Thoughts on Rapture

Predictions of the rapture are not new.  Yesterday's non-rapture gave me reason, yet again, to think about my own ancestors' brush with a false prophet.  Starting in 1880, groups of Russian Mennonites packed up all their earthly possessions and headed east in wagon trains towards what is now Kazakahstan following a man named Claas Epp, Jr.  Epp predicted Christ's return on March 8, 1889, and then recalculated the date to 1891 when the first date came along with no apparent rapture.

After the second date came and went, most of the group disbanded, and my ancestors found their way to the U.S.  My great-great grandparents were married along the way in a Turkish mosque and the great grandfather was born on this journey.