Connecting to the Old Order
Amish Community

Part One

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.

My sister was living in Pennsylvania, and after weeks of asking around, she found a woman named Linda, an EMT who had worked at an Amish birthing center. Linda knew many Amish people, but only one who might be willing to answer my questions—a barely-forty mother named Anna—and then only if my queries went through Linda. This began a convoluted long-distance relationship. I’d ask Linda questions and she’d pass them on to Anna. I’d write segments of my novel and Linda took them to Anna to read. After about a year of this, Anna told Linda I should come to her place for a visit. I was thrilled!

Since the Old Order Amish community travels only by horse and buggy, hired driver, or train, this seemed the perfect opportunity for me to travel as my character would in my first book, When the Heart Cries. So my youngest son and I took the train from Georgia to Pennsylvania.

My first meeting with Anna went more smoothly than either of us had expected. She and I were both moms, interested in raising our children to know the Creator of the universe and live by His Word. That bond transcended all our differences and united us in understanding each other.

To help me get a feel for living Amish, Anna and I worked the garden, washed clothes with a wringer washer, hung them out to dry, prepared meals without electricity, and drove by horse and buggy to visit relatives so I could get some hands-on perspectives of other Amish livelihoods. Our sons fished, played ball, rode scooters as well as horses, and walked to the one-room school.

At the end of our visit, we planned a return trip the following year. For twelve months, our youngest sons eagerly anticipated the next get-together almost as much as I did.

(Nickel Mines Amish School, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. October 2, 2006)

[1] names have been changed to assure their privacy