On October 2, 2006, a truck backed into the front door of anAmish schoolhouse in Lancaster County. The man who cameout of the truck was someone that all of the students knew. He was the man whopicked up the unpasteurized milk from their parents’ farms.
Charles Carl Roberts IV had been a tormented soul and he hadplanned to take out his torment on the female students of the school. He hadbought all the supplies he needed. He had written suicide notes to everyone inhis family. He went into the classroom initially with a rusty metal object inhis hand. He asked the children if they had seen an object like it in the road.The children, respectful and trusting of adults, said they’d help him look.
He went back to his truck and came back with asemi-automatic pistol. He ordered everyone to lie down facedown in the front ofthe room. Seeing the gun, one of the adults ran out to get help at a nearbyfarmhouse. From there, she called the police.
Back in the schoolhouse, Roberts sent one of the boys to goget the adult that fled and he tied up all of the girls. One of the girls hearda voice she later attributed to an angel who told her to run. She escapedbefore Roberts had the chance to tie up her legs. Roberts ordered the rest ofthe adults to leave and then he ordered all of the boys to leave. His intentionwas to molest the girls, but state troopers had soon surrounded the school. Hetried to order all of the troopers off of the property but the troopers wouldnot comply. So he skipped that part of his plan and shot at all of the girls,killing five, putting one in a coma, and injuring the other four. He thenkilled himself.
Later that same evening, people from the Amish communitywent to see Roberts’ widow, children and parents to let them know that theywere not to blame and to share their sorrow. The parents of several of thevictims invited Roberts’ family to the funerals. Many family members of thevictims went to Roberts’ burial to show their support and love to the family.As donations came in to support the victims of the shooting, the Amishcommunity shared the money with the Roberts’ family. When people in the mediaasked the Amish if they had any anger toward Roberts or his family, repeatedly theAmish people said they had forgiven them.
As the book “Amish Grace” explains, the reasoning behind theAmish willingness to forgive is long and complicated. For one, the Amish takeliterally the Bible’s command: that if you do not forgive, God will not forgiveyou. The 18th chapter of Matthew is frequently used in Amishservices especially twice a year when they have a time of penance andreconciliation before their big communion service. In that chapter, Peter asksJesus how often he should forgive, and Jesus says seventy-seven times. Also,this is the chapter of Jesus’ parable where a king forgives a debtor his debts.This debtor goes on to refused to forgive the debts of another person and sothe king punishes him. Jesus says that this is how God works also. That if werefuse to forgive, God will not forgive us.
They also have a sense of the absolute power of God. Godwill deal with the perpetrator as He wishes; there is no reason for the victimto curse them. Not that they don’t agree with law enforcement. They will pleadfor mercy for those who have been arrested for crimes against them, but they donot argue that law enforcement doesn’t have the right to punish them. They willnot seek revenge on their own, however. God will do with the evil-doer as Hewishes. 
As Jesus prayed for his executioners, the Amish believe weare to pray for our persecutors as well. While they leave the criminals to themercy of God, they do pray for God to be merciful toward the criminals. Theymake it a point to see the criminal as another human being. Just as the Amishhave faults, so do everyone else. They do not feel as if it is their place tojudge.
The Amish faith has a long history of persecution andmartyrdom. These stories of martyrdom have an overarching theme of forgivenessand acting gracefully. One in particular that is shared in the book is thestory of Dirk Willems. He was arrested and he escaped. As he ran, the guardwent after him. He and the guard ran across a frozen pond. Willems got safelyto the other side, but the guard fell through the ice. Willems actually goesback and rescues his captor. He ultimately gets executed for his trouble. As heis burned at the stake, he cries out loud repeatedly for God to forgive hisexecutioners.
Another major idea discussed in the book is that the Amishdo not have the secular American idea of the individual; they stress thecommunity over the individual. They don’t encourage independence in the waythat we typically do. They don’t encourage the questioning of authority orindividuality. Instead, they have a strong sense of community where theysupport each other through thick and thin. They depend on one another foreverything and they are very closely knit.  In a society where community is of the utmostimportance, forgiveness becomes an important virtue for living togethercooperatively. If being a part of the group is the most important thing, youcannot have grudges or hatred breaking the community apart.
This book was outstanding. I highly recommend it foreveryone and anyone. We all have people in our lives we have not forgiven. Thisbook gave me the encouragement I needed to list those people and start to worktowards forgiving them. The story of this community in Lancaster Countycannot be told often enough.
I know I’m supposed to be a forgiving person, but it ishard. I can only imagine how hard it was for these people to be so kind to thefamily of the gunman. This idea of forgiveness is not only an Amish idea, it’sa Christian idea. “They will know we are Christian by our love.”   
What do you think about this story? What do you think about forgiveness?