Amish Religion

Blending wisdom from the past, practices of intentionality and community, and Whittaker's signature engaging communication style, Reconnected will inspire and equip you to reset your life in a tech-saturated world. It's time to take back control of your life from technology and recover the lost art of being human. You were made for more. This is how you start living again.

As the daughter of a deacon, Amy Yoder knows all eyes are on her to set a good example by marrying an Amish man. But Amy has discovered that finding one is much easier said than done. When her mother secures her a suitable match, Amy isn't expecting much, but Andrew is everything she could have hoped for in a husband. The only trouble is, the man she's now pining for lives in Wisconsin, a great distance away. Now that Amy has found Andrew, she's determined to bridge the space between them, but will absence make the heart grow fonder - or stop their happily-ever-after before it begins?

After Bridget Logan learns about the death of her husband, she returns to live close to her parents. Within hours of her arrival, she knows she has to move on, but where to? Believing she'll find peace close to the Amish, she leases a cabin on an Amish farm for three months. Things take another drastic turn when she discovers that she's pregnant. Bridget is befriended by Ruth, the Amish lady who owns the cabin. When Ruth finds out that Bridget is a graphic designer, she volunteers Bridget's services to confirmed Amish bachelor, Dan Lindenlaub.

Beth’s journey out of the pit has been heart-rending. But from this and the poetic expressions of Psalm 40 has come the reward: a new song for her soul, given by her Savior and offered to you in Get Out of That Pit—friend to friend. This is Beth’s most stirring message yet of the sheer hope, utter deliverance, and complete and glorious freedom of God

Salina has been dating Josiah for almost a year now, but he feels more like a friend than a boyfriend. Her parents approve of Josiah, who is a hardworking roofer. He’s handsome and easy to talk to, but he just doesn’t warm her heart the way she feels a boyfriend and future husband should. She secretly longs for more. Along comes William “Will” Zimmerman, a Mennonite chef who runs a restaurant located next door to the Amish market. He wants Salina to supply the produce for his restaurant, and as they forge a business relationship, they both feel themselves falling in love.

Cassandra Yoder was a girl who never wanted to follow the rules. Soon after Cassandra's boyfriend finds out she's pregnant, he leaves her alone on rumspringa and returns to their Amish community. Not long after, he is killed in a shooting. Cassandra considers she has no choice but to return home. When her parents find out she's pregnant, the only solution is to send her to Aunt Maud, who will help her find a couple to adopt the baby.

When Amish woman Katie's volunteer firefighter husband dies in the line of duty, she is heartbroken. Not only have her two young sons lost their father, but the child she is carrying will never know him. Her husband's best friend, Mark, steps in to take care of Katie and her children. Many months pass, and Mark is offered an opportunity away from Lancaster County. Not wanting to leave Katie and the children behind, he makes his feelings known.

Amish woman, Evelyn King, had spent years being disappointed in her husband and her marriage. When Evelyn's husband died, leaving her pregnant and with a three-year-old daughter, she is faced with many problems including a house in ill-repair. When the quiet and kind Hezekiah Hostetler suddenly proposes, Evelyn knows this will solve all her problems as Hezekiah is nothing like her late husband.

With her baby only weeks away from being born, Deborah is skillfully avoiding her sister Emily's attempts to match her with someone totally unsuitable. When Emily realizes that Deborah is not interested in the man she chose for her, Emily finds a replacement and throws herself into ensuring that a wedding will take place.

Growing up Amish and leaving the fold, Emma Gingerich left her Amish community in Eagleville, Missouri, at the age of 18. Her memoir Runaway Amish Girl: The Great Escape captivates even the timid listener. Disagreeing with the beliefs of Amish traditions and upbringing, the pressure became too much for her to bear. Forced to make a personal decision, Emma found the courage to leave the only life she had ever known. She had no idea the emotional turmoil she'd inflict on her family and friends.

Take one thoroughly modern gal with a recessionary income problem, mix with the practices of a culture that has proved to be recession-proof, and what have you got? A financial planner in a straw hat. When writer Lorilee Craker learned that the Amish are not just surviving but thriving in the economic downturn, she decided to find out why.

Newly widowed Amish woman Anita Graber has returned to live with her brother and his family in Lancaster County. As an expectant widow, she is quite surprised when everyone from the bishop's wife to her brother decides that her baby needs a father. Anita endures many embarrassing moments as she's forced into one awkward situation after another. Even though another man is the last thing on her mind, she finds a friend in her sister-in-law's brother, Simon.

The day expectant Amish widow Sarah Hersler buried her husband, her estranged mother landed on her doorstep announcing she was there to be taken care of in her old age. With no energy to argue, Sarah agreed to travel to Ohio to sell her mother's house. When she finds the house in need of repair, she meets builder Isaac King, a widower. Sarah finds that she has many things in common with Isaac, and the pair quickly strike up a friendship.

The remarkable response of the Amish Community to the horrific shooting of 10 schoolgirls at Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania in October 2006 stunned the larger world. Amish Grace tells the incredible story of this community's reaction to the senseless shooting and explores its profoundly countercultural practice of forgiveness.

As Mr. and Mrs. Stauffer mourn the death of their son, Simon, who died during his rumspringa, Bree Fortsworth knocks on their door and announces she is having Simon's baby. Bree explains she has nowhere else to go and asks if she can stay with them. After they agree to her request she has another and the Stauffers are surprised when Bree wants them to adopt the baby.

After her husband's death, Grace Stevens returns to her family and her Amish community. She'd suffered through the challenge of an abusive marriage and wanted nothing more than to be baptized into the Amish faith and begin a new life. Grace finds it impossible to put the past behind her when Marlene, the woman who caused her to leave the community, is now living in Grace's family home and married to Grace's brother.

Like most Amish children, Eirene had a carefree childhood in a tight-knit family life in the Old Order Amish community where she grew up Indiana. Though she had no indoor plumbing, no electricity, and no modern conveniences, her young life was full of joy. When Eirene becomes pregnant and marries at the tender age of 17, the harsh reality of her new life sets in. Though she loves being a mother, and she loves her family, Eirene knows there has to be more to life than being a housewife confined to her home. Doesn’t God have a bigger purpose for her? Wasn’t she meant for more?

Nineteen-year-old Tessie Miller is the youngest of her Old Order parents' five daughters--and the only one yet to marry. She has her heart set on Amishman Marcus Smucker, and come wedding season, they plan to tie the knot and start a family together. But Tessie's father disapproves. Ammon Miller has his reasons, and he has put his foot down. The marriage will not go forward. Impetuously, Tessie and Marcus take matters into their own hands, eloping to exchange their vows in the fancy, English world.

Clinton has died and May is left to fend for herself in a city where she knows almost no one and has no way of earning a living. Not knowing where Oba had wound up and realizing she can't return to her uncle's home after all he'd put her through, she decides to journey to the Amish community where she spent her first years, before her parents' died. Perhaps the relatives who once turned her away had had a change of heart and would be willing to take her in or help her get settled on her own.

It was the early 1900s when Obadiah (Oba) and Merriweather's (May's) parents died tragically, leaving them orphans at ten and eleven years old. When none of their nearby relations volunteer to take them in, they are set on a train to Arkansas to go live on their Amish aunt and uncle's cotton farm. Once there, it didn't take long to discover they would be treated cruelly, no matter what they did. May, always anxious to be a godly young lady, took on more and more responsibility, trying desperately to keep the peace and convince her older brother not to run away.