Amish to Christian

It was December 5, 2011 when my wife came home from work unannounced.
Th ere I was on my computer feeding my addiction to porn. She did not
know about it prior to that, but always said she did not mind if I would use
pornography. It turns out, she did mind. We talked about it during the week
and by Friday night, the ninth, we were not talking.
She came home from work again, unannounced. I had the door locked.
When I came to the door I could tell she was mad. She ended up leaving
for a few hours. When she came home she was drunk and mad. I was lying
in bed when she walked into the bedroom grabbed the gun we had beside
the bed.
I prayed before walking to the living room, I had also text my brother
in-law Steve to pray and tell others to pray. PRAY HARD, NOW! Th at’s
all I text to them.
I walked to the living room to see my wife sitting on the ottoman
with the gun pointed at her head. When she seen me she turned around
and pointed the gun at me. Th at is when my life fl ashed before my eyes. I
wondered how I got to this point. How could an Amish kid turn out like
this? I wondered how I could have come to this.
†
It was a beautiful warm June day in 1986 as I ran to the mailbox hanging
on to my little straw hat. As I opened the mailbox there was a birthday card.
Th is is my fi rst memory. I had just turned three years old.
2
Adam Fischer
My parents were both born in August of 1950. My mother, Mom, grew up
with ten siblings, two brothers and nine sisters. She was the second youngest.
My father, Pop, grew up the oldest of three boys. Th ey married when they
were twenty seven into the Amish church community of Lancaster County
Pennsylvania. Th ey lived in Gordonville, Pennsylvania. Two years later they
purchased the property a few miles north of Quarryville. Mom never wanted
to move there. Pop loved it because of the trees and a lot less traffi c.
I grew up on quiet thirteen acre home in southern Lancaster County,
Pennsylvania with four siblings. I have three brothers and one sister. Dan is
the oldest born to Mom and Pop, then Anita, Elvin, myself and Ira was born
one year after me. We were Old Order Amish; our main transportation was a
horse and buggy. We had no hot water heater, no electric, and no television.
My parents had a little road side stand where folks could buy or pick
their own strawberries. Shortly after I was born, Justin Gene and his wife,
Rachelle, a couple from Quarryville, were picking strawberries. When they
saw me, they asked what my name was. My mother told them my name.
Th ey fell in love with me. Th ey had recently lost a son with the same name
I have.
Th ey asked Mom if they would mind if they would baby sit on occasions.
Mom said: that would be fi ne, because she had three other children, Dan,
Elvin, and Anita, to take care of and a garden to attend. My father, Pop,
was busy in the shop all day building custom kitchens trying to make ends
meet.
Th ey would come and pick me up, after taking me to their home they
would change me into English clothes. I would spend lots of time at their
house and even go on vacations with them. Whether it was going to the
beach or Canada I would trail along.
Th e Gene family did not speak any Pennsylvania Dutch. English was
spoken often in my own home so I had learned enough to communicate with
them. Th ey taught me much more and I became fl uent in both languages
while still very young. Th ough in my own head, I had to translate all that
they said into Dutch to make sense of it. Dutch was my primary language
through the years as I grew up in Pennsylvania