"Was At Your House Someone Praying?"

Jerry Hammond snapped his head to raise the visor of his helmet and inspected the smooth bead he had just welded on the steel plow. "There, John," he said. "Your plowshare is as good as new."
"Aufrichtiger dank, friend Jerry," John Yoder said as he stroked his long, black beard. Then he reached for his clip pocket book that he always carried. "How much do I owe you?"

"Not a thing," Hammond replied as he switched off the gas generator rumbling away in the back of his pickup and began putting his tools away. "You and Lena kept us supplied with fresh vegetables all summer. I'm just returning the favor." Then he said as an afterthought, "You Amish need to get electricity into your shops so you don't have to rely on a forge for welding."

"Keineswegs!" Yoder said. "Plain people we are. Electricity might be useful to us in some ways, but evil it brings."

"Evil? What kind of evil?"

"Television."

Hammond chuckled, "You got me there, John." Then he looked up at the sky and frowned. "The weather forecasters are predicting heavy snow tonight. I wanted a white Christmas, but my whole family is coming in on the train tomorrow morning and I have to pick them up. If the roads are bad.... Dodie's been climbing the walls all day. She can't wait to see her grandmother. It's been almost a year -- since her eighth birthday party. The whole bunch is supposed to arrive on the 10:15."

Yoder put the newly repaired plowshare in the back of his horse-drawn wagon. "Well, if a storm is coming -- and with your weather witches my bunion agrees -- then I have some things to do to get ready. My cows are still in the field. Frohe Weihnachten!, Jerry."

"And a Merry Christmas to you too, John."

---

Snow was already falling when Hammond pulled into his driveway and parked his truck under the open shed. After covering his generator with a heavy tarp, he walked up the stone path toward the two-story white farmhouse he had bought as a lifetime renovation project. Inside, pungent aromas of Christmas cooking wafted through every room. Darla Hammond was hard at work making pies, cookies, and other goodies. Dodie, as usual, was underfoot. When she saw her father, she bounded across the big kitchen and wrapped her arms around him. "Daddy," she cried. "It's snowing! We're going to have a white Christmas."

"I know, Dodie," he answered blankly. Then he looked at his wife, "Any more on the weather?"

"All I know there's a winter storm warning for all of southern Indiana. Frankly, Jerry, I'm worried about your family coming in tomorrow."

"Me, too." Hammond thought for a moment. Then he said, "I wonder if I should pack a few clothes and stay in town tonight, just in case. That way I'll already be there if we get a lot of snow."

"Not a good idea," his wife said frowning. "Suppose you couldn't get back. Then we'd be without you for Christmas."

"I want you home for Christmas, Daddy," Dodie wailed.

"I reckon you're right, sweetheart," Hammond said as he leaned over and kissed his daughter on the top of her downey head. Then he walked over to the window and looked out. "I hope it doesn't snow too much, though," he said, "but right now it's coming down so hard that I can't even see the other side of the road.

---

But snow it did -- all night long. And about dark a wind came up which made the storm all the worse. By morning, there was 14 inches on the ground and it was still snowing hard.

The Hammonds were up early opening presents. The electricity was still on in spite of the storm, but the phone was out. Dora Hammond fixed a big country breakfast of eggs and buttermilk pancakes. John Yoder had sent over some of his homemade smoked sausage a few days earlier by his teenage son, Samuel. Doris fried up some of that, too. In spite of the feast set before her, however, young Dodie could hardly wait for breakfast to be over so she could get back to her new toys. And she was also concerned about her grandmother.

"Can I ride when you go get Grandma?" she asked her father.

"Not this time," he answered. "Besides, your mama needs your help."

Dora shot her husband a frustrated glance, but she knew why he had said "no." If he got stuck between the house and town he didn't want Dodie stuck and miserable, too.

"I wish that I had spent the extra money and got four-wheel drive on our van," he lamented.

---

By eight-thirty, wind-whipped snow was still coming down in sweeping curtains. "Maybe you shouldn't try it," Dora said. "Something might happen."

"Gotta go," Hammond answered as he wound a thick, brown muffler around his neck. "Can't have them stranded in town. After all, we promised an old fashioned Christmas in the country. I don't want to disappoint them."

After cleaning the snow off the van with an old broom, Hammond climbed inside and started the engine. Then he let the vehicle warm up for several minutes. He buckled his seat belt and shifted into gear. The van slowly began moving ahead. "Praise the Lord for new snow tires," he muttered to himself.

But he didn't get very far. Almost immediately the vehicle bogged down in a deep drift and would go no further. Hammond trudged back to the house. "It's no use," he said to his wife. "I'm not going anywhere today."

With the telephones out, there was no way that he could contact his family or they contact him. The train had arrived, that was one thing he could be sure of. It took a worse snowstorm than this to stop trains. His family was in town, stranded, and there was absolutely nothing that he could do about it.

By noon, Dodie was hungry. "When are we going to eat, Mommy," she asked. Darla looked helplessly at her husband. All he could do was shrug. "Any time is fine with me," he answered sadly.

"Grandma is coming today?" she asked.

"Not today, honey," he father answered. "Maybe tomorrow."

"I think she'll be here today," Dodie declared. "I prayed all night long and God said that I would see my Grandma today."

Darla smiled. "That was very nice, Dodie," she said condescendingly. "Now go get washed up for dinner."

Dodie had just left the room when Hammond cocked his ear. Was he hearing things? Darla obviously heard it to. "Sleigh bells?" she asked.
Hammond ran to the window. "Well, I'll be...." he shouted.

"What's going on?" Darla asked, but her husband already had his coat on and was out the door. Two horse-drawn sleighs were just pulling up in the front yard. They were filled with his relatives. "Wie geht's?, friend Jerry!" John Yoder called from one of the sleighs. His neighbor, Simeon Swartzentruber was driving the other. "Me and Simeon thought you could use help getting from the train your family," he said merrily.
Hammond's brother was helping his wife and mother from one of the sleighs. "I'll say one thing for you, Jerry," he said with a wide grin. "When you offer us an old fashioned Christmas, you don't kid around."
"Where's your baggage?"

"On the sledge," Yoder answered. "Son Samuel is right behind us."

By this time Dora and Dodie had joined the others. Dodie threw her arms around her grandmother and almost hugged the life out of her. Then Dora and Dodie led the group to the warm house.

Hammond walked up to Yoder who was still sitting in the sleigh. "I don't know how to thank you and Simeon. You really saved our Christmas."

"No thanks needed, friend Jerry. You would not have been able to go to town in this storm, and both me and Simeon had this uncontrollable urge to hitch up the cutters and go for your family ourselves. We both had the same idea at the same time, although Simeon had no idea why he was over to my house coming." John Yoder stopped for a moment and cocked an eyebrow. "It was almost as if someone had been praying that do this we would.

"What do you think, friend Jerry? Was at your house someone praying?"

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Ed Price spent 35 years in print and broadcast journalism. He is author of 15 books. After becoming an ordained minister he settled with his wife on a farm in the mountains of Southwest Virginia, to study God's word and to write. Ed and Patty are the parents of three girls, have one grandchild, and cater to the every whim of two spoiled cats.
© 2008 Ed Price - All rights reserved. Visit his website, The Loving Heart.

This column is used with permission.