When Love Returns: An Amish Homecoming Story
By Beth Wiseman
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About this ebook
An Amish Homecoming story from bestselling author Beth Wiseman.
Hurricane Harvey forces Sarah Zook to return to the home she fled six years ago when she couldn’t face her stern parents’ reaction to her unplanned pregnancy. Upon her return, Abram King can think of nothing but the pain she caused him—until he meets Sarah’s daughter and realizes that he never really stopped loving Sarah. Sarah and Abram must find a way to face the truth of their past so they can rekindle their first love.
Beth Wiseman
Bestselling and award-winning author Beth Wiseman has sold over two million books. She is the recipient of the coveted Holt Medallion, is a two-time Carol Award winner, and has won the Inspirational Reader's Choice Award three times. Her books have been on various bestseller lists, including CBA, ECPA, Christianbook, and Publishers Weekly. Beth and her husband are empty nesters enjoying country life in south-central Texas. Visit her online at BethWiseman.com; Facebook: @AuthorBethWiseman; Twitter: @BethWiseman; Instagram: @bethwisemanauthor
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When Love Returns - Beth Wiseman
COPYRIGHT
ZONDERVAN
When Love Returns
Copyright © 2018 by Elizabeth Wiseman Mackey
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546
ISBN: 978-0-7852-1833-3 (e-book)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication
CIP data is available upon request.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.
Printed in the United States of America
18 19 20 21 22 / LSC / 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
Copyright
Glossary
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
Discussion Questions
Acknowledgments
About the Author
To all of the people impacted by Hurricane Harvey
GLOSSARY
ach (also ack): oh
aenti: aunt
appeditlich: delicious
bedauerlich: sad
boppli: baby
brot: bread
bruder, bruders: brother, brothers
bruderskinner: nieces and nephews
bu, buwe: boy, boys
Budget, The: a weekly newspaper serving Amish and Mennonite communities everywhere
daadi: grandfather
daadihaus (also daadi haus, dawdi haus): grandparents’ house, usually a smaller dwelling on the same property
danki: thank you
daed (also dat): dad
Die Botschaft: a weekly correspondent newspaper that includes reports from scribes in many Amish settlements across the nation
dochder: daughter
English, Englisher (also Englisch, Englischer): non-Amish
familye, familyes: family, families
fraa (also frau): wife
freind, freinden: friend, friends
froh: happy
gegisch: silly
geh: go
gern gschehne: you’re welcome
Gott: God
grossmutter: grandmother
Gude mariye: Good morning
gut: good
Gut nacht (also Gute nacht): Good night
haus: house
Ich liebe dich: I love you
jah: yes
kaffi (also kaffee): coffee
kapp: prayer covering or cap
kichli, kichlin: cookie, cookies
kind, kinner: child, children
lieb: love
liewe: love, a term of endearment
maedel, maed: young woman or girl, young women or girls
mamm: mom
mammi: grandmother
mann: husband or man
mei: my
mudder: mother
naut: night
nee: no
nix: nothing
nohma: name
onkel: uncle
Ordnung: the written and unwritten rules of the Amish; the understood behavior by which the Amish are expected to live, passed down from generation to generation. Most Amish know the rules by heart.
Pennsylvania Deutsch: the language most commonly used by the Amish. Although widely known as Pennsylvania Dutch, the language is actually a form of German (Deutsch).
Plain: the Amish way of life
rumschpringe (also rumspringa): running-around period when a teenager turns sixteen years old
schee: pretty
schmaert: smart
schtupp: family room
schwester: sister
sohn: son
vatter: father
Was iss letz?: What’s wrong?
wunderbaar: wonderful
ya: yes
yer, yerself: your, yourself
CHAPTER 1
Sarah paid the cabdriver and helped Miriam out of the car. They each slung a backpack over their shoulders, Miriam’s much smaller than Sarah’s. Everything they owned was in those bags.
Where’s the house?
Miriam gazed up at her mother with questioning blue eyes, her dark hair pulled up in a ponytail that Sarah had braided on the ride from the airport to Lancaster County.
Sarah squatted in front of her five-year-old daughter, kissed her on the cheek, and pointed down the dirt road that led to Sarah’s parents’ house. It’s about half a mile down that road.
Why didn’t the man in the yellow car take us all the way there?
Miriam readjusted the backpack on her tiny body.
Are you sure that’s not too heavy? I can carry it, if it is.
Sarah eyed the small brown bag over her daughter’s shoulders with Red Cross etched into the mesh-like material.
Miriam shook her head and smiled.
Sarah stood and blew a strand of hair away from her face, wishing she had another rubber band to pull it back. She only found one in her purse among the few things she managed to grab before the water from Hurricane Harvey flooded their apartment.
Spring is a nice time of year for a walk.
And Sarah needed the time to calm her racing heart. She eyed the fields on both sides of them, lush and green, the way she remembered spring in this rural area that felt so foreign now. When I was a little girl, there were all kinds of animals that ran around this area. You might see a jackrabbit or a wild turkey, ducks, or maybe even a bobcat.
Miriam gasped. Will they hurt us?
Sarah put a hand on her daughter’s shoulder and coaxed her to start walking. No, they won’t. Don’t you know by now, silly girl, that I’m never going to let anything hurt you.
I know, Mommy. You saved us from the storm.
Sarah took a few steps, memories flooding her mind, as she took in the silo in the distance, orange hues in the background as the sun began its final descent. It was a slightly upward climb for several yards, but when they reached the top of the slope, Sarah’s family homestead was visible. She swallowed the emotion that had built over the last few days. She hadn’t seen her parents in six years. Or Abram.
The grace of God saved us from the storm,
she said softly as a shiver ran the length of her spine. Sarah had tried to evacuate with Miriam before the hurricane slammed into the Gulf Coast, but the water rose too fast, and her small downstairs apartment in Houston had a foot of water inside before she could pack more than a few necessities and some clothes for her and Miriam. No one in the area was prepared for the epic floodwater.
She’d carried Miriam on her shoulders through waist-deep water until a boat came for them. After a week in a shelter, she finally called Big Jake at the hardware store in Bird-in-Hand and asked if he could get word to her parents to call her, and she left the number for the shelter. Sarah was between paychecks, and she didn’t have much in her savings account. The building where she worked had six feet of water inside, and she had no idea when she’d be able to go back. The devastation frightened Miriam.
Sarah’s mother had wired her money, even though she hadn’t seen or talked to her parents since she ran away from home when she was seventeen and two months pregnant. She’d written them three times over the years, and all the letters returned unopened. Sarah had never been baptized in the Old Order Amish community where she’d grown up. According to the Ordnung, she shouldn’t have been shunned. But her parents had practiced a shunning of their own. Sarah wondered if they would have sent money if it hadn’t been for Miriam, the granddaughter they didn’t know they had until the recent phone call.
Sarah would have eventually reached out to her parents again, if only for Miriam’s