School Days and Material Witness

Material Witness is the story of a little boy who sees something terrible–he sees a man attack a woman. He doesn’t know it at the time, but he sees a man kill a woman.

Why would I write such a thing? We would all protect our children from seeing this horrible event, from being a material witness.

I had two reasons.

1) I wanted to show that Amish children are normal. They live a different life. As you can see from the picture above they walk to school, or ride their bikes. They take their homemade lunch. They dress differently. But on the inside–Amish children share many of the same fears, hopes, and dreams as Englisch children. “Kids are kids,” as teachers and parents are prone to say.

2) I wanted to show the length a parent will go to protect a child. We’d do anything. Wouldn’t we? And Aaron (my material witness) is a handicapped child. Have you known parents of handicapped children? Are you a parent of a handicapped child? We want to keep them under our wing, shelter them from all the harshness in the world.

I adore this story and Aaron, my young character who witnesses a terrible event. But even that — God uses for good. You’ll have to read the story to find out how.

Blessings,

V