Jonathan Waldner watches his wife Anna pass the front window of their two-bedroom apartment on her way to the communal dining hall to retrieve lunch the couple will share in their living room.
A mirror is positioned outside that window so they can catch a glimpse of people using the sidewalk outside their one-storey grey stucco housing complex in the Ponderosa Hutterite Colony. Mr. Waldner explains that his wife likes to watch passersby after they move out of view of the window.
It has been months since the Waldners dined, worked or worshipped with the 60 or so people who live here.
"We just sit in the house and look out the window, more or less," said Mr. Waldner, 57, describing their days.
The Waldners have been shunned by members of this southern Alberta Hutterite colony, a refuge from the modern world the couple have called home since 1974, but now refuse to leave despite their life of exile.
Their transgression was to reach outside the colony to the courts to settle an internal dispute -- an act frowned upon in Hutterite culture, but increasingly common in the sect's North American colonies.
The couple are at the centre of a legal fight, spawned by a family feud that has pitted blood relatives against one another.
The struggle has led to allegations of threats and harassment in a battle that has lifted the veil on the isolated and intensely private world of the Hutterites.
Mr. Waldner and six members of his family filed a lawsuit last summer against Ponderosa, Sam Entz, the church's senior minister and the colony's president, and four of its directors. They want the court to declare that they were improperly expelled from the colony and order them reinstated or award damages of $500,000 apiece.
The defendants say the seven members of the Waldner family simply failed to comply with the teachings, beliefs and rules of the colony and there was nothing unseemly about their expulsion. They have launched a countersuit, asking the court to force Jonathan Waldner to leave.
This month, Mr. Waldner won round one. Mr. Justice W. V. Hembroff of the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench ordered the colony to reinstate Mr. Waldner's membership and allow him to stay pending the outcome of a trial, which could take years.
Judge Hembroff found that Ponderosa expelled Mr. Waldner without a proper hearing or giving him a chance to respond, depriving him of a complete "cradle- to-grave" social-welfare system.
Since the fall of 2001, at least 30 people, mostly Waldners, have left the colony amid bad blood. Other than Jonathan and Anna Waldner, only the Entz family and a few members of the much smaller Wipf family remain here.
"We are describing it in our action as a kind of Hatfield-and-McCoy type of a circumstance on the colony where one family -- the Entzes -- are in the majority and control the circumstances," said the Waldner's lawyer, Jesse Wilde. "The Waldners are in the minority and hence take whatever they're told."
Although their siblings and children have abandoned the colony, Jonathan and Anna Waldner are fighting to stay because, they say, they have no choice. Both are near retirement, have a Grade 8 education, few skills and no savings because they were born into the Hutterite system. They don't see how they could make it in the world outside their institutional-style housing units, community hall and church clustered on 3,640 hectares of prairie.
And yet life for them inside the colony isn't much better, even after Judge Hembroff's ruling. "I'm under house arrest," Mr. Waldner said.
Solidarity with her husband has meant the same for Mrs. Waldner, who retrieves meals for the couple three times a day. She was offered a bed at the home of her sister, who is married to Sam Entz's son, if she sided with the church.
"My sister doesn't talk to me. Her husband doesn't talk to me and they want me to live there?" asks Mrs. Waldner, 61, as she pauses to finger the pages of the Bible, then wipes tears with a cloth handkerchief.
"What God has bound together no man can put apart," she said, citing the Gospels.
"It's hard to explain to people who aren't born into this system," Mr. Waldner added. "It has nothing to do with what the church says that they are Christians. This is more like a cult."
The Ponderosa colony is nestled near the hamlet of Grassy Lake, about 240 kilometres southeast of Calgary or 3½ hours by meandering highways.
It is a communal congregation, part of the Hutterian Brethren Church, and one of an estimated 295 Hutterite colonies in the country. Of the 28,020 people residing in Hutterite colonies, the vast majority live in the Prairie provinces -- Alberta (13,715), Manitoba (9,075) and Saskatchewan (5,110) -- according to the 2001 census.
The Anabaptist sect is named for Christian martyr Jacob Hutter and has roots in the 16th century. Its followers came to Canada in the early 1900s and set up colonies that followed a spartan farm life and New Testament beliefs.
Ponderosa gained a reputation for prosperity, producing cereal crops and livestock. Its finances aren't disclosed, but locals believe the operation earns millions of dollars. A multimillion-dollar milking barn went up recently and the property is replete with tractors, trucks, grain silos and other essentials of a working farm.
The colony's lawyer, Derek Redman, said a $3.5-million judgment against his clients would have a "devastating effect" on Ponderosa.
For years the Entzes and Waldners got along, sharing a common belief in relinquishing ownership to property, modern conveniences and devoting every minute to the colony's needs. In return, they received shelter, food, transportation, medical care and a monthly allowance of about $10.
In court documents, Jonathan Waldner says things soured after the 1993 vote he won to become "colony boss" (an important managerial position), beating out one of Sam Entz's nephews.
Others quoted in documents say the flash point was an incident involving Mr. Waldner's grandson in June, 2001. The Waldners say the colony's German teacher, another of Mr. Entz's nephews, slapped the boy's face. When the colony's directors failed to act, the Waldners called the RCMP and the provincial child- welfare department. Nothing came of the matter, but Caleb Waldner -- the boy's father and Jonathan's son -- was punished for seeking outside help.
"That was the straw that broke the camel's back," said Caleb's brother, 31-year-old Mendel Waldner, who works at a sunflower plant in nearby Bow Island.
"They wanted us to shun my brother and not have any communication with him whatsoever. The church told us that anyone who was caught supporting him or even talking with him was going to face severe punishment."
Mendel and Caleb and their wives (who are all part of the lawsuit) moved off the colony in the fall of 2001, citing threats, harassment and a poisonous living environment. The colony revoked their memberships.
In February, 2002, Jonathan Waldner and David Entz, Anna's brother, criticized the colony's treatment of the Waldner clan, which cost them their memberships.
Although David is an Entz, he is not related by blood to Sam Entz, who is his wife Julia's uncle. Like Anna, Julia Entz was pushed to choose between the colony and her husband.
"They talked to Anna and me and said our husbands are not welcome. They said we were being hypocrites because we were sticking by our husbands against the church," she said.
She stayed for three weeks, but left Ponderosa last fall to join her husband. The couple have a bungalow in Lethbridge, an hour's drive west of the colony, and for the first time have modern items such as a television. David Entz, 63, hasn't found work, but Mrs. Entz's skill as a seamstress landed the 55-year-old her first paying job.
The couple once considered the colony "the best place in the world to live," but now they nod when asked whether they are happy to have left.
Sam Entz won't discuss the case when contacted on the colony's single telephone, saying the situation is just too painful. Knock on the door to his apartment located in the building next to the Waldners, however, and the 79-year-old with thinning hair and grey eyes takes the time to talk.
"We'd like to see them repent, confess and come back to the fold," Mr. Entz said of the 30 or so people who have left.
Repent of what?
"I don't want to go into things like that," he says, adding that the episode is hurting the colony and the church.
He won't discuss the allegations of mistreatment or bias, preferring to keep the matter private and avoid upsetting anyone who may wish to return.
"In 79 years, I've never seen anything like this," he said. "We're just hoping and praying. We're hoping they come back, but that's up to God."
Alvin Esau, a University of Manitoba law professor who studies Hutterites and the law, said he has never heard of a case that calls for reinstatement in the colony. Recent lawsuits in Manitoba, however, have focused on valid expulsions, financial compensation; in some cases the courts have assumed management of the colonies.
Those cases did little to repair damaged relationships and helped solidify a major schism among Manitoba Hutterites, he said.
In Alberta, Judge Hembroff hinted at that potential. "I recognize this judgment may not resolve the problems of the parties, but may even exacerbate them."
Jonathan and Anna Waldner describe their life here as almost unbearable -- likely unlivable -- even if their lawsuit prevails and the colony is forced to treat them as full-fledged members. Still, they intend to stay and see the case through.
"For us to leave here and just walk away would do nothing for the mistreatment of the other people here."
And what if the court eventually sides with the colony?
Mr. Waldner shrugs. "There's no turning back now."