Hippies for Jesus - 2006 Style

Members of the Merrymakers Caravan bring their message of God by bus to Kennedy Plaza.

PROVIDENCE -- In lots of ways, they looked like veterans of the Jesus and the hippie movement of the 1960s.

What other way was there to view 30 pilgrims, some with babies, who rolled into town yesterday in three buses, one of them bedecked with brightly painted flowers and on the back, a painting of Jesus.

But for these members of a religious sect that calls itself the Twelve Tribes, known also as the Merrymakers Caravan, the visit to Kennedy Plaza was no lark.

With a mixture of showmanship, featuring performances of Irish folk songs and Israeli folk dance, former Vermont dairy farmer Eugene Sage; his wife, Hannah; and and others in the group were on what they see as a mission of God: to let people know that it is possible not only to believe but to live the form of radical Christianity practiced by the Christians, who shared all they had.

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