A guest post from Sarah Price
I was first introduced to the Amish when I was only eight years old. It
was my grandparents who took me to Lancaster County, PA. I sat between them on
the front seat of their Cadillac, bouncing up and down with excitement as we
passed each horse and buggy.
My grandparents came from a long line of strict Old Order Mennonites.
Back in the early 1700s, our ancestors escaped persecution and travelled across
the ocean to accept William Penn’s offer for free land in Pennsylvania. I
often think about that journey and how terrified they must have been. Seeing
the shores of Europe disappear over the horizon, facing an uncertain future in
an unknown land…how courageous they were and how unfaltering in their faith in
God.
There is something magical about the Amish. In today’s world of
technology, information overload and crazy schedules, there is something to be
said for a people who manages to maintain a simpler way of life. A people
who takes care of each other. A people who lives for honoring God through their
daily routines. How can you not fall in love with such people? They are
truly blessed.
Likewise, I consider myself a blessed person. For almost twenty-five
years, I have been staying among the Amish. In the beginning, I found an Amish
family that rented out an apartment over their mule shed. For several years, I
would rent the apartment and travel back and forth from my home to their farm.
In later years, I was introduced to an Amish woman who rented me a room in her
home. Through these connections, I have been permitted the rare opportunity to
straddle the fence between my current world and this of my ancestors.
There is another blessing in my life (and I believe we all have many). I
have been blessed with the desire to write. Since I was a child, I wrote books.
It was my passion, my dream. I love writing, telling stories that entertain and
inform. It’s in my blood. I believe that a true author writes for that reason:
they have a passion to write. That’s it. It’s as plain and simple as the Amish.
The beautiful thing is that I have been blessed to combine the two: my
passion for writing and my passion for the Amish. It’s a marriage made in
heaven, as far as I’m concerned. Like my friend, colleague, and fellow
author, Karen Anna Vogel, my knowledge of the Amish comes from first-hand
experience. It allows me to write authentic books, books that are rich in true
knowledge of the Amish, a special knowledge that I love to share with my
readers.
That brings me to my final blessing, one that is so important to me: the
readers. How fortunate it is that so many wonderful people desire to know the
Amish and to learn about their faith! These readers are faced with so much
stress: busy lives, illness, uncertainty, and hardship in a time of economic
distress. It is such a blessing to know that, even if only for a few hours,
they can slip away from this stress through the stories that I love to write.
I invite you into my world, to pick up one of the many Amish books
written by wonderful authors that are available in bookstores and online, and
to sit back in order to escape, even if just for a few pages. Who knows?
Maybe you, too, will find some relief from the everyday stress in your own life
as you explore the world of the Amish through our eyes.
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