FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK

Change comes slowly to the Amish. The horse-drawn buggy has remained the preferred mode of travel on their winding gravel roads long after the car became king in the rest of the world. The weather, however, ignores such sentiments. On my June 13th visit to the Coblentzes, I arrived to a sun-splashed farmstead, with a pleasant spring wind. Summer storms can billow seemingly instantaneously from the Indiana prairies, though, and by the time I left Elizabeth's two hours after I arrived, the sky was dark and there was a pouring, wind-whipped rain.

Elizabeth is doing well, despite her grief. She's surrounded by her loving family and is keeping busy with the chores that life in the Amish community demands. When I visited Elizabeth June 13, she wasn't home, she was at her daughter Emma's helping her prepare for church services the week after. (Among the Amish, church services are held in homes.)

This work is a welcome diversion from the grief. So, in the spirit of diversion, I gave Elizabeth a stack of your emailed questions. I took the emails to her and she just sat at Emma's kitchen table and hand-wrote the answers onto the email sheets. I then took her answers back home with me and am posting them here. See the "Ask Elizabeth" section for those answers.

This is all very new to me (and her), so I think it is so neat that just a few hours ago, I was at Elizabeth's showing her your emails and now they are being posted for everyone to see. I also took Elizabeth more of your condolence emails and supportive snail mail cards. She is grateful beyond words for these. CLICK HERE TO SEND ELIZABETH A "WELCOME BACK" NOTE.

Also, I took a few photos (non-people photos, out of respect for their beliefs) and will post them here later in the week, so please check back, I think you'll find them interesting.

Kevin Williams
Executive Editor
Oasis Newsfeatures