Jerry S Eicher, author of ‘My Amish Childhood’ was born in 1961 to a 19 year old Amish girl following a marriage contract that committed his mother to continue working on her father’s strawberry farm. But, arriving only a few days after the wedding baby Jerry reduced grandfather Stoll’s plans lay in tatters, and the new born innocent carried a burden of guilt that would haunt his later life.

Grandfather Stoll although jolly, was a regal with a quick temper that knew no distinction on rank or station – family, friends and even bishops alike suffered the fiery outbursts of his rage.

In the end, it was the old grandfather who would change the family’s fortunes. Grandfather Stoll had married the sister of an Amish intellectual who founded an Old Order Publishers, ‘Pathway Publishing’, with some of the old man’s sons. Jerry’s paternal grandfather - Eicher, ran the company’s print shop and worked the machinery. Jerry’s parents lived in the Stoll house until his father built the growing family of five a house near the Amish school.

Jerry paints a detailed and revealing picture of Amish domestic, educational and working life. The house of his family and grandparents is the focus for an existence that is plain, hard and satisfying simple in its joys and pleasures. Life looks set to continue in the time honoured Amish tradition until a dull glow red is seen on the horizon. Only later does Jerry learn that, a cooking accident in grandfather Stoll’s house had caused an explosion and a catastrophic fire. Although no one was hurt, his mother’s family home had been reduced to ashes.

The community rallied around to rebuild the old man’s house, but the fire had kindled a new idea in the patriarch’s mind – a calling to mission. An outsider, an ‘Englischer’ had told the grandfather of a children’s home mission begun in the South American country of Honduras. At the same time, an Amish ruling – an ‘ordnung’ was about to have a severe impact on Jerry’s father’s construction business.

Against this background, the families set in motion a search for land in Honduras where they could settle and begin a new life and found a new Amish community. In 1968 the Stoll-Eicher families and others that joined their exodus to a new Canaan took possession of the 550 acre Finca Sanson farm 3000 miles away and 3000 feet up a 3500 foot mountain.

This is the setting for Jerry S Eicher’s ‘My Amish Childhood’; his Honduran adventure and his return to the Amish homeland when the dream eventually evaporated. The book is an unusual insight into the workings and relationships within and without the ancient community, its struggles to survive and the resilience and determination of its members. It’s about loyalty faith and discovery.