Amish researcher and writer Donald Kraybill will be retiring from his position at Elizabethtown College as senior fellow at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies. This semester will be his last one teaching at the college. I wanted to share a few thoughts, including on how I first met Don. I also asked Don a few questions about his plans now, challenges of his work,…
Author Serena Miller believes so. A TIME magazine article titled “Why Amish Kids Are Happier Than Yours” offers five “secrets” English parents can learn from the Amish. They’re taken from Miller’s book More Than Happy: The Wisdom of Amish Parenting. One of these five ideas I hadn’t thought of before. Any guess which one? Here they are, summarized: Extended Family – large family networks boost a child’s well-being. Imperfect Hospitality –…
Merlyn Yoder belongs to an Old Order Amish church in northern Indiana. A few weeks ago he shared why he felt the Ausbund is such an important book. In Why the Amish Sing: Songs of Solidarity and Identity, author D. Rose Elder explores the different purposes of Amish church song, including “to uplift spirits, to express devotion, and to experience joy in faithfulness to God.” As an Amish person…
The reader who shares today’s video clip (at end of post) writes, “it’s different, with some instruments”. Those instruments include a Casio keyboard, guitar and accordion. This is a short clip filmed last year by Ernest Bontrager in Pinecraft. He describes the group as the “Tri Valley Singers from Ohio”. The girls played on Estrada Street “to a large Amish crowd.” I would agree, it is…
From Syracuse.com: RICHLAND, N.Y. — Black horse-drawn buggies were parked outside a wooden house where Amish people were crowded inside — laughter and the smell of food spilled out of the front door Saturday afternoon. When Levi Swartzentruber came to the door though, his green eyes watered at the mention of his 6-year-old son Jonathan L. Swartzentruber. He died after being hit by an SUV…
Do you know who’s under the weather in your community, who just had a baby, or where to get a good deal on a sewing machine? If you were Amish and received the church newsletter, you’d have all this information at your fingertips. While wider-audience papers like the Budget and Die Botschaft have multi-state and national reach, papers such as the Lancaster Gemeinde Brief (covering Lancaster…
Here on the final day of 2014, I thought it would be a nice cap on the year to share links to favorites of the past 365 days. Below you’ll find those posts which got a lot of comments or otherwise good response from you, plus some of my personal favorites. Wherever you are today, I hope your year went as well as it could have–and that…
My calendar tells me it’s officially winter now, which may be what inspired me to start a log fire the other day (even though it wasn’t really fireplace-cold weather yet). In fact, I’ve got another crackler going as I write this post, since I love fires so much. Again not so much for heat purposes as much as for the smell and sound (I suspect I’m…
In today’s guest post, David Arment of armentphoto.com discusses those funny little buildings you see here and there in Amish communities. — One thing that seems generally true is that Amish are reluctant to accept technology that connects them to the outside world. We English would say they live “off the grid”. In our area, phone shacks have sprung up as the answer to the need…
Sarasota Magazine is featuring photos of a tiny bungalow that’s just gone up for sale in the Sarasota-area neighborhood of Pinecraft, popular with Amish and Mennonite vacationers and retirees from around the country. The magazine says this is “unusual as most are sold to friends and neighbors, unadvertised.” You’ll see a couple of photos below, and more at the link. Below, the exterior shot. The 2-bedroom, 1-bath property…