Comments on: Escaping the Amish – Part 1 http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/07/15/escaping-the-amish-part-1/ Tim Ferriss's 4-Hour Workweek and Lifestyle Design Blog Sun, 21 Mar 2010 22:23:30 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Vera Bontrager http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/07/15/escaping-the-amish-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-62488 Vera Bontrager Wed, 20 Jan 2010 19:49:19 +0000 http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/?p=387#comment-62488 I was never Old Order Amish , but I come from that back ground as well as being a Bontrager. I am a genealogy buff and have read a lot about my Bontrager and European anabaptist history. It is a rich heritage. They suffered a lot for their faith. The good Amish will not retaliate when people say things about them, good or bad. And, yes there is bad things that happen. When a person does a wrong to another it is right to bring them to account. When people have been wronged they most always need a healing. A big part of the healing eventually includes a forgiveness and it may take a lifetime. By the good Amish, I'm talking , being a Christian. The best example of that is an Amish bishop born in 1868, lived a good share of his life in the Shipshewana-Middlebury area. Toward the end of his life he wrote his life story. He was taught it,he believed it, and he lived it. Eli J. Bontrager . If you can find his story , read it. It will make you feel good. I was never Old Order Amish , but I come from that back ground as well as being a Bontrager. I am a genealogy buff and have read a lot about my Bontrager and European anabaptist history. It is a rich heritage. They suffered a lot for their faith.

The good Amish will not retaliate when people say things about them, good or bad.
And, yes there is bad things that happen. When a person does a wrong to another it is right to bring them to account.
When people have been wronged they most always need a healing. A big part of the healing eventually includes a forgiveness and it may take a lifetime.
By the good Amish, I’m talking , being a Christian.

The best example of that is an Amish bishop born in 1868, lived a good share of his life in the Shipshewana-Middlebury area. Toward the end of his life he wrote his life story. He was taught it,he believed it, and he lived it. Eli J. Bontrager .
If you can find his story , read it. It will make you feel good.

]]> By: Elva Bontrager http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/07/15/escaping-the-amish-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-62395 Elva Bontrager Tue, 19 Jan 2010 04:21:36 +0000 http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/?p=387#comment-62395 A number of points here: As has been said above by a number of calmer heads above one cannot define a people by one family or by one child in one family. Torah shows little understanding of teen anguish and the frustrated rebellion that is common at that age. It is probably almost as difficult for the parents of a teenager as it is for the teen. To my mind, the main problem with the Amish as a culture and in individuals is ignorance. Ignorance, frankly, is where the crime is. One can't grow up in a closed society such as the Amish, a culture that does not value learning for its own sake and have that person marry and start his or her own family on that same basis and expect much progress, except in exceptional cases. I know a lot of Amish who are very bright and who, given a proper education, would no doubt be valuable people in civilization. Those who choose to stay – and again, some are very bright- do so for their own reasons: among them, love of family and tradition, love of God as they understand it, love of the land and its peaceful rhythms and a distrust of those on the outside. But if Torah wants us to believe that she is depicting the Amish as a whole she is painting with way too broad a brush. Her family may – MAY, I say – have been that brutal but I frankly doubt it. She is fond of the word 'beating'; spanking, slapping, even whipping, are common in Amish families but I know of no such thing as an Amish woman or man BEATING a baby. If her parents did so, they are sick and should be brought to court. I was Amish until I left home at age 17 and I still have many Amish relatives. I resent Torah's sensationalized account of being Amish. Even "escape" is sensationalistic; in my day we called it "running away from home." Elva Bontrager A number of points here: As has been said above by a number of calmer heads above one cannot define a people by one family or by one child in one family. Torah shows little understanding of teen anguish and the frustrated rebellion that is common at that age. It is probably almost as difficult for the parents of a teenager as it is for the teen. To my mind, the main problem with the Amish as a culture and in individuals is ignorance. Ignorance, frankly, is where the crime is.

One can’t grow up in a closed society such as the Amish, a culture that does not value learning for its own sake and have that person marry and start his or her own family on that same basis and expect much progress, except in exceptional cases.
I know a lot of Amish who are very bright and who, given a proper education, would no doubt be valuable people in civilization. Those who choose to stay – and again, some are very bright- do so for their own reasons: among them, love of family and tradition, love of God as they understand it, love of the land and its peaceful rhythms and a distrust of those on the outside.
But if Torah wants us to believe that she is depicting the Amish as a whole she is painting with way too broad a brush. Her family may – MAY, I say – have been that brutal but I frankly doubt it. She is fond of the word ‘beating’; spanking, slapping, even whipping, are common in Amish families but I know of no such thing as an Amish woman or man BEATING a baby. If her parents did so, they are sick and should be brought to court.
I was Amish until I left home at age 17 and I still have many Amish relatives. I resent Torah’s sensationalized account of being Amish. Even “escape” is sensationalistic; in my day we called it “running away from home.”

Elva Bontrager

]]> By: joseph http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/07/15/escaping-the-amish-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-62054 joseph Sun, 17 Jan 2010 10:34:41 +0000 http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/?p=387#comment-62054 Iknow of somethings that she says are true. The strictness I know well. Also the fact that males dominate the families. But ordnung says that you are free to choose until baptism. Its strange for me , I like driving back to see people but feel out of place. I also am out of place in society. Iknow of somethings that she says are true. The strictness I know well. Also the fact that males dominate the families. But ordnung says that you are free to choose until baptism. Its strange for me , I like driving back to see people but feel out of place. I also am out of place in society.

]]> By: Roger Rheinheimer http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/07/15/escaping-the-amish-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-58136 Roger Rheinheimer Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:31:13 +0000 http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/?p=387#comment-58136 My debut novel, Amish Snow, has been out for a couple of months. An ex-Amish man that I do not know contacted me after seeing the website and story line, and asked if I would be interested in his story. I told him I was interested, and he sent me a most poignant accounting of his tortuous decision to leave the Amish faith, mainly around health issues. Other than deleting their names, here is an excerpt of the unedited email. I can almost hear the clipped singsong accent so characteristic of the Amish manner of speaking: Hello Roger; I was born in Canada. Then we moved to new york state lived there for 10 years Then in 1990 we moved to michigan.But threw those years i would get sick all he time. I thought after i got married to my wife it would stop it got worse.Be cause the amish life stile of using either kerosene,white gas or like camp fuel,and propane.for lights ect.it was the lights mostley. that i got poisend in the brain that i almost shot myself because of all the fumes from the propane to top it all of.We had a freezer fridge 2 lights in the house and then in my wood working shop i had 2 lights a unvented heater and 6 used propane tanks that i used to run my shop tools. it was the fumes that made me sick i got letter from my doc to take to the elders that i need electricty for every thing that i use propane for the elders said no.i went to my nees and repented all my sins to God asked him to be my savior. soon after that i asked God if i should put our phone in the house he said yes i got three yeses. (the rest of his story is on my website) My debut novel, Amish Snow, has been out for a couple of months. An ex-Amish man that I do not know contacted me after seeing the website and story line, and asked if I would be interested in his story. I told him I was interested, and he sent me a most poignant accounting of his tortuous decision to leave the Amish faith, mainly around health issues.

Other than deleting their names, here is an excerpt of the unedited email. I can almost hear the clipped singsong accent so characteristic of the Amish manner of speaking:

Hello Roger;
I was born in Canada. Then we moved to new york state lived there for 10 years
Then in 1990 we moved to michigan.But threw those years i would get sick all he time.
I thought after i got married to my wife it would stop it got worse.Be cause the amish life stile of using either kerosene,white gas or like camp fuel,and propane.for lights
ect.it was the lights mostley. that i got poisend in the brain that i almost shot myself because of all the fumes from the propane to top it all of.We had a freezer fridge 2 lights in the house and then in my wood working shop i had 2 lights a unvented heater and 6 used propane tanks that i used to run my shop tools. it was the fumes that made me sick i got
letter from my doc to take to the elders that i need electricty for every thing that i use propane for the elders said no.i went to my nees and repented all my sins to God asked him to be my savior. soon after that i asked God if i should put our phone in the house he
said yes i got three yeses. (the rest of his story is on my website)

]]> By: travis http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/07/15/escaping-the-amish-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-55562 travis Mon, 02 Nov 2009 04:51:37 +0000 http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/?p=387#comment-55562 i dont know about other amish communites but there is one 4 miles from where i live. i own my own trucking bussiness and own a skidloader, ppl say that amish do almost everything them selves. alot of amish call me to haul hay with my flat bed and we unload it by hand or pull it off with a team of horses. or they will buy a semi load of hay and will pay me to come unload it and put it away and in the winter time they will hire me to plow snow. and if there in the truck with me going some where to get hay if they need to use my phone they just take it off the dash of my truck and use it like they own them selves. iv become good friends wiht one family just because that family impitiular is about the nicest iv met yet, i was tlakin to there young son one day and i asked him where his older brother was and he told me that he went english, and i was kinda shocked then he told me that he has had other brothers and sisters leave. and when his dad got close he just said i never told u that. i thought it was kinda funny that they keep it that hush hush. i dont know about other amish communites but there is one 4 miles from where i live. i own my own trucking bussiness and own a skidloader, ppl say that amish do almost everything them selves. alot of amish call me to haul hay with my flat bed and we unload it by hand or pull it off with a team of horses. or they will buy a semi load of hay and will pay me to come unload it and put it away and in the winter time they will hire me to plow snow. and if there in the truck with me going some where to get hay if they need to use my phone they just take it off the dash of my truck and use it like they own them selves. iv become good friends wiht one family just because that family impitiular is about the nicest iv met yet, i was tlakin to there young son one day and i asked him where his older brother was and he told me that he went english, and i was kinda shocked then he told me that he has had other brothers and sisters leave. and when his dad got close he just said i never told u that. i thought it was kinda funny that they keep it that hush hush.

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