Free An Amish Family Christmas by Murray Pura Page B

Luke’s hands. “Let us pray with you.”
    The ministers gathered in a circle and bowed their heads as Bishop Fischer began. When he was finished, the others prayed, one after the other, Minister Yoder bringing it to a conclusion with one large hand resting on Luke’s shoulder. Then they sat at the table and helped themselves to the coffee and cinnamon rolls laid out before them.
    “We trust you’ll have your voice back soon too, eh?” Bishop Fischer smiled at Luke as he brought his coffee to his lips. “Always you sang well. I could always make you out no matter how many were singing at the same time.”
    Luke sat and listened to him, not drinking his coffee.
    The bishop leaned back and caught Naomi’s eye. “The ministers have read your letters.”
    Naomi nodded.
    “I would have brought them back to you, but you said I should let any of our people read them who felt an inclination to do so.”
    She nodded again.
    “So that will take several days as they circulate among the families.” He ran his fingers through his beard. “There will be no one who doesn’t thank God for the lives saved, no one.”
    “But that is not the point of the bann .” Minister Yoder folded his hands and rested them on the table near his half-eaten roll. “It’s the breaking of the Ordnung that has brought about the problem between your husband and the church. Not saving lives. For how could we censure someone for protecting the sanctity of human life?”
    Naomi kept her eyes down, looking at white drops of spilled cream and sprinkles of white sugar scattered over the table’s wooden surface. “If he hadn’t gone to Afghanistan, he couldn’t have saved the men and women whose mothers and wives write to me.”
    “God would have ordained others to do the work. He would have brought someone who is not Amish. Someone not called to be an Amish witness in the world,” rumbled Minister Yoder.
    “Except God called him to the war zone.”
    “He says.”
    Naomi lifted her eyes. “So you don’t think God could give you or anyone here a command that would go beyond the rules of our church?”
    “No.”
    “The man-made rules?”
    Minister Yoder shook his head. “No.”
    “So the Pharisees and religious rulers also thought.”
    Rebecca looked at her friend in surprise and alarm, eyes widening, and quickly spoke up before Minister Yoder could reply. “My brother gave us his reasons for his conduct.”
    Minister Yoder was scowling at Naomi, lines deepening around his eyes. He didn’t look at Rebecca. “We have heard the reasons.”
    “Suppose—”
    Yoder cut Rebecca off. “Suppose, suppose. Ja , that’s how your brother talks. Suppose, suppose. We are not in a fairy tale, I thank God.”
    “But if there was a gang fight outside our doors and men lay wounded in the ditch—”
    He snorted. “You and Micah and your drug gangs. They are in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Not here. They will never come here.”
    A hint of steel came into Rebecca’s voice. “Jesus told his parables. I will tell mine.”
    Yoder grunted but said nothing.
    “The wounded men are bleeding at the side of the road—”
    “Yes, yes,” the bishop interrupted. “It is as Minister Yoder says. We have been through all this before. We would call nine-one-one from the phone in the hut. We would try to stop the bleeding. We would do all we could to save them.”
    “But that’s what my brother did.”
    “Your brother traveled to a combat zone. That’s a far different matter. We merely take care of our neighbors.”
    “Christ taught that all men are our neighbors.”
    The bishop waved his hand. “It’s always apples and oranges. By helping the military wounded, Micah supported the war effort. By helping the wounded in your parable, we support nothing except the right of those made in God’s image to live and discover his grace.”
    “The soldiers can also be healed and live and find his grace.”
    “It supports the war effort. We cannot support a war