Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy

On Monday morning, October 2, 2006, a gunman entered a one-room Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. In front of twenty-five horrified pupils, thirty-two-year-old Charles Roberts ordered the boys and the teacher to leave. After tying the legs of the ten remaining girls, Roberts prepared to shoot them execution style with an automatic rifle and four hundred rounds of ammunition.

The oldest hostage, a thirteen-year-old, begged Roberts to “shoot me first and let the little ones go.” Refusing her offer, he opened fire on all of them, killing five and leaving the others critically wounded. He then shot himself as police stormed the building. His motivation? “I'm angry at God for taking my little daughter,” he told the children before the massacre.

The Amish community's remarkable response to this horrific shooting stunned the larger world. Amish Grace tells the incredible story of this community's reaction to the senseless crime and explores its profoundly countercultural practice of forgiveness.

A Blackstone Audio production.