Idella paraphrases a saying, sometimes attributed to Teresa of Ávila,


“We are ordinary people with an extra-ordinary God who ‘writes straight with crooked lines.’”


AWINDING PATH LEADS


HOME


She is referring to the winding path that began in 1972 when they were asked to start Lancaster County’s first residential program for adults living with intellectual disabilities.


L


ittle did they know the seven years they spent starting Friendship Community would build relationships that would bring them back to East Oregon Road nearly four decades later, this time as residents of Landis Homes.


After meeting at Eastern Mennonite University, the couple married and moved to Philadelphia so Emory could work on his Ed.M. degree. Te couple’s first child was born with special needs and Idella, who had just received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing, became a full-time caregiver. When Eastern Mennonite Missions approached them about beginning the Friendship Community program, it seemed like a crooked line from what they imagined would come next for them, but they trusted God was leading.


While at Friendship Community, they had their first exposure to residents and the leadership next door at Landis Homes, which had begun a decade earlier. “Te sense of community and care present at Landis Homes was palpable then and remains so now,” says Emory.


18 • Landis.org | FLOURISH | Spring 2021


CULTIVATING MEANINGFUL LIVING


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