My Amish Childhood by Jerry S. Eicher

Author:Jerry S. Eicher
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780736950077
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers, Inc.
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

With the memory of that night when the armed robbers appeared drifting ever further from our minds, it now seemed unlikely such a thing could happen again. But events would soon conspire to drive any such illusion from our minds. Thieves and misfits lurked in the community after the setting of each day’s sun. If we had paid more attention to the small incidents occurring around us, they might have served as fair warning.

One night Bishop Monroe had a visitor after dark. A man arrived, shouted about the house, and demanded they open the door. When Bishop Monroe refused, the man stomped around for awhile before firing off a shot into the night and disappearing. That didn’t seem too threatening, we told ourselves. At least he didn’t shoot into the house.

Uncle Joe, who lived in the first house coming in from the main road, had someone arrive in the middle of the night. A man whose voice they didn’t recognize awakened them in the night demanding a flashlight and money. When they wouldn’t comply, a long conversation occurred, but went nowhere.

“Give me money and a flashlight.”

“No, we won’t.”

This was repeated back and forth several times.

Finally the man thrust something into the tilting glass windowpanes. Uncle Joe thought it was a machete. A common enough implement carried about by almost all Honduran males. The oldest boy, Paul, overcome by youthful vigor, grabbed a wooden pole they kept in the house and gave the protrusion in the window a mighty whack.

The result was a splaying of glass as several of the panes broke. Whether the man ended up with glass in his eyes or not, no one ever figured out. But he did leave after that ruckus without money or a flashlight.

We listened to the stories, smiled, and stayed inside after dark. During the daytime we pretty much went where we liked.

In my mind there are two defining events in the community’s thieving history. One was the night of the “Great Robbery,” when Dad had guns stuck in his ribs. Two was the day of the “Great Thievery.” I am apparently unique in seeing this day as a watershed moment in the life of the community. There is no record of the event, at least that I could find, in two other books written about our years in Honduras, so I have only my memory to go on to piece together that day and what followed.

On that Sunday morning the day dawned bright and clear. By eight-thirty, the slight fog along the riverbank had lifted, and the sun was left by itself in the sky with only a few fast-moving clouds as company. All of the Amish from La Granja were on their way to church, walking either in pairs, singly, or in family groups. Even from the outskirts of La Granja they rarely used buggies.

Dressed in their white shirts and dark pants, the men cut straight figures beside the women in their long dresses and white headdresses. Before leaving for church, they all made sure everything was shut up as usual.

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