“This intelligent, compassionate and hopeful book” examines an Amish community’s extraordinary response to a horrifying act of violence (Publisher’s Weekly, starred review). On October 2, 2006, a gunman named Charles Roberts entered a one-room Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. He took ten schoolgirls hostage, killing five and critically wounding the others before taking his own life. To explain his motivation, he told the children, “I’m angry at God for taking my little daughter.” By the following morning, as television crews swarmed the village, the Amish parents were already prepared to offer forgiveness. Soon, this extraordinary act of grace became a bigger story than the terrible crime that preceded it. Amish Grace explores the religious beliefs and habits that led the Amish to forgive so quickly. The authors examines the importance of forgiveness among cloistered communal societies and ask why this act of forgiveness became news among secular society. With insight and compassion, the authors contemplate how the Amish community’s witness could prove useful to the rest of us.

Examines the Amish community's intention to forgive the man who killed five Amish children at the West Nickel Mines School in Pennsylvania in 2006, discussing how the Amish concept of forgiveness is part of their belief in pardon and reconciliation.

On Monday morning, October 2, 2006, a gunman entered a one-room Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. In front of twenty-five horrified pupils, thirty-two-year-old Charles Roberts ordered the boys and the teacher to leave. After tying the legs of the ten remaining girls, Roberts prepared to shoot them execution with an automatic rifle and four hundred rounds of ammunition that he brought for the task. The oldest hostage, a thirteen-year-old, begged Roberts to "shoot me first and let the little ones go." Refusing her offer, he opened fire on all of them, killing five and leaving the others critically wounded. He then shot himself as police stormed the building. His motivation? "I'm angry at God for taking my little daughter," he told the children before the massacre. The story captured the attention of broadcast and print media in the United States and around the world. By Tuesday morning some fifty television crews had clogged the small village of Nickel Mines, staying for five days until the killer and the killed were buried. The blood was barely dry on the schoolhouse floor when Amish parents brought words of forgiveness to the family of the one who had slain their children. The outside world was incredulous that such forgiveness could be offered so quickly for such a heinous crime. Of the hundreds of media queries that the authors received about the shooting, questions about forgiveness rose to the top. Forgiveness, in fact, eclipsed the tragic story, trumping the violence and arresting the world's attention. Within a week of the murders, Amish forgiveness was a central theme in more than 2,400 news stories around the world. The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today, Newsweek, NBC Nightly News, CBS Morning News, Larry King Live, Fox News, Oprah, and dozens of other media outlets heralded the forgiving Amish. From the Khaleej Times (United Arab Emirates) to Australian television, international media were opining on Amish forgiveness. Three weeks after the shooting, "Amish forgiveness" had appeared in 2,900 news stories worldwide and on 534,000 web sites. Fresh from the funerals where they had buried their own children, grieving Amish families accounted for half of the seventy-five people who attended the killer's burial. Roberts' widow was deeply moved by their presence as Amish families greeted her and her three children. The forgiveness went beyond talk and graveside presence: the Amish also supported a fund for the shooter's family. AMISH GRACE explores the many questions this story raises about the religious beliefs and habits that led the Amish to forgive so quickly. It looks at the ties between forgiveness and membership in a cloistered communal society and ask if Amish practices parallel or diverge from other religious and secular notions of forgiveness. It will also address the matter of why forgiveness became news. "All the religions teach it," mused an observer, "but no one does it like the Amish." Regardless of the cultural seedbed that nourished this story, the surprising act of Amish forgiveness begs for a deeper exploration. How could the Amish do this? What did this act mean to them? And how might their witness prove useful to the rest of us?

The authors present an inside look at the tragic events and astounding forgiveness surrounding the deadly October 2006 shooting at the Nickel Mines Amish schoolhouse.

In this book, we have hand-picked the most sophisticated, unanticipated, absorbing (if not at times crackpot!), original and musing book reviews of "Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy." Don't say we didn't warn you: these reviews are known to shock with their unconventionality or intimacy. Some may be startled by their biting sincerity; others may be spellbound by their unbridled flights of fantasy. Don't buy this book if: 1. You don't have nerves of steel. 2. You expect to get pregnant in the next five minutes. 3. You've heard it all.

“My story is not about my past, but about your future,” says Marie Roberts Monville. In the startling tragedy of the Amish schoolhouse shooting at Nickel Mines, one story has never been told; Marie Roberts Monville, the wife of the man who created such horror, tells her story for the very first time. It is a story of sorrow and destruction, but also one of majestic deliverance, unending compassion, breathtaking forgiveness, and grace-filled redemption. Within a solitary moment, Marie Monville realized that life, as she knew it, was over. What she never anticipated was a tangible encounter with God reaching into her circumstances, through them rewriting all she believed about herself, her faith, and the God she thought she knew. One Light Still Shines reveals three love stories: the innocent love of a devoted wife for a husband in pain, the incomprehensible love of God in the aftermath of massacre and destruction, and the redemptive love of Christ, waiting to unfold in the life of every person who reads this book. Marie's journey since that darkest of days has been invaded with light which shines through these pages into the darkest questions we all face--questions about our past, our value, our identity, and own powerlessness in this fallen world. Come face to face with the Power behind every answer—a love that begs to be received.

Mother of Amish Schoolhouse Shooter Gives Message of Hope and Healing Who would have believed all the beauty God would create over the nine years since that awful day. On October 2, 2006, a gunman entered an Amish one-room schoolhouse, shooting ten girls, killing five, then finally taking his own life. This is his mother's story. Not only did she lose her precious son through suicide, but she also lost her understanding of him as an honorable man. Her community and the world experienced trauma that no family or community should ever have to face. But this is, surprisingly, a story of hope and joy--of God revealing his grace in unexpected places. Today Terri lives in harmony with the Amish and has built lasting relationships that go beyond what anyone could have thought possible. From the grace that the Amish showed Terri's family from day one, to the visits and ongoing care Terri has given to the victims and their families, no one could have foreseen the love and community that have been forged from the fires of tragedy. Let Terri's story inspire and encourage you as you discover the wonder of forgiveness and the power of God to bring beauty from ashes.