by Keim, Joe
Unfortunately, many former Amish struggle with authority. I have no doubt that much of the struggle comes from feeling forced to live under rules that don’t make sense. The truth is, many families are large and life is always busy. Throw a bunch of man-made rules in the mix with little to no affection and a lack of proper training, and children rebel against their parents and all other authority.
Also, for the most part, these young people who come from the Amish culture have been taught to see themselves as above the law; this causes many to rebel against police authority. It doesn’t take long for adults to see that rebelling against cops and judges doesn’t work.
One young man, who lived with us for the second time around, was knocked to the ground one night and ended up with severe pavement burns when he tried to run from the highway patrol on a busy, six-lane highway in Columbus, Ohio. His cheekbones and face were so badly bruised I reported it to our local sheriff’s department and had them come out to look at his face.
They made it clear, “Don’t ever run away from cops and never get out of your car!”
Today, this same man lives in our home with a GPS bracelet on his ankle. He got caught for having a loaded gun on him and drugs in his car. He and I meet weekly to work on his finances and do a Bible study. I believe he will pull through and make something of himself, but like so many others, he had to be thrown in jail a few times and pay thousands of unnecessary dollars to cover the attorney’s fees, court costs, and fines before he finally started to wise up.
I’ve met with our local judge and numerous attorneys behind closed doors and had police in my home asking in desperation, “How do we help them? They are very rebellious.”
My only answer is, “There’s not much you can do but let them learn the hard way.”
I’ll never forget the time five young boys got very irritated with me. They were sending me threatening text messages and spreading all kinds of false accusations on Facebook about me and the ministry. One day I phoned one of the boys and said, “Let’s get together and handle this like men. You round up the other four, and I’ll meet you at your house.”
I walked in and found the living room corner stacked several feet high with empty beer cans. They were all cocked, loaded, and ready to put me in my place.
I said, “Before we get started, let me pray and ask God to lead us.”
While I prayed, I could hear silent mocking going on. Then one after the other, they shared things they felt I did wrong. At one point, Bill got up and went upstairs. When he returned, he laid a loaded revolver between him and me. I refused to flinch.
Most of what came out of the five boys was pain and anger from the past. I did not take their accusations personally, but tried my best to understand and respond in love. In the end, everybody felt good, and I went home thanking God that I could serve Him and a few young men who will most likely grow up and become good citizens of our great country.
We have an area downstairs in our home that has been turned into a three-bedroom apartment. Several years ago, Malinda showed up at our ministry from another state, but soon got caught for stealing from our local Walmart and landed in jail for a while. Later, we learned Malinda was hiding a Mexican man in the apartment. Because Mexican and former-Amish both feel like outsiders in the American culture, they seem to connect and tend to gravitate toward one another. One night, I was sure the Mexican had snuck into our apartment again, so I pushed a couch up against the door that separated our area from the apartment. When I caught him in the apartment again and realized Malinda was not going to follow our signed live-in agreement, I called the police and both Malinda and the Mexican were asked to leave.
Before Malinda left the Amish, she had written:
In this life of hardships and sufferings, I have to wonder where is God through it all? Without God, life is impossible, but with Him it is hard. Satan tries to make life look unbearable. Into my life comes darkness like a thief in the night, robbing the light of my life. Praying is in vain.
Every way I turn there is darkness, absolutely no light.
I cry out for mercy, but this is what I hear, “You are a sinner doomed to hell, you are worthless, not fit to live. I have you where I want you, in the pit of darkness, the next thing to hell.”
There is no way out; if there is, I cannot see it. The light is gone. Oh God have mercy on me.
“Oh but he does not hear,” Satan says.
Life is rough and it will continue to be so. I am torn up inside, but nobody can see that.
The pain is numbing, especially when nobody cares. I want to leave it all but don’t know how.
All of my days I have never felt loved. I feel like a rag all wrung out and worn.
After much debate, I reach my decision, pain is eating me alive. Life isn’t worth living.
Hell can’t be worse, I hear myself think. God forgive me, but it is too late.
With my finger on the trigger, I squeeze, shut my eyes, with one more cry,
“God, please don’t let me do this!”
I held my breath for a few seconds, my arms went slack. “Thank you Lord,” I said.
In another situation, two girls secretly invited a man to stay with them in our apartment. He was fresh out of prison and needed a place to live. After hiding in our apartment downstairs for two weeks, his mom called us one day and said, “Do you know my son is living in your house? He has a wife and two children and needs to come back to them.”
I mentioned this earlier, but it bears repeating. I’m aware that some of what I share in this book will offend some Amish and former Amish, so I want to be really clear about something. According to Ohio State University, there are about forty different subcultures of Amish. Many who come to us are from the more conservative sects. The more liberal, open-minded Amish usually already have their Social Security numbers and better hygiene habits, and they transition into the English culture with greater ease. They are also less rebellious, have a higher standard of manners, and don’t resort to drugs and alcohol as often. This proves once again that man-made rules and legalism do not work, and they don’t turn a person into a Christian. The letter [law] killeth, but the spirit giveth life (2 Corinthians 3:6b).
This verse is simply pointing out that the letter (old covenant) was a list of written words, a written document, a set of laws that God required His people to follow and obey. Consider that the law was external; it sat outside man like a piece of clothing and insisted that man surrender himself to the rule and obey it.
Did it work? No! Therefore, God brought us a new and better covenant (Hebrews 8:6). The law, under the old covenant, constantly pointed its finger in people’s noses and cried guilty, guilty, guilty! Guilt brings on condemnation, and condemnation results in depression and rebellion against authority.
The new covenant is entirely different. It is internal, within man – a personal relationship with God that is created by God Himself. When a person is born again, God places His Spirit in the heart of the person, and the person becomes a Spirit-filled, Spirit-led person. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ (John 1:17, emphasis added).
As Jesus preached throughout Judea and Samaria, He told the woman at the well, The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth (John 4:23-24, emphasis added).
We have helped many a son and daughter in our ministry who’ve gone through much of what I did. In most cases, the parents and children lost their connection early in the child’s life, and it hurts when parents deny their responsibility and accuse our ministry and others for taking their children away. Compared to the English culture, Amish parents often lack the resources and helps we have taken for granted. A centur
y ago, their style of raising a family may have worked, but times have changed and will continue to change.
As Esther and I raised our own family, we learned something from James Dobson which helped us as parents. He said that as our children mature, they naturally want to pull away from us even though we naturally want to hold on. If we can let them go, they will grow into the adults that God wants them to be. Colossians 3:21 says, Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. Parents need to be careful in this regard.
Two things will provoke a child:
Failing to accept the fact that things do change. Time and generations change. Parents need to be alert to the changes between generations and allow the child to be a part of his or her own generation instead of trying to conform the child to the parent’s childhood generation.
Over-controlling a child will also provoke a child to wrath. Over-control ranges all the way from stern restriction and discipline to child abuse, which will either stifle the growth of a child or stir him to react and rebel.
The point is this: there must be a balance between family life and the child’s community life. The child should be allowed to do his own thing sometimes and should be required to share with the family at other times. As he grows older, he should be allowed to break away more and more to prepare him for when he will step out into the world on his own.
In most Amish families, the father does not have a lot of time to spend with the children, so often instead of loving and caring for them, they just discipline them and force them back into the mold and keep them there. That turns the son against the father, and the more the son turns against this rigid life, the more the father tries to force him into the mold, which leads to more problems.
In my case, I left to find someone to fill that hole. I found Eli and Levi, and drugs and alcohol. The void led me down the path of stealing money from Amish homes, rebelling against every authority that stood in the way, lusting after women, and falling into sexual sins. By the grace of God, I did not end up in prison like some others have.
My experience with a young man named Atlee offers the perfect illustration of how many Amish fathers interact with their sons. Atlee was eighteen when he left the Amish and came to our doorstep, asking if he could move in with us. When his dad came to visit him for the first time, he ran and hid. He didn’t want to see his father.
I invited the father, Davie, into our home and for the next hour we discussed his relationship with Atlee. Davie and I had attended school together, so I knew him very well.
I asked, “Davie, how do you show love to your son, Atlee? Do you ever let him know you appreciate the work he does on the farm? Do you ever sit down with your son and encourage him, make him feel needed and important? That’s what he is trying to figure out.”
Davie nodded slowly. “Yes, I’ve done that.”
“How did you do that?” I asked.
“Well, I try to remember to tell him good night before he goes to bed.”
Davie’s short answer came from a sincere father who I believe loved his son very much. Otherwise, he would not have been sitting in my living room asking to see him. The sad truth is he probably didn’t know how to show real love to his son. How could he if it was never shown or taught by the previous generation?
I went back to where Atlee was hiding, and I asked him, “Have you ever gotten a hug from your father?”
“No, never.”
“Has he ever told you that he loves you?”
“No, never.”
“Has he ever patted you on the back and said good job, son?”
“No, never.”
I knew exactly how he felt and went over and hugged him. I said, “Around here we give each other hugs. It’s something we all need.”
Unfortunately, most Amish don’t hug. They aren’t affectionate. It’s more of a get-up-early, work-hard-all-day, come-in-late-at-night, and-go-to-bed lifestyle with little appreciation verbalized. Many of the young people who come to us are tired of working so hard with little or no appreciation. When they leave the Amish, you just have to let them sort through it in their own time.
I always tell myself and others, “Get your eyes off the now and look out five years. Until then, just love on them, even when it is very hard to do.”
The most challenging, and also most important, thing is to believe in your teenage child and make him or her feel special and valued. Sometimes you need to love them enough to let them make decisions, even if you see it’s a mistake. They will learn from their mistakes and that will help them grow into functioning adults who know how to make wise choices.
* * * *
Some saved Amish groups are preaching the gospel in their churches. Some time ago, I sat between two Amish men in a barn, and before us was a workbench nailed to the wall with a portable DVD player on it. The man on my left was born again and on fire for the Lord, but the man on my right was an alcoholic. His marriage and family were about to fall apart; he was buried in pornography and suffered from horrible money problems. The three of us sat watching a DVD on how to put your marriage back together.
The saved man said, “In my church people get saved, but we keep the lifestyle. The lifestyle is not wrong, but trusting in it to get you to heaven is wrong.”
I fully agreed and thanked God for the man’s testimony.
As much as I’m thankful for those who are preaching the gospel and seeing people surrender their lives to Christ, I still have a question. Why is it that a non-Amish person, who wants to join the group and become a member of the church has to first renounce and forsake his previous lifestyle, get re-baptized into the Amish church, conform to Amish-style clothing patterns, use horse and buggy for transportation, switch from electricity to gas-powered lighting, learn the German language, and submit to other rules?
On the other hand, if an Amish person asked to join our church, we would only require two things. (1) When did you surrender your life to Jesus Christ? And, (2) have you followed the Lord in baptism? Beyond that, we wouldn’t mind at all if they chose a type of transportation that was different than ours. We wouldn’t mind if they chose to wear Amish clothes or use gas-powered lights instead of electric and farm with horse-drawn farm equipment. From my perspective, these things are all secondary issues, personal preferences, and should never be enforced by the leadership of the church.
The endless rules create the struggle that the young people have with the Amish culture, and ultimately with authority in general.
Chapter 21
Difficulties and Blessings
Without a doubt in my mind, God called Esther and me into the ministry to the Amish and former Amish. Even though ministry has sometimes been difficult and caused us many tears and sleepless nights, we don’t doubt that we are in the center of God’s will. Just like the apostle Paul and others who ministered before us, we are servants of Christ and have been called to meet the desperate needs of the world and reach men with the glorious news that Christ will save them from an eternal hell and give them life that lasts forever. Every day people around us are being thrust into eternity to face Almighty God. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord (1 Corinthians 15:58).
The Amish people are just like us and the rest of the world. Some are loving, generous, kind, and understanding. Others are bitter, hateful, and angry. Some live secret lives of sin and shame. Some are born again and on fire for the Lord, while the rest are steeped in darkness and do not understand salvation.
I once talked to an Amish man, Willard, who grew up in a Schwartzentruber sect in Holmes County, Ohio. In his young adult life, he had left the Schwartzentruber sect for a different Amish group. When he left the Schwartzentruber church, he was excommunicated and shunned. Th
e New Order Amish church received Willard into membership. When the lot fell on Willard and he became a preacher in the new church, his sister – still part of the Schwartzentruber church – almost went out of her mind.
“Why would God choose my brother to preach when he has been turned over to Satan?” she exclaimed to her family.
After a few years, the church where Willard attended needed a bishop. Again, the congregation got together and cast lots; again it fell on Willard. When the sister found out what happened, she completely lost it.
When Bishop Willard shared the story with me, he said, “You know, Joe, you can get much further by pounding your forehead against the fence post all day than you can talking to some Amish people. At least after a day of pounding the post, you get to walk away with a big welt on your forehead, which is far more than you get when talking to some Amish about the one true gospel.”
With that in mind, let me share how we have been yelled at and chased out of Amish homes for opening up about the gospel. The Amish have come to our home and threatened to hurt us physically. Some have called our office and cursed us, while others have written letters in anger.
In one particular situation, we spoke at a church in Shinglehouse, Pennsylvania. Afterward, an older couple, Ernie and Joyce, approached us and shared how they had been actively witnessing to an Amish family in their area for over twenty years.
“Would you and Esther consider going with us and visiting them?” they asked.
The next day the four of us piled into their van and drove to see their Amish friends. We were all welcomed into their home and began to visit. This family did not know Esther and me, but about thirty minutes into our conversation, I began to share my salvation testimony.
