Angels Watching Over Me

Laurel Leaf | Paperback | October 1996 | $ 4.99 | 978-0-553-56724-3 (0-553-56724-1)

About the Book

Happy Holidays!  Bah humbug.  "Happy" is not the way Leah Lewis-Hall would describe herself at the moment.  She's spending her twelve days of Christmas in an Indianapolis hospital, while her mother is thousands of miles away on a honeymoon with husband number five.  Leah went to the doctor with nothing more
than a broken finger, but he ordered her to undergo some tests.  Now she's stuck in the hospital, alone.  

Then Leah meets her hospital roommate, a young Amish girl named Rebekah, and her big family.  Cynical sixteen-year-old Leah has never known people like this before.  From Rebekah's handsome brother, Ethan, who can barely look Leah in the eye, to her kind older sister, Charity, the Amish family captivates Leah with its simple, loving ways.  When Leah receives frightening information about her condition, her new friends show her that miracles can happen.  And that sometimes angels appear in the most unexpected places.

Excerpt

"Do you always do what the elders say?" Both Ethan and Charity quoted rules and words of others. Did they ever think for themselves?

"Gelassenheit," he said. "That's German for patience and resignation. It means obedience to the Amish community. It is not something we do. It is something we are."

Leah had been raised to be on her own. Her mother's many marriages, their frequent moves and different schools had taught her to be independent. But she saw quite clearly that for the Amish, individuality was not a virtue. It was a curse. She stood. "Well, it looks like we've come full circle, Ethan. You were right after all--the English and the Amish can't mingle."

He stood too. "But we can care about one another," he said carefully. "We can always care."

She knew he meant care in a brotherly way. But after spending time with him, she didn't want to be just another sister to him. She wanted to be a girl who mattered to him the way Martha Dewberry mattered. Except that Leah wasn't Amish. And she never would be.