Mindy Starns Clark takes time to chat with a young girl at last week’s Book Expo America in New York City. Mindy was available to talk with fans and sign copies of The Amish Midwife. She truly is passionate about her work!
Hello, AmishReaders! This week’s new entry from A Pocket Guide to Amish Life by Mindy Starns Clark will be sure to give your Friday a boost!
The Amish and the Importance of Worship
Amish worship services are usually held every other Sunday and rotate among the homes in a district. If a house is not large enough to accommodate the entire congregation, a service may be held in a barn, a basement, or a large shop. Each Amish family hosts the service about once a year, depending on the size of the district. For congregational seating, the district provides hard, wooden-backed benches that are delivered to the host home the day before on a special wagon that has been designed for just that purpose.
In the service, which lasts about three hours, the congregation is usually divided by gender and age. Very young child sit with a parent. From the youngest to the oldest, everyone is expected to sit still and pay attention despite several challenges: the length of service; the use of the less-familiar High German in the songs, prayers, and readings; the hard wooden benches; and any seasonal discomfort, such as summer heat or winter chill.
Old Order worship services generally open with a hymn sung slowly, in unison, without instruments, in High German. As the congregation sings, the bishop and ministers gather in a different room and decide who will preach the opening sermon and who will preach the main sermon. Besides congregational singing, services feature Scripture reading in High German, silent prayer, and spoken prayer read from a prayer book, also in High German.
The opening sermon, given in the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect without the aid of any notes, lasts 20 to 30 minutes. This is following by the main sermon, which lasts an hour or more and is also given extemporaneously.
When the main sermon is over, other ministers may add input or correction as they feel led. In general, services avoid formal theology, instead focusing on practical applications of obedience, humility, faith, community and simplicity.
No work is done on Sundays except that which is absolutely necessary, such as the care and feeding of the animals.
The value and importance in which worship is treated is a key aspect of Amish life.
LaRae Weikert, vice president of editorial at Harvest House Publishers, is visiting author Gayle Roper (A Rose Revealed) in Pennsylvania Amish country today. She sent us this fun photo of a genuine Amish buggy!
Hello, AmishReaders! We hope you’ve had a great week. A Pocket Guide to Amish Life by Mindy Starns Clark has another fascinating fact for us this Friday.
The Amish and Their Language
Amish life involves three different languages: Pennsylvania Dutch, English, and High German.
Pennsylvania Dutch is the primary language of the Amish, spoken at home, in sermons at church, and among other Amish. Though other religious groups also spoke this German-derived American language in the past, the Amish and the Old Order Mennonites maintain it to the present day.
A common misconception about Pennsylvania Dutch is that it is a variant of the Dutch language. This isn’t true. The German word for German is Deutsch, which sounds a lot like Dutch, and one theory holds that over the years, the term for Pennsylvania German, or Pennsylvania Deutsch, began to be pronounced Pennsylvania Dutch.
In Indiana, a few Amish communities use a Swiss dialect for their primary language rather than Pennsylvania Dutch.
English is the language of commerce, literacy, and the outside world.
The Amish are fluent in English and use the language when speaking with non-Amish friends, conducting business outside of the community, and functioning in other non-Amish settings. The Amish are taught to speak, read, and write English in school, and most continue to use it when writing throughout their lives.
Though many Amish speak English without any telltale accent, there are some giveaways when they talk, particularly among those who do not converse often with outsiders. Certain words and terms receive unusual pronunciations and uniquely Amish phraseology. There are many charming Amish English idioms, such as “The cookies are all but the milk is yet,” which means “The cookies are all gone but some milk is still left.”
High German is used in Amish worship services and spiritual texts. It is the language of respect for God and heritage. Most Amish become familiar with the language not through formal instruction but rather from years of exposure during Sunday worship and when reading the classics of the Amish faith that are in High German, including the Ausbund (Amish hymnal), Die Ernsthafte Christenpflicht (a prayer book used in many Amish households), and The Luther Bible.
The Amish value High German as an important symbol of their spiritual heritage.
Happy Friday, AmishReaders! We have another “Fascinating Fact” for you today, compliments of Mindy Starns Clark and The Pocket Guide to Amish Life.
The Amish in Community
The community is the cornerstone of Amish life. It is where they most often find their identity, support, lifestyle, worship, classmates, spouses, and friends. It is a source of strength, an insurance policy when disaster strikes, and a safe haven in an often hostile (or at least intrusively curious) world.
To the outsider, this strong sense of community is one of the most appealing aspects of Amish life. Who wouldn’t want the safety net of a loving group of friends and relatives to surround them during bad times, celebrate together in good times, and bear the ups and downs of life together? The very thought sounds like music to our culturally isolated ears. But then we consider the downside of Amish community: the myriad of rules that seem to constrict at every turn, the sacrificing of individuality for the greater good, the practices of excommunication and shunning that seem harsh and cruel. Would it be worth it? Could the benefits exist without the drawbacks?
These elements of the Amish mindset will help us understand the Amish view of community:
• Everyone in the community is accountable to God.
• The virtue of humility is shown through respect for God and others.
• All persons are worthy of dignity and respect.
• Communities are made stronger when individuals do not use personal desire as their supreme criteria for making decisions.
• Traditions are more important than progress.
• Accumulated wisdom is better than an individual’s ideas.
• Authority in all its various forms is to be obeyed. Ministers submit to bishops, members to leaders, wives to husbands, children to parents, students to teachers, younger to elder, and so on.
These beliefs help us understand why community is so important in Amish life.
Hello, AmishReaders! Every Friday for the month of May, we’re going to be sharing fascinating facts about the Amish and their way of life. Our thanks go out to Mindy Starns Clark and her very helpful book A Pocket Guide to Amish Life. We hope these fun and interesting insights into Amish living will only increase your reading enjoyment of Amish novels.
The Amish at Work
Traditionally, the primary occupation of the Amish has been farming, for several reasons:
• In the early days of the Anabaptist movement, many fled into the countryside to avoid persecution. There they learned farming skills, which they later brought to America.
• The Amish believe that according to Scripture, farming is a sacred lifestyle and a way to connect closely with God.
• Farm work helps ingrain many Amish values, including a strong work ethic, patience, and simplicity.
The average Amish farm in Lancaster County has about 70 acres, and the crops commonly include corn, tobacco, alfalfa, and various grains. Unfortunately, rising land costs and decreased availability are prohibiting many younger Amish from continuing the farming tradition. Nowadays, the Amish work not only on farms but also in other trades, factories, restaurants, retail establishments, and so on. They are also starting up their own home-based businesses in record numbers.
With the shift into entrepreneurship, of course, comes all sorts of challenges to the Amish way of life—new technologies, less time spent at home with family, and even mothers working outside of the home. How the Amish will face these challenges and continue to maintain an agrarian lifestyle remains to be seen.
If you haven’t heard, author Jerry Eicher is giving away copies of Ella’s Wish this week. You need to visit his Facebook page before this Friday–all the details are on his page. And if you haven’t seen the trailer for Ella’s Wish yet, I’ve put it below. Happy Reading!
AmishReaders, we hope you’ve enjoyed our month-long celebration of “Free Recipe Fridays.” Author Georgia Varozza declares today’s recipe as her absolute favorite from The Homestyle Amish Kitchen Cookbook. She fondly remembers making this recipe often when her sons were growing up, and she still makes this quintessential Amish dish several times a year.
Scrapple
1 ½ lb. ground pork
5 cups water, divided
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. sage
1 cup cornmeal
Break up the ground pork into small pieces in a large saucepan. Add 4 cups of water and stir, separating the pork well. Heat to boiling, reduce to simmer and cook 30 minutes. Remove meat from stock, reserve 3 cups of the stock, and add to it salt and sage.
Combine the cornmeal with 1 cup cold water (you can make part of this liquid milk, which will make the scrapple brown better when fried). Add this cornmeal/water mixture gradually to the hot stock; bring to a boil, reduce to simmer, cover, and cook 15 minutes. Stir in cooked ground pork. Pour into a loaf pan (9 ½ x 5 x 3-inches) and chill well for 24 hours. Slice ¼- to ½-inch thick. Fry pieces in hot oil quickly, turning only once. Allow room in the pan to turn. Serve hot either plain or with syrup.
We have a wholesome and hearty treat from The Homestyle Amish Kitchen Cookbook for this Friday’s free recipe. Mix up a batch and take some along on all of your weekend adventures!
Peanut Butter Granola
1 ¼ cups honey
2/3 cup oil
1 cup peanut butter
1 T. salt
1 T. cinnamon
½ cup water
10 cups rolled oats
1 cup raw peanuts or other nuts, chopped
1 cup wheat germ
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup coconut
2 cups raisins
Combine the honey, oil, peanut butter, salt, cinnamon, and water in a saucepan and stir over low heat until peanut butter melts.
In a large bowl, combine the rolled oats, peanuts or other nuts, wheat germ, cornmeal, and coconut. Then add the peanut butter mixture and mix well.
Spread granola out in 2 large shallow greased pans and bake about 30 minutes at 325 degrees, stirring often to prevent overbrowning, until crunchy and golden brown. When cool, add raisins.
Store in airtight container.
AmishReaders, if you haven’t had the chance to yet to read Abigail’s New Hope by one of our favorite authors here at AmishReader.com, Mary Ellis, it’s now available. It’s a beautiful story of second chances–I’ve put the trailer for it below. (Our friends at FaithfulReader.com are currently doing a giveaway for it–be sure to visit their site to enter to win!)
