The Amish way of living

The founder of the Amish Community is Jakob Ammann. He was born on the 12 February 1644, in Switzerland. He was an Anabaptist, and that means that he believed in god. Jakob died between 1712-1730, he died of unknown reasons. Jakob broke away from the Swiss-Mennonites in the late 1660's , because the lack of strictness. Jakob was invited to USA by William Penn in 1730. They settled down near Lancaster Country, Pennsylvania. The first thing that Jakob did, was to invent “ Shunning”, that means if the Amish people expel you from the community, you can never return. The language they speak is Pennsylvania-Dutch , its a mix between German and English. The Amish people now live in 24 different states. They are Mennonites, which means that they are Christian Anabaptist. The Amish people don't use any form of electricity. They say that if they use electricity, they would speed-up the things. And the Amish like to live their life slow, and enjoy it. They have jobs for everyone, even grandma and grandpa. And they either don't drive cars, they drive in Buggy's. A Buggy is a wagon that is pulled by one or two horses. The Buggy’s are dangerous to drive in the traffic with, because they are really slow. An Amish child has 8 years of ordinary school, then they can have some extra if they want. The Amish schools are very small, and they can only teach the basic things. If the parents want their child to learn more they send them to public schools. When the Amish teenagers become 16 years old they can live like the “ English” teenagers. They are allowed to do whatever they want. Then they have to make an extremely hard choice, they can choose to stay Amish or become “ English”. Statistics say that 85 % choose to stay Amish, and live with their parents.