A Life of Joy
A
L
IFE
of
J
OY
Amy Clipston
BOOK FOUR
In loving memory of my grandparents,
Emil and Emilie Goebelbecker
Contents
Kauffman Amish Bakery Family Trees
Mississippi Mud Pie
Amish Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies
Blueberry Muffins
Crullers
Kaffee Kuchen (
Coffee Cake
)
Crumb Cake
Kleina Kaffee Kuchen
(Little Coffee Cakes)
Zimmet Waffles
(Cinnamon Waffles)
Kauffman Amish Bakery Family Trees
(boldface are parents)
L
indsay Bedford smoothed the skirt of her purple frock as she sat on a hill with her best friends, Katie Kauffman and Lizzie Anne King. The gentle breeze blew back the ribbons of her prayer covering, and she watched a group of boys play volleyball in the pasture below them.
“It’s hard to believe summer is almost here.” Katie opened a folded napkin in her lap revealing a pile of chocolate chip cookies and handed a cookie to both Lizzie Anne and Lindsay.
“Danki,”
Lizzie Anne said. “Ya, it’s nice and warm today. I love May. Such a
schee
time of year.”
“The bakery is already busy,” Lindsay said, breaking the cookie in half. “The tourists are already descending on Lancaster County.” She glanced at Katie. “Are you planning to work at the bakery during the summer?”
Katie grinned while lifting a cookie. “Ya.
Mammi
Elizabeth asked me just the other day, and my
mamm
gave me permission.”
Lindsay squealed and squeezed Katie’s hand with excitement. “We’ll have so much fun! I’ve learned so much that I’m baking by myself now. I can’t wait to show you. I made the best shoofly pie the other day that
Aenti
Kathryn said—” She stopped speaking when she spotted Lizzie Anne’s frown out of the corner of her eye. She turned to her friend and touched her
arm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel left out. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
Lizzie Anne shrugged and forced a smile. “It’s okay. My sister Naomi asked me to work for her this summer. Millie is a handful, and she’s expecting another
boppli
next year. I’ll help her around the house and also do some quilting with Susie. I can’t believe it’s been more than one year since Naomi and Caleb were married. It seems like only yesterday that my sister met Caleb when he and Susie came to visit for Christmas.”
“I’m certain we’ll see each other plenty,” Lindsay insisted, looking toward the volleyball game. “After all, we have plenty of youth functions coming up and we have our church services every other Sunday.”
“And classes start in a few weeks,” Katie chimed in.
“Classes?” Lindsay asked before biting into the cookie.
Katie laughed. “Don’t be
gegisch
, Lindsay.” She nudged Lindsay with her shoulder. “Instruction for baptism.” Her smile faded into a concerned frown. “Aren’t you going to come to class? I thought we would be baptized together.”
“Oh,” Lindsay said, her cheeks burning with embarrassment. She knew that this issue would come up at some point, but she hadn’t realized it would be this soon.
“You’re not going to be baptized this year?” Lizzie Anne asked.
Lindsay shrugged. “I didn’t say that. I just didn’t realize that the classes were starting so soon.”
“You know that if you don’t take classes with us this year,” Lizzie Anne continued, “then you’ll have to take classes and be baptized in another church district next year.”
“I know,” Lindsay whispered. She glanced toward the volleyball game in order to avoid their concerned stares. Her eyes fell on her friend Matthew Glick, a handsome young man who worked in the Kauffman & Yoder Amish Furniture store with her uncle, Daniel Kauffman. While Matthew served the
volleyball to the opposing team with a powerful bump of the ball, Lindsay contemplated Lizzie Anne’s and Katie’s words.
In Lindsay’s church district, baptisms were performed once every other year before the fall communion service in order to allow the newly baptized to commune with the rest of the church members. Communion was held twice per year—in October and April — as a special daylong service.
Most Amish youth were baptized between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one; although, sometimes community members chose to experience the English world before joining. The ministers held the instruction sessions during the first thirty minutes of church services over the summer months while the rest of the church members sang hymns. The ministers and bishop reviewed the eighteen articles of the
Dordrecht Confession of Faith
and emphasized aspects of the
Ordnung
.
Once Lindsay turned eighteen, there was more of an expectation for her to be baptized into the Amish community. However, she’d lived in the English world before coming to live with her Amish aunt four years ago. Although the Amish world felt like the right fit for her, something deep down in her heart was holding her back from making that final commitment.
“Lindsay?” Lizzie Anne asked, pulling Lindsay back to the present. “Was
iss letz?
”
“I know what’s wrong with her,” Katie said with a snicker. “She’s staring at Matthew again.”
Her friends giggled, and Lindsay rolled her eyes in response. “Stop it,” she muttered. “Matthew is a friend.”
“I’ve seen the way he looks at you,” Katie said with a knowing smile. “He likes you.”
“Please.” Lindsay shook her head while looking at him. “We talk sometimes when I go to the furniture store or if he comes by the
haus
to see
Onkel
Daniel. And that’s it—we’re just friends.”
Lindsay fiddled with the hem of her dress and grew serious. “How do you know you’re ready to join the church?”
Katie shrugged. “I just am. My
mamm
was my age when she joined, so it just feels right.”
“What about you, Lizzie Anne?” Lindsay asked. “How do you know you’re ready?”
Lizzie Anne put her hand to her chest. “I can feel it in my heart. It’s like God is telling me it’s time.”
Lindsay considered Lizzie Anne’s words. She’d prayed about her faith nearly every night since coming to live with Rebecca and Daniel, and she thought God had wanted her to stay with the Amish. However, now her mind was assaulted with doubt, even though she had the opportunity to be baptized and join the church with the young members of her church district. She knew that once she joined the church, it was final and there was no going back to being a non-member. Her future as a member of the Amish community was sealed, and if she left, she’d be shunned.
“Matthew’s a member of the church,” Lizzie Anne said with a grin. “If you want to date him, then you need to join the church.”
Lindsay glowered. “That’s not a reason to become a member of the church, Lizzie Anne.”
“I know,” Lizzie Anne said. “I just meant that it was a … perk for joining.”
Lindsay shook her head and tossed a cookie crumb at Lizzie Anne while her friends laughed. “You two are
gegisch
.”
As she joined in their laughter, Lindsay glanced back toward the volleyball game. Matthew met her gaze and waved, and her cheeks warmed as she returned the greeting. After turning to say something to Katie’s older brother, Samuel, Matthew served the ball with a mixture of grace and masculine athletic ability while his dark brown curls danced in the warm spring breeze. While studying him, Lindsay wondered how Matthew knew when he was ready to be baptized.
Later that evening, Lindsay stood in the doorway of her little cousin Emma’s room while her aunt Rebecca hugged Emma and said good night.
Lindsay smiled, and her thoughts turned to when she’d found out that Rebecca was going to have her second baby. The news was a miracle since Rebecca, who’d waited years to have a child, was blessed with two children in less than two years. Although Lindsay didn’t know much about pregnancies, she’d learned from Elizabeth Kauffman, Rebecca’s mother-in-law, that babies were always a blessing, especially when a woman was past the age of thirty-five.
Watching her aunt and cousin, Lindsay absently wondered if this was the future she was meant to have — a simple life with a family in Lancaster County. Did Lindsay want to join the church, marry an Amish man, and raise children in the faith?
Emma giggled, and Lindsay turned her attention back to her cousin.
After kissing Emma, Rebecca crossed to the doorway. “I believe she wants to say good night to you. I’ll go check on Junior.” She patted Lindsay’s shoulder on her way to the bedroom across the hallway.
Lindsay stepped over to the crib and smiled down on her little cousin. At eighteen months of age, Emma had big brown eyes, rosy cheeks, and a smattering of light brown curls on her little head.
“Gut nacht, mei liewe,”
Lindsay whispered.
“Ich liebe dich.”
She kissed Emma’s cheek.
Emma smiled, and Lindsay’s heart warmed.
Stepping out of the room, she gently closed Emma’s door behind her before stepping into Daniel Junior’s room, where she found her three-year-old cousin sitting up in his bed and smiling. While his younger sister had dark hair and eyes like
Rebecca’s family, Junior had blond hair and blue eyes, resembling the Kauffman side.
Lindsay sat on the edge of the bed and touched his cheek. “Gut
nacht,”
she said. “I’ll see you in the morning,” she told him in Pennsylvania
Dietsch
.
“Ich liebe dich
, Lindsay,” he said.
“Ich liebe dich,”
she echoed before kissing his head.
After tucking him in, Lindsay made her way down the stairs to the kitchen. Rebecca was sitting at the table, yawning and flipping through a cookbook.
Lindsay opened the refrigerator door and pulled out a pitcher of meadow tea. She loved to have the spearmint-flavored drink. “Would you like a drink?”