Hope fluttered like a butterfly in Lydianne Christner’s heart as she parked her rig in the pole barn just north of the new white schoolhouse. It was barely dawn and she was more than an hour early for her interview with the members of Morning Star’s school board, but she needed time to collect her thoughts and plan her answers to the questions she anticipated from the five men who would decide her future. It had been a spur-of-the-moment decision when she’d blurted out her wish to apply for the teaching position at the Members Meeting after church a week ago—but in the days since, Lydianne’s soul had reconfirmed her impulsive outburst.
She really wanted this position. The trick would be replying to the school board’s questions without hinting at the very personal reason she wished to become Teacher Lydianne.
Did she stand a chance?
Lydianne had no idea whether anyone else had applied for the position in the past several days. Morning Star’s previous teacher, Elam Stoltzfus, had already left town to assist his family in the wake of his father’s debilitating stroke, so there was no chance he would return. She didn’t know of any other married Amish men who’d likely fill the position—nor did she believe any of Morning Star’s other single Amish women aspired to teaching.
Her close friend Regina Miller had just become engaged to Gabe Flaud, so she’d be ineligible to teach. Jo Fussner sold the baked goods, canned vegetables, and jellies she and her mamm made—and she’d taken on the challenge of managing The Marketplace, the renovated stable where local crafters sold their goods. The Helfing twins, Molly and Marietta, ran the noodle factory their mother had begun as well as renting out their dawdi hauses to tourists—and they kept a shop at The Marketplace—so neither of them seemed a likely candidate for the teaching position.
Lydianne grimaced when she thought about either of the middle-aged Slabaugh sisters managing a classroom. Esther and Naomi lived on a farm just outside of town, and their main occupation seemed to be sharpening their maidel tongues on tidbits of other people’s business.
Pity the poor children who had one of them for a teacher! Lydianne thought as she gazed across the large grassy lot between the new white schoolhouse and the red stable that housed The Marketplace shops.
She warned herself not to pridefully assume the school board would hire her, however. After all, she had no teaching experience. She’d taken a job as bookkeeper and finisher at the Flaud Furniture Factory when she’d first come to Morning Star, and she was also the financial manager for The Marketplace, so maybe the men on the board would believe she should remain in her current positions. Martin Flaud, who owned the furniture factory, was the school board president. He hadn’t directly challenged her about leaving her job with him to teach school, but his speculative gazes during the past week had given Lydianne plenty to think about while she’d been staining furniture and tallying orders.
But with God’s help, you can do this! Your heart’s in the right place! Lydianne reminded herself fervently. Just look at what you and your friends accomplished over the summer. The stable across the way was falling in on itself, and now it’s full of successful shops that attract hundreds of shoppers to Morning Star every Saturday—and its commissions have funded the new schoolhouse.
Lydianne and her maidel friends felt extremely pleased about the businesses that now thrived because they had believed in the power of their positive intentions—and because the church had bought the property as a place to hold its auctions and build a new schoolhouse. In the first light of this August morning, the white geraniums, purple petunias, bright green sweet potato vines, and yellow marigolds filling The Marketplace’s window boxes glowed in the rays of the rising sun. The stable’s deep red walls shone with the care she and her friends had lavished upon the building.
Inspired by the sight, Lydianne firmly believed that her ability to manage money, solve problems, and deal effectively with people would be her finest assets as she took on the challenges of teaching Morning Star’s Amish scholars. It was her deepest desire to share her love of learning—to share the best of herself—with the children who’d be charged to her care . . . even if one child in particular was the reason she especially craved the position.