Amish Religion

Everything has led up to this moment in Lizzie Glick's life. All of her curiosity, concern, and dreams have pointed to this time when she must make some very big decisions. Will she join the Church? Will she continue teaching? Will she marry Stephen? Questions and indecision as well as answers and certainty enter Lizzie's life in Big Decisions, the third and final novel in this series written by an Amish author and based on true-life experiences.

Midwife Kim Osterholzer ushers listeners behind the doors of Amish homes as she recounts her adventures answering God's call to the craft of midwifery. Kim chronicles her nine-year apprenticeship grappling with the nuances and idiosyncrasies of homebirth. She recounts the beauty and painstaking effort of those early years spent catching babies by the light of crackling woodstoves, oil lamps, and lanterns. Every birth enthralled her, whether it involved halting hemorrhages, sharing breath with tiny lungs, or bouncing through wild rides in ambulances.

Mary Stoltzfus is 30 years old, splashed with freckles, and unmarried. In her Amish world, that qualifies her to be called an old maid. She is living her quiet schoolteacher life in the Lancaster County Amish community when she gets a surprising invitation in the mail one day. Would she come to Montana to teach?

Growing up Amish and leaving the fold, Emma Gingerich left her Amish community in Eagleville, Missouri, at the age of 18. Her memoir Runaway Amish Girl: The Great Escape captivates even the timid listener. Disagreeing with the beliefs of Amish traditions and upbringing, the pressure became too much for her to bear. Forced to make a personal decision, Emma found the courage to leave the only life she had ever known. She had no idea the emotional turmoil she'd inflict on her family and friends.

As the daughter of a deacon, Amy Yoder knows all eyes are on her to set a good example by marrying an Amish man. But Amy has discovered that finding one is much easier said than done. When her mother secures her a suitable match, Amy isn't expecting much, but Andrew is everything she could have hoped for in a husband. The only trouble is, the man she's now pining for lives in Wisconsin, a great distance away. Now that Amy has found Andrew, she's determined to bridge the space between them, but will absence make the heart grow fonder - or stop their happily-ever-after before it begins?

Blending wisdom from the past, practices of intentionality and community, and Whittaker's signature engaging communication style, Reconnected will inspire and equip you to reset your life in a tech-saturated world. It's time to take back control of your life from technology and recover the lost art of being human. You were made for more. This is how you start living again.

The remarkable response of the Amish Community to the horrific shooting of 10 schoolgirls at Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania in October 2006 stunned the larger world. Amish Grace tells the incredible story of this community's reaction to the senseless shooting and explores its profoundly countercultural practice of forgiveness.

Salina has been dating Josiah for almost a year now, but he feels more like a friend than a boyfriend. Her parents approve of Josiah, who is a hardworking roofer. He’s handsome and easy to talk to, but he just doesn’t warm her heart the way she feels a boyfriend and future husband should. She secretly longs for more. Along comes William “Will” Zimmerman, a Mennonite chef who runs a restaurant located next door to the Amish market. He wants Salina to supply the produce for his restaurant, and as they forge a business relationship, they both feel themselves falling in love.

Newly widowed Amish woman Anita Graber has returned to live with her brother and his family in Lancaster County. As an expectant widow, she is quite surprised when everyone from the bishop's wife to her brother decides that her baby needs a father. Anita endures many embarrassing moments as she's forced into one awkward situation after another. Even though another man is the last thing on her mind, she finds a friend in her sister-in-law's brother, Simon.

Sixteen-year-old Faith has worked full-time in her parents' restaurant since she finished eighth grade. She loves her Amish community - and the romantic attentions of her longtime friend, Gideon. When her sister seems to be getting too friendly with Englischers, and her parents are in a buggy accident, Faith wants to escape into her dream of joining the church and getting married. But then a local newspaper runs a story about a child named Adriana who was kidnapped 15 years earlier, and everything Faith has held true comes into question.

Widowed and pregnant Amish woman, Sarah Kurtz, is in dire financial circumstances. Relief comes unexpectedly when her late uncle leaves her his income-producing farm in Sugarcreek. After Sarah's baby is born, she leaves Lancaster County and moves to her new home, unaware there is a long-term tenant living in the adjoining grossdaddi haus. When she meets her disagreeable neighbor, Joshua Byler, her irritation with him is softened by his two children.

After Bridget Logan learns about the death of her husband, she returns to live close to her parents. Within hours of her arrival, she knows she has to move on, but where to? Believing she'll find peace close to the Amish, she leases a cabin on an Amish farm for three months. Things take another drastic turn when she discovers that she's pregnant. Bridget is befriended by Ruth, the Amish lady who owns the cabin. When Ruth finds out that Bridget is a graphic designer, she volunteers Bridget's services to confirmed Amish bachelor, Dan Lindenlaub.

Anna is heartbroken and confused. Married to a man she barely knows, she struggles to make sense of what Eli, her previous fiancé, has done. Why did he leave her? Where did he go? Where is he now? Attempting to put that part of her life behind her, Anna tries to move forward with her life, although she can't push Eli out of her heart no matter how kind Isaac is to her.

Cassandra Yoder was a girl who never wanted to follow the rules. Soon after Cassandra's boyfriend finds out she's pregnant, he leaves her alone on rumspringa and returns to their Amish community. Not long after, he is killed in a shooting. Cassandra considers she has no choice but to return home. When her parents find out she's pregnant, the only solution is to send her to Aunt Maud, who will help her find a couple to adopt the baby.

Growing up Amish, Abigail Bontrager often felt like a square peg in a round hole. Her pie crusts always turned out tough. Her stitches always ran crooked. She was clumsy. Not ideal for an aspiring Amish wife and mother, but her faith and love of her family, which are so much more important, are solid. Plus, her relationship with the attractive and kindhearted Owen Kurtz is moving in the right direction.

Beth’s journey out of the pit has been heart-rending. But from this and the poetic expressions of Psalm 40 has come the reward: a new song for her soul, given by her Savior and offered to you in Get Out of That Pit—friend to friend. This is Beth’s most stirring message yet of the sheer hope, utter deliverance, and complete and glorious freedom of God

The day expectant Amish widow Sarah Hersler buried her husband, her estranged mother landed on her doorstep announcing she was there to be taken care of in her old age. With no energy to argue, Sarah agreed to travel to Ohio to sell her mother's house. When she finds the house in need of repair, she meets builder Isaac King, a widower. Sarah finds that she has many things in common with Isaac, and the pair quickly strike up a friendship.

After a son does the unthinkable, how can a mother go on? On October 2, 2006, a gunman entered an Amish one-room schoolhouse, shooting 10 girls, killing five, then finally taking his own life. This is his mother's story. Not only did she lose her precious son through suicide, but she also lost her understanding of him as an honorable man. It was a trauma that no one should ever have to face.

It was the early 1900s when Obadiah (Oba) and Merriweather's (May's) parents died tragically, leaving them orphans at ten and eleven years old. When none of their nearby relations volunteer to take them in, they are set on a train to Arkansas to go live on their Amish aunt and uncle's cotton farm. Once there, it didn't take long to discover they would be treated cruelly, no matter what they did. May, always anxious to be a godly young lady, took on more and more responsibility, trying desperately to keep the peace and convince her older brother not to run away.

Using eight principles, a variety of true stories and their years of experience as professional psychologists, Cloud and Townsend enlighten readers on how to make empowering choices-and how to build the life they want to live. It may seem impossible but it's true: taking personal responsibility is not only liberating, it is the best-and perhaps the only-way for a person to get what they really want out of life.