Free Facing the Storm Along the Oregon Trail by Vanessa Carvo Page A

side they began their journey. Benjamin and Emily were about half way down the train with their wagon and behind them was a wagon filled with so many children, that they were hanging out the sides of the wagon all excited and looking around everywhere.
    Emily watched as the children squirmed and giggled as their wagon rolled along.
    She was thinking to herself that if nothing else, she would really enjoy the children on this train--for she loved children so much.
    She had hoped her own mama would have had many children, but she had her and her brother, and then her mother could have no more. That is where her Aunt Martha came in. She had eleven children and Emily began thinking about the day that her community
    excommunicated her and made her take all her children for a buggy ride to town and then never return.
    It was heartbreaking and the rules of their community’s faith kept Emily and her family from staying in touch. Although her mother was able to receive a few letters through the years from her sister, it was never enough.
    Emily was so close to her Aunt and to the other children and it broke her heart when they were forced to leave. At the time Emily’s mother would have just left with them, but Emily’s father would not hear of it. He was a very devout Amish man and the way he saw it was that the laws were made to not be broken and his compassion for Emily’s Aunt was not much.
    There was a family that lived nearby, but they were not Amish and Emily’s Aunt managed to return to their farm and slipped them a letter for them to give to Emily’s mother and through this loving non-Amish family, they were then able to keep in touch.
    About two months before Emily’s mother and father drowned trying to cross a fast moving stream in their buggy, Emily’s Aunt had left a letter with the nearby neighbors, asking Emily’s mother to consider moving out to Oregon with her and the children.
    She had sent enough money to help her make her trip, even if it meant without her husband and she had been waiting eagerly for her sister’s answer. Emily’s mother at the time was considering taking her two children and joining her sister, and then the accident happened.
    This devastated Emily and her brother Benjamin and they both were allowed their time to grieve and then they were taken from their family’s home and placed with other Amish families in the community.
    But, they had the letters from their Aunt Martha and they had dreams that could not be put to rest and now they were living that dream on the Oregon Trail.
    As Emily sat and thoughts of her Aunt ran through her mind, she watched the children as they were bobbing in and out of the wagon and smiles filled her heart. It would not be long, she thought, before they would be reunited with their true family, and they all could worship Jesus together.
    Emily felt she too had a calling to share the Gospel with others and the elders in the Amish community would hear nothing of sharing the Gospel in that way, much less a woman sharing the Gospel verbally.
    But, they didn’t quite know her Aunt Martha. She was very verbal and teaching the bible was her love and she always felt like it was her calling, whether she was woman or man.
    “Our first big adventure, Emily, will be crossing the Platte River and we’ll have to be very careful sis. They say the current of this river is so strong and it’s all undertow. You can’t see it on the surface, but there’s a current deep under the water and it can pull you in”.
    After saying this, he almost felt guilty because it quickly brought their parents to their minds. The accident of their parents was so devastating and they didn’t have a chance. It was pouring down rain and the storm moving in had brought such high winds that they couldn’t see at all.
    They should have backed their buggy up and just turned around, but they carried on when they could not see. The horses even fought them, trying to turn around, but their father