Fearless Hope is a story full of light and dark, happiness and sadness. Do you think it’s necessary in fiction to have a mix of both? What about in real life? Can we have love without hate, peace without unrest?
I would be uncomfortable writing inspirational fiction that gives the reader the impression that the Christian life is easy. This life was never meant to be easy—but God does make it possible to have great joy and hope in spite of experiencing the inevitable sorrows and challenges of life.
Share with us your literary influences. Who do you read for inspiration?
I seldom read fiction anymore. Now that I’ve studied the writing craft for so long, I find it hard to lose myself in a story without analyzing structure, etc. I’ve heard other writers complain of the same problem. There comes a point when it is difficult for a writer to suspend the critical brain long enough to be swept away. As a younger woman, though, I saturated myself with so many wonderful authors: Willa Cather, Margaret Mitchell, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Later in life I discovered Allan Eckert’s scholarly historical works and read all of them. Now, with time so limited, most of my reading involves research.
Why do you think it is important to share stories of the Amish? Do you hope to break any stereotypes with these novels?
If I can break stereotypes, I would be very happy. One of the biggest mistakes tourists make when they come to Amish country is to assume that uniformity of clothing means a uniformity of personality. My Amish friends are varied and interesting. Many have a great sense of humor. Most struggle with many of the same problems the rest of us have. The difference is that, as a people, they consistently try to apply godly principles to their lives in practical ways. I think there are good things we can all learn from them. I certainly have been blessed by my association with them.
Have you ever experienced writer’s block like Logan? How did you overcome it?
I came so close to burnout this past year that I was afraid I would never write again. For most of my life I loved the process of writing and I dreamed of becoming a published writer. Then the reality of meeting deadlines, doing PR, keeping up with social media, and worrying about reviews hit and I almost allowed it to destroy my desire to write. How did I overcome it? Like Logan, I began to write completely outside my genre. It happened accidentally. I took a train trip to visit a relative and was on Facebook talking with friends about the experience, when someone suggested that I write a story called “Murder on the Texas Eagle.” For the sheer fun of it, I began writing a cozy mystery about an old, opinionated Kentucky woman. Suddenly, writing was enjoyable again. I knocked out a ten-thousand-word story before the trip was over. That led to another cozy mystery and another. Are they award-worthy? Nope. They aren’t even serious writing. But the “Accidental Adventures” of old Doreen Sizemore helped me start writing again. I’ve recently put them up as e-stories just to entertain my friends. These tongue-in-cheek stories fed something inside of me as I wrote them out by hand on yellow legal pads instead of my computer—kind of the equivalent of Logan’s antique typewriter.
What would you name as the major theme(s) of this story? What do you hope readers will remember about Hope and Logan?
Hope had to learn to trust her own vision of what obedience to God looked like instead of relying on others to define it for her. Proverbs 31 does talk about a woman buying a field and planting it and selling the produce. Hope depended on the scriptures to determine what was right and wrong and to determine what God’s plan was for her—instead of relying on other people’s opinions. Logan had, in his own way, a similar discovery. This is a story about spiritual obedience in the face of criticism, the incredible power of prayer, and the healing power of forgiveness. Ultimately it is—like all my other books—a story about hope.
Is Fearless Hope the last book in the series? Do you have any plans for a new writing project you can share with us?
This is the last book that will use the characters of this series. I doubt this will be my last work of fiction involving the Amish. However, at the present time I’m deeply involved in writing a nonfiction book entitled The Wisdom of Amish Parenting, which I hope will give non-Amish parents some pointers about the peace I’ve seen in Amish homes that I think would help us manage our own stress-filled lives a little better.
AN
Amish Wedding
INVITATION
AN ESHORT ACCOUNT OF A REAL AMISH WEDDING
“So, how many chickens do you think we’ll need to butcher in order to feed everyone?” Luke Beachy asked the group seated around the yard as we relaxed and visited after supper. Everyone was close kin to him, except me.
Luke was the father of the bride-to-be, and the wedding was weighing heavily on his shoulders. This was his eldest daughter’s wedding, and she was the first of his many chicks to leave the nest. As with most Englisch weddings, there was a bittersweet quality to discussing the upcoming event. They liked the boy, but Luke and his wife, Deborah, grieved the fact that the daughter was moving so far away.
Five miles.
“I know that doesn’t seem like so much to you,” Deborah had said to me earlier, “but with a horse and buggy, it is a lot to us.”
At the moment, we were watching a group of young cousins, ages five to twenty-one, playing volleyball in the front yard. The girls were barefoot and wearing Old Order Amish dresses made from pastel-colored fabric. Two of the older boys were dressed Englisch and had short, modern haircuts. Their cars were parked discreetly behind the barn. They were having their Rumspringa—their “running around” time—before settling down. All were laughing and having a good time. It was a pretty sight.
“Well, we’ll need to feed around five hundred people before the day is over,” the grandmother said.
No one ran for the calculator, because Luke’s question was rhetorical. They knew exactly how many chickens they would need, and how many quarts of home-canned green beans, and how much celery and flowers and everything else they would have to grow or gather or borrow. The Amish are experts at marrying off their children, and the chicken would be one of the greatest expenses. Fortunately, the father of the bride was a chicken farmer, which, under the circumstances, seemed a lucky thing.
There were ten of us relaxing in folding chairs around a small campfire beneath the comforting shade of an ancient maple tree. We had come together to celebrate the successful publication of my first book, Love Finds You in Sugarcreek, Ohio, which was a story set in a nearby town and had involved Amish characters. This family had been kind enough to allow me to spend months pestering them with questions, trying to truly understand their culture.
The book had debuted to great reviews, but the opinion that mattered most to me was theirs. Had I gotten it right? Had I portrayed their people accurately?
Yes, they said. I had gotten it exactly right. Deborah especially enjoyed it. She commented that she wished I could speak German.
“Why?” I asked. Her comment puzzled me.
“Because then I could tell you what is in my heart,” she said. “It is so hard to say in English the things I feel.”
This was intriguing. “Can you try?”
“Because you did not make our people look . . .” I could see her translating in her mind, “Weird.”
“Weird”? This was not a word I had ever heard an Amish person use.
“After I read your book,” she explained further, “I felt a lot better about being Amish.”
“Oh.” Her comment was unexpected and felt like a gift to me. “I am so glad!”
I was beyond grateful to this Old Order family who had allowed me, an Englisch woman with jeans and short hair, to enter their world and become part of their lives. As a small thank-you, I was giving the women a break from cooking supper and had ordered a towering stack of pizzas. I wanted to make sure everyone could eat their fill, and they had—including the children, who broke away from their play from time to time to run over and grab another piece. Deborah had brought a large sheet cake.
We were eating outdoors with the food stacked on makeshift plywood-and-sawhorse tables. This was not for want of room inside. This is the land of ultralong dinner tables and homes built large enough to seat two hundred church members. We were outside tonight because it was a pleasant day to watch the children play volleyball, and a small campfire is always a cheerful thing even if you don’t need it, and, well, outdoors is a cooler place to be on a summer evening when you don’t have air-conditioning.
“The publisher is interested in more books,” I said. “Do any of you have any stories you can think of that you would want me to tell?”
“What kind of stories?” Deborah asked.
“Love stories about the Amish.”
“Oh, lots!” Her sister-in-law Mary practically jumped up and down in her seat. “We have lots and lots of love stories.”
I grabbed my ever-present notebook and pen.
“But we can only tell them to you in German,” she teased, and everyone laughed.
They laughed because I had recently entertained them with a story about my experience taking a high school German class from a teacher with an unfortunately deep Southern accent. I had demonstrated the extent of my knowledge of their language by drawling an exaggerated, “Danke schön, y’all.”
Susan, Mary’s five-year-old daughter, ran up to her mother and rattled off a question.
“We have a guest,” Mary gently reminded her. “You are interrupting.”
The child glanced over her shoulder, gave me an apologetic grin, and switched smoothly to English as she asked permission to have another piece of cake.
“Such a sweet tooth,” Mary said fondly, and gave her permission.
It is unusual for a five-year-old Amish child to speak English so fluently. Usually they speak only German until they begin school at six, but Susan had grown up playing with a little Englisch boy her mother babysat. She was a bright child and picked up this “foreign” language of English very quickly.
Our conversation turned once again toward the fascinating subject of the upcoming marriage. This visit was the first time I’d heard anything about a wedding, and I wanted so badly to go. I assumed it would be an informal affair along the lines of a barn-raising, a sort of come-as-you-are function with piles of food laid out potluck-style on makeshift tables. I envisioned, after a brief ceremony, the couple riding off in a buggy decorated with flowers.
I figured it wouldn’t be too much of an imposition to ask if I could attend. I mean, what’s one more person at a big church potluck. Right?
“I apologize for asking,” I said, “but would it be rude if I came to the wedding? I’ve been thinking about putting an Amish wedding scene in my next book.”
There was a hesitation as they pondered my request. I attributed that hesitation to what my husband and I call “the Amish pause.” These people take time to think before they speak, so it came as no surprise that my abrupt question required a few beats of quiet contemplation before answering. I have read that this is a matter of humility with the Amish. They do not want to be like Englisch people, who answer off the cuff as though they already know everything.
To me, whose talking style has frequently been described by my family as “shooting from the hip,” this pause is fascinating. Try as I might, I can’t seem to achieve it.
It is a full two months later before I realize that this particular hesitation had more to do with the fact that the father and mother of the bride were mentally shifting seats around in their heads while wondering where on earth they would put me. They had not expected an Englisch woman to suddenly pop up and invite herself, but they politely agreed that it would be fine if I wanted to come, and I eagerly wrote down the date.
Sometimes it seems as though I have a great talent for making a dummkopf of myself around my gracious Amish friends. I never mean any harm, and so they have made a habit of forgiving my ignorance. At the time, I had no idea how carefully planned out this wedding already was. To this day, I wonder who gave up their seat for me.
• • •
The largest settlement of Amish in the world resides in the Holmes County, Ohio, area. In the heart of Holmes County is the small town of Berlin. In the middle of Berlin is German Village, which is a lovely group of shops that sell local products. Anchoring this small shopping area is the German Market, a local grocery store.
This store is a busy place, and it caters to both Englisch and Amish clientele. There are usually at least a dozen horse buggies tied up at the hitching posts. As you go into this building, you see the grocery store on one side and a large open space in the front where many rocking chairs are placed. Usually these are filled with older Amish men waiting patiently for their wives to finish their shopping. This sometimes involves quite a wait, because there is a lower level where Spector’s Dry Goods stocks fabric, sewing supplies, sturdy wooden clothes-drying racks, Amish men’s hats, and fresh, white prayer Kapps.
In the middle of the grocery store, on the main floor, there is a piece of bibliophile heaven called the Gospel Bookstore. This is where Eli Hochstetler, the enthusiastic owner, proves that it is still possible to run a profitable, independently owned bookstore.
The foot traffic into Eli’s place is enviable, especially since much of it is composed of Mennonite or Amish customers who have not yet acquired the habit of ordering books at the click of a computer button. Instead, they browse, taking their time, examining the books they are interested in, and more often than not, conversing comfortably with Eli in their own language.
The day after the Amish pizza party, I had my very first book signing ever in the front of Eli’s bookstore. I was enjoying discussing books with the handful of locals who were kind enough to talk with me. I was especially delighted when my friend Joyanne walked in.
Joyanne and her husband, Clay, are transplants from Texas who run a cozy bed-and-breakfast and hire out to drive the Amish. She had driven Deborah and her daughter Rebecca to the book signing, and they also planned to pick up a few groceries while they were there.
“This is for you.” Rebecca handed me a thick, high-quality envelope, which I opened. Inside was an elegant, professionally printed invitation to her wedding. This is the first I realized that the Amish purchased and mailed out wedding invitations. I had assumed Amish weddings would be a simple word-of-mouth thing.
After they left, I showed the invitation to Eli, the bookstore owner. He was excited for me.
“An Amish wedding?” he says. “Oh, you are going to eat so well on that day!”
Later, when I got home, I attached the wedding invitation to my refrigerator with a magnet, and the next morning, I glanced at it again and did a double take. There was an obvious printing error. The invitation said that the wedding was to take place at 8:30 a.m. on a Thursday morning.
I put on my reading glasses. Yes, that’s exactly what it said: 8:30 a.m.
I have been a preacher’s wife for many, many years and I’ve been to a lot of weddings. I’ve sung for several of them and decorated for others. I’ve helped pin brides into borrowed wedding gowns and eaten more wilted salads at receptions than I care to count. I’ve been to afternoon weddings, right-before-noon weddings, evening weddings, late-afternoon weddings, weddings in the woods, weddings on the beach, second weddings, fourth weddings, renewing-of-vows weddings. And never, ever, had I seen a wedding take place at 8:30 a.m. on a Thursday morning.
I immediately phoned Joyanne and asked if they had printed the invitation wrong. She laughed and said that this was the customary time for Amish weddings to take place. I asked why on earth they would begin that early in the morning. She gave me the same answer she had been given when she had asked. It was a “tradition.”
She also told me that there would be about three hours of preaching before the actual ceremony took place at around noon. That was when the realization first began to dawn that there was a whole lot more to this Amish wedding business than I had ever dreamed.
As the time for
the wedding drew near, I made my plans. The Holmes County community is three hours from my home. Getting up before dawn to drive all that distance did not seem like a good idea, so I stayed overnight in Oak Haven, Joyanne’s farmhouse B&B, which has become a home away from home for me. It doesn’t take a whole lot to give me an excuse to go stay an extra day or two if she has room. When I arrived, she filled me in on a few of the things that had been happening over at the Beachy family farm this past week.
The Thursday before the wedding, Deborah’s sisters and friends had arrived to help clean house, paint, and weed the garden.
On Friday, the mobile kitchen had arrived, and it had taken a great deal of maneuvering to make the large, metal, wheeled structure fit in behind the house.
Saturday, the men had erected the tents that would extend the seating room in the barn, and another that would provide shade to the kitchen workers. They had also given the barn a thorough cleaning.
Monday, the women had begun all the prep work that could be done that far in advance. The bride had been particular, with definite ideas about the spices she wanted mixed into the coating for the chicken. She had spent a great deal of time adding and mixing and adding and tasting large bowls of coating until it was perfect. Large amounts of celery had been chopped and refrigerated.
On Tuesday, the women had toasted all the bread for the bread dressing, and had mixed the salad dressing and put it into bottles. Pizza crust had been baked for the fruit pizza dessert. Green beans had been put into kettles. Ham had been chopped to add to the beans. All had been stored in the giant walk-in refrigerator built into one end of the mobile kitchen.
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