The other day, I got an invitation I could not refuse. Moise invited me to come and watch a genuine Amish Barn/House raising. just a few miles from where we both live.

The Amish do not hire people to build their homes; the community comes together and builds them. Moise’s daughter Katie Ann is moving to our community next month and Moise is making sure she and her family have a good place to live while their final home is being built later this year.

Moise has gathered a small Amish army to build a temporary home here and a temporary barn. The family purchased 12 beautiful acres on one of the loveliest roads in the county.

I stopped into the farm to see Barbara about the pie boxes I’ve ordered for her – she is selling a lot of pies – and she and the girls had steel bowls lined up on the table.

She was, she said, preparing lunch for Moise and the barn raisers.

I asked what was in the bowls, and she described an Amish dish she called Yammiseti, a mix of beef, spaghetti, onions, cheese, and milk.

Energy food. Two boys were harnessing horses to take them over the hill and to the raising site five or six miles away.

I drove to the site and parked out on the road; I could see some horses tied to trees and wood and metal roofing planks piled up on the ground.

When I got into the car, I could see all those dark blue shirts and straw hats through the trees.

I walked around the bend, and I saw Moise waving his arm at me, beckoning me to come closer. I saw more than a dozen young men and a few older ones standing on a wooden platform that was clearly the first floor of the temporary house.

Moise came over to greet me.

Almost every Amish worker yelled, “Hey, Jon,” as I got close. They all knew who I was, which I’m getting used to when I meet Amish strangers. They all welcomed me and made me feel at home. One even joked about my name.

All of them were lean and hard, even the youngest ones. They all seemed to know what to do. No one was rushing them, pressuring them, yelling at them.

In the time I’ve spent with Moise and his family in difficult, sometimes grueling circumstances I’ve never heard anyone shout or raise their voice to anyone else.

Moisse told me many of the workers – they were all hammering in unison – were nephews or cousins.

I saw six or seven empty horse carts lined up, and to the left, each horse had been tied to a tree with grass and in the shade. Once I looked, I saw a long line of horses, each with its own tree.

Moise appeared pleased to see me, and I was happy to see him. He explained a bit about the construction – he said he’d have a roof on the house by morning. I could tell something else was on his mind.

“Johnny,!” he said, “let me show you the well I found last night.”

This doesn’t surprise me much anymore.  Moise, humble as ever didn’t find the well, as soon became apparent. He dug the well.

The previous night, after a day of hammering and sawing, Moise said he had an idea. When Moise announces an idea, you can pretty much take it for granted that it underway or will be shortly.

What if he could find water right there next to the new house? There was no sign of water, no creek or stream, but Moise said he had a feeling the soil was a little too dark and moist.

(Above, Moise digging his well)

He took a kind of auger and dug a substantial hole by himself. And he was right.

There was water there. When I asked him how he knew, he just smiled and shrugged.

This morning, he brought a pump and some hose, and he told me to walk down the hill a little bit and then hold the house up in the air. A strong stream of crystal clear water came pouring out of the house, and he leaned over to drink some and offered it to me.

It was cold and clear.

He said he was going to bring an Amish dowser down to find the water, “but I just had a feeling there was water there.”

Good dowsers, he told me, “had to have a lot of electricity in their bodies.” I’ll take his word for that.

Moise spent a half-hour digging his hole deeper and trying to keep the hose from clogging. A dowser is a lot cheaper than a commercial well-digger, he said, “they can run thousands of dollars.” That, I knew, was not going to happen.

Almost anything that costs thousands of dollars becomes something someone in the Amish community knows how to do, usually for free.

I marveled at the energy and ingenuity of this man, who hand-dug a well in his spare time and was organizing the move of at least two, and possibly three, of his children within weeks of one another.

He lit up his corncob pipe and stood silently puffing, as he sometimes does. I’ve noticed that the Amish can be chatty, but they often slip into silence and reflection.

They are not ill at ease in silence, they don’t feel the need to fill the air with a conversation either.

On our walk back to the house, he told me he had gone to a livestock auction down the road from both of us the night before and bought a young female goat.

“Are you starting a flock?” I asked. No, he said, smiling shyly.

“I just  got it for the kids.”

We stood there quietly for a few minutes, and then we both moved back to the boys on the platform.  No shouting, no cursing or grunted, no complaining or wondering what time it was.

Moise planned to work on the farm the next day.

The Amish are not big on leaders and bosses. I saw no one giving orders or directions. Moise kicked up a hammer just like anyone else and joined the banging and nailing.

The horses were spread out through the trees, all under shade and with grass to graze on. Mosie said he was bringing more lumber over, but he had decided to hire a truck – “its too much for the horses to come over this hill in this heat.”

We walked back to the construction site. Everyone was busy.

Once again, I had the feeling Mosie was eager to show me the work he and the others had done, and in so short a time, and in such an efficient way.

There is just no tension among these people as they work; a couple of the boys even wrestled for a second or two. I got the sense they do this work all the time.

Moise and I talked about his daughter Katy Ann; he seemed very happy that she was coming to live near him and Barbara.

Then I thought it was time to go. It was hot, and I get nervous watching other people work while I stand around like a visiting Poobah.

I waved goodbye, and answered the return waves and thanks, and drove home.

As always, it was  fun to talk to Moise,  his knowledge of things is awesome, and he might just be able to teach me something about how the world works.

It’s a beautiful thing to see young and strong people come and build a house for free, just because they want to help.

The raising was impressive.

It’s hard for me to believe it takes them less than a week to build a while house. Watching today, but after watching, I believe it. They work like ants in a colony or bees in a hive.

I barely got home when the emergency alert went off in my Iphone, and the town siren wailed. The National Weather Service said there was a severe thunderstorm warning, with the chance of some tornados. There would be high winds as well, they warned. It sounded serious.

I look at my weather app and saw that a big angry red storm was bearing down on us, along with lightning, high winds, and heavy rain.

I guess Moise has become important to me. I’m sure he’s been through many storms without my help, and I’m sure he and his barn raisers didn’t need my advice.

But the idea of a severe thunderstorm with high winds crashing suddenly all around them – they and their carts and horses were exposed in an open field. – was too much for me.

I look at the weather app on my I hone and clicked on the radar app that shows how close storms are This story was a fierce red and yellow, there were all kinds of lightning reports and the story was less than a half-hour away, it was coming from the West.

I just couldn’t abide the idea that I could have warned them and didn’t. If Moise could sniff water from a hundred years, he could certainly sense a storm.

But I couldn’t live with it if some of them got hurt, or their horses did, and I could have warned them.

So I jumped into the car and  went roaring over the hill and back to the construction site. Moise and his crew were all sitting, gathered in a circle having a drink of some kind.

It would have made a wonderful photo, but I didn’t dare.

I feel foolish, but coming up over the mountain, I saw an angry dark back storm – lightning shoot out in every direction – heading right towards us.

I drove my car onto the field. Moise and all the cousins and in-laws and friends and Amish volunteers were gathered in a circle around him.

“Sorry to bother you, Moise,” I shouted, but there’s a severe thunderstorm watch with possible tornadoes and everyone in town is freaking out. I’m sure you can handle it, but I just thought I would make s sure you know about it.”

Mosie took a deep puff on his pipe. I remembered that they never get excited or dramatic, everything is in God’s hands and if he wants to send a lightning bolt up your ass, he can and will, and you will accept it.

Moise shouted something back to me, I thought he said very calmly that they could all get to h is sister’s farm or his own if necessary.

I saw nobody was wanting or needing a ride, so I headed home. I did call the police and describe the location in case there was trouble.

I thought I was acting responsibly, as a good friend should, but when it calm to calm, everyone else is hysterical. I could hear the shouts of “thanks” as I pulled away, but I did feel a little foolish.

I could picture them rolling their eyes and laughing at the strange man who thought they might stop working in a thunderstorm, or be caught off guard.

I felt like my mother. I ran into Moise’s brother Jacob the next morning and I told him about the storm warning, and how they were all looking at me like I fell out of a spaceship. He laughed and said soem of the boys went under cover in a horse cart during the rain.

Then they all went back to work.