NEWSLETTER

July 2009

Beloved Reader,

Summer has arrived with all the joys and traditional disorder that goes with it. Our alarm clocks have been reset for more leisure mornings, local pools all around us are echoing the laughter of children and teens alike, and the robin’s nest that is easily seen from our back porch is now empty of the four baby birds we watched hatched and then mature until they left the nest. We had a mild spring here in Georgia, so it appears the mother bird will lay two sets of eggs this summer.

We had a very blessed spring. Our oldest son, who is twenty-seven, married a young woman we’ve grown to love like a daughter. Our amazing daughter-in-law is a first-generation American who moved here from India at the age of eight years old. Since their love was a “forbidden” one, it’s been a long, careful journey for both of them. They had to be patient and yet unyielding. Gentle and yet adamant. And with each step they took, they fell deeper in love and held on to hope that they could win her parents’ approval. In Indian culture children are to choose a spouse within their community with their parents’ guidance and approval. Overall, it’s a culture that has worked for thousands of years. The divorce rate is almost nonexistent and couples often learn to love each other deeply.

In spite of anyone’s reservations, our son and his fiancée weren’t children. They had both graduated college and become medical professionals. More than that, since Justin was an infant, I had prayed regularly for him to find the right spouse. I couldn’t assume she wasn’t the right one just because her parents had deep concerns or because she’d been raised in the Hindu religion. But I understood and respected their position; they are good and loving parents and only want to do what they believe is right.

The couple sought the wisdom and counsel of their pastor and continued applying patience, but when they knew the time was right, they set a wedding date. The stress and events between when the date was set and when the date arrived was tremendous and at times filled with tears.

But much to our joy, and as a testimony to her parents’ fervent love, they came to the wedding and her father walked her down the aisle.

Cindy's Itinerary
Event Notice: Book Signing Tour

I'm getting ready to participate in my first book tour! It will begin August 11 in Atlanta and end August 19 in Pennsylvania. All but three of the times and places are listed below. The three that are missing will be posted on my Web site as soon as each book store and time of day are confirmed. I won't send out a notice updating the information, so please check the Upcoming Appearances page on my Web site in a few weeks. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to meeting each one of you, so I hope you'll do your best to come out and bring your friends and relatives.

The Hope of Refuge will hit store shelves AUGUST 11! It is book one in the Ada’s House series. Each book in the series is a complete story (no cliff-hanger endings!), but once you get to know these characters, you’ll enjoy seeing them again in the following books. I’m very excited about The Hope of Refuge and hope you’ll join me for this well-researched Amish story.

Raised in foster care and now a widowed single parent, New Yorker Cara Moore struggles against poverty, fear, and a relentless stalker. When a trail of memories leads Cara and her daughter, Lori, away from the city toward an Amish community, she follows every lead, eager for answers to mysteries from her past and a fresh start. She quickly discovers that Dry Lake, Pennsylvania, is no place for an outsider. But one Amish man, Ephraim Mast, dares to fulfill the command he believes that he received from God—“Be me to her”—despite how it threatens his way of life.

Ephraim’s sister Deborah is fearful of the strange Englischer woman causing turmoil for her family, but she keeps focused on the marriage and home she longs to begin with Mahlon Stoltzfus. Her dreams are threatened when Mahlon begins behaving oddly, withdrawing, and causing concern for Deborah and Mahlon’s mother, Ada. Will the run-down house that Ada envisions transforming unite them toward a common purpose—or push Mahlon away forever?

As Ephraim is torn between trying to do what he believes is right and the requirements of his community, he risks losing everything, including a developing friendship with the guarded single mother. And he knows that long-held secrets about her family history ripple beneath the surface of Dry Lake—secrets with the power to tear apart the home Cara is desperately trying to find.

To read the prologue and chapter one, click here: The Hope of Refuge.

The Hope of Refuge will be available at your local book store starting August 11.

Amish Connection

From the yard of my closest Old Order Amish friend, I sipped a cup of coffee as I watched sunlight peek over the mountains and fill the valley. Along the creek banks of a nearby pasture, bands of mist rose like dancing trees and then disappeared into nothingness six or so feet from the ground. I’d never seen mist do such a jig. Sunlight sparkled off the dewy grass. The creek had overflowed its usual bounds because of abundant spring rains and ran wildly through the meadow. The steady clop of horses’ hoofs against the asphalt softened as the rigs pulled onto the gravel driveway.

It was a day I’d looked forward to for a year. The annual Amish school sale. It’s a bustling auction with at least four auctioneers selling various goods at different stations, two makeshift kitchens set up on the property, and several commercial-size grills filled with chicken.

The sales from this auction support Amish schools in the surrounding community. So on that beautiful spring day, many districts of Amish people attended the school sale, along with hundreds of English folk (also known as Englischers or non-Amish). A district has between eighteen to twenty-eight families. When the population grows to around twenty-five families, the Amish church leaders start looking into ways to divide that district—which involves several things, one of which is renovating a current structure or building a new one-room Amish schoolhouse.

On the day of this auction, there were probably a thousand people inside the warehouse-type building owned by an Amish family for the purpose of timber framing. This school sale is held each year on the day before Mother’s Day, which lends itself to a great gift-buying opportunity for Amish and English alike.

Most of my family was there, eating and drinking the homemade goods and bidding on things from hand–sewn, faceless dolls to wall hangings to king-size quilts.

I love these auctions!

When I finally tore myself away from my Amish friends a week later, I brought with me a beautiful Amish quilt for the quilt contest. The quilt was sewn by at least a dozen Amish women from that area. It’s gorgeous! So if you haven’t entered the Amish quilt contest yet, I encourage you to do so this time.

After the crowds had gone home, the cleanup began. The sun sank behind the mountains, and about the time dark settled over the land, everything was in order enough for supper to begin. About nine o’clock that night, amid soft conversations and bursts of laughter, my husband, youngest son, and I sat at the familiar old oak table and shared a meal with a group of very weary and content Amish folk. It was another great year of earning money to pay the schoolteachers from several districts in the area, and they were pleased.

The aromas, sights, and sounds of an Amish school sale are only one piece of the authentic Amish culture captured in my new book, The Hope of Refuge.

The Sound of Sleigh Bells ~ a Christmas novella
Coming October 6, 2009

Regret and loneliness echo inside Beth Hertzler from the life she once had.
Children’s whispers and laughter call to her from a life she dreams of.
A gifted carver holds the answer to both within his hands—but can Beth step beyond yesterday in order to find tomorrow?

Look for the first chapter of The Sound of Sleigh Bells in September’s edition of Plain News!

2009 Amish Quilt Contest Winner

As mentioned in the Amish Connection segment, one of the quilts I purchased while at the Amish school sale is the one for this year’s quilt contest. The quilt was sewn by at least a dozen Amish women from that area.

The contest is easy and fun. You can enter yourself into the contest one time. You can also have your friends visit the site and enter themselves and you. (One time per friend, please.) So if you have twenty friends drop by the site, they can each enter themselves once and enter you in “Your Friend’s Name,” too, which will cause your name to be entered again each time. To enter the contest, follow this link:

Newsletter Contest

While I was at the school sale, I purchased a wall hanging for the winner of the March Newsletter Contest. The contest was open for entries until a few days ago. The winner of the Amish-made wall hanging is Gaye, of Casper, Wyoming. Congratulations, Gaye.

For the June Newsletter Contest you have a chance to win your choice of an autographed copy of The Hope of Refuge or The Sound of Sleigh Bells. The contest will run until a few days before the next newsletter is sent out in September.

Here’s how to enter. (Please follow these steps carefully to prevent your entry from being disqualified.)

Note: You are reading the Web site version of Plain News. The Newsletter Contest is only available to those who receive the newsletter via their inbox. The newsletter is free and is sent four times per year, but on an occasion a special announcement may be sent. To sign up, to go http://www.cindywoodsmall.com/newsletter.php.

Author Spotlight

Like many of you, I love Robin Lee Hatcher’s books. She’s written some of my favorite novels. One issue I have with her books is they are too good to keep to myself, so I end up giving them away after I’ve read them. People I love, or sometimes even people I’ve just met, need the encouragement and the strong yet subtle faith messages Robin shares in her writings. Robin is a winner of the 2009 Holt Medallion for her book Wagered Heart. The award is presented annually by Romance Writers of America. She’s won so many awards over the years I don’t dare try to list them all, but if you’d like to take a peek at her trophy case, go here. (I just hope she doesn’t bean me with one of those trophies for slipping in all these accolades without her permission! )

Her latest release is A Vote of Confidence, and I’ve asked her to share with us a little about what sparked her imagination and touched her heart about The Sisters of Bethlehem Springs series and A Vote of Confidence.

Here’s Robin Lee Hatcher!

Ideas come to writers in lots of different ways. The idea for The Sisters of Bethlehem Springs series came to me in 2003–2004 and had its genesis in a couple of other books. From Catching Katie came a fascination with the decade leading up to the passing of the 19th Amendment, which gave American women the right to vote. From a secondary character in Speak to Me of Love came a fondness for women in unusual occupations for the time in which they lived.

While those two things were rolling around in my head, up popped the final ingredient. A question: “Who says a woman can’t do a man's job?” The next thing I knew, I’d met Gwen and Cleo Arlington, the heroines of the first two books in the series. I had to wait to meet my third heroine until the hero of A Vote of Confidence walked into my imagination. Guess what? He had a younger sister, Daphne McKinley. Each of these women have jobs that weren't considered a woman’s domain in their time (1915–1918). Gwen runs for mayor of Bethlehem Springs. Cleo works as a horse wrangler on a cattle ranch. And Daphne secretly writes dime novels under a male pseudonym.

How grateful I am for the many freedoms I—an American woman in the 21st century— enjoy. It’s easy to take too many things in life for granted. How often do I remember the sacrifices of the women (and men) who fought and suffered so that I have the right to go to the ballot box? How often do I appreciate those who endured scorn and ridicule in order that I might work in a profession that once belonged solely to men?

I’m glad that God’s plans for His children are so much more than we often comprehend. He wants to expand our boundaries and cause us to live adventurous lives for Him. Writing for the Lord has certainly been a great adventure for me, and my prayer is that every novel I write will not only entertain but will draw readers closer to the Lord and perhaps set them on their own grand adventure.

In the grip of His grace,

Robin

Recipes ~From the Esh Family Cookbook

Party Punch, submitted by Mrs. Sallie (Jacob) Flaud

7 cups chilled pineapple juice	1 pint orange sherbet
1-1/2 pint soft vanilla ice cream	3 cups chilled ginger ale

In large bowl place chilled pineapple juice, orange sherbet, and vanilla ice cream. Gently stir in ginger ale. Makes 24 cups.

Zucchini Casserole, submitted by Mrs. Sylvia (Dave) Glick

“This is one of our favorite casseroles. Many a time people ask for this recipe.”

4 cups zucchini	2 carrots
1 onion	1 box of stuffing mix
1/2 cup melted butter	1 can cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup sour cream	2 cups of cheese (mozzarella or Muenster)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Steam zucchini, carrots, and onion for 4–5 minutes. Mix box of stuffing mix in large bowl with melted butter. Stir in veggies, cream of chicken soup, sour cream, and half (1 cup) of the cheese. Put into baking dish and top with remaining 1 cup of cheese. Bake for 20 minutes.

A tidbit about Amish life

Q: Where do the Amish live?

A: They live in 27 states and the Canadian province of Ontario. About two thirds live in three states: Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana (ordered by size of their Amish population). There are about 1,700 local congregations, which are called church districts. Each district typically includes between 20 and 35 families. A settlement is a geographical area that contains one or more districts. Large settlements have more than 100 districts. There are about 400 different Amish settlements, but many of them have only one or a few districts.

Q: Are the Amish a cult?

A: No, they are a Christian church that accepts the basic tenets of Christian faith. They give special emphasis to values such as simplicity, community, separation from the world, the authority of the local church over the life of its members, separation of church and state, pacifism (which they call nonresistance), and lay leadership.

Q: When did the Amish begin?

A: They trace their roots to the Anabaptist movement in Switzerland in 1525 at the time of the Protestant Reformation. The Anabaptists emphasized voluntary adult baptism and a church that was free from state control. Because most had been baptized as infants, they were nicknamed rebaptizers or Anabaptists. The Amish were part of this movement until 1693 when they formed their own group in Switzerland and the Alsatian region of present-day France. Their first leader was Jakob Ammann; hence, they became known as Amish.

Q: Is the Amish population growing?

A: Yes. The population is doubling about every 20 years due to sizeable families (5 or more children on average) and high retention rates (on average about 85 percent of Amish youth eventually join the church).

Q: What language do the Amish speak?

A: Regardless of where they live, the Amish speak the Pennsylvania German dialect (popularly known as Pennsylvania Dutch), except in a few communities where they speak a Swiss dialect. English, typically learned in school, is their second language. Most Amish are fluent in both English and the dialect, but very few can speak standard German. Some learn to read old German script so they can read their religious books and publications. Amish people often refer to non-Amish as “English/Englisch,” because they speak the English language.

Q: Are there different kinds of Amish?

A: Yes. There are many different affiliations of Amish, each of which has its own dress styles, carriages, occupations, and rules about technology. The enormous cultural diversity among Amish groups and church districts makes it risky to generalize about “the” Amish.

Q: Do the different [Amish] groups have anything in common?

A: Yes, most [Old Order] Amish groups share certain practices: use of horse and buggy for local transportation, rejection of electricity from public utility lines, prohibition against televisions and computers, some type of distinctive dress, beards for men, ending of formal education at the eighth grade, meeting in homes for worship every other Sunday, lay religious leaders, and living in rural areas.

Q: Are all Amish farmers?

A: No. In the past most families farmed, but now many Amish earn their living from various types of Amish-owned establishments—small shops, businesses, carpentry, construction, retail stores, roadside stands—as well as employment in “English-owned” factories, restaurants, and shops.

Information taken from The Riddle of Amish Culture, 2nd edition, written by Donald B. Graybill (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001).