An Uncommon Grace Read Free

after heart surgery could be critical. There was no way a seventeen-year-old should be handling that alone.
    Grace wrote a quick, affirmative answer and logged out, not bothering to open any of the other e-mails. They could wait. For the first time in her life, she had received a very personal answer from God, and it was loud and clear.
    There were other competent nurses who could take her place in the Dustoff unit, but no one could take her place at her grandmother’s side. There was no one else. For a moment, she closed her eyes, blocking out the noises and heat of Bagram, and remembered the soothing clip-clop sound of Amish horses and buggies and the cool greenness of her grandma’s Holmes County farm.
    She grabbed an extra Gatorade and headed back to her B-hut.
    It was time to pack.

chapter O NE
    T he moment Levi Troyer caught sight of his family’s farm he knew something was wrong. The yard, which had been filled with activity less than two hours ago, was now empty, and it looked as though it had been abandoned in a hurry.
    Even though it was not his mother’s routine to wash clothes on a Thursday, she had wanted to take advantage of the sunny spring weather. When he left this morning, she had been pouring gasoline into the small engine that powered their wringer washing machine. He was concerned to see that the long wire line was empty, even though it should be heavy with wet laundry by now.
    During his entire twenty-five years, he had never known his mother to leave her laundry unfinished. In fact, she prided herself upon having it on the line by eight o’clock in the morning at the very latest. Now it was almost nine.
    He clucked his tongue and with his heels nudged his horse into a faster trot, but as he drew closer, he saw that not only was the drying line empty, but dirty clothes still lay in piles on the back porch where Sarah, his four-year-old sister, had been helping their mother sort as he had trotted past them this morning on his way to deliver a special-made basket to a customer.
    A bucket of water lay overturned upon the porch, the water within it spilled, staining the porous wood. No voices called to him from the house. No slamming screen doors broke the quiet of the lovely spring day.
    He glanced up at the clear blue Ohio sky, checking for a threat of rain. Not a cloud in sight. Maam had not canceled her plans because of the weather.
    “Guta Myah!” he yelled.
    No voices greeted him.
    “Good morning! Is anyone home?”
    The only answer was the caw of a crow rising from a corner of the cornfield. There was not even the scritch-scratching of his stepfather’s handsaw coming from the workshop to cut the oppressive silence. Always before, whenever Levi came home from the nearby village of Mt. Hope, his two little brothers and sister would be watching for him. They would come running, excited over the small treats they knew he would have tucked away in his pockets.
    Not today.
    Of course, there was always the possibility that his stepfather could have cut himself in the woodshop. His mother might have slipped and hurt herself carrying the heavy buckets of water from the well for her laundry. Or one of the children might have been hurt by the new vile-tempered rooster who had a zeal for flying at whoever came near the hens. If that were the case, he would make certain the rooster ended up in his mother’s stew pot before nightfall! There were so many potential accidents waiting to happen on a working farm. Sometimes he felt as if he spent most of his waking hours watching out for his family, trying to keep them safe.
    He dismounted, flipped the reins of the horse over the side porch railing, and strode through the back door, hoping to find his mother in the kitchen busy cooking dinner—readywith an easy explanation to dispel this feeling of dread that had come over him.
    The kitchen, too, was empty. The only sound greeting him was the tick-tock of the old regulator clock. There was no music of his