The Amish community where 5 of its girls were killed in a massacre last year have given money from donations received to the widow of the gunman (the Sydney Morning Herald on Friday reported). The Nickel Mines Accountability Committee, charged with managing the donations received said:
Many from Nickel Mines have pointed out that forgiveness is a journey, that you need help from your community of faith and from God … to make and hold on to a decision not to become a hostage to hostility.
Despite their own journey in dealing with their loss, they have made a conscious choice to forgive.
Update: In a comment to this post Tom Hanson mentioned that the Nickel Mines (Pennsylvania) Amish had also traveled to Blacksburg, Virginia. ABC News reports that there they met with the families of the Virginia Tech shooting victims, and gave them the Comfort Quilt that had been given to Nickel Mines. Wow!
September 18, 2007 at 11:00 am
I too wrote about this gesture by these amazing people:
http://www.openeducation.net/2007/09/16/amish-set-an-example-for-all/. However, I was not aware of their time spent in Blacksburg as was noted on the Politics As Usual website. I wish I had been as that only adds to the view that these people do “set an example for all of us.”
Tom Hanson
Editor
OpenEducation.net
September 18, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Thanks so much, Tom. I hadn’t heard about the Blacksburg visit, either. I’ll add an update to my blog entry about that. The Amish sure do set an example, don’t they. Thank you!