“Being up in the mountains, seeing God’s creation and the awesomeness of it, really makes God real. The quietness, the peacefulness. Sometimes it’s stormin’ and blowin’, and it reminds us of the power God has,” Yoder explains. “In my everyday life, I feel a connection to God. I feel like I have God on my side. I’m living for God. But when I’m up here,…
As we wrap up the 2010s, a look back at some favorite posts of the past 12 months. My thanks to all of you who took the time to read, share and comment on posts this year. Wishing you all good things in 2020 ~ Erik Church 6 Examples of Amish Ordnung Rules Colorado Amish To Build Meeting Hall Attending Amish Church All About Amish…
Amish from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana visited the President and Vice President in the Oval Office Friday, as reported in the Washington Times. This was apparently the first time Amish people have visited the White House in this capacity (with one possible exception, see below). The Amish as a whole are not overtly political, so this type of event gets attention. While relatively few Amish visit…
Like most Americans, the Amish celebrate Christmas (in fact, some celebrate more than one Christmas). Several seasons ago, Rebecca Miller shared five ways Amish spend the Christmas season with us. Rebecca, member of an Ohio Amish church, closed her list with this: “The main focus of the season is still first of all remembering Christ – the true meaning of Christmas, family, gift-giving, and helping…
In what’s become a winter tradition, another Amish Guy Buggy Skiing video has emerged. This latest one comes from Long Prairie, Minnesota, where we see an Amish fellow skiing by the roadside, pulled by an open carriage. I checked and this is actually our second skiing video of this calendar year. Maybe the incidence of Amish Guys Skiing has increased. Or maybe bystanders are filming…
Leaders of a sizeable Amish community in Ohio have accepted a new safety enhancement on their buggies. These are not the Swartzentruber Amish living in Ashland County (though that group has been open to buggy safety changes as well). A second group of Amish living near the city of Ashland are one of the more recognizable communities for their unusual safety-triangle design. Here’s a photo…
Reader Marge asked on our recent Amish funeral customs post, “Why do Amish not publish obits in local newspapers?” I responded that they do in fact appear in local papers. You can quite often find them online. Here is an example: an Amish man named Roman E. Harshberger, 70, of the Nappanee, Indiana community, passed away earlier this week. Roman’s details appeared online in the…
The Amish community at Ellenboro, North Carolina is having an auction next month – the first annual sale for the five-year-old Swartzentruber settlement. What’s neat here is that the auction company has taken extensive photos of the things up for sale, posting over 100 photos online. The Amish are not “frozen in time”, as they are often labeled. But if one group of Amish were…
It’s Friday, so how about something light. So, here are a couple of guys who took an Amish buggy and strapped a jet engine onto the back of it. Why not. The two men behind the rocket buggy live somewhere in Amish country and are apparently racing enthusiasts. One of the two bought a jet engine online by mistake (he thought it was “turbo shaft”,…
Lancaster Online recently published a series of articles on the Amish and social media use. Eight years ago this topic got attention when it was publicized in another Lancaster Online report that Amish youth were using Facebook. We also saw Facebook covered in books like Growing Up Amish: The Rumspringa Years. Yet time passes and things change, especially in the fast-moving world of social connectivity…