The Miting

by Dee Yoder

Leah Raber, a seventeen-year-old Amish girl, is beginning to have questions about her family life, her faith, and her community. She wonders why the Amish have to be so old fashioned, why her
family’s life is so hard, why the church has so many rules, and, especially, why godly men are allowing her best friend to be abused in her own home. But she is not permitted to speak to anyone about her questions or about her feelings of being trapped in the Amish lifestyle.

For Leah, rumspringen is not her trouble. She has no desire to party all night or sneak into Englisher clothing and go to movies. At the heart of Leah’s restlessness is her growing desire to know God. Why
shouldn’t her parents be glad that, instead of following the evils of the English world, she wants to attend Bible studies that the Wengerds, an ex-Amish couple, are leading? Instead, they’re very unhappy with her new friends, and, more than that, the bishoff has hinted that this couple kidnaps and lures Amish teens away from their communities and homes. The idea that Leah could become enmeshed with Matthew and Naomi Wengerd causes her parents great concern.

An argument with her parents leads Leah to a breaking point. As she is heading to the local general store, she suddenly decides to call the Wengerds to come and help her leave home. She walks away with only the clothes on her back and nothing else. It is time for Leah to start over in the English world.

Though Leah does well in her new life, homesickness causes her to question her decision to leave the Amish. But going back home is not as she imagined it would be, and the miting she faces when she fails yet again in her Amish life is like nothing she could have imagined.