I have had a number of people ask me about my growing up years in the Amish world.  So here goes the first part in a blog post. Please keep in mind as you read, that I don’t desire to target the culture or the people, but only to tell my story in a format that in the end brings Glory to God. Here goes…..

I was a very energetic Lil girl, full of mischief and questions, happy and go lucky was totally my nature.  I loved life to the fullest, always ready to soak up the next adventure, and with three older brothers, plus living on a farm, there were always plenty of those. 😏  

 Sometimes my energetic and mischievous Lil self, got into some troubles just like typical boys and girls do.  Like the time when I was almost four years old, and got bit by a dog.  I am not sure of all the exact happenings, but I think I was attempting to pet the dog and he apparently didn’t like it and bit at my face. So after 6 days in the hospital and a life long battle scar to show for it, I was ready for the next adventure.😀 

  One of the highlights in my younger Years was going to town, which was about twelve miles away, and  since I was the youngest I often had the privilege of going along.  With horse and buggy being the main source of transportation, it usually took over an hour to get to town, and as soon as I spotted the water tower, my Lil energetic self got all excited, because that meant we were almost there.  Besides, sitting for over an hour seemed like a long, long time to me🙈😁 The best part of the trip, was that I got to have French fries for my lunch, cuz that was the only time I got to have them, and to me that was big deal 

 Every Sunday morning(unless someone was sick) dad would hitch the horse to the buggy and we would leisurely trot down the road to whereever church services were being hosted that day. Church services were always sort of a dreaded time, because I had to sit still, on a hard bench, for three hours straight. And to my Lil energetic self those three hours, seemed to last for sooooo long. But as soon as the service was over, I got to hang out with my friends, which in my mind was the best thing ever.  

 But things weren’t always so joyous in my Lil heart, yes I always appeared to be happy on the outside but on the inside my heart was hurting and so many questions were constantly on my mind…

• Could some one just understand the pain?
• Who could explain some of these things that I felt in my heart?
• And why did I have to be so quiet about so many things?
• Did every girl experience these things?  

   I honestly did not know how to pray and ask God how to help me through these things.  But even now, I look back and I see God’s hand woven through every detail in each event of my life that was so tough. 
  

 At the age of 8-12 I began to really question some of the things that we did.

• Why did we dress the way we did?
• Why did my shoes always have to have strings and just why couldn’t they be gray or brown instead of always black? 
• Why did we hire someone to take us places with their vehicle, yet we couldn’t own or drive a vehicle ourselves?

And the list of questions could go on, but you get the idea. The answer always seemed to be the same, “we do it because it’s always the way it has been done”. Well, In my mind that answer wasn’t good enough, but it had to satisfy for the the present time.  

 I would hear people occasionally talk about God and how he was a wondrous God who worked in amazing ways, altho I couldn’t really make sense of all of it, I do know that  I had a child like faith in at least one situation where I remember kneeling and asking God to help my Grandma make the right decision and He did answer too.  But other then that, my knowledge of God was pretty limited.  But as time passed and I entered my teenage years,  I knew there had to be more to life then just being a person with the title of Amish and dressing simply.  

To be continued… 
Blessings,

Vinny