Cindy Woodsmall - The Harvest of Grace, Book 3

T HE H ARVEST OF G RACE
P UBLISHED BY W ATER B ROOK P RESS
12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921

Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version.

The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

Copyright 2011 by Cindy Woodsmall

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.

W ATER B ROOK and its deer colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Woodsmall, Cindy.
The harvest of grace : a novel / Cindy Woodsmall. 1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-72962-0
1. AmishFiction. I. Title.
PS3623.O678H37 2011
813.6dc22
2011016848

v3.1

Books by Cindy Woodsmall A DAS H OUSE SERIES
The Hope of Refuge
The Bridge of Peace
The Harvest of Grace
The Sound of Sleigh Bells
The Christmas Singing
(coming in October)
S ISTERS OF THE Q UILT SERIES
When the Heart Cries
When the Morning Comes
When the Soul Mends
N ONFICTION
Plain Wisdom To Linda Wertz ,
a dear woman who values Gods creatures
and labors to exhaustion to make a difference .
You touch lives without realizing it .
You offer a different lens to view life through
to all who are blessed to come in contact with you .
And to your husband, Rick ,
who believes in you as much as he believes in the One who created you .
And to every farmer ,
who understands all too well
the mountain of troubles that you face ,
the lack of support from those who need you most ,
and the constant effort you put into finding solutions .

Contents

The Adas House Novels

The story so far

In The Hope of Refuge , Cara Atwater Moore is a waitress in New York City. Caras mother died when Cara was only eight, and she was abandoned by her alcoholic father. Now, at twenty-eight, she is being stalked by a man she knows from growing up in foster care. She escapes New York with her seven-year-old daughter, Lori, whose father died when Lori was just a toddler. Following a diary Caras mother left her and sketchy memories from a childhood visit to her mothers relatives in Amish country, Cara arrives in Dry Lake, Pennsylvania. Exhausted and fearful of being followed, she and Lori seek shelter in a barn. She is discovered by Ephraim Mast, a thirty-two-year-old, single Amish man who works as a cabinetmaker. To spare Cara from being separated from her daughter by social services, Ephraim takes them in and helps them, even though that creates serious problems for him with the Amish church leaders and community members.

Ephraims sister, Deborah, is engaged to Mahlon, the only child of Ada Stoltzfus, a forty-three-year-old widow. Mahlon disappears without explanation, leaving his mother and Deborah on their own. Ada takes both Deborah and Cara under her wing, inviting them to live with her in Hope Crossing. After Cara chooses to join the Old Order Amish church, Ephraim and she realize they want to build a life together.

In The Bridge of Peace , Lena Kauffman is a twenty-three-year-old Amish schoolteacher in Dry Lake who is sometimes mocked for having a birthmark that covers part of her face and neck. Her longtime friend and confidant, Grey Graber, is struggling in his relationship with his wife, Elsie. Because theyve conceived two children, one who is missing part of an arm and one who was stillborn because of birth defects, Elsie avoids Grey out of fear that they cant have healthy children. Once Grey understands why shes shut him out, he insists they undergo medical tests to determine if there is a genetic reason they should not have more children. They do so, but before the results are revealed, Elsie dies on her parents farm when a bull mauls her. Grey chooses to burn the envelope containing the test results without looking at them. His relationship with his longtime friend Lena develops, and they fall in love. Lena is a close friend of Deborah Mast and Cara Moore, and she frequently visits them at Adas House, which has become an Amish tourist attraction because of their home-baked goods and their seasonal activities for families.

For a list of main characters in The Harvest of Grace ,
see .

One

From her perch on the milking stool, Sylvia patted the cows side and cooed to her, enjoying the warm softness of the cows hide. Youre feeling better now, ya ? Puffs of white vapor left her mouth when she spoke, and her fingers ached from the cold.

The cow mooed gently as if answering her.

Sylvia removed the claw milker from the cows udder and sprayed Udder Care to prevent chaffing and to ward off mastitis. She set the stool and bucket out of the way, moved to the far end of the stalls, and pulled the lever that opened the tie rails, releasing the last round of cows from their milking stalls.

Daed lifted two buckets of milk and headed for the milk house. What are you humming this morning?

Oh. Uh She hadnt realized she was humming, so she had to pause for a moment and think. Moon River.

Sure does sound nice. This place dont seem the same when youre off. No one else I know hums while working a herd. He disappeared into the milk house to dump the fresh liquid into the milk tank.

Unlike a lot of Daeds, Sylvias hadnt minded when she bought an iPod during the early years of her rumschpringe . The Englischer who picked up their milk three times a week had always recharged it for her. But then, five years ago, it fell under a cow during a milking and was trampled to death. Since she still hadnt joined the faith, she couldve bought another iPod, but Lilly was seven by then and hanging around the barn more. It would have hurt Lilly to realize that her older sister didnt always keep the Old Ways, so she never replaced it. But she missed some of her favorite songs, like Moon River. The lyrics about the dream maker always made her think of Elam.