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I grew up in the Amish and I was getting ready to be a church member and when I found out all their church rules and I felt like there is more to being a Christian than following the Amish church rules. So, finally I came to the point where I had to make a change in my life.

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This is a response to what you wrote about covenant breakers. Do you realize that you are no longer with the church you were raised in? Did your father and his father use the chainsaw or the tractor as some Amish churches are using? How are these people obeying what their parents taught them? Did I miss something? How is going from a windup watch to a battery watch any different than going from a buggy to a car? I know your forefathers didn't approve of those things, and yet many Amish feel ok to condemn us who convert to an (English) church because that is not what our parents taught us. Look deep into your hearts and ask yourselves, have you always done everything that your parents said to?

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I left the Amish in 2008, at age 17. I left with my friend. We stayed in a barn for the first night and the next morning my cousin Sam from Canada came and picked us up; he helped us get clothes and get us on the bus to go to Iowa.

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Most of you have promised to remain faithful to the church, and if you now leave the church and join another one you are covenant breakers, and this is just like leaving one wife and marrying another in God’s eyes.

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I still remember those sleepless nights wondering where Daddy was. We finally got the news they had found him. He was in detox then. Then he was in rehab from March until September.

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When I was 18 years old I left the Amish to have more fun and live my life however I wanted to. I always thought English have more fun and when I hung out with my English friends I always felt happier. In the Amish, I was at the age to get baptized and I didn't want to be baptized Amish so I left.

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I grew Amish. As I was joining the Amish church, I heard more and more of their church rules. Right away, I knew there was more to life than living by their rules and I didn't want to be a part of a man made rule like that.

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Amish in the news 2010

Dear Joe, I was shocked to find this website as I had no clue anything like this existed. I grew up Amish and found it extremely frustrating and left home when I was 18 and moved to Montana. I worked for an outfitter for 7 years and now I am in the University of Montana becoming a high-school teacher in English and History.

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I left the Amish, my hometown in KY, and my family in 2006. I had a really rough start. I couldn't find a job and I wasn't happy, than one day one of my friends gave me Joe and Esther Keim's phone number it took me about two weeks to gather enough courage to call them but I finally did.

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I left the Amish in 1968 and as you said, I did not want any part of any religion, not even a wedding or a funeral. I was very vulnerable; I got into drugs, parting, and that kind of life style. When I look back, I realize it was because I did not know how to live outside of the boundaries of the Amish community and "protection" I did not know how to manage money, how to have normal relationships with people, especially of the opposite sex.

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We were originally from Ohio and western PA, but left the Amish in 1990 and went thru the same things that you guys did. When I was growing up, I never agreed with the Amish rules and for the most part didn't obey them either. When I was 29, my wife and I left the Amish for a short period of time and had a lot of problems dealing with life in general.

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I was born and raised Amish. It seemed like my desires and dreams were different than most Amish girls my age. Matter of fact, I kept having thoughts of leaving the Amish and living in the English culture. At age 16, I was very shy and found it difficult to speak up and share my feelings. And it seemed that my family and friends took advantage of my shyness by constantly giving me advice on how to live my life.

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I grew up in Wayne County between Kidron and Apple Creek on a farm we farmed with horses and milked cows. Now I have to tell you, I did not like farming. I would try to get out of doing work all the time, and that caused a lot of problems between me and my Dad; we never did get along.

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Dear Son, We received your letter to invite us to your wedding. Don't expect any of us there. Just wish you would be getting married Amish so we could all be there. You wrote that there will be music before the wedding starts, we wouldn't want to be involved in that anyways, as we...

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Dear Son, We got your letter yesterday. Mom said when Laura read your letter she just cried, it was hard for us too. Laura was also hoping you will still come back home before long and be Amish again, but the way we understand the letter, you must feel that we didn't...

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Dear Parents and Family, Now!! Us ex-Amish! Do you think God's gonna look at us different then the English people, even if we believe we have the same things. You said that you have hopes for them, but not us. Does God look at people any different???

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Dear Perry, I just can't see how you can enjoy it out in that wicked world. "thou we shall lead a still and quiet life." I have to think about that verse in (German). "wer die welt Lieb der Lieb nicht Gott"? (English) "Whoever loves the world, cannot love God"? ...

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I am an ex-Amish minister and if this would help you in some way in helping people understand from an ex-Amish mans view point, where he came from and how he used to look at things, then how the Lord changed his heart, and how it got turned around and how he looks at salvation today. So they can get an inside view of a person that has been changed by God, and God only, there is nobody else involved that made this change but God.

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I left the Amish on Saturday March 24, 2007 in Sullivan, OH. I had a friend of mine to pick me up. So I moved to Crestline, Oh, Lived there for a year, then I noticed that I need to do something different in my life because I was more and more getting into that sinful world stuff, and it scared me so much.

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Being an Amish bull-rider might appear a bit against the grain, but Yoder said it’s a natural fit for him. Yoder grew up around farm animals on his parents’ farm at Jamesport. When his parents weren’t looking, “my cousins and I would dare each other to try to ride calves and young steers....."

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While I was Amish, many of my Amish friends, including me, were hiding some of the things we did that were not Amish-like listening to the radio, calling someone on the phone, and other things. I always wondered why God made some people to be allowed to have cars and we were in this little Amish community-having to work hard with our hands alone.

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ABINGDON, Va. – For David King, a change seemed to be in order. This farmer had grown up in an Amish community at Lancaster County, Penn., then settled along the North Fork of the Holston River with his wife, Barbara, in 1995 and helped start an Amish community in rural Abingdon. King followed the traditional rules of the Amish, like shunning modern machinery....

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I am at the age of 20!! I was born and raised Amish and lived that way until I was one month away from age 17. When I was in the 6th or 7th grade my cousin Andy B. Shetler left the Amish. When I heard that he left, I knew right away that I was also going to leave when I get old enough.

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I can't really put it into words what it was like when I got saved. Brother Eli told me a lot of things about how Jesus died for our sins and that we must be born again in order to get to Heaven. I started reading my Bible and I started realizing what a sinner I was and where I would end up without Christ and salvation.

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Dear Son, So at this point, you are on the outside of our family and you don't belong in the family anymore. So whether it's a wedding or a funeral, you don't belong in the family. You know you can't come home again. Unless, like I wrote earlier, if you want to...

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I left the Amish when I was seventeen years old because I did not believe in all their rules, but still I did not realize the importance of salvation for some time, so I was very confused with my new life for quite a while but the more I studied the Bible, the more I realized that a person must be saved to enter the kingdom of heaven.

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I left the Amish in May of 2003 and moved in with one of my older brothers. I was 16 years old at the time and was out to explore and enjoy the world. I left with 16 dollars in my pocket, a few things such as hunting, fishing, and camping gear.

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I left the Amish "and my family" on a beautiful Sunday afternoon 10 months ago not knowing what would become of my life, not realizing what a big step I was taking.

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I left the Amish on August 18, 2007 in California, MO. We went to Wal-Mart to get some clothes, but I only had five dollars in my pockets so my brother bought my clothes.

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