Fearless Hope: A Novel (38 page)

Fellow author Ann H. Gabhart has said of your work that you breathe “such life into [your] characters they almost leap off the page into your imagination.” Are any characters based on real people, or are they entirely fictional? Which character is your favorite in the story and why?

My characters are mostly fictional except for where I drew heavily upon my sister’s skills in developing Hope’s dreams for the future. Logan’s mother was based on a passage I ran across years ago about mental compartmentalization and how some people who have done very bad things sometimes compensate by becoming ultragood in every other aspect of their life. My favorite character was the grandmother who diligently prayed for her lost grandson even when common sense would have made most people give up. She reminds me of my mother-in-law, who has diligently and successfully prayed for family members when most people would have given up.

Along similar lines, where do you get inspiration for your characters? Do you interview your neighbors in your local Amish community?

Actually, I spend a lot of time in Holmes County, Ohio, which is the largest Amish community in the world. It is only three hours from my home and has a greater diversity from which to draw than the small, new settlement near me. I have many close Amish and Mennonite friends in the Holmes County area. I try not to “interview” my Amish friends, but I do care deeply about their beliefs, struggles, and dreams.

Do you consider Hope something of a renegade in the Amish community?

I don’t think of her as a renegade as much as a mother who is desperate to provide a better life for her family—even if not everyone approves of her choices.

Like the Troyer family, you and your family have been involved in ministry work. Briefly describe the work you’ve done with your husband. Did this ministry inspire the Troyer family’s?

In 2005, my husband and oldest son went to Haiti to help show Haitians how to use an inexpensive water purification system. Their report, upon their return, encouraged our home congregation to become a much more mission-oriented church. Our church has now sent multiple mission groups to both Haiti and Honduras. Our immediate family created a common bank account into which we contribute windfall money to make it possible for family members to go on mission trips without having to ask our church for financial help. We are far from the level of involvement of the Troyer family, but we’re working toward that goal.

Fearless Hope
is a story full of light and dark, happiness and sadness. Do you think it’s necessary in fiction to have a mix of both? What about in real life? Can we have love without hate, peace without unrest?

I would be uncomfortable writing inspirational fiction that gives the reader the impression that the Christian life is easy. This life was never meant to be easy—but God does make it possible to have great joy and hope in spite of experiencing the inevitable sorrows and challenges of life.

Share with us your literary influences. Who do you read for inspiration?

I seldom read fiction anymore. Now that I’ve studied the writing craft for so long, I find it hard to lose myself in a story without analyzing structure, etc. I’ve heard other writers complain of the same problem. There comes a point when it is difficult for a writer to suspend the critical brain long enough to be swept away. As a younger woman, though, I saturated myself with so many wonderful authors: Willa Cather, Margaret Mitchell, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Later in life I discovered Allan Eckert’s scholarly historical works and read all of them. Now, with time so limited, most of my reading involves research.

Why do you think it is important to share stories of the Amish? Do you hope to break any stereotypes with these novels?

If I can break stereotypes, I would be very happy. One of the biggest mistakes tourists make when they come to Amish country is to assume that uniformity of clothing means a uniformity of personality. My Amish friends are varied and interesting. Many have a great sense of humor. Most struggle with many of the same problems the rest of us have. The difference is that, as a people, they consistently try to apply godly principles to their lives in practical ways. I think there are good things we can all learn from them. I certainly have been blessed by my association with them.

Have you ever experienced writer’s block like Logan? How did you overcome it?

I came so close to burnout this past year that I was afraid I would never write again. For most of my life I loved the process of writing and I dreamed of becoming a published writer. Then the reality of meeting deadlines, doing PR, keeping
up with social media, and worrying about reviews hit and I almost allowed it to destroy my desire to write. How did I overcome it? Like Logan, I began to write completely outside my genre. It happened accidentally. I took a train trip to visit a relative and was on Facebook talking with friends about the experience, when someone suggested that I write a story called “Murder on the Texas Eagle.” For the sheer fun of it, I began writing a cozy mystery about an old, opinionated Kentucky woman. Suddenly, writing was enjoyable again. I knocked out a ten-thousand-word story before the trip was over. That led to another cozy mystery and another. Are they award-worthy? Nope. They aren’t even serious writing. But the “Accidental Adventures” of old Doreen Sizemore helped me start writing again. I’ve recently put them up as e-stories just to entertain my friends. These tongue-in-cheek stories fed something inside of me as I wrote them out by hand on yellow legal pads instead of my computer—kind of the equivalent of Logan’s antique typewriter.

What would you name as the major theme(s) of this story? What do you hope readers will remember about Hope and Logan?

Hope had to learn to trust her own vision of what obedience to God looked like instead of relying on others to define it for her. Proverbs 31 does talk about a woman buying a field and planting it and selling the produce. Hope depended on the scriptures to determine what was right and wrong and to determine what God’s plan was for her—instead of relying on other people’s opinions. Logan had, in his own way, a similar discovery. This is a story about spiritual obedience in the face of criticism, the incredible power of prayer, and the healing power of forgiveness. Ultimately it is—like all my other books—a story about hope.

Is
Fearless Hope
the last book in the series? Do you have any plans for a new writing project you can share with us?

This is the last book that will use the characters of this series. I doubt this will be my last work of fiction involving the Amish. However, at the present time I’m deeply involved in writing a nonfiction book entitled
The Wisdom of Amish Parenting
, which I hope will give non-Amish parents some pointers about the peace I’ve seen in Amish homes that I think would help us manage our own stress-filled lives a little better.

A
N E
S
HORT
A
CCOUNT OF A
R
EAL
A
MISH
W
EDDING

“S
o, how many chickens do you think we’ll need to butcher in order to feed everyone?” Luke Beachy asked the group seated around the yard as we relaxed and visited after supper. Everyone was close kin to him, except me.

Luke was the father of the bride-to-be, and the wedding was weighing heavily on his shoulders. This was his eldest daughter’s wedding, and she was the first of his many chicks to leave the nest. As with most
Englisch
weddings, there was a bittersweet quality to discussing the upcoming event. They liked the boy, but Luke and his wife, Deborah, grieved the fact that the daughter was moving so far away.

Five miles.

“I know that doesn’t seem like so much to you,” Deborah
had said to me earlier, “but with a horse and buggy, it is a lot to us.”

At the moment, we were watching a group of young cousins, ages five to twenty-one, playing volleyball in the front yard. The girls were barefoot and wearing Old Order Amish dresses made from pastel-colored fabric. Two of the older boys were dressed
Englisch
and had short, modern haircuts. Their cars were parked discreetly behind the barn. They were having their
Rumspringa
—their “running around” time—before settling down. All were laughing and having a good time. It was a pretty sight.

“Well, we’ll need to feed around five hundred people before the day is over,” the grandmother said.

No one ran for the calculator, because Luke’s question was rhetorical. They knew exactly how many chickens they would need, and how many quarts of home-canned green beans, and how much celery and flowers and everything else they would have to grow or gather or borrow. The Amish are experts at marrying off their children, and the chicken would be one of the greatest expenses. Fortunately, the father of the bride was a chicken farmer, which, under the circumstances, seemed a lucky thing.

There were ten of us relaxing in folding chairs around a small campfire beneath the comforting shade of an ancient maple tree. We had come together to celebrate the successful publication of my first book,
Love Finds You in Sugarcreek, Ohio
, which was a story set in a nearby town and had involved Amish characters. This family had been kind enough to allow me to spend months pestering them with questions, trying to truly understand their culture.

The book had debuted to great reviews, but the opinion that mattered most to me was theirs. Had I gotten it right? Had I portrayed their people accurately?

Yes, they said. I had gotten it exactly right. Deborah especially enjoyed it. She commented that she wished I could speak German.

“Why?” I asked. Her comment puzzled me.

“Because then I could tell you what is in my heart,” she said. “It is so hard to say in English the things I feel.”

This was intriguing. “Can you try?”

“Because you did not make our people look . . .” I could see her translating in her mind, “Weird.”

“Weird”? This was not a word I had ever heard an Amish person use.

“After I read your book,” she explained further, “I felt a lot better about being Amish.”

“Oh.” Her comment was unexpected and felt like a gift to me. “I am so glad!”

I was beyond grateful to this Old Order family who had allowed me, an
Englisch
woman with jeans and short hair, to enter their world and become part of their lives. As a small thank-you, I was giving the women a break from cooking supper and had ordered a towering stack of pizzas. I wanted to make sure everyone could eat their fill, and they had—including the children, who broke away from their play from time to time to run over and grab another piece. Deborah had brought a large sheet cake.

We were eating outdoors with the food stacked on makeshift plywood-and-sawhorse tables. This was not for want of room inside. This is the land of ultralong dinner tables and homes built large enough to seat two hundred church members. We were outside tonight because it was a pleasant day to watch the children play volleyball, and a small campfire is always a cheerful thing even if you don’t need it, and, well, outdoors is a cooler place to be on a summer evening when you don’t have air-conditioning.

“The publisher is interested in more books,” I said. “Do any of you have any stories you can think of that you would want me to tell?”

“What kind of stories?” Deborah asked.

“Love stories about the Amish.”

“Oh, lots!” Her sister-in-law Mary practically jumped up and down in her seat. “We have lots and lots of love stories.”

I grabbed my ever-present notebook and pen.

“But we can only tell them to you in German,” she teased, and everyone laughed.

They laughed because I had recently entertained them with a story about my experience taking a high school German class from a teacher with an unfortunately deep Southern accent. I had demonstrated the extent of my knowledge of their language by drawling an exaggerated, “
Danke schön
, y’all.”

Susan, Mary’s five-year-old daughter, ran up to her mother and rattled off a question.

“We have a guest,” Mary gently reminded her. “You are interrupting.”

The child glanced over her shoulder, gave me an apologetic grin, and switched smoothly to English as she asked permission to have another piece of cake.

“Such a sweet tooth,” Mary said fondly, and gave her permission.

It is unusual for a five-year-old Amish child to speak English so fluently. Usually they speak only German until they begin school at six, but Susan had grown up playing with a little
Englisch
boy her mother babysat. She was a bright child and picked up this “foreign” language of English very quickly.

Our conversation turned once again toward the fascinating subject of the upcoming marriage. This visit was the first time I’d heard anything about a wedding, and I wanted so badly to go. I assumed it would be an informal affair along the lines of
a barn-raising, a sort of come-as-you-are function with piles of food laid out potluck-style on makeshift tables. I envisioned, after a brief ceremony, the couple riding off in a buggy decorated with flowers.