Amish Tuesdays

By Marta Lancaster

Joel and Rachel Yoder are a young Amish couple that discover that they cannot have a baby. They pray and pray to no avail until they begin volunteering at a local Children's hospital. There they meet an orphan who pulls at their heartstrings. Will they be able to see what Gott has in mind for them?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trellis Publishing
• Release date: Jul 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201243487

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AMISH TUESDAYS

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MARTA LANCASTER

TABLE OF CONTENTS

AMISH TUESDAYS

REACH FOR HIM

Chapter One

Joel and Rachel Mae Yoder, husband and wife, were on their way to Sunday meeting on Walnut Street in their horse and buggy. 

I should have stayed with Mae Rebekah’s baby, Rachel said.  She would have been grateful to get the chance to go to Sunday meeting.

You haven’t been to one of them meetings in three weeks, Joel replied. People are beginning to wonder.

They arrived, entered the building together, then separated, because the men and women sat separately. It was one of those services that began with a traditional song and ended with a zeugniss, or a testimony of what the Lord has done.  Today, a member of the community, Lisa Strastburger was speaking.

We wanted a baby ever so badly.  We waited for a whole three-years’ time and finally, I knew I was with child.  But we were still worried right up until that night when the midwife came and helped me through labor.  Now, little Anne is doing wonderful. And it’s a miracle because after three years, we’d thought for sure that something was wrong.  Lisa finished with, We know scripture tells us, ‘delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.’

Rachel stood.  She began to make her way to the door.  I’m feeling faint, she muttered, and continued stepping around the seated parishioners.  Finally, she opened the door, stepped out into the sunshine and let herself take a few shuddering breaths.

Why?  Why was she barred from the miracle that others received?  Did God love her less?  In a moment, she saw Joel join her and she let him put an arm around her as she cried.

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Monday evening, Joel walked into the house and took off his muddy boots just ouside the door. 

I finally got the stalls mucked out.

Rachel was scrubbing out the kitchen sink.  Since, Joel had installed a brand new sink last year, she had taken care to keep it especially clean.  Running water in the house!  In her childhood days, she could not have imagined such luxury.

Joel went into the bedroom to change.  He came out in his night clothes and lit a candle as he took the family Bible down from the shelf.  They did have propane gas lamps but the light of the candle was the experience of their childhood and they liked keeping it the same.  Joel read animatedly from the book of Genesis.  They discussed the passage for a while, then trailed off into other topics. 

Is it very quiet at your job? Rachel asked.  ‘I mean while you are working?"

Usually, the machinery is so loud, we have to wear earplugs, Joel said. 

Hmmm.  I wouldn’t like that.  But it’s so quiet in the house during the day.  You know, my grandmother was deaf for a while before she passed away.  She would sit there sewing for hours.  Sometimes, when it’s so quiet, I imagine I’m going deaf and I want to talk to someone just to make sure I’m not.

Do you want to visit your mother more often?

Mama keeps herself busy enough and I’d just hinder her.  No, I want to go somewhere.  Could I work for an English place?

"Like an English home?  There would be a lot of cleaning and cooking to do and all those modern appliances to figure out.  And you don’t need money."

"Yes, but somebody might need me.  How about the hospital about a mile from here?"

You can try it.

I think I might like it.

They went on upstairs, still talking. 

Nights like these reminded Rachel of the first time they bundled.  Bundling was an ancient Amish custom, where the boy and girl spent the night lying in bed with a board between them, in their outdoor clothing, just talking.  She had been eighteen and Joel twenty, and they had cheated a little by holding hands. 

What’s your biggest dream? she had asked Joel.

And Joel, one to turn everything into a joke, had answered, To pick a pineapple from a palm tree.  What’s yours?

Rachel had answered honestly, I want a little boy and a little girl to raise.  At least one of each.  It had never occurred to her that this was impossible for her.

After she had found out from the doctor that the problem was with her ovaries, not anger from God, not a curse of any kind, just a physical problem without a solution, she had closed herself off to her dream.  There were other things to rejoice over.  After all, Joel had never gotten to go pineapple picking either.  Life wasn’t fair, as everyone knew.

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Please wait to speak to our HR specialist, said the woman at the desk.

Rachel sat down.  There was a television in the corner of the room, and she tried not to stare at it too obviously.

A woman in a black skirt and heels came out into the waiting area.  Rachel, please follow me. Rachel followed.  The woman seated her at a desk and extended her hand for a handshake.

"Welcome.  I’m Sandra.  You are over 21?"

Yes.

"You’ll have purchase