Lay community in Bathgate, ND, publishes family-friendly books to serve the Child Jesus and all children

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From the quiet, inviting town of Bathgate, members of a lay community of Catholics read, edit and publish works of literature featuring wholesome heroes, captivating adventures and heartwarming stories of families and friends.

Bethlehem Community, as the group is called, is centered on the child — the child Jesus and all children. “Serving the child is part of our apostolate,” said Jean Ann Sharpe. “Now we’ve come to see it as serving the child in everyone.”

The community focuses on children and families as they work through their company, Bethlehem Books, to give new life to books of years past and publish new works suitable for family reading. They also coordinate events focused on children and families in neighboring parishes and the diocese.

The founding members met each other through Bethlehem Baptist Church in Portland, Ore. They came from varying backgrounds, yet they all felt God calling them to give up their attachment to the world and join together to serve him. They pooled their resources and brought together their families to live in community, dedicating their lives to whatever God asks them to do and trusting that he will provide for them.

Over the years, they prayed, studied and developed their community life — sharing their income, having meals in community, home schooling the children, and living in separate family quarters yet together in one building or group of buildings. The community included single people and families, each benefiting from the others’ talents and experiences. [snip]

1991 was a year of great change for the community. They were struggling with aspects of their Protestant faith. Amidst the struggle, two of the founding members left the community. In an effort to discern what God was calling them to do next, Jack Sharpe suggested the community spend a year studying the Catholic faith.

“That year, a whole world opened to us,” Lydia Reynolds said. They got in contact with a Catholic priest, visited a Benedictine monastery and immersed themselves in the study of the Catholic faith.

In the spring of 1993, all of the members of Bethlehem Community joined the Catholic Church. They also became Benedictine Oblates, connected to Mount Angel Abbey in Oregon.

The community had developed a bakery business in Vancouver, Wash. It was successful, in that they could sell everything they could produce, but it was labor intensive and, thus, not profitable enough to sustain them.

After much prayer, they decided to quit the bakery business and begin publishing books. They had no money to invest in the business, but they had faith. Pope John Paul II came to Denver that summer and they decided that, as new Catholics, they should do what Catholics do and “go on pilgrimage.” While in Denver, they received word that one of the community members was receiving an unexpected inheritance. It was enough to support the community for six months, plus it allowed for $5,000 to purchase equipment for their new publishing business. They went to work and published their first book.

Six months later, they were still learning the ropes of the business and were again struggling financially. It was then that Father Joseph Fessio, the founder of Ignatius Press, a leading Catholic publishing house, asked the community to accept the job of answering Ignatius Press’ toll-free order placement telephone number. The opportunity provided them with monthly income. It was an answer to prayer.

By 1994, they had published three books and needed money to publish the fourth. They decided to sell the building they had been buying, in which they lived and worked. “We knew the Lord would take care of us,” Jean Ann Sharpe said, “but we thought it would happen in Oregon.”

Among others, Father Fessio began looking for a place for the members of Bethlehem Community to live. Through Jo Harsy, who worked for Bishop James Sullivan in the Diocese of Fargo, the community was invited by the bishop to move to Warsaw, where the diocese had a building that was not being used. (The building is now the St. Gianna Maternity Home.)

Community members moved to Warsaw in February 1995. Four years later, they moved to the former school for the blind in Bathgate, a larger building that could better accommodate the families and business. [snip]

New Earth Archives, Diocese of Fargo July/August 2004

As this is an archive file found on the Internet and not on the Diocese's web page, page down to Features for the balance of the text of this heart-warming story.


[Originally posted June 8, 2006, update October 4, 2006: Father Stephanos, O.S.B., blogging at Me Monk, Me Meander, coincidentally blogged on the "Amish-like" Bethlehem Community and has four links that refer to them Here]