This post will focus on our visit to the Amish country that is near Lancaster, PA. I’ll also post a gallery of photos below. We actually visited the Amish two different days. One was later in the evening where we visited the school house replica in the images below and watched a very interesting multimedia presentation about the choices that children make who are born to Amish families, typically as a teen, to be baptized into the Amish church or go into the world and live a non-Amish lifestyle.
The second visit to Amish country was more lengthy. We stayed on the bus for much of it and had a Amish Mennonite man ride with us to tell us more about his heritage, the Amish, the Mennonites, and Amish Mennonites. Until then, I did not realize there was an in-between group which took aspects from both Amish and Mennonite beliefs. Our guide was very interesting to listen to and he shared candid information about how many in the Amish church struggled with certain things concerning spirituality and having a strong relationship with Jesus Christ. I mean, a relationship that goes beyond culture and family expectation. I didn’t get an opportunity to tell him, but that is a truth that plagues most faiths, each one just wraps the issue in different trappings 🙂
One big take-away that I learned was that many of the Amish in that region are wealthy and they struggle with holding fast to tradition. Yea, so maybe that’s two things. Now, here are the photos:
