Another special day with the Amish family

🌾🐴 Yet another very special day with the Amish in Pennsylvania! 🇺🇸❤️ Today our Amish host family had a family visit planned, but it actually worked out perfectly, because we had a rather special arrangement of our own. 🤩 Our contact had arranged for us to visit and have dinner at another Amish family’s home. And once again we were met by an incredibly warm, open and hospitable family. ❤️ The parents were roughly our age, and they had… hold on tight… 11 children! 😲 Nine of them still live at home, so there was really a lot of life in the house. Several of the children were home, and before long Villads had teamed up with some of the ones his own age. Soon they were fully into playing, while we grown-ups fell into a good chat with the parents. 😊 The most fascinating part was how curious they were about our life in Denmark, exactly as we were about theirs. When we told them about our everyday life, school, work and life in Denmark, there were constant comments like: “Wow!” and “Is that really true?” 😄 And in the same way, we were surprised and curious ourselves when they told us about their life and everyday routines. It was really exciting to discover how differently you can live, while at the same time realising how many things we actually have in common. The family was so hospitable that they actually invited us to come back in the evening and stay overnight with them. We were truly grateful for that, but politely declined, since we knew our host family would be home, and we wanted to get back to them and continue our stay with the family we were living with. ❤️ After the visit we therefore went back to our host family, where we helped out on the farm. 🚜🐔 Here it was completely normal for the family’s 10-year-old son to drive the tractor around the fields. He’s actually been doing it since he was 8. The tractor is used as a work tool, and that’s allowed within their congregation. We also helped the host family collect eggs from the hens, and even though it might sound like a small thing, it was really a lovely experience to do together with the kids. 🥚❤️ We’ve now had dinner, and in a little while we’re heading back over to the family again for another cosy evening around the bonfire. It’s truly an experience we won’t forget for a long time. 🌾 Fun Amish facts: 👉 They’re not allowed to own or drive a car, so transport happens by horse and buggy. 🐴 👉 They are allowed to use a tractor as a work tool on the farm, but only if their congregation accepts it. 🚜 👉 Many Amish families don’t use ordinary electricity from the grid, but some have alternative solutions like solar panels, batteries or generators for certain purposes. This family actually had both solar panels and a generator on the farm. ☀️⚡ 👉 They speak an old German dialect (Pennsylvania Dutch) with each other at home, but learn English at school and speak it fluently. 🇩🇪🇺🇸 👉 The children typically go to school through 8th grade. After that they often start working at home on the farm or learning a trade. 👉 Many Amish families live without TV and modern entertainment technology. Instead they spend a lot of time together as a family with games, talking and visiting each other. ❤️ 👉 They often have very clear rules about which modern conveniences they’ll use. It’s not necessarily about rejecting everything new, but about choosing what fits into their way of life. 👉 It really feels like stepping 100 years back in time. Several of the men look almost like Uncle Anders from the old ‘Father of Four’ films, with full beards, suspenders and straw hats. 😄 👉 Amish families are very Christian and take religion very seriously. We said grace both before and after the meal at the family we visited today. It’s hard not to be impressed by the calm, the strong sense of community and the hospitality they live with every single day. 🌾❤️ It’s fantastic when your own kids are learning something, and Villads exclaims “this is way better than a 5-star hotel” 👌 Again, no recognisable photos of the families ✔️