PLAIN TALK BLOG

The Hames Contest was fantastic! Nancy Lou of Raleigh, North Carolina received her Amish-made hames in the mail today. A huge thanks to every one of you who participated! I was thrilled with the response!

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I have an article coming out in the 2008 Storytellers’ Journal that tells about how I connected with the Amish.

I’ve shared a little of it here, but the full article will be available in May at your local Christian bookstore. Just ask the store manager for your complimentary copy of Storytellers’ Journal. If they dont’ have it, ask the manager order copies from their WaterBrook/Multnomah sales representative.

Connecting to the Old Order Amish Community

The garden needed more weeding, but the sun was sliding below the horizon, taking with it my ability to distinguish between weeds and produce. Laundry on the clothesline flapped in the summer breeze, reminding me and my Amish friend, Anna,[1] that we’d moved too slowly through the chores as I spent the day learning to handle the responsibilities of an Amish woman.

While I helped Anna take the clothes off the line, I reflected on how we met. Five years ago, I’d had a story in my heart that I wanted to write, but I needed an inside view. I wondered whether I could interview someone who was living an Old Order Amish life.

While growing up in Maryland, I’d had an Amish friend. Our adventures generated a desire in me to write about the joys and difficulties of relationships between the Plain folk and outsiders. The angst and disapproval of our parents concerning our friendship led to the story idea about Hannah and Paul. Decades later, when I actually started writing a novel about an Amish family, my friend and I lived a thousand miles apart and I’d lost contact with her.

[1] Names have been changed to assure privacy

That’s the intro to the article and I hate to stop there, but I have to. The full article will be available in May at your local Christian bookstore. Just ask the store manager for your complimentary copy of Storytellers’ Journal. If they don’t have it, ask the manager to order copies from their WaterBrook/Multnomah sales representative. Writing the article was a very enjoyable project I’d love to share with you. The final product is free, so don’t be shy about requesting a copy from your local Christian bookstore.

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The new contest has two items ~

The Amish-made craft seen above is one of the items. It is a
wooden washboard with a log cabin quilt patch.

And an autographed copy of When the Morning Comes is the second item.

The craft items I give away are made by Amish friends and I treasure them, but my hand-made items I want to share about today are created by my sister. She’s quite an artist and she’s made cherished works for as far back as I can remember. She doesn’t create the items as a profession; they are gifts. Her gifts range from cross stitch family trees, to hand-painted Christmas ornaments, to watercolor & caligraphy gift cards, to portraits of family members, and beyond. A part of her is in each item and it still surprises me how that makes each object carry a piece of who we’ve always been ~ the love, the fun, the struggles, the parts of life no one else is privvy to.

For a chance to win both of these items, all you need to do is enter a comment.

Do you have a hand-made item in your home that is special to you? Something maybe you or your sister, mom, dad, brother, or child made. If you’d like to share about that, we would all enjoy reading about it. If you’re more comfortable leaving a comment that simply says enter me, that works just fine too;-)

You don’t need to leave any personal info where readers can see it. You can enter your first name only and then log your e-mail address into the correct field when leaving a comment. I’ll be the only one able to read your e-mail address.

The contest is for residents of the continental United States and it will continue until June 1st.

God’s peace ~

Cindy

The Hames contest ended Saturday, March 15th. We have a winner! Nancy Lou of Raleigh, North Carolina.

Thank you for all the wonderful comments!!

I’ll begin a new contest soon!

Original post:

For those who’ve read my books, you know an Englischer is anyone who’s not Amish or Plain Mennonite. But sometimes my life gets so entangled with today’s electronic gadgets that it’s too Englischer for my own tastes.

There are times when I immerge myself in the ways of the Amish so much that when I have to reenter my own life it feels . . . foreign.

Earlier this week, after just such a time of thinking and breathing the Plain life, I was driving by myself in unfamiliar territory. I’d finished one project and realized I needed some info before proceeding.

I quickly realized I didn’t have the phone number or name the number would be listed under with me, so at first I thought I was stuck. Then I remembered I’d received the info via an e-mail a few weeks back. I pulled off at the next spot, which happened to be a church parking lot, and began scrolling through the e-mails on my Blackberry. Within two minutes, I found what I was looking for. Paper and pen weren’t as handy as my laptop, which sat on the passenger’s seat next to me, so I opened it and took a few notes, including the phone number. I then turned off my XM radio and called them. Let me add I really enjoy XM radio. It’s not only commercial free, but it lists each name of the song playing and then lists the artist. Anyway, after ending the call, I plugged their address into my GPS, punched the reroute button, turned my XM station back on, and headed for the new destination.

Weird, weird feeling, really. I’m truly not electronically savvy, yet I find myself relying on the basic functions of those things to keep the frustration level down. All of my needs that day could have been handled differently, but the extra time spent would have been wearisome.

How convenient is it that your cell phone can have a full address book at your fingertips? –so filling out forms for a multitude of things is so much easier. Need the address and phone number of your child’s doctor, their former school, or your insurance provider’s fax number . . . from two providers ago? It’s all at your fingertips. Need access to e-mails, so you can have whatever last minute info that was sent to you? Or when you’re at work you can e-mail yourself info that you’ll need while on the road and, as long as you can find your phone, you can find the info. For someone like me who can’t keep up with papers when traveling, but never misplaces the cell phone, it removes a lot of stress.

Not long ago, when a young adult female told me she gets ten times more done in a day than her mom ever did when her mom was an entrepreneur at this same age, I reminded her she has full time help that her mother never had, modern technology.

Now if a young Amish woman made the statement that she was able to do ten times more than her mother had at the same age, I’d be very, very curious to know what caused the difference.

~HAMES~

Each Amish-made creation is a pair of curved wooden pieces that are part of a horse’s harness where traces/leads/leather straps are attached. An Amish-sewn quilted square is between the wooden pieces and it makes for a very attractive and interesting wall hanging. To see a larger photo, click on the photo, but then click the back button and not the X. These are hanging in my home, but I’ll give one of them away. The retail value of this item is anywhere between $60 and $100, depending on who is selling them;-)

For a chance for you to win the set of hames shown below, just enter a comment.

The contest is for residents within the continental United States. On March fifteenth, I’ll draw a winner from those who leave a comment below. I’d love to hear about anything you remember from your childhood that is different than how we handle things today, but if you just want to say: enter me, that’ll work just as well.
You don’t need to leave any personal info where readers can see it. You can leave your first name only and then log your e-mail addy into the correct field when leaving a comment. I’ll be the only one able to read your e-mail address.

If you send a friend to the site, have them tell me your name and number in the comment (e.g. Mary, commenter number five sent me.) and I’ll enter your name an extra time for each friend who mentions you.

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