Breaking the Silence: Episode VI - Our Amish Heritage: Silent No More

all right well good evening it is time for episode number 6 this is the one where it says our Amish heritage silent no more and in a lot of ways this is one of my favorite episodes for the pure reason that it is tells a little bit more about the conclusions I came to as we were making the series now there is a lot more that I would like to say and so we've been contemplating what it will take to make another season of films dealing with various stories that have to do with my heritage and one of the things that when you look at what I share tonight what I learned in in episode 6 here one of the things that comes to my mind all the time with it is that I'm still learning and I'm still growing in this but I am so grateful that there was something good in my heritage that I can latch on to and say this is what it's all about and so I know that there are always more than one site to every story and as there's always more people that have their stories and I'm just I'm hoping that you will be blessed and encouraged by the stories that you will see tonight and afterward I have a few things I want to share regarding hopefully maybe future projects and with just answering a few more questions so tonight here it is episode number 6 and let me switch over to that and will let you see it here momentarily [Music] we call them the Amish shunning modern advancements the drive horses and buggies and live without electricity where do they come from are they a culture are religion what made them who they are this film series explores the inner workings of the Amish church as told by some of their own who no longer wear black pants and bottoms for 300 years the Amish have been known as a silent in the land now a growing number of them are breaking the silence [Music] hi my name is Joseph graver I'm your host for this film series for the first fourteen years of my life I grew up Old Order Amish I know what it's like living without electricity and going everywhere with horses and buggies when I set out to create this film project I wanted to tell my parents story and to share my perspective on this unique culture and that's what we've done in the previous episodes but my parents story and my Amish history have had a huge impact on my life and so in this episode I want to take a moment to look at my journey in many ways my story begins here in the West Kootenai Valley in northwestern Montana in the early 1990s my family moved here from Missouri I came as a little Amish boy excited about life in the mountains my family lived here in this house it was here that I watched my father whether one of the worst storms of his life we decided to follow Jesus you know that's what I decided I you know it doesn't matter anymore I mean now I'll follow Jesus in the Amish church that's fine but it'll be Jesus it's not gonna be the cultural thing Bobby if it really came down to the fact that we were aware that we're either serving the Lord or reserving culture and tradition if my father had not chosen to follow Christ and been excommunicated from the Amish church he would still be in the Amish church today sewage I would be an Amish man and my sons would be growing up in the Amish culture but my father did choose to follow Christ and we were excommunicated from the Amish church today I'm not a member of the Amish church so what legacy can I pass on to my sons this question started me on a journey like many other form of Amish I don't always know what to do with my Amish background if your heritage has rejected you is it still your heritage through the process of making this film I did a lot of research and spoke with many people some were familiar with the Amish others knew my family twenty years ago but our time in Switzerland was perhaps the most helpful as I learned more of the history of the Reformation era it gave me a new perspective on my own spiritual journey many times the disagreeing factions here both called themselves Christians a really good example of this is swingley he translated the Bible into the language they understood in fact had a complete translation before Martin Luther did and then his students and the people that were following him used a very Bible that he translated to disagree with him during the Reformation era standing for the truth contra mundum against the whole world became first the ideal as seen in men like Luther when he stood before the council and said unless you can convince me by scripture and not by Pope's or councils who have often contradicted each other unless I am so convinced that I am wrong I am bound to my beliefs by the text of the Bible I cannot and I will not recant here I stand I can do no other later defending the truth contra mundum became almost an obsession as each person or group rediscover the truth they felt almost compelled to separate themselves from everyone else who did not immediately embrace it in the same way while we were in Switzerland we visited a number of castles that held Anabaptist prisoners during the Reformation era the castle trucks evolved in particular is still playing a part in the relationship between the Anabaptist descendants and a Reformed Church of Switzerland greetings from Switzerland I'm Paul Vargas pastor of the Reformed Church in the canton of Bern I often visit this place castle of talks about my ancestors were also some of those persecuted and a Baptists who came from this area here where the castle is standing when I look at this castle it's exciting to me I love exploring it I want to go up every stair in every tower I want to look into every little room but I want to take pictures of it I want to explore every nook and cranny of it but when my ancestors of the Graber family and the rest of the Anabaptist when they lived here in Switzerland these castles were not necessarily a thing of beauty for them in fact for them it was a symbol of terror sitting up on the hillside they didn't want to come visit a castle it was a place of gloom place of dread a place where people died for their faith a place where you were separated from your family for weeks and months not knowing what was happening when I'm here then I feel actually the cloud of witnesses I have a look to the present hour from here I see perfectly the barred windows where they sat in their cells I feel the prayers of these people back there all the endurance and all the strength it took faith to grow in this tough in this hard environment because of the persecution that this castle and others like it represent the early Graber family moved from here in Switzerland to what is today France where they had more freedom at that time before eventually moving on to America [Music] in this valley and throughout this whole area here near Holtville is where my Graber ancestors lived at one time before they moved to France and eventually America [Music] according to aura grabbers history of the Graber immigrants to America Peter graver moved here and in the in the late 1700s and he built this house and he built a barn here and he began farming here we're up on a high hill it's a beautiful place [Music] [Music] we're getting to the end of the journey here in Switzerland France and we're about to head home I'd like to come back I'd like to spend more time I really want my son to grow up with a better understanding of their heritage if at all possible I want to bring them back here I want to show them these places but I want us to understand history and what were the causes and effects that led things to be where they were in order to better understand the present but I do this but I want us to understand history and what were the causes and effects that led things to be where they were in order to better understand the present but I do feel a lot closer to the history now I feel close to the leaders of the Anabaptist that were over here that were being hunted down and killed sitting in that prison in the castle the other day and just sitting there for a while really may become real to me it made help that Peter was at the end of himself and he's crying specially me some chains on me he wanted to get out of there and so he helped it feel a little more real what it would be like to be so helpless this is a thought I was had with me and it turns out I think to be true that if you are imprisoned you develop like a mentality and if you cannot get rid of that if crying special needs have changed but I do feel a lot closer to the history now close to the leaders of the Anabaptist that were over here that were being hunted down and killed sitting in that prison in the castle the other day and just sitting there for a while really may become real to me it may it helped that Peter was at the end of himself and he's crying especially me start chains on me he wanted to get out of there and so I helped it feel a little more real what it would be like to be so helpless this is a thought I was had with me and it turns out I think to be true that if you are imprisoned you develop like a mentality and if you cannot get rid of that if you cannot being reconciled with the roots of your history and then tragedies that took place sometime you start to imprison yourself your people and having been a victim you then move on to be the one who makes victims or who suppresses others and this is what I saw that then they do not have stones or or shackles they have laws and orders rules stuff like this but it exactly the same thing happens when Jacob Allman came from Alsace area down here to the Emmental who was coming here to try to impose his will on other people he wasn't respecting Hans rice than the other ministers of this area he was coming to tell them what to do and wanting to use religion to control others and I don't want that I don't think that's a good part of my heritage by upholding those traditions in such a strict manner they produced a new prison this is very strange this was not a prison consisting in rocks or Timbers and bars but it was a spiritual prison and the people who are kept in there had a hard time to escape it was always impossible to get out of this new prison there's a lot of people caught in the Amish church that are not there because they want to be there they're there because their parents were there their grandparents were there they believe it's the right thing to do to be there and I believe they're misinformed but that they think it's the right thing so a lot of people are caught in excommunication and shunning is the fabric that holds the culture together take that away and you don't have an Amish culture it holds it together it has held it together all these years it was so almost haunting to see that starting here when they had so much freedom but instead of they didn't want to become like the people they were with and so they began making rules that was what I think they made the huge mistake of think they they thought that uniformity would bring unity you know from the outside when you see uniformity it looks and sometimes in this feels like unity but it's not unity it just means they look the same and so they can still have a lot of disagreement Emmonak [Music] from the days of Jacob almond until now excommunication and shunning does seem to be a theme of many Amish stories so and sometimes in this feels like unity but it's not unity it just means they look the same and so they can still have a lot of disagreement among them from the days of Jacob Allman until now excommunication and shunning does seem to be a theme of many Amish stories so when I heard something about a group of Amish going to Switzerland for reconciliation I went to the Amish community in liddie Montana to learn more we got to Lloyd Miller's house last night about 4:30 before we ate several of them Lloyd well we first came we thought we were would just have a better Amish community okay but we got intercepted by the Holy Spirit in 1995 and that dramatically altered the path we were on for from 1995 to 2002 I was personally able to go into the Amish church and bring the message of the gospel freely for the doors were open yeah and when they shut the doors to us our hearts never turned away from them so by 2001 2002 the Amish had pretty much cut ties with us did they fish thanks communicating they did not there was never an excommunication because we were sovereign group at that time okay yes I was already the leader the bishop so they could just disfellowship so they just dispeller ship to us our heart was never to leave them in the last several decades there's been a growing awareness than Switzerland of what happened 500 years ago as a result of this there was a group of people in Switzerland who were praying and asking God for mercy for their country and they wanted to ask forgiveness and tried to reconcile with the descendants of the Anabaptist that had been driven from soon after the encounter of the Holy Spirit a former Amish Mennonite couple who were part of leadership called Washington the nation's met us in a conference in Canada and Watchmen is a Canadian based ministry that goes worldwide bringing the father's heart and Nations together and they certainly brought it to us and so we were invited up to County went there in 2001 it started with a prayer movement Inc in Canada and ours some Swiss pastors and also been zeroes there as far as they know and they were brought together there was a prophet from Egypt working there and he had an impression that something is going on between the old churches and Anabaptists the delegation from Switzerland was asking is there anyone with an Anabaptist heritage that we can connect with are there any Anabaptist in America or Canada that we could connect with because we're finding this information in our libraries about what happened on Swiss soil in the 1500s they wanted to pursue reconciliation but they had one problem among the old order amish descendants of the Anabaptist that they wanted to reconcile with there was no one that would talk with them because those who were still old order amish didn't want to talk with outsiders and those who had left didn't want to identify as amish and represent the amish and so the group from Libby Montana was a real answer to prayer they identified as Amish and they were willing to participate in reconciliation they saw that they're not able to handle their own splittings without going back to the roots and forgiving the people of a state church if they still have anger bitterness things like this in their hearts they will repeat and multiply their own splittings among their own people all the time so to get healed from this addiction to splitting to overcome that they have to go back to the place where the first split took place this is go back to Switzerland the group from Switzerland actually sponsored for a group of Amish and Mennonites from America to join them in Switzerland because they said we put you out of our country we banished you and we're gonna pay your way back and we're going to apologize nationally for what happened to your father's 40 of our group here made the journey over there and general was here and the people from Zurich pastors were here other pastors were here the governor was here and they were forgiving the Harbin cafe we were wrong and you are right I forgive you I forgive me this is like a milestone a milestone of church history and of of building one body in the kingdom of Christ and then we had following conferences in different places in America and finally we had I think I was oh seven this open-air open-air we had 10,000 attendees during these three days so this was a huge impact yes [Music] in 2007 there was this toy freon it was a good time for us for example here in this place where it's his historical very important I think we never could speak with the stature from out this matter before really perhaps some times they'll try it but it never came a connection and was good for us here for us for our church it was good but it was also very good for the state Church yeah to speak together and I think it's it's near since since this time finally was like a mass movement [Music] the year of the Anabaptist had a huge impact on all those who were part of it but on all sides there are people who don't really know what's happening in 2014 pastor Paul travelled to the United States to try to connect with one such group the Old Order Amish I was a few weeks in the state's just to meet our wish bishops and to ask them for forgiveness what the state of Bern was doing to their to their ancestors this time this trip brought me to many armies in Kentucky and Indiana and upstate New York and many places and then we got the glass of water in an Amish home and in one case I could enter a home of an Amish people usually they will come out talk with me a little bit being being the wildest somehow will they be well dude and then say goodbye this was my experience they were I was try and cast out like we did to them they do too many Anabaptist descendants especially among the Amish are so bound up in the new presence of rules and ordinances and religious control that they're unable to hear the message of forgiveness and to receive it but for those of us who are able to hear the message of forgiveness and to receive it there's great freedom and these are exciting times today it's rocks of all is becoming a symbol of hope again because of the many splits that it happened here with the Anabaptist Jacob almond Hans righteous the Reformed Church today it's all coming back together reconciliation has been happening we're recognizing that now we are various parts of the body like the hand and a foot and we're different like that instead of killing each other because we're different we're now embracing our differences and there is we're finding some unity and diversity and so the castles rocks of auld has become a symbol of reconciliation and hope for the future instead of a symbol shred and go why now why why in the last 10 years has there been some reconciliation maybe it's it's again a time of favor God is giving for reconciling their reconciliation movements all around many places many churches many denominations are called in to this move and it's from the Holy Spirit just like Reformation time this was a big move of the Holy Spirit and he tries to bring people to the point where they do the first thing we promised God and Lord's Prayer that we forgive this is the only thing we promise in this prayer and with this forgiveness everything can start and if we stop there nothing can start this is the point jun'er forgave and appears hate you pursuing Saturninus when enabled and on is just wrong he crafted inherently God is a navy guy when I was growing up I was under the impression that it was the Catholic Church that was persecuting my Anabaptist ancestors but for the most part it was actually the reformed estate church that was persecuting my ancestors because both of these churches are still in existence today it can be very difficult for people who share my Anabaptist heritage to forgive them while on the journey of making this project I learned some things that gave me a different perspective on some aspects of my Anabaptist heritage one example of this is something that the Catholic Church has done in an attempt to be reconciled with its past the sad fact is that we have had to wait until really the pontificate of john paul ii in the 1980s 1990s early 2000s and his desire was to heal these old wounds which of course at that point were 500 years old and so he took it upon himself to visit different communities of protestants descendants of these early reformation movements and make apologies for her things that were done on the Catholic side the perhaps the greatest example is that john paul ii visited a community of bohemian christians who were descendants of yon hoose or as we say john hus in english john huss was a catholic priest and an early reformer he eventually gave up on reform within the catholic church and left and the bishops gathered the Council of Constance in the 1400s invited yon hoose to come and defend his positions and promised him safe passage home if he would do that he arrived at Constance attempted to defend his position and he was arrested and put to death and so john paul ii went to Bohemia and apologized 500 years later for this very offensive breaking of the word by Catholics as I've been speaking with different people it seems that many of the people who like my father made the first step out were very wounded because of Oh everything that came against them where I was protected because my father was the point man he was the one going first and I followed in his tracks okay the wounds didn't come to me no and things that happened in my life over the years there were people that I would never forgive for any who know what they did you know just you just kind of forget him you just kind of push him aside but I'm not gonna forgive him they were wrong they were just wrong and they can just go suffered you know but God spoke to me and I realized oh my goodness we're gonna have to forgive these people we had to release them in our heart and I remember quite a long list of people that I wrote down people that had over the years in some way another offended me or hurt me or just thought I felt was not right you know I had bishops names on there I meant pear my dad's name was on that list he went through each one forgave those people I got a freedom that I never had before and it just really released me I believe God had got us ready for that I was able to forgive everybody they weren't hurting us they were hurting the Lord if they were against us they weren't against us they were against the Lord that's what we saw at that time and so it was easy to just roll a burden on the Lord not them not let it get us here at the door of the castle we can explain how church history works all the time one principle is the following one if you lock someone out and close the door behind his back don't forget you're locking yourself in now for the ones locked in and being kept in prison in spiritual prison prison of legalism of principles of orders of regulations etc they have the key in their own hands at least one of the keys and they can do much for their liberation by their own they just have to know that they're the ones that turned the key when they were shunning banning others so by opening the door they would respect forgiveness in understanding of other people of other ways to follow Christ to believe in him so there is no reason why those doors shut should not be opened white in the this is a short address to all those who still are working and maybe not came to an end with their tragic history of persecution among the Amish people instead of using religion as a barrier to try and keep us safe and that's what we do with religion a lot we try to use it to make doors often to keep ourselves safe and that's wrong that's not right we should use our relationship with God to draw other people to him not as a way to separate us off from everyone else his power is strong enough that there is security and peace in him he is our fortress he is our strong tower we don't have to try to build our own protective space [Music] centuries ago some of my ancestors moved into areas in the Alsace and other places where they were encouraged yes sometimes even threatened and told you can come live here you can live out your faith you can farm you can do all of this but you must not proselytize and so my ancestors went from being flaming carriers of the gospel of Jesus Christ to being the quiet in the land people who farmed people who had big families people who were faithful religious Church attenders but people who did not share the gospel of Jesus Christ and so we say to the to the Amish don't throw away the values that came down through your parents God is calling you back to the place of the faith of our forefathers who knew what the blood of Jesus did for them and spoke about it who had a testimony and who loved not their lives unto death and I call it the inheritance that is given to us from times going by we have a responsibility to take this and to share it with those around us and with the world to break this silence and to break that that vow we made them that our fathers made in Europe that we would not evangelize we would not speak of our faith in exchange for no persecution social status and wealth the Reformation was aborted because we compromised but God is wanting to restore and to heal and to reconcile us back to him to become once again the shiny light proclaiming his name throughout the entire earth to be proclaiming the name of the Lord and and experiencing and expressing the glory of God throughout the entire earth that's our heritage that belongs to us let's not trade it just to maintain a certain culture and stay in a safe zone [Music] I was in that prison tower the other day and I started trying to figure out how much scripture would I be able to quote if I didn't have the actual Bible in my head how much would I be able to quote I would like to handle it a Christophe Rocha our Bible today from several hundred years ago and it was a big Bible and as I was flipping those pages and looking at that I and thought you know this was not practical you didn't as you were on your way out to prison or on your way out to work or whatever was happening you didn't just stick one of these Bibles in your pocket you had to like have a table to hold the Bible you didn't even sit on the chair necessarily hold the Bible in your hand you had to have a table to hold this gigantic Bible then you had to sit there and read it and you need to memorize it you know what was in it if it was gonna help you [Music] when I was nine years old my parents gave me this little German New Testament I remember taking it to school and after I'd be finished with my lessons I would sit there and begin to read it there was something about it it was my third language struggling to be able to pronounce the words but on Sundays I would see my uncle and my dad and the other ministers would be reading from the Bible and it would they had the German Bible and there's something holy about the scripture and I wanted that we'd go outside and they would read it whenever I could and and if I couldn't go outside because it was wintertime I would go up in my loft and I would hide up there and use a flashlight know how to read the Bible I've learned how to pronounce the words I really didn't know what I was reading but I somehow the sound of the words rolling over my tongue made me feel more holy and I hoped that maybe maybe if I would read enough of the Bible on Sundays some of that holiness would rub off on me I heard my parents talking my dad was telling my mom that my best friend Marion had on a Saturday morning in their house gone to his parents and said okay I want to be a Christian and he had prayed with his parents and now he was a Christian I wanted that's so bad I wanted to know that I was a Christian in 1994 I knelt here in this living room with my parents and surrendered my life to the Lord my father's faith was transferred to me and the faith of our fathers took on a whole new meaning for me later that morning I was outside and I looked up and I saw my friend Marion riding his horse coming out of the National Forest woods and as he rode up to me all I could think of was both of us are saved [Music] how did your Amish family and friends react what were some of the things that happened we would continually get it get letters from back east well one thing was we were so far far separated from our our close relatives but they I guess would hear stuff through the grapevine and and they would write us I mentioned a couple times that that Eli and Marion gave their hearts to the Lord and then later when I said that or wrote back that they were baptized one of them said oh well I thought they were baptized before and that was because they connected that giving their hearts to the Lord was automatically being baptized you know so that made me aware of that we never say that in the Amish well you never say that somebody has accepted the Lord in their heart from that point on my friend Marion his brother Eli and I started spending a lot of time together we all three of us had made a profession of faith and we became close friends after we left the Amish and were going to the Community Church we would all meet after church and we would pray together God was really working in us our boys grew up around that and at present Elias the pastor there in spite of what the Amish told us that our kids are all gonna go wild and and we're here to say proudly and honestly that our kids have all given the hearts to the Lord the summer I was 15 after a special service here in this sanctuary my father came to me he hugged me and for the first time my life he told me that he loved me I was so deeply moved I went up there to the altar I knelt down and I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ for life for ministry for His purposes I wanted to follow God the way my dad was following daughter [Music] one of the reasons why we're making this project is to help people understand the heritage and what it was because in the days of swingley and months and Griebel and lorac and on down with you know all the different leaders along the way at first it was it was we want people to have the Bible in their language and be able to read it and decide to follow Christ and again with my father that had to happen again say no every man it's not enough for us to tell you you must read the Bible and understand for yourself and make that decision today we're breaking the silence my dad went first salvation doesn't depend on good works are living a certain lifestyle or a vain Church rules are wearing certain clothes salvation comes through Jesus Christ we're all sinners and have fallen short of the glory of God in Christ our past is forgiven and erased we become a whole new creation a whole new life we cannot earn our salvation or our right to go to heaven or our right to be born again it is a free gift of God to those who are willing to receive it as the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ I get to follow in those footsteps I am so blessed to have this as part of my heritage yeah this is a true heritage this is what they forget they say heritage and they mean the way they built houses the way they cook cookies the way they wear suits stuff that's heritage to their understanding but heritage is being in the footsteps of those who I say always this is a place where the cloud of witnesses can be touched and the heritage is to know the witnesses and to go into their cloud yeah and for for Amish and Mennonites the Heritage they're always talking about charities they mean something different but we mean the actual heritage would be those steps in faith into freedom and casting or breaking all yokes and going this path of forgiveness being led by the holy holy spirit in new ways the Lord wants to lead them not just withstanding this the spirit walk what he is talking to them this is a written amen it's also like faith is more worth than life and love is stronger than death those two sentences are for me perfectly what the true heritage is of Anabaptists [Music] and it was here that the month war fund that Peter Graham had helped build I actually got to get a piece of stone I have a piece of the wall of the original House and varmitech from where the kitchen used to be I'm a blessed man to have been able to come here and walk through the houses my ancestors see the places where they lived to see some of my spiritual heritage I'm very blessed [Music] this then is my heritage men reading scripture for themselves in their own language pursuing and seeking out the truth and once they understand choosing to follow Jesus Christ 500 years ago in Switzerland men were surrendering their life to Jesus Christ and saying whatever you want with me I believe in you my father did that he read the Word of God he understood what the Lord wanted of him and he surrendered his life and that he passed that heritage down to me my moment was here in this sanctuary surrendering my life to him here that's what my ancestors did and that's what my father did that really is the faith of my father's one of the things that I've realized on this journey is that the faith of our fathers is not good enough as long as it remains the faith of our fathers it has to be our faith we individually each one of us have to realize that there is a God in heaven who created the heavens and the earth we each one of us individually must open God's Word and read it and each one of us must personally surrender our life to Jesus Christ and then once the faith of our fathers is our faith then it's good enough but it has to be alive it has to be ours so this is part of the heritage that I have received from my father's that I get to give down to my children so how about you is the faith of your father's just the faith of your father's or have you personally examine the evidence have you come and looked at the word of the Living God have you discovered that there is a God in heaven who loves you who sent his son to die for you and have you gone to the cross of Jesus Christ and surrendered your life to Him because then you too can share in my heritage [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right well thank you for staying with us we had some glitches there in the middle I have a few things I want to share so first of all I am surrounded by screens I know you can't see them but I have one right here that is monitoring what I'm doing and I have another one over here that shows the screen then I have a little switch or down here and then here I have one more and there's another computer right here so I have these all around me I will try not to be distracted by them but it is the way that I keep track of how the stream is going online so please subscribe if you haven't done so yet I would really appreciate it if you would just hit the subscribe button down there we really appreciate that and one of the things that I find very interesting a year and a half ago when we first released these films and we did a facebook life I had no idea who I would see them but during the years that we were working on the film project we would have a lot of people say oh so you're making a movie for the Amish and I'm like no no it's not for the Amish they can't watch it but in the last year and a half I have discovered that there are actually quite a few Amish people on social media in different ways we had some Amish actually Amish ministers and others that in some way or another were able to create sometimes fake accounts on Facebook so that they could watch our Facebook live last time so it is possible that I am speaking with Amish people when I'm sharing these things and three years ago when I was in the middle of making this I would never have believed it but now I do now I've actually talked with more people I see some of the things that are happening and then I have other friends who are in ministry back in Ohio and in Pennsylvania and they are and in Indiana and they get to actually interact with a lot of Amish people so I know that there are Amish people here on the platform and and what I have learned because years ago I remember having overhearing a conversation and someone was trying to tell my dad that the most important thing is just to try to get as many people to leave the Amish as possible and I remember at the time we thought we talked about it with that no that's not the point that wasn't even like just moving one person from one culture to another is not even helpful what we need more than anything is we need a personal connection with a God that can give us peace because that's what the the Bible promises us is what religion often promises all the religions of the world that somehow through this we would have peace and what we've found is that in Jesus Christ we do have peace and so it's not one denomination or one Church or the clothes we wear that can give us peace and that that's why someone who is Amish who is currently Amish going to Amish churches on Sunday keeping the ordinal can look to Jesus for peace and can put their faith in Jesus Christ for peace and and it doesn't they don't have to just run away and leave everything behind that they've ever had so another thing that I've learned in the last couple of years is there are a lot of really neat stories out there people's stories I got to share my slot of my story in this episode and I love sharing that but there's a lot of really neat stories out there and so I am looking forward to we're Stacey and I have been discussing how can we put together a plan in the midst of our other busy lives that we have with the other films we're working on how can we put together another set of stories of what God is doing in people's lives and especially stories of people who grew up Amish and who have really truly embraced the faith of Jesus Christ and so we're still talking about that how we're going to make that work but the reality is we must all return to the scripture that's the point this the point is not somewhere else is returning to Scripture and what I really thought in this episode I have known people who have met some Amish people sometimes they meet former Amish families and then they they see how those former Amish families were hurt by someone and they take up an offense and next thing you know they're bitter and they're angry and they're trying to fight on behalf of someone they're friends and it ends up making a real problem because we're not designed to do that we shouldn't be bitter because of hurts giving to other people so even if you've been watching this series if you think oh wow I've just got to go rescue all the people well we can't rescue the people Jesus can and so yes I say pray open your eyes be aware of what might be going on around you but learn to forgive others so that Jesus Christ can forgive you so you can be a clean channel of everything that he's doing and so that you can be a representative of his spirit and so that would be the most useful thing the best thing that you can do to help any Amish family anywhere all right well we are getting ready it's one week from this Sunday we're gonna be there know one week from this Monday so a week from Monday we'll be headed to Pennsylvania and I will be working on some other film projects with some of the Mennonites families there and I think also some Amish families so I'm looking forward to being back in Amish country I think it's really funny because when years ago I would tell people that go I grew up Amish they'd be like oh I've been to your hometown a bit really where was that and it's a ol n castor Pennsylvania I'm like I've never been there so this is this will now be the third time in my life that I've been to Lancaster Pennsylvania what some people thought was my hometown but it is it and I don't know if you know this but when you look at the Amish in America that the first migration of Amish landed in Pennsylvania that's why they are so distinct and then the second migration in the the 1700s they landed in Pennsylvania and then in the 1800s a lot of them landed in Ohio and Indiana and so that's why you have such distinction between the two Amish groups even though they're both Amish and they both speak the dialect they have you know so anyway that's just an interesting bit of information for free so next week we'll be showing the special feature the Amish and the Reformation is 53 minutes long and it talks some more specifically about Bible translations and how that impacted the Reformation and how that impacts the Amish to this day so check back in for that and we'll see you one week from today blessings

Channel: Breaking the Silence | My Amish Story

Views: 120,632

Keywords: Amish, breaking the silence, Graber, Grabers

Id: V5cMAfw5sDU

Length: 56min 14sec (3374 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 17 2019