My Memories Growing Up Amish — Elam Peachey

Elam Peachey shares his testimony of growing up Amish and finding Christ, opening with a clear statement that he speaks without bitterness. Using family photos and an old farm video, he walks through his roots in Belleville, his family’s farm in Mercersburg, and a turbulent adolescence of rebellion, addictions, escalating conflict with his father, and a family so troubled that social workers intervened. The turning point came after a move to New York, when an Amish preacher, Moses Fisher, told him "God can use you to change your family"—a conviction that broke him weeping in the hay barn and gave him a new heart, a hunger for Scripture, and, for the first time, love for his father. He recounts years of further struggle—leaving the Amish, near-despair, his brother Dan’s peaceful death in Christ, and his own fearful bargaining with God—until believers walked him toward assurance, he settled that baptism is under Christ (not the Amish church), and he found freedom to leave and healing with his father. He closes by urging, from Philippians 4:8, that ex-Amish and Amish alike reject a culture of gossip and dwell on what is true, noble, and praiseworthy.

Key Points:

– Elam frames his whole testimony without bitterness, wanting it to help any struggling person, and stresses that brokenness is universal, not unique to him.

– A rebellious, addicted adolescence brought escalating conflict with his strict father—once to the point of blood and a social-worker intervention warning the family to function or be split up.

– After moving to New York, preacher Moses Fisher’s word, "God can use you to change your family," broke him in the hay barn; the Holy Spirit changed him, gave him hunger for Scripture, and turned his fear of his father into love.

– Years of further struggle followed—leaving the Amish, spiraling temptations, and a fearful "bargain" with God—until his brother Dan’s peaceful death in Christ and praying believers drew him back.

– The decisive release came when God showed him no Amish preacher could stand for him on Judgment Day and that baptism is under Christ, not the Amish church—so he was free to leave, later reconciling warmly with his father.

– His closing exhortation (Philippians 4:8): both Amish and ex-Amish cultures can drift into gossip and negativity, but we should build a culture that meditates on what is true, noble, just, pure, and lovely.

Scripture References: Hebrews 11:6; Philippians 4:8; Romans 7:24-25; 2 Timothy 1:7

Guide me, O the great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land. God bless you all this morning. I’m happy to share my testimony with you. I want to be clear up front that I’m free from bitterness towards anyone from the past. So I just want to have that up front. Anything I share, it’s not out of bitterness. It’s just out of my life story, my testimony.

I’ve said before that if I wouldn’t have found Christ, I’d probably be in some psych ward somewhere, with all the stress and shame and things that I faced during my growing-up years — a lot of insecurities. But I thank the Lord for his grace. And I want to share these things for the glory of God. And I hope it could be a help to someone out there. Now I need to try to see if I can get my slides showing here.

I had pleasant childhood memories, but during my teenage years, there were some real difficulties. And I hope it can be a help to someone — whether you’re some Amish boy, Amish girl, or even some lonely person out in some big, bad city in the United States somewhere. We’re all part of the human family. We’re one blood. And even though we’re across this globe, we have many different backgrounds, many different experiences. But there are things that are similar — the idea of difficulties. None of us are immune to the difficulties, and we live in a very broken world. And yeah, there’s a lot of brokenness. And for myself, growing up, I thought that my difficulties were probably a bit unique. But the older I get, the more I realize the brokenness and the terrible things people face in life. I realized, well, my growing up probably wasn’t that bad, really.

So, go to the next slide there. That’s my family. We live in the Shippensburg, Pennsylvania area. My wife’s name is Salome — I call her Salome. A lot of Amish call her Salome. And the Latino people call her Salome. But she’s my wife, so I call her Salome. My wife’s maiden name is Byler. Her dad is Corey Byler. He’s from Belleville, Pennsylvania. And he actually lives with us. And my mother-in-law’s maiden name was Myers. She grew up in the St. Thomas, Chambersburg area. She grew up River Brethren.

Now, a little introduction about my dad. He grew up in Belleville. This is a picture of the intersection of Bunker Hill Road and 655, going down through Belleville. At that intersection, you see that property there — that was my dad’s sister, Tilly. During my growing-up years, her and her family lived there. And I have a lot of good memories of playing there as a child. But if you go back Bunker Hill Road, there’s like a Peachey’s Harness Shop, Peachey’s Farm Supply, something like that. Back there, that’s my dad’s cousin. Then there’s a farm sitting back in there — that was my dad’s grandpa’s farm. His name was Ezra Peachey also. And that’s still in the family. And here’s a picture of my dad. That’s actually on the internet. I’ve had different people over the years share his picture with me and say, hey, here’s a picture of your dad. Somehow it got on the internet.

So anyway, and here’s the property in Belleville where my mom grew up at — Garver Road, Belleville. That’s probably being farmed by a cousin of mine now. That was my mom’s home where she grew up at. Her dad’s name was Stan Hostetler. And since I don’t have a picture of my mom, I’ll share a picture of my grandmother, my mom’s mom. I’ll share a picture of schoolgirls back in the day in the Belleville area. Back in the day when, yeah, you just had the one-room schoolhouse. And so you had Amish children, Mennonite children, and community children all going to school together. So as you look at the girls there, you’ll see pictures of Amish girls. And to the left, it looks like maybe a little Mennonite girl. And then you have girls with cut hair and things like that — those are just, yeah, the community girls.

So let’s switch to my home place in Mercersburg. We lived on Churchill Road in Mercersburg. And our driveway was probably close to a half a mile long. We had double silos there — you see on the left, that was kind of a trademark of our home. I always liked those double silos. Then straight ahead, going in the driveway, you see a mountain back there. That’s Mount Parnell, close to Fort Loudon. Always, yeah, another trademark of our home. You look directly north, you saw the beautiful mountain.

Here’s a picture that I took when I was like 20 years old. As you can see, the buildings are kind of deteriorating. They just farmed the land around there. And the house is used for migrant workers during the harvest season, when they grow produce and stuff like that. Another picture at the barnyard there — the barn hill went up to the right there. We used to ride our sleds coming down that barn hill, and we had a nice long slope to ride.

And now I switch to a video that was taken years ago, in 1985, by Lester Risser. If you look to the right there, in the video you’ll see the buildings off in the distance — that was actually one place years ago. That’s Churchill Road out there. And my brother Dan is the one riding on the back of the grain binder, operating it. My dad is driving the horses. My brother Enos is running behind the grain binder. The two riding horses’ names are Jim and George. The Morgan horse’s name is Prince. So I’m definitely thankful today that my dad allowed this fella to take this video.

Yeah, so like I said, my parents grew up in Belleville, and that’s where they were born and raised, and got married there. Then my dad went to Beltsville, Maryland, to do 1-W service, I guess, during the Vietnam War. And he worked at a research farm in Beltsville. And yeah, I guess he stayed longer than he had to — he had a job offer there. And my dad and mom lived in a trailer park. My mom had electricity and stuff in the trailer park. My dad had a bicycle to ride to work, which I’ve always wondered how that was allowed. But I guess maybe there were exceptions given for different situations. And that’s where — if I’m not mistaken, that’s where my three oldest siblings were born, in Beltsville, Maryland.

And during that time, my dad was able to save up money to buy a small farm in Juniata County. And he bought that farm, fixed it up, bought some cattle and farm equipment. And yeah, he was able to resell that farm then. And then, in the late 70s, he bought this farm in Mercersburg, which was a beautiful farm. We had what we called the big woods on the backside of the farm. We could roam through the big woods — a lot of room to explore. Then we also had what we called the little woods. We had a small stream coming through the little woods. Then outside the little woods, we had the pond. And that was the background of our farm — like, looking out the back of our barn, we would see the pond and the woods. And yeah, it was definitely a very, very nice farm. And I really liked this farm there in Mercersburg.

Yeah, so in Mercersburg, there’s no longer any Amish that live there. My dad’s cousin was the first one to move there, Ben Peachey. He bought a farm out along Churchill Road, the one you can see a little bit in the video there. And then, yeah, the very late 70s, my parents bought the farm sitting right behind him, where this grain binder is operating. And then there’s another David Peachey, from Belleville — him and his family moved to Mercersburg. And then their oldest daughter got married, and then her husband lived there for a while. But yeah, probably by 1992, somewhere in that time frame, I think it was, all the other Amish families had left. And we stayed there all by ourselves without any other Amish families.

Yeah, so in our family, my mom had a total of 10 children — three girls and seven boys. My brother, Albert, he died at age six. I never saw him. Long before I was born, he was buried in Juniata County. Yeah, so that’s kind of a little bit of history of Mercersburg and my family. That’s Lester Risser up on top of the grain wagon. I don’t know if any of you out there have ever harvested grain with a grain binder and thrashing machine, but it represents a lot of hard work. In the hot part of the summer, very dusty. And we have that big straw pile — we always bring our hay baler out there, bale up the straw. Yeah, a lot of dust, a lot of hard work. And I don’t know if there’s a lot of Amish — I’m not sure, there’s probably still Amish that do it, but yeah, I’m not sure how many. With the big combines and stuff, obviously this work can be done a lot faster and on a lot larger scale. Yeah, this video is about done. But it would be interesting to hear from some of you, if you ever have done this.

All right. So here’s a picture. By the time this picture was taken, all the other Amish families had left. That’s my brother Enos riding the little black miniature horse there, called Blackie. Then my brother John, standing beside what we call Gray Pony. And that’s me, ducking under the fence. And there’s a good reason I’m ducking under the fence. I had some pretty vivid memories. It was some months before this took place, where we were riding down the road in the buggy, and a car came up behind us, and somebody was taking a picture of us. And I waved at them. When we got home, my dad gave me a good licking and explained to me quite well: when somebody wants to take your picture, you look the other way. You don’t pose. You don’t wave. You don’t smile.

Then Chris Lopez came up with his camera to take our picture. I said, no, Chris, don’t do it. And his camera went up anyway. And I ducked. I was going to save my hide that day. I’m pretty sure my brothers there got spankings for posing and smiling for this one.

But yeah, during my childhood, I have a lot of good memories. Like I said, we had the big woods and a lot to explore. And I have good memories of being a little boy, and my dad taking us young ones out for strolls in the woods on Sunday afternoons or holidays and different things like that. And I have a lot of good memories of friends and stuff that would come to visit us on the farm. Actually, this Chris Lopez, he was a schoolteacher for us for a while when the other Amish families left. There was a John Christner family that moved from Kansas to the area. They did school with us. And then Danny Byers, his family did school with us — two other families. Then Chris Lopez was our teacher, and actually lived with us during that time, that first year.

So yeah, very good. I’ll get to the next one. Obviously, this is a picture when we were older. And when I think of this picture, I think it is a low time in our family. Us boys are getting rebellious. We’re not listening to Dad. And yeah, we made a lot of friends in the community. Some of the influences weren’t good. We’d sneak out the windows at night, when Dad was in bed, and go and watch movies and do tobacco, drink beer. And of course, we even did marijuana there towards the end. And it was definitely a time for a change. I was scared where things were headed. This picture was taken in November of 1997. And yeah, it was a pretty rough time over this time. And I was actually scared where my life was headed.

And obviously, all the rebellion and things we did caused a lot of stress on the whole family. And yeah, my dad hardly knew what to do. He got stricter and stricter, and spanked us harder. And yeah — even one time, in an argument between my dad and I, things got pretty bloody, if I can say it that way. And it left a resemblance on my face of it, and people would come around and ask what happened. And eventually some social workers showed up, which really shook up my dad. They were actually a privately run organization that was working on keeping families together, but helping them function the way they should. And when my dad got really upset with them, they warned them — they said, we’re not here to take your children from you, we’re here to keep your family together. If you don’t comply, we’ll have to turn you over to the state, and you will lose your family. So that really was a scare.

So, yeah — and actually, when this picture was taken, my parents were at a wedding in New York, in 1997. And by then, things were, yeah, like I said, things were pretty shaky. And my dad started shopping around for land up in New York. So the move finally came. Sorry, my mouth is getting really dry. Do you mind if I quickly pause and get a cup of water? I’ll be right back.

Sorry, I was sipping out of a cup of coffee, and that wasn’t helping with my dry mouth. Yeah. So, by May of 1995, we made a big move to New York State. I was ready for an escape. I wanted out of Mercersburg, away from all the influences. And I had hope that something good would come out of that. And yeah, life was so rough, so difficult. I was so scared where I was headed, and I had no wisdom or ability — it seemed like I was under the control of, yeah, maybe dark forces and bondages and addictions.

So, not too long after we were there, I have a good memory of being at an Amish barn raising, which was my first time to be at anything like that. And it was an amazing, amazing event — to see a barn go up that fast, and so much work get done. And towards the end of the day, I saw my brother Enos talking to an Amish fellow. And I walked over to hear what the conversation was about. He was telling this Amish fellow everything about our family — just all the stress, the yelling, the arguing, I think maybe even drugs and alcohol — and telling this Amish fellow how bad we were. And I was, like, super embarrassed. I was so humiliated. But it didn’t take long for word to spread that we were a troubled family. We needed help. We needed help to get together and open up conversation.

And eventually the Amish preachers thought they need to have a meeting with us all together, all at the same time. So they scheduled a meeting. Seven Amish preachers came to our house — preachers, deacons, bishops, whatever they were — and wanted all our family members to be there, which the ones from Pennsylvania didn’t show up. They didn’t want to be part of that. But we all sat in our living room, and each preacher took their turn saying their thing. And they didn’t understand what it takes for a family to function. But they all had their little message, and asked my dad to make comments. My dad wouldn’t say anything. Asked his children if we had any questions or comments. Yeah, everybody just totally quiet.

So afterwards is where the amazing thing happened for me. My life changed. One of the Amish preachers was talking to me. His name was Moses Fisher. That’s one of the first memories I have of any adult, outside my parents I should say, talking to me in such a personal way. And I was telling him that it doesn’t work for me to be a Christian. You know, there’s too much stress. I get angry at my dad. We argue, and things just don’t work and function around here. Then Moses Fisher said, well, God can use you to change your family.

That convicted me of my selfishness, and also touched an area in my heart that I desired. I desired change. I desired our family to be better. But I never connected the dots that I could be a link to that, or an instrument to help bring the change. But that spoke faith to me. It spoke life to me. And I don’t know — the next days, or maybe even it turned into weeks, I’m not sure, it was a fairly long period of time — where, when I went to bed at night, that conviction was on me. When I got up in the morning, it was on me all day. It was, like, day and night, I couldn’t get away from that conviction, and that idea that God could use me to change my family. It’s definitely the Holy Spirit working.

And we were still milking cows by hand at that time. And one evening, we were in the barn milking. And that conviction, that emotion, just kept growing. And that evening it came to a breaking point. And any of you that know anything about cows — you don’t just walk away from a half-milked cow, because the cow can get mastitis, the cow can even die from that. And that was something I was taught well from a little boy — to make sure the cow’s milked well before you leave the cow. Well, that evening it was a battle between me or the cow. I was worried about my family seeing something, some emotion in me, or seeing tears in my eyes, or seeing something that wasn’t normal, other than a stoical Amish boy, right, without any emotions. But that feeling came stronger. Finally, I was like, I’m abandoning this cow. Like, there’s no way anybody can see me cry or see some kind of emotions — you know, they might think something’s majorly wrong. It would draw a lot of attention to me.

So I quickly grabbed my milk bucket, went and dumped it in the milk tank, and I ran to the hay barn, and I found a quiet spot all by myself up in the hay barn. And I just wept and I cried. I prayed and just poured my heart out to the Lord. And that went on for quite a while, until finally I was like, wow, I’ve got to get my emotions under control, because somebody’s going to wonder where I’m at by now. So yeah, got myself all straightened out and looking solemn again, the best I could.

And so the next memory I have from that is seeing my dad. All these years, I looked at my dad and I was always scared of him. And I viewed him like — he looked like some kind of scary monster, basically. And now I looked at him for the first time in my life, and it’s like, wow, my dad’s actually a good-looking fella. And it’s like I never saw that before, or whatever — a scary monster. And I didn’t have any theology back then, you know, of what "born again" is, or anything like that. Well, I shouldn’t say I didn’t have any idea. But yeah, I didn’t have any theology behind it. But it was definitely the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit came into me that day and changed my life. And I even went to talk to my dad, and I told my dad I want to obey him now. And I’m not sure what I said to him — obviously, there was a strained relationship for many, many years. So it felt really weird to do that. And I talked to my dad about it years later, and he remembered that there was a change, which, yeah, to me I took as a huge compliment, for him to acknowledge that.

But yeah, there were challenges ahead. Obviously, there was still a lot of stress in our home. There was a lot of conflict connected to that. And he kept getting on my dad — telling my dad he needs help, he needs his hernia fixed. And finally he gave my dad a deadline: if you don’t have it fixed by a certain time, I’m going to get it fixed. Well, my brother Enos had left home — he was two years older than me. And then another thing that happened: my brother John turned 21, and he moved back to Path Valley. Now, I was the oldest boy at home, so a lot of responsibilities fell on me — things like hauling manure and things like that.

So obviously, the enemy is always out to rob, kill, and destroy. Yeah, my relationship with my dad had gotten a lot better, but then a lot of farm responsibilities came on me. So one of the things that was really bad was hauling manure — that became, of course, my responsibility now. And there were breakdowns that took place. Some of them were my fault, and some of them were outside my control. But each breakdown caused conflict with my dad. And the manure spreader parts and all that came from the Lancaster area. So any breakdown, we had to get a part from Lancaster, and it was a cold winter — it was New York. But during that time, some terrible things took place between my dad and I. And I got really discouraged, to the point where I said, I’m leaving when I turn 18.

So, yeah, I started marking the calendar. I mean — here the Holy Spirit had come, done an amazing work. Another thing I forgot to mention is that, after that experience in the hay barn, I had a tremendous hunger for the word of God. And I had a little pocket testament I would take with me out to the field, or wherever I was, and I would read it every day, just devour it. And it became a real source of life for me. And I began questioning a lot of things in Amish, without any kind of outside influences. Like, as I read the Bible, it’s like, wow, where is this happening? I don’t see this happening in my community.

Then another thing that took place — it happened to be instruction class. Every two years, the Amish have instruction class. And I was really battling. I knew, this instruction class thing — if I go through it and I get baptized, it’ll sort of tie me in with the Amish. If I would ever desire to leave, then I would get excommunicated. And I had the idea that if I would leave the Amish after I get baptized, then I would probably go to hell when I die. So that was a real warfare going on in my life, a real challenge. And I went through with it.

And then, of course, the manure spreader breakdowns during the winter — that was a real discouragement. And it just seemed like my life crumbled. And it seemed like my relationship with my dad went really bad, like worse than ever. It was almost like — it had improved, I mean, it had improved a lot, and it gave me great courage. And then, when it failed, it was just like a huge discouragement. I was out the door. I actually left a letter on my pillow that night. Yeah, I snuck out at night. I left a note for my dad — yeah, I wrote some stuff on there that wasn’t very kind.

So anyway, so here’s a picture. After I’d moved to Mercersburg, I actually moved in with a neighbor named Bob, back the lane from the farm. That’s actually his barn there. And that’s a picture my brother Dan took. Dan was my oldest brother. He had left Amish and all that. And he stopped in for a visit one time, and took a picture of me. Then also a picture I’d showed previously — my brothers and I, there was Scott and Marvin, two fellows with us. The Holy Spirit was actually really working in Scott’s life. Scott had made a real change in life, started going to church. And then Marvin had gotten himself in a lot of trouble with the law, lost his driver’s license. So those two fellows came and visited me also. Scott was going to church. And he started taking Marvin to church. And he came to visit me and invited me to come to church with him also.

So I went to the United Brethren Church — St. James United Brethren Church, on Warm Spring Road. And that’s me. That’s not normally the way I dress going to church now — in that picture, we were in a play, and I was a Bible character. And I’m sorry, it’s been too long ago, I can’t remember what Bible character I was at that time. Then I also got myself a job working with Jason Johns in Mercersburg. This is a picture of a building we’re building in the St. Thomas area, for East Coast Greens Landscaping. On the weekends, we did farming and stuff. That’s Jason Johns farming there — and he really liked his International tractor. And also on the side, that’s my Ford Ranger, the first vehicle I ever owned. Jason’s son, Nathan, and I did some lawn mowing on the side. So I worked for him for a number of times, until I got a job offer at Precast Systems in Williamson, the nutrient house company. So that’s me after we set some walls.

And then there were also some real kind people that reached out to me. I was like a wandering Amish, just running from my troubles, and wasn’t really finding a lot to reconcile with life and all its troubles. This fellow, Bill Nichols, he was actually an old friend of my dad. After I left, he reached out to me, and he would come and visit me. And then for Thanksgiving, he actually came and picked me up, took me to his house. And I was still 18 at that time. And that was that first Thanksgiving there. Then Leon and Donna Witter are really, really nice people that have a real, real kind heart. They had two boys about my age. They were part of the United Brethren Church. Yeah, they were a real comfort and stability.

Then also my brother Dan, during his late 20s — he was still single, and he started struggling with the Amish. And he eventually left the Amish. And that’s what he looked like when he would come and visit me there in Mercersburg. So he would talk to me about the Lord and different things. And for myself, I was like, I’m a bad boy, and I know it. And my brother Dan is some religious person — he got baptized also and left the Amish. And he’s probably on his way to hell and doesn’t know it. But see, that was the confusion I was in. So as he would talk to me about the Lord, I would kind of put up a wall. I’d listen, and I’m thinking, okay, you didn’t keep your commitment to the Amish, you broke your vows. Yeah. And it just added to the confusion.

And as time went on, even though I left the Amish, I was telling myself I’m not going to return to the old life of alcohol or drugs or anything like that. I’m going to keep myself set apart. I don’t want to fall into bondage and be ensnared by alcohol and stuff again. But as time went on, my life started slipping. A friend of mine and I, we rented a house together. Eventually he got a girlfriend, and she moved in with him. My brother Dan would come and visit, and he’d see all this. And he became very concerned about that. And he would talk to me about it, and I’d feel very convicted. But I couldn’t listen to Dan, because I was sure he was deceived. And I did not want to get deceived — the last thing I want to happen to me.

So one night, I went to bed. Dan had actually given me a phone call that evening and talked to me. He was really concerned with the decisions I was making, and things I was allowing into my life. And I knew he was right. But again — he’s the deceived one, he’s the bad fella, he’s deceived and he doesn’t know it, kind of thing, was my view. And I went to bed. I was wrestling that night. And I would always get up at four in the morning to go to work. And the war that was going on in my heart went on and on, and I could not sleep. I was just battling. I was tossing, I was turning. And I was running everything through my mind — of the commitment I made to the Lord, and I was baptized in Amish, and all those different things. And I was so confused. And, you know, even after I was baptized, I had a lot of battles, a lot of struggles. And I would always battle with the thought of dying — you know, would I actually go to heaven, or would I go to hell?

There was a lot of fear in my heart about hell, about Judgment Day, to the point where I’d even have nightmares at night. So that’s how much I feared hell. And I felt like I’d never reconciled that whole thing, or totally found peace in my heart that I was right with God — even during my Amish years, even after I had found Christ up in the hay barn. And to me, I was kind of like, wow, I have friends, life is good — as long as brother Dan doesn’t come around and convict me. And I made a terrible commitment that night, a terrible thing. God is merciful, but yeah, it was scary what I said. I pretty much said to God that — that idea of not finding peace, or not being reconciled with God, or not knowing how to reconcile life and its troubles along with finding peace with God — I just said, you know what, I’ll just live the life that I’m living, I’ll die, and at least I’ll know where I go then, rather than wondering where I’ll go. I’ll just live my life peaceful and do my thing, and when I die, yes, I know I’ll go to hell, but that’s fine. What a terrible thing.

But the battle was over then. It was probably about midnight by then, and then I fell asleep. But it seemed like, after I made that commitment, that my life just spun even more out of control. Like, yeah, it was scary. For an example — crazy temptations that I never had before. Like, I had a friend that would tell me about how he used to shoplift, and how fun it was, and thrilling, and how scary — you’ll go to jail if you get caught shoplifting, he would tell me — but he would tell me how fun it is. And I was like, wow, that sounds like an exciting thing to do. So I started dreaming of shoplifting. Thankfully, I never did. But that’s just one example of temptations that started coming into my life that I never dreamed of having. I dreamed of doing things that never even entered my mind of doing before. And that’s how scary things were getting.

But here I get a phone call. And — I’m talking about alcohol coming into my life, my life was just going out of control, and I was getting depressed, I was getting scared of where I was headed again. But I didn’t have any anchor in my life. Scary, scary. But one night I get a phone call from my sister, saying that Dan is in the hospital, he needs to do a surgery, he’ll die. And I said, no way. So I called Dan. He sounded very weak. Yeah, he ended up in the hospital. But he wasn’t planning on taking any surgery — I guess it was a very risky surgery years ago, I don’t know, I don’t understand everything. But as time went on, sure enough, he died. And I was standing beside his hospital bed while he was drifting off to eternity and dying. And I could not believe it.

There were Charity kind of people in that room. There were the Slavic people from the Slavic church — like Russian and Ukrainian people — that my brother Dan fellowshiped with. And they all came and spent the day there praying, reading the Bible, singing to Dan as he was dying. And I was thinking, wow, if this was me, I would be so scared. But Dan — he did wrestle some, but he managed to find peace that he’s going to die. It was so scary. But Dan had requested a prayer for me. So these people knew who I was, because, yeah, he had asked them to pray for me different times. So right there, they had a fish on the hook. And I’m so thankful for that. Eventually, Dan died, and all the monitors went to zero. Dan was gone. And I just broke down, started weeping. But those people gathered around me, prayed for me. And yeah, they became real friends.

Then after the funeral, and everything was over — yeah, I was working for this concrete company. I didn’t have to work at that time, I was laid off work. I was home all by myself. And of course, the old life was, watch TV, you know, do those old things. But I tried to do it, there was no meaning to it. I turned the TV on, turned it off. I hate that thing. Where will I go when I die? I guess my mind had changed, seeing the peaceful death that Dan went to — that he went to heaven when he died. But what about me? Where would I go? I guess it was a time when death was really real, and I was so scared.

So that one evening, I remember being at my house. I was invited over to someone else’s house — those were the people that were at Dan’s bedside when he died. And that day, I just felt I was lost. I was between a rock and a hard spot, and I just cried out to God. And I couldn’t wait to go to these people’s house. I had so many questions. So that night, we stayed up till probably two o’clock in the morning. I had lots and lots of questions for these people. And I’m very thankful that they spent the time with me to answer those questions. But that became sort of a routine — people would invite me to their house, and I was just full of questions.

But one battle was, I made this commitment to the Amish church, as long as I live. What would I do with that? I don’t want to die and go to hell. So that was a real warfare. But I finally came to the decision that I can’t reconcile the thing of — yeah, I see all these Christian people around me now, people that are so godly — but for me, I’ve got to keep my commitment. So I came to the conclusion, I need to go back to the Amish. I need to keep that commitment. I’ll be a Christian, and I’ll be an Amish, the day I die. That was my commitment. So that’s what happened next.

I went back to the Amish. And here’s a beautiful verse that came real to me during my instruction class in the Amish. It’s the only thing that I remember that was very impactful — Hebrews 11:6. So I went back, I had a lot of courage — I had a lot of people, I was reading the Bible a lot, I was reading good books, just putting good things into my life. Back to the Amish I went. I knew I could stand, I would stand strong, and all that. But going back to the Amish — I went to the youth singing, and different things, and it just seemed like there’s so much lightheartedness around the people. Life is a party. And I got really discouraged with that. It only lasted six months.

So one evening, I was coming home from the youth singing. It was a beautiful full moon, and I was driving my horse and buggy, open buggy — it’s a beautiful evening, and there’s the moon, so beautiful. And I was just praying, God, I need you. Like, I just felt like, when I prayed, it seemed like he wasn’t there. And I even had hit a period where I was like, is God even real? Just a warfare. But this verse here really gave me courage. So that evening, I just felt like God spoke to my heart, saying, you need to leave. Like — God didn’t speak in an audible voice, but I just felt this impression. I need fellowship if I’m going to survive spiritually.

But then that question — what about my baptism? How can I leave, you know, with these things hanging over me? And I really started praying really hard. And I would go up to the hay barn, just pray, pray, pray. My prayers became more fervent, more intense. I was just crying out to God. And then — one thing that stuck out to me, it’s almost like words were put in my mouth — I started praying, God, make me holy. Where did that come from? Like, that sounds really weird to my mind. I felt like it was almost the Holy Spirit praying through me. God, make me holy. Meaning that, during these intense prayer times, God was convicting me of things in my life that weren’t right. And I just wanted everything removed from my life that wasn’t right. So I started praying, God, make me holy. God, make me holy. Those became part of my daily prayers. And I was really seeking God for direction. What about this baptism thing? And — I mean, you have to be Amish, you have to almost live this to understand how real it is. It’s ingrained in me from childhood.

So here God spoke to me again. I was out chopping thistles out at the pasture one day, and I was just really pondering and praying about these things. And I almost had — this might be just an Elam thing, I don’t know if anybody else ever had this, and nobody told me this, it was just an impression that I got during my growing-up years — that I felt like, you know, surely on Judgment Day, if somehow I’m missing it with God, surely one of the Amish preachers will come forward, or the bishop or somebody, and intercede for me and go to bat for me, and somehow maybe persuade God to let me get into heaven. I mean, I wanted to go to heaven. I was so scared of hell. Anyway, I was out chopping those thistles, and this impression came on me — it was the Holy Spirit speaking to me, saying that on Judgment Day, it’ll just be me standing before Christ. There will be no Amish preachers that have the ability to come and bat for me. I’m his.

And I had an idea that for the Amish to baptize me, and have that tied in with being part of the Amish church — yeah, that’s unbiblical. The baptism is a baptism under Christ, not to a church or a certain denomination or whatever. And there was my answer. And I felt free to leave. That’s the very answer I needed. So, first things first — I went to a phone shanty, made a phone call, and made arrangements. And then I moved to Shippensburg from there. Yeah, there were definitely a lot of battles, a lot of challenges.

Let me see where I’m at. Okay. Then, the idea with the scripture verse — it’s so important to have songs to sing also, like songs that would be meaningful and minister. So I moved to Shippensburg. It’s been a little over 20 years ago now since I moved to Shippensburg. That’s a picture that was taken soon after I moved to the area here. But there were still, yeah, battles ahead. I went to a Charity Bible school, and a lot of emotion there, counseling and different things happening there. Counselors told me I need to confess all my sins — everything I could think of. And then they had a list of things: you need to go and make X, Y, all these different things — you need to go to these certain people, make things right, confess to them. And so that’s what I did. It was hard to do. It was embarrassing. But I thought it was the right thing to do, to go and maybe visit certain people, tell them I’m sorry for things that I did with them, sins and whatnot.

Then also my dad — yeah, the first time I went home to visit after I left there, my dad just yelled at me. It was a terrible, terrible time. But then finally the day came when my wife and I started our courtship, started our relationship. And I wanted to be the one to tell my parents about it, because my mom had said, if you ever marry one of these Charity girls, I don’t want to see her face. Well, a lot has changed over the years. And I prayed a lot that night, and went to New York, saw my dad. I told my dad — I couldn’t use the word — I said to my dad, I love you. But I said to my dad, I like you. Like, there’s no word for love in Pennsylvania Dutch that I know of. So I said to my dad, I like you. And my dad actually — I felt like it really relaxed him. And I said, I’m sorry for all the bad stuff I’ve done, and different things. And my relationship with my dad has really improved drastically after that.

Yeah, so — I feel like my time is running out here. So here we have a verse. "Finally, my brethren." And I’m sharing this verse in light of leaving the Amish. I was really worried and concerned that I am on the right path. Right then, I wasn’t so much worried about the Amish — I was like, am I doing the right thing, am I making the right decision? But after I left the Amish, I encountered a lot of ex-Amish that would tell me, oh, horrible things about the Amish — just on and on and on, the list would go, horrible sins and abuse and all these different things. And it fed me negative things. So in our life, we need to focus on things that are — let’s just read this verse here. "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are noble, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, meditate on these things."

So here’s the thing. In too many of our communities, in our churches, we have a culture of gossip and speaking, telling all the bad stuff about everybody else. And in the ex-Amish culture, I’ve seen that too — in Amish culture, no doubt. I only lived in an Amish community two and a half years of my life. But if the ex-Amish have the problem, it probably comes from the culture of the Amish. And we need to deal with it. We want a community with a culture of things that are true, noble, just, pure, lovely, good report, virtue, praiseworthy. Those are the things we want to meditate on. That’s the culture we want to create.

I’m going to shift things a bit here, but — I’m out of the Amish now, and I remember all this stuff I was being fed, I was around some of these people. And I remember just feelings of bitterness rising up in me. In the Amish, I had an Amish preacher tell me, in New York, that I don’t really know the Amish — that I’m judging the Amish with the way I was raised, and with my family, the bad experiences I had with my dad and stuff like that. So I had this impression that Amish are pretty good people, but I needed to go where I have fellowship and stuff like that. And then, being around ex-Amish, they say all this bad stuff. And any people group, you’ll find bad stuff. But I’m just saying — I mean, we need to expose sin and all that, but we meditate on the words that are underlined: they’re true, noble, just, lovely, good report, virtue, and praiseworthy. So that’s the life I want to build in myself.

And of course, with all the battles of the past — this is another verse that became precious to me: "What a wretched man, what a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" And I just felt like that at times. I had wars, I had battles, things to overcome. "Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord." So yeah, that’s beautiful things to meditate on — these beautiful verses, and have a life of prayer, you know, quoting scripture and singing. Seems like I’m missing a verse here — I’m not sure, there’s one in Timothy about — I’m not sure what happened to it — where it’s about, God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind. I just remember praying that out loud when fears wanted to retake me, where I would just pray scripture, and songs I would sing.

So — I feel like I went over my time, and I’m really sorry about that. I need to pop back and stop sharing my screen.

Good. Well, thank you so much for sharing, and don’t feel bad about the time. It was very, very worthwhile to hear every bit of it. You talked about threshing in your childhood, and the experience that was. The threshing thing, yeah — I could just close my eyes and hear the sounds, and smell the smell, and see it all over again. It just really brought memories back right there. But yeah, it was just really encouraging to hear about how, even when you gave up on God, God never gave up on you. That hunger that you had different times — God just met you where you were. That’s really encouraging.

Thank God for his grace and his mercy. And thank you for being here. Whatever your difficulties, your experience — you have made the choice not to walk in bitterness, not to just focus on the negative, but go on in a positive way. And I appreciate that about you. So, yeah — with everything we’ve shared, thank God for his grace and mercy. We’re going to have you back on again — we’re going to hear more about what life’s been like since, and what you’ve learned and all that, right? Yeah, I think maybe next month I’ll do something like "Leaving Amish Matters," or "Ex-Amish Matters" — just touching on things that people leaving the Amish, things they face, and how to work through, you know, roadblocks and stumbling blocks, and things to help make good choices or whatever, you know.

Yeah, definitely look forward to that. And for the rest of you that are on here, and others that watch this later — be in prayer for Elam’s brothers and parents who are still living. We want to see the gospel at work in his family. All right. I’d like to open it up — if there’s anybody else that would have anything to say, share, feel free to let us know. And I think everybody’s unmuted, as far as I know. Just go ahead, and if you have any questions or comments, feel free to say so. We’d love to hear from our audience.

Yeah, I really appreciate your story about coming to the Lord. It’s very encouraging. I can very much identify with that. I was wondering a little bit — you talked some about your dad, and I would like to hear how your relationship was with your mom. Would you explain a little bit on that? Okay — you said you heard a lot about my relationship with my dad, but not so much the relationship with my mom, is that right? Yeah, right. I was just wondering a little bit. Not that I know of anything — it’s just, I’m just kind of curious.

Yeah, well, I would say my mom was a real serving kind of person. Like, almost — can I say almost too much, or more than she, I don’t know. Like, we’d get up in the morning, and in the cold wintertime, sit beside the stove — she’d bring our shoes, bring our socks. We’re big boys. And, you know, I mean, she had a very kind heart. She loved to serve. But I’m just saying, like, we were big boys, we could get — I would tell my boys, you go and get your own shoes and socks, kind of thing. No, she was very serving. It’s taken her a long time to accept my family and I — yeah, way longer than my dad. Okay. Very well. Thank you.

Very good. I’m not sure — I can hear my echo and it kind of bothers me. Yeah. Thanks for sharing, Elam. John Christner from Kansas — can you hear me now? Yeah, John Christner from Kansas. Yeah, we can hear you. Okay. Well, I sure appreciate that Elam got clear with the Lord many years ago, and that we’ve still been able to be friends. Hey, John, we’re actually having a really hard time hearing you. I’m sorry — I don’t know if it’s on our end or on your end. Yeah, we can hear you better now. Okay. I just wanted to say that, through hearing Elam’s testimony, and knowing Elam the way that I do — I really feel like anybody that listens to this and wonders about his testimony, he is for real. And these things in his life, I got to see a lot of them, a lot of his changes, and enjoyed that and appreciated that. And this morning, on this testimony, I learned some things that I can help other people with too, from what Elam said. And so I appreciate that. And I just wish all those that want to follow Jesus, I wish for them a safe path into the kingdom.

I don’t know if you can hear me or not, but — can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. Okay. It’s been a very worthwhile hour to be on the phone line here. And I really appreciated your testimony. And I think that’s a very important thing for us, to not look in the wrong direction. And I also had a question — how did you make connection with Shippensburg when you were Amish in New York? Yeah. When my brother Dan died in the hospital, there was a couple there by the name of Emanuel and Rhoda Beiler. They were part of Shippensburg Christian Fellowship at the time. And yeah, I connected with them at the hospital, after my brother Dan died.

Thank you, everybody that came on. Thank the Lord for his marvelous grace. Brother Elam, would you close us in prayer this morning? Sure. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for this beautiful morning, Lord. Thank you for this time together, sharing. And I thank you for life. Jesus, you came to give us life, and provide us with a more abundant life. This broken world, and all the pain, and the people that are suffering in our society — we pray, Jesus, that the light of the gospel could shine. And we pray that our church communities could be a shining example, and be a testimony to this broken world. Father and Lord, I pray for the words that I shared this morning, that they could only minister life. And Lord, that a testimony could go forth of your ability to deliver from sin, and giving grace, and the ability to forgive. Father, we just pray for the advancement of your kingdom, and for your name to be glorified, in the precious name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Well, everybody’s dismissed. And you all have a good day. Praise the Lord.