Dear Book-Of-Words~

Samuel I. Yoder here.  Sorry if I haven't written in here in so long; my life is reason enough for that.  Help out with the farm duties every morning before school; most mornings, I rise up well before the sun rises (between two and three a.m.); I then ride the bus to school, where I stay until three; then I come home and help out with more farm duties until it's time to retire for the day.  I'm usually in bed between nine and ten.

Today, though, I snuck you with me so I could have some time to write.  

Spring is rapidly approaching, but we don't feel like celebrating: we've had terrible flooding here.  Lost most of our crops; we've had to start over.  It's  going to take time to catch up to the point where we were last year.  We had a bad winter of prolonged cold and snow; then the rains came in earnest, and the ground is still damp.  

We had to stay at a Red Cross shelter with the other Amish and Englischers (non-Amish people) until the waters receded.  Our home was basically destroyed; we are having to stay with relatives until Dat, Uncle Hershcel, and Grosdawdy can repair the damage the flood waters caused.

Miraculously, nobody in our family died as a result of the flooding, but some neighbors up the way from us lost their 11-year-old son, Ezekiah, who drowned while trying to cross the rain-swollen crick.  He fell in and the waters took him away.  By the time the child was found, he was bloated in death; it was too late for him.  His funeral was last Friday; all the community came to pay their last respects.  It was a very sad time for the Holzhauser family; still is.  

I hope the rains stay away; I've seen more than enough rain to last me the rest of my days!  Every time I hear that rain or thunder is in the forecast I get fearful, for fear we will get flooded out again.

Poor Rebekkah (my younger sister; she's 12) has nightmares about floodwaters nearly every night.  And Ishmael and Ian (my twin brothers; they're nine) are driving all of us crazy with their fighting; they are sick of staying indoors.  As for Rachel and Amy (they're six and four), all they do is whine because they don't have anything to do, but Mamm and Dat manage to keep them busy, so they can stay out of trouble.

Mamm and Dat have been depressed and worried about the weather.  Don't blame them one bit.  We nearly lost everything, but by God's gentle grace, we did not.  We did lose our home and the crops, but crops and homes can be replaced: people cannot.  So this is reason enough to give thanks to our Heavenly Father above because He got us through.

I am most discouraged about the weather forecast for spring: they're calling for more rains, even possible severe weather, here in the Ohio Valley.  Just what I did not want to hear.  I am so sick of bad weather I could just scream!!  I pray and hope that the weather prognosticators are wrong on their forecast!

Well, I have to get back to the cows.  They are lowing; they need milked.  I will write in here again soon; hopefully I won't wait several months before I do so again!  Until later, this is Samuel Isaiah Yoder saying Auf Weidersehn!  May God bless you always!

~Samuel.  :)