Growing Up Amish

Title: GROWING UP AMISH
Author: Ira Wagler
Publisher: Tyndale
June 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4143-3936-8
Genre: Inspirational/Amish/memoir

GROWING UP AMISH is one man’s story of his quest to fit into the Amish—something he was born into, but in his heart, didn’t belong to.

Ira Wagler was the 9th child of the famous David Wagler who was long time Editor of Family Life. But Ira never quite fit into his Amish family or community. Getting in with a wild crowd, Ira spend his free time hanging out with friends and partying and not spending too much worry on the family farm.

Ira left the Amish for the first time at seventeen. And during the next five or six years he left and returned multiple times. He traveled west to harvest wheat and work as a cowboy, he traveled south to Florida to the Amish vacation land of Sarasota, and he traveled north to Canada.

The Amish vary widely from state to state and district to district, and each area posed it’s own set of difficulties. Ira tried to fit into districts in Canada, Illinois, Indiana, Florida, Missouri, and other areas, but never quite managed it, even though he joined the church once, and then went through the not-at-all-pleasant excommunication process after he left yet again.

If you are at all interested in the Amish, at a look at the hard-core, beyond the simplicity and ‘glamour’ of their life, then GROWING UP AMISH will be a great book to read and learn from. This book shows the truth behind the culture, the great support and poor communication, the heartbreak when a child strays, and the struggle to do what one’s been raised to do and believe. $14.99. 271 pages.