To hear him tell it, Peter Wiebe has lived from one miracle to another — a stream of stories now stretching over 98 years.

Three times he has been snatched from death. His appendix burst when he was a child, and gangrene set in. Later, he was nearly clawed into the power take-off of a farm harvesting machine before his father pulled him away. As a seminary student in Chicago, he narrowly escaped being crushed under the wheels of a bus. Each brush with death became a spellbinding story.

On March 31, Peter celebrated his 98th birthday with dozens of friends in Glendale, Ariz., his home since the 1990s. He remains as strong in body and mind as many people decades younger, walking with a spring in his step and speaking with zest and verve.

Growing up as a farm boy in Manitoba, Peter sensed an early call to ministry. It was not a vague feeling, a random thought or a gentle nudge from an elder.

At the age of 14, while plowing with a two-cylinder Model B John Deere tractor, he heard a clear voice that he immediately recognized as a divine calling. Already a student of the Bible, he felt he was walking in the footsteps of Samuel and Paul.

He knelt beside the tractor in the southern Manitoba soil and said, “God, I’m ready to do it, if that’s what you’re asking.” When he shared this with his mother, she replied, “I dedicated you to the Lord for ministry before you were born.”

With both a divine and maternal imprimatur upon his life, he set out to live even more stories. He moved to the United States to attend Bethel College before transferring to Goshen College.

There he began dating Rheta Mae Hostetler. He confided in his mentor, Goshen dean Harold S. Bender, that he thought he was in love. However, he wasn’t sure if he, a Bergthaler Mennonite whose ancestors had emigrated from Ukraine to Canada in the 1870s, could marry an Amish Mennonite woman from Ohio.

Bender immediately dismissed these worries, citing the marriage of well-known Mennonite Central Committee workers Peter and Elfrieda Dyck — a union that bridged divergent branches of the Anabaptist tree.

That was all the encouragement ­Peter needed. Months later, he and Rheta Mae were wed, ready to build a family and a lifetime of shared stories. Their union was a long, happy and productive one, ending in 2021 with Rheta Mae’s death. One of his goals now is to name and honor the many contributions Rheta Mae made to her family, church and community.

Peter and Rheta Mae had six children, in whom they delighted. Tragedy changed their family forever when their oldest child, Ken, was killed in a car accident. In the midst of their grief, the surviving children heard a message about the urgent need for adoptive families. They petitioned their parents to enlarge the family and, eventually, two more children were added. Today, one of those children, Becky, lives with Peter and supports him in his elder years.

How has Peter lived so long? He credits God, of course, but his part of the relationship is far from passive. When he talks about God’s promises, his eyes sparkle with a combination of awe and mischief. He looks like a Mennonite Tevye of Fiddler on the Roof, playfully challenging God to fulfill the promises in the Bible.

After rereading two specific passages, Peter decided to ask God for a long life — 99 years — “and then we’ll negotiate!”

These are the two passages that inspired his bold request:
— Ephesians 3:20 — “Glory to God, who is able to do far beyond all that we could ask or imagine” (CEB).
— Psalm 37:4 — “Enjoy the Lord, and he will give what your heart asks” (CEB).

Even with these generous biblical invitations, Peter admits that his request was “a little cocky.” Yet, he does not regret his holy impertinence: “I have learned to accept that God has a great sense of humor.”

Peter has held leadership positions in more organizations than he can count on both hands. They include numerous churches, Mennonite Economic Development Associates, Hess­ton College, Central Christian High School, two retirement communities and many Phoenix-area nonprofits.

Of the many nonprofits Peter helped start, none is closer to his heart than SOOP (Service Opportunities with Our Partners), now co-sponsored by Mennonite Mission Network and MCC Canada.

Hundreds of Mennonite volunteers and Voluntary Service workers first started coming to Phoenix during the Vietnam War. Later, when Peter and Rheta Mae noticed the influx of “snowbird” Mennonites in the 1980s, they envisioned a way to combine that deep-rooted culture of volunteerism with the new reality of winter travel. The result was a creative combination of community, service, worship and travel to desert destinations.

SOOP unit leader Kim Kellogg recognized Peter’s wisdom and invited him to join the small group of volunteers who eat dinner together. Knowing that Peter kept regular coffee dates with friends at McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts, Kellogg guessed that “SOOPers” would love to experience Peter’s storytelling firsthand.

Now, every Monday night during dinner, Peter joins the conversation. He brings his stories, the books he has authored and handouts detailing his 10 decades of life. True to his relational nature, he also asks the volunteers for their own stories.

He takes every opportunity to share his philosophy of “elderhood” — a term he vastly prefers over “retiree.”

Among his favorite subjects is building a legacy: “Retirement in good health is a gift of God. We express our gratitude through loving service to God and God’s people.” This is where purpose and joy abound.

“Legacy,” Peter says, “is God giving our temporal life eternal value.”

Arizona is famous as a refuge for retirees, but curious, awestruck elders flourish there, too. Peter believes we owe a debt to our ancestors and a duty to our descendants to live as fully, deeply and generously as possible.

The stories Peter tells now span 10 decades, marking a transition from active leadership to an engaged spiritual presence. The single theme running through all of them is that a calling never ends — and, therefore, learning never ends.

A calling begins with worship and awe. True to his routine, Peter steps outside his house as the sun comes up each morning. Being Peter, he has counted exactly how many new suns he has seen: more than 36,000.

Arizona is famous for its sunsets, but Peter knows the sunrises are just as spectacular.

The sun rises each day at the end of Vista Street in Glendale as Peter gazes east. The golden glow calls him into one more day of a life getting longer, just as the gracious Almighty promised. His life is nearing its goal, one good day at a time.

Shirley Hershey Showalter is an author and speaker and former president of Goshen College.