by Keim, Joe
The father jumped to his feet and yelled, “Get out! Get out! Get out of my house now!”
Within sixty seconds we were out in the van. As Ernie was preparing to back out of the driveway, the door opened up, and the father yelled to Ernie and Joyce, “Don’t you dare take Joe and Esther to visit my married sons and daughters.”
My Father
For many years, Esther and I prayed for all our family members by name and fasted one day a week with great desire that God would open their hearts to salvation. When our children, Jonathan and Rachel, got old enough to pray, they joined us and prayed earnestly that God would save Grandpa, Grandma, and all their uncles and aunts.
I remember the first time I shared the salvation message with my dad. He had sent word that he would be coming to visit at our house. I was sure God was answering our prayers and that my dad would come to an understanding of biblical salvation. My brother William came to our house, and we prayed over every spot we thought he might walk. We prayed over the entire length of the driveway, the telephone pole where he would be tying his horse, and the couch he’d sit on. When Dad finally arrived, we invited him into the house and sat together in the living room.
The first few hours were spent talking about family back home and his overwhelming concern for us who were living in the world. Not only was he worried that Esther and I would end in divorce but also that our children would end up in spiritual confusion and turn their backs on God and the local church. He said it with such confidence and surety that it brought fear to my heart. Along the way, he reminded me that he had been around for a lot longer than me, and he had seen it happen multiple times to others who left the Amish church.
It was very hard for me to know how to start, but at about midnight, I pulled my Bible out and began to share God’s plan of salvation with him. It was now my turn to share the concerns I had for him and the rest of the family. He sat back and listened in complete silence as I covered one Scripture passage after another.
“Dad, according to God’s Word, salvation is not what we do for God, but rather what God has done for us.”
I shared my entire testimony of how I had called upon the name of the Lord and was born again on July 28, 1985. When I got to the end of my study, I walked over, knelt down before him, and begged him to fully surrender his life to Jesus Christ and believe in his heart that Jesus alone could save him from his sins and hell.
As I begged and pleaded with him, my dad just stared straight ahead and did not say a word. Finally, he stood up, reached for his hat, and walked out through the living room into the dining and kitchen area. I realized he was going to leave and not say a word. I jumped up and ran after him.
As he was going through the outside door, I yelled, “Dad, are you not going to respond at all?”
He stopped and looked straight at me. All he said was, “Whatever you do, Joe, please don’t ever enlist in the military.”
I believe Dad thought all English people join the military or at least believe in it. I also believe he felt that when he served a year of prison for refusing to participate in the Vietnam War, he was suffering persecution right along with our Anabaptist forefathers and, in a sense, earning his rights to salvation.
As my dad drove into the night, I did not know if we would ever see each other again. His concerns for me were just as real as my concerns for him. Why, I wondered, did life have to be so complicated?
The Reunion
For twenty years we heard very little from my family except for a few letters. One after the other, my brothers and sisters got married, but we were never informed or invited. Knowing that we only lived fifteen miles away made it even harder.
Then out of the blue, two of my married sisters decided to have a family reunion and include our family and my three brothers and their families who’d left the Amish. Everything was kept hush-hush. They did not want their community to find out, nor did they want everybody in the Keim family to know, fearing some would refuse to show for the reunion if they knew we were invited.
To keep tension to a minimum, my married sisters, Saloma and Ella, asked us to park our cars about a mile away at an English neighbor’s farm. Saloma and Ella, who had done all the planning, lived across the field from each other. So, we parked the cars and walked to Ella’s house and put on the Amish clothes they had laid out for us to wear. From there, we walked across the field to Saloma’s house, where most of our Amish families had already gathered for the reunion.
Dad and Mom now had ninety grandchildren, and they were all there. I hadn’t seen some of my siblings for twenty years. When the time came to eat, we all gathered in the pole barn. One table was set up for Amish families and another for former Amish. By church standards, we were not allowed to fill our plate from the same container.
I spotted Dad with gray hair; Mom too. For the first time in twenty years, we were all together. They enjoyed it as much as we did. We talked about our daily lives, listened to children’s laughter, and played softball. At the end of the day though, we walked back into our world, and they stayed in theirs. Later we found out that Mom and Dad were disciplined by the church for accepting us in. That upset me, but I realized there was very little anyone could do.
Reconciliation
Soon after that reunion, I felt a great need to go and get some personal counseling. I realized that even though I was in the ministry and had dealt with all kinds of young people, my past often got in the way of ministry. Esther and I decided to go to North Carolina to get away from everyone who knew us in the ministry. I didn’t want anyone to know I needed help, and felt somewhat embarrassed. We took five full days of counseling and about the fourth day I realized I still had a lot of stored-up anger toward my father that went way back to my childhood. On day five I had a breakthrough and handed everything over to the Lord. Five days of intense counseling left me emotionally and mentally drained, but I also felt like a great heaviness had left me when I released all the anger toward my father.
On the way home, I said, “I can’t change Dad, but I need to go and apologize to him for everything I’ve done to hurt him.” My brother William agreed to go with me.
My parents had left the Amish in Ohio and moved to Pennsylvania to another community. They’d been there five years, but I hadn’t been there yet. On August 5, 2011, William and I headed east toward Ulysses, Pennsylvania. While many people prayed, we prepared ourselves for rejection. By the time we found Dad and Mom’s place, way out in the middle of nowhere, it was 9:00 p.m. and completely dark.
We drove in the driveway and spotted what looked like a small light moving to and fro in the pitch-black darkness. Mom was out doing chores with a headlamp strapped to her forehead, but she had no idea who we were. When we got close enough, she turned her little head-lamp toward our faces and studied us for what seemed like forever.
Suddenly, she exclaimed, “Joe? Is that you, Joe? And William?”
“Yes, it’s us,” not knowing for sure what to expect.
Would they let us in the house or not? Much to our relief, Dad came along and invited us into the house. That night we talked and talked and talked.
At about 2:00 a.m., Dad said, “Why don’t you just stay here for the night?”
We both responded, “Yes, we would love to.”
When we awoke the next morning, the smell of Mom’s cooking came up through the registers in the floor. When we came downstairs, we noticed that two tables were set. Dad motioned for us to sit at our table, while they sat at theirs.
After a silent prayer, Mom said, “OK boys, dive in and eat. There’s plenty.”
As we chowed away on Mom’s home-cooked breakfast that morning, I couldn’t think of any other place on earth I’d rather be.
After breakfast, I shared how much I regretted the pain and embarrassment I had brought on our family during my teenage y
ears. I also shared how Esther and I had traveled to North Carolina a few months earlier and gone through five days of counseling.
Dad in turn shared what it was like for him during those times I left the Amish. He could hardly talk through his tears, and like me, he had an immense amount of pain stored up and pushed back over a twenty-five-year period. He shared many regrets as a father and wished he could go back and do some things over in life.
Dad told us what it was like for him the night he was hiding in the weeds, while Esther and I waited for our ride at the dark country crossroad.
“Joe, when you jumped on the back of Mark’s truck and drove away, in spite of my crying out to you, I sank to a new low in my life.”
He went on to describe what it was like when he came to visit me in Norwalk a few days later.
“I hired a taxi driver to come and see you, hoping I could get you to come home with me. When we got to the house where you were staying, Mark came out and told me to leave. He said, ‘Joe does not want to talk.’ So I waited on the doorstep until four o’clock in the morning. Again, Mark came out and was very angry with me. He ordered me to leave or he would call the police.
“At that point, I gathered myself together, got in the car, and headed home. The driver played “Hold Fast to the Right” in his tape player – six times through. This gave me the strength I so desperately needed to get through the pain of losing my oldest son.”
When Dad got done telling the story, he said, “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get my songbook and sing “Hold Fast to the Right” together.”
As you can imagine, the tears were unstoppable for all of us as we sang about kneeling by our mother’s side and receiving our parting advice. We sang about being tried by the world with temptations and trials. And we sang about confiding in the Savior and holding fast to the right.
When we finished, I asked Dad and Mom and my brother William, “Could we just go to God and give Him all our pain?” It was too much for us to handle on our own.
Mom responded, “We better let Dad pray.”
I worried that Dad would pray out of his German prayer book, but instead, we all went down on our knees, and he prayed in Pennsylvania Dutch. As we prayed together on the living room floor, he wept aloud.
Finally, I couldn’t hold on any longer. I got up, walked over to Dad, and asked if I could hold him in my arms. He stood to his feet, and we both threw our arms around each other. For the next ten minutes, we both wept bitterly and uncontrollably. As we held on to each other, our shirts became soaked with tears. It was as if twenty-five years of regrets, confusion, misunderstandings, and turmoil burst out from the deepest parts of our beings. In the end, we asked each other for forgiveness for the many times we hurt each other.
My love for Dad and Mom cannot be explained in words. I didn’t want our time to end, but we had our own families and another world we lived in.
Dad and Mom didn’t want us to leave either. As we stood and looked in each other’s eyes, we wondered how we could possibly separate after such an emotional time.
Then William said, “I just have one question. If you died right now, do you have assurance that you’re going to heaven?”
As much as we would have liked to hear, “Yes, we are born again,” or “Yes, we are confident of our salvation,” we didn’t hear either. In the end, we had to let salvation go and put our parents back in God’s hands.
We tried to leave seven times that morning, but each time something came up, and we returned and talked more. The last three times we were already heading toward our vehicle. Mom had loaded our car with all kinds of fruits, vegetables, and family keepsakes. As we pulled out, they yelled, “Please tell your wives and children we love them.”
Dalton and Dad
Two years later, tragedy struck. My brother William and his wife, Jenica, had purchased a new home. Their son Dalton was two years old and playing in the kitchen while Jenica was busy cooking a wild turkey in boiling hot water. Little Dalton grabbed the oven door handle and somehow pulled the kitchen range forward, and all the boiling water dumped out on his little body. Within twenty-four hours, this beautiful child was dead.
When Dalton died, we wondered if our Amish family would come to the funeral. The funeral service was to be held in our home church. Years earlier my dad had made a vow that he would never step foot in our church building.
On the day of the funeral we got up to face our difficult day, not knowing if Mom and Dad and the rest of our Amish family would be there. At about 8:00 a.m., William called and said, “Dad just called and said he and Mom have been traveling most of the night. They plan to be at the funeral, but with one condition: ‘That Joe does not get up and say anything from the pulpit.’”
“Really, William! You can’t be serious,” I said.
“Yes, Dad made it clear, ‘If we come in there and Joe gets up and says anything at all, we’ll have to get up and leave.’”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and it didn’t make sense that my dad could control me on my own turf. If it was the other way around, I would have understood.
Finally, I said, “Okay, William, it hurts very deeply, but I want our dad and mom to be at the funeral more than I want to get up and speak from the pulpit.”
I called my pastor quickly and said, “Please remove me from the schedule.”
Our home church, where we have attended since the day we left the Amish in 1987, is big enough for four hundred people, and on the day of the funeral, it was filled except for two spots on the very front pew. We had kept those two spots open for Mom and Dad.
It was almost jaw dropping as we watched my seventy-year-old dad and mom walk in the back door. Every eye trained on them. Everyone knew our story. The usher brought them all the way down the aisle and sat them in the front pew. I couldn’t help but wonder if Dad remembered his vow to never set foot in our church building.
My pastor got up and preached a message like it was his last. “You are either born again, or you are still lost and searching! You’re either on your way to heaven or on the road that leads to hell. It is that simple – if you will believe and receive God’s gift, He will give you everlasting life. God tells us in Romans: For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved (Romans 10:12-13). If you are sitting here today, and the Holy Spirit is speaking to your heart, I’m going to ask you to call upon the name of the Lord for salvation.”
Moments later, Pastor John asked, “With heads bowed and eyes closed, how many of you prayed and asked the Lord to save you?” Many hands went up, and the pastor thanked each one for being honest.
As I walked past the coffin one last time and shook hands with my brother William, he totally lost control. With tears spilling down his face, he pulled me in.
“I now know why Dalton died,” he said. “When the pastor asked people who prayed for salvation to lift their hands, I couldn’t help but look up. Dad and Mom both raised their hands.”
For the next few minutes, we both wept, praised the Lord out loud, and began to realize the purpose of our sweet little Dalton and his early departure. It made it easier for us to let go.
Where has my relationship gone with Dad and Mom since the funeral? Let me just say, it may have taken thirty long years to break down the thick walls, but I feel very comfortable jumping in the car and visiting my parents. Obviously, they live in the Amish world, and I live in the English world. A feeling of separation will always be there, but we are both learning to live with the differences.
When Dad and Mom celebrated their 50th anniversary last October, we were all invited to join our Amish family for the special event. Dad and Mom were the center of attention, and we loved on them. Yes, we still had to eat at separat
e tables, but we refused to let that bother us. We had so much fun that day and felt very much a part of the English/Amish/Jewish family that we are.
Chapter 22
In God’s Eyes
In God’s eyes, there is no difference between Amish and non-Amish people. No difference in lifestyles, cultures, and church denominations. No difference between Anabaptists and Protestants. No difference between who our forefathers were and today’s generation. These labels are all man-made and have divided us for too long. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way (Isaiah 53:6a).
When the Scripture says all we like sheep have gone astray, it means ALL. Not one single culture, church denomination, man, woman, or child is exempt. We have all gone our own way. The prophet Isaiah continues to write, But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6a, emphasis added). What we do on our own to obtain right standing with the Lord is completely insufficient. The Bible can be trusted when it says, For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5:21).
The Law of Moses was needed to bring mankind to an understanding of his own sinfulness and need for Jesus Christ. There’s no such thing as many doorways into heaven. It’s not the Amish way, the Baptist way, the charismatic way, or the Pentecostal way. It’s the Jesus way.
Just suppose four of us died and went to heaven. One day, while sitting together in a circle, I asked, “How did the three of you get here?”
The first one replied, “I got here because my forefathers came out of the Great Awakening in 1734.”
