Helping former Amish assimilate into the "forbidden" English world has taught me volumes about their struggles and the life they left.
My daughter married a former Swartzentruber - the most rigid and insular - Order Amish, I've two "sons" from the Swartzentruber Amish, and my home and heart is open to those who need life skills, birth certificates, jobs, driver education, and other physical items for life on the outside. At the holidays, my house is filled with former Amish needing a home away from home.
Because of its accuracy of what really goes on inside the Amish - I've received the stamp of approval and blessings from many former Amish - 69,000 readers worldwide come to my blog, Beyond Buggies & Bonnets.
I'm the author or a contributor to 32 books, and am writing one retelling the stories of seven former Amish - their reason for leaving, struggles to adapt, insider information about dating, marriage, church, rules, and other intriguing details. I'm repped by The Seymour Agency and we're actively shopping the manuscript to publishers.
For answers to your Amish questions, a documentary resource, or a speaker on the Anabaptist heritage, beliefs and behaviors of the Amish or parenting a child from another culture, email me at speaker2parents@juno.com.
Members of the Swartzentruber Order who choose to leave the Amish life face extreme difficulties.
How does any adult with an eighth grade education and no documents (social security number, birth certificate, or driver’s license) find work to support himself? How does he/she cope with modern life, personal hygiene, and technology without becoming overwhelmed? Recover from painful shunning and no parental support? Earn a GED when English is his/her second language? And realize salvation is dependent on their relationship with Christ, not community membership?
These are the answers and stories I share on my blog, Beyond Buggies & Bonnets: True Amish Stories and in the book I am writing.