Amish forgiveness still inspires one year on from schoolhouse massacre
Living Letters delegation to the US finds seeds of peace growing where violence and sorrow flourished.
From the farms and rolling hills of Pennsylvania’s serene Amish countryside where five young schoolgirls were killed a year ago, to an immersion into the inner-city violence of Philadelphia, a World Council of Churches Living Letters delegation learned first-hand of the profound tragedy that can suddenly impact everyday life. But they also saw “rays of light” where forgiveness and reconciliation are helping to create a more humane society.
Members of the team, on a nine-day visit in September to meet with US church and community leaders in several cities, include a South African ecumenical leader, a public health specialist from Lebanon, a Brazilian ecumenist and a human rights lawyer from Pakistan.
At each place they visit they talk about the violence experienced in their own countries and listen to stories of those who work for peace and justice in the United States.
The visit of the four-member team, called “Living Letters”, is part of an initiative by the World Council of Churches (WCC) to mobilise churches around the world to seek peaceful alternatives to violence. The WCC’s Decade to Overcome Violence will culminate with an International Ecumenical Peace Convocation in 2011.
Experiencing Christian hospitality over lunch in a Amish farmhouse near Paradise, Pennsylvania, the delegation talked with an Amish deacon and learned in graphic detail how, on 2 October 2006, a dairy truck driver with no apparent history of violence barricaded himself in a one-room Amish schoolhouse and, after releasing all of the boys, shot 10 schoolgirls, five of whom died, before killing himself. One of the girls still lives on life support.
Many people around the world, grief-stricken by the news of the shooting among people who traditionally have stood for non-violence and peace, responded with more than $4 million in aid to help pay for hospital costs and counselling expenses for all the families affected. Within days, members of the Amish community called upon the widow and children of the killer, offering forgiveness and financial assistance for the family.
“We took this forgiveness and reconciliation as a huge lesson,” Dr Marcelo Schneider from Porto Alegre, Brazil, told the Amish leader. He added that in his home country, people would rather “look for revenge, for more blood to be shed”, believing that this was necessary for the benefit of Brazilian society.
“I come from a violent part of the world and when I read of the details, I was touched by the way the Amish reacted. It was inspirational,” said Lina Moukheiber of Beirut, Lebanon, a member of the Greek Orthodox Church (Patriarchate of Antioch).
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