Christmas at School Our little school was planning its Christmas program. It wasn’t going to be much of a production. Mostly just singing Christmas carols and reciting poems, and the Christmas story from Luke 2. The fun part would come when we got to exchange gifts. Everyone threw their name into one of the boy’s hats. Teacher Ruth added her name too, even though every family was expected to give her a nice gift. The day of the program arrived. It was a little overwhelming having to stand at the front of the schoolroom while the entire Amish community had gathered to see our performance. The ..read more

You might not expect to see a Smithsonian-worthy exhibit of original carvings in the middle of Ohio’s Amish country, but it’s there. In fact, there are two such exhibits: The Warther Museum in Dover, Ohio and David Warther Carvings in Walnut Creek. I recently had the pleasure of meeting master carver David Warther II, and since I can barely carve a turkey myself, I was beyond impressed with his talent. In fact, when it comes to the entire Warther family, talent is an understatement. David, who or what first got you interested in carving? I started carving at a very young age. My Mom told me ..read more

The Sunday Quiet Box Having five younger brothers, Sunday afternoons at our house used to be anything but quiet. After a week of working long hard days my parents both would have loved a nap, but even though we tried to be quiet the noise levels would gradually increase until Dad or Mom would stumble out of the bedroom asking us to be quiet. One Sunday afternoon before they went to take a nap they set a box on the table and told us we can enjoy the contents. It was a lot of fun digging through all the treasures inside. There were books, art supplies, puzzles, and some special toy animals and ..read more

The Mailbox Mail time was always looked forward to. Most days once the mailman left the mailbox and disappeared down the road John and I would run out to see what he left this time. Most of the time there was a letter or two, but what we really liked was the day the weekly grocery and K-Mart fliers would come. We would sit on the floor and study and dream about all the good food, and then we’d look at the toy section of the K-Mart flier. It was my dream to have a doll with a real face and hair, even though I loved my rag doll “Sally” very much. Then one week the mailman didn’t stop and John ..read more

Chainsaws and Worries We used to have a big couch covered with a slippery brown cover, setting inside our living room windows. John, David, and I used to spend a lot of time on it playing church or looking at story books. It also provided an excellent view of the barnyard if we knelt on it to look out the windows. One snowy morning a pick-up pulling a cattle trailer pulled into the driveway and a man got out and came to the door. Mom went to see what he wanted and then came into the living room and told us to play nicely while she goes out to the barn to help him get our fattened steer loade ..read more

As I was researching the foster care system for a book called Stitches in Time, I came across all kinds of troubling statistics. Some you’d expect: In recent years, a surge of children in the foster care system that state officials attribute to the opioid crisis in our country. The average age of a child in foster care is eight years old, and nearly 40% of children spend one to three years in the system. Then there were some statistics shocked me, like 60% of child sex trafficking victims were once in foster care. And 30-60% of all foster families drop out after the first year. But there’s go ..read more

“Where in the World did THAT come from?” is a new regular feature on Amish Wisdom. We’re hunting down the origins of words, phrases, customs, and traditions. Mostly Penn Dutch or German, but not limited. We’re open to tracking down all kinds of curious sayings! Today, the word is: Gesundheit (German/Yiddish) Traditionally, saying “Gesundheit!” after someone sneezes is a way of blessing them. This term is thought to have emigrated to America with the first wave of German-speaking settlers in Pennsylvania and spread more widely from 1900 onward when large numbers of immigrants moved to the Unit ..read more

How is the Amish church different from most others? Odds are, these three aspects of Amish worship are different from how things work in your church. 1. Home Worship The Amish do not build churches or meetinghouses. Church service is held every two weeks on a rotating basis within the church district, typically made up of 25-35 families. The actual church service is held in either a large room in the home, basement, workshop, or barn. An oversized wagon is used to transport the church benches from home to home, which later double as benches and tables for the traditional fellowship meal. Chur ..read more

“Where in the World did THAT come from?” is a new regular feature on Amish Wisdom. We’re hunting down the origins of words, phrases, customs, and traditions. Mostly Penn Dutch or German, but not limited. We’re open to tracking down all kinds of curious sayings! Today, the word is: Wunderkind A combo of the German words “wonder” and “child.” First used in 19th centuries Germany, this phrase referred to musical child prodigies such as Mozart and Beethoven. It’s meaning has expanded to include any child with an extraordinary skill, art or talent. Is there a word or phrase you’re curious about? E ..read more

In Journey to the Plain Life an Amish Wisdom reader shares her journey to becoming plain. We hope you enjoy this new feature!  Read part one HERE! Allow me to back up, September 2015 my grandma from Australia came for a visit and while she was here she encouraged me to apply for college in Australia. I decided to do that because my parents were really pushing me to get a degree and it is much cheaper to get a degree in Australia. I sent off my application for college and basically forgot all about it until January 2016, I got my application back and was accepted. Growing up I have always been ..read more