One day we drove from Dawson to Jamesport in Missouri to pick up Uncle Tom and Aunt Anna's new beautiful Amish built oak dinning table and chairs that they had ordered a few months ago. There were some sheds and this tiny play cottage outside the store. Vivian really liked it and beseeched me to buy it for her. She almost had tears in her eyes when I told her that it was ridiculous for her to think I'd buy the cottage. Then she tried to make me promise that I would build her one in Austin and made me take photos of it's interior. And finally, she amended that to promise that I would ask neighbor Amy's dad to build her one.
I noticed that the Amish woman at the furniture store wrote out our bills by hand but then she swiped my credit card at a standard credit card reader. Back in the shop I heard a pneumatic tool being used. When I stepped out of the store I noticed it had large skylights on the roof and relied completely on natural light. And there was a small wind vane and a solar array - I guess to run the credit card reader and whatever was connecting it to the grid. I asked the young Amish man about the sound of the power tool and he joked "but we use it using our hands so that's a hand tool".
Aunt Anna said that once a while when the Amish need to travel long distances, they will hire a driver. I checked on the internet and found that using diesel generators to power pneumatic tools is kosher too. That may seem like cheating, but the fact is that by choice they still don't use electricity to light, cool, heat or power their appliances or their homes and in today's world that is amazing. The things you do for faith.
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