Today is the first day of school for the Lancaster County Amish kids. Despite the rise of small-enterprise in the settlement, the Lancaster County Amish are still highly ag-oriented and the school schedule reflects that. Today commences a week of half-days for all children. Next week will be full-schedule for everyone except the seventh and eighth graders, who will remain on the half-day schedule til…
MY TWO unofficial breakfast jobs at Abe and Sarah’s farmhouse are: 1) hand-grinding the coffee–Abe is a big drinker of the stuff, as am I, and 2) sneaking in to Abe’s dad’s milkhouse to scoop up a pitcherful of ice-cold organic raw milk. Okay, maybe not sneaking in, as Abe’s pop fully condones the practice. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun with it. …
Two quick bits of good news: One more tech snag has been overcome-I hope(!) It seems the size of the blog has gotten a bit large, and that’s complicated email or feed reader delivery over the past couple weeks. For reader/email subscribers to Amish America, you’ll now be getting just a short snippet of each post, and you can simply click on the post title…
“When I was a little boy, I often went away with my father–to town, to the neighbors, to the welding shop, to the engine shop–anywhere Dad needed to go. As with all little boys and girls, going away was a treat to me, no matter where we went. “On one such ‘going away’ adventure, perhaps to the welding shop, we chanced to meet a man…
First night at Abe and Sarah’s Lancaster farm went well, except for the friendly rooster who stomps the ground just beneath the window of my room. Apparently concert time is 430 am. I felt compelled to compliment Sarah on her bird’s voice the next morning. That got a knowing chuckle. Earplugs didn’t quite keep it out, but closed windows did the trick last night. Abe is a swell organic farmer, and…
photo: Stanisław Ciok Flipping through a recent issue of the Polish news magazine ‘Polityka’, I had a chance to read an article about the Roma people, perhaps better known Stateside by the more colloquial ‘Gypsies’. Entitled ‘Romofobia’, the piece describes the challenging situation of the 8 million-strong Roma minority living within Europe. Poland, where I live for a good chunk of the year, has a…
Donald Kraybill has written and edited over 20 books and dozens of professional articles on the Old Order Amish, Mennonites, and other Anabaptist peoples, and is the Senior Fellow at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. In addition to his current projects, Professor Kraybill has spent recent months in locations from Texas to Vancouver promoting Amish…
Unlike the typical Catholic priest or Protestant pastor, the Amish minister is unpaid and does not take up formal theological training. Ministers are selected from among the baptized males of the church, in an often emotional process of voting and drawing lots. They are in many ways responsible for the spiritual welfare of their church (more on Amish church districts). Thus being a minister is…
Just what do the Amish do for a living nowadays? The Amish have long been connected with farming. But in reality, this association has become less and less accurate over the past few decades. Published in 1995 (second edition 2004), Donald Kraybill and Steven Nolt’s Amish Enterprise documents one of the most significant changes in Amish society, the shift from agricultural to entrepreneurial pursuits. Today,…
Fireworks and cookouts are the name of the game today. And some Amish people will no doubt be participating in one, the other, or both. But as you’d expect, secular holidays take a backseat to church-sanctioned ones in Amish America. Generally speaking, Amish that are more in tune with the American mainstream (say, by virtue of their occupation, or church affiliation) would be more likely…