February 11, 2025 • 66 mins
Mary Ann Stoltzfus shares her experience from the strict confines of the Amish community to rediscovering a new way of living life. She discusses the challenges of questioning her upbringing, leaving her community, and building a new life centered around authenticity and community.
• Childhood experiences of the Amish upbringing
• Early spiritual questions and navigating fears around salvation
• The courageous decision to leave the Amish community
• Challenges faced in redefining faith and identity
• Transitioning to being a doula and supporting other women
• Rebuilding community connections after leaving
• Advice for those contemplating leaving restrictive environments
Mary Ann Stoltzfus is a wife, mother of seven, grandmother, and the founder of Three Strands.
With a holistic approach, Three Strands provides support before, during, and after birth—offering care, wisdom, and guidance to help mothers feel confident and nurtured every step of the way.
Currently, Mary Ann is embracing life to the fullest, cherishing time with her family and dedicating Fridays to "Nana Day," a special tradition filled with love and memories for her grandchildren.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
figuring out our way, because now you're outside of
the safety net that you'vealways lived in and it was
freedom.
But that freedom was scary.
Where did we actually want togo to church?
How do we actually want todress?
What are we?
What kind of car do we want?
Where do we want to live?
(00:21):
Everything had always beenmapped out for us.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hey friends, welcome to the Ones who Dared podcast,
where stories of courage areelevated.
Where do we want to live?
Everything had always beenmapped out for us.
Hey friends, welcome to theOnes who Dared podcast, where
stories of courage are elevated.
I'm your host, Becca, and everyother week you'll hear
interviews from inspiring people.
My hope is that you will leaveencouraged.
I'm so glad you're here.
(00:46):
Mary Ann Stoltzfus, welcome tothe Once a Deer podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I am so excited to have you on here.
You came highly recommendedthrough different people and
Sarah recommended me to you andSarah recommended me to you, and
so I'm excited for you to shareyour story, your experience on
what it was like for you to growup Amish, and also how you come
about realizing it wasn'tsomething you wanted to do or be
(01:16):
the rest of your life, andwhere you are today.
So, wow, that's a big one.
So let's start by what was itlike for you growing up Amish.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Okay, so I was the youngest of eight, eight
children.
I have seven siblings.
Obviously it's very sheltered,but we, like I, grew up on a
farm.
My mom died when I was seven.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
And I was the youngest, right.
So.
And then my dad remarried ayear later.
So I grew up with a step-mom Um, what was it like?
I mean, we went to one roomschoolhouse, walked to school
every day to and from um.
If the weather was really toobad, they you know my somebody
(02:11):
would pick us up in the in thehorse and buggy, but most times
we walked a mile and a halfevery morning and evening and I
had cousins that lived realclose to so we would walk
together.
I mean, it was growing up.
Amish is a good life, like it's,um, very family oriented, like
(02:32):
it's good.
But at a young age I startedreally having questions, at a
really.
I remember, like at 10,starting to really have
questions if this is the way,because we were always taught
that being Amish and doing goodis what's going to get you to
(02:53):
heaven, right.
But so at a really young age Istarted questioning if that was
actually true.
And I remember clearly I thinkI must have been 10, because at
12, when I was 12, we moved offthe farm because my dad retired,
and I remember where I wasstanding at the age of 10, and
(03:15):
saying I'm going to have tofigure this out it's.
I don't know that I canactually trust that my dad is
telling me the truth about ifthis is actually the way to
serve god.
So I'm just got to figure itout on my own.
Wow, at the age of 10.
At the age of 10, I must havebeen like it had to be 10 or 11,
(03:36):
definitely not 12, because wemoved off the farm, because I
remember where I was standingand it was at the farm, so I
would have had to be definitelylike 11 or under.
So I'm assuming it was like,when I think about that, I think
of it as being 10 or 11.
And then just being like okay,I'm going to have to figure this
(03:57):
out kind of on my own.
But obviously time went on andI still stayed.
You know, I stayed, stayed trueto um, where I was, and and and
then joined the church when Iwas 17 I think, got baptized in
the amish church and then, um, Ididn't get married till I was
(04:20):
23 and it was after that when weactually, when we left, then my
husband and I, together withour three children.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
So between the time of you being 10 and having that
thought process of like I don'tknow if this is the way, um,
what were some of the thingsthat you were questioning?
Or what, how is it unravelingfor you?
I?
Speaker 1 (04:45):
just really questioned if, because I read a
lot too, I would read a lot ofbooks, obviously wouldn't have
tv.
So I did read a lot of booksand I also had siblings that
were older than I am obviouslybecause I'm the youngest and
they some of them had left theAmish as well and I knew in part
(05:07):
what they would like, kind ofsharing their story.
As a little girl I would hearthat in part.
So I know that that played abig.
That probably put a bigquestion in me at a really young
age.
Okay, what is true?
I'm hearing this from some ofmy siblings and I'm hearing this
and it was like opposite, yeahthat's interesting.
(05:28):
The opposite would have been mysiblings saying we got saved and
we know that we're going toheaven, where I was being taught
that nobody knows that If wesay that we know, we're actually
prideful, because you can'tknow that until judgment day,
only God is the judge if youhave done enough of good or not.
(05:50):
And that baffled me so much.
Like what if I die at a youngage and don't live long enough
to do enough of good works?
And how many good works do Iactually have to do to be good
enough to go to heaven?
Like those things?
That's all the things that Iwould think about a lot.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
And was going to hell , a fear growing up.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yes, absolutely, absolutely, because we would
hear about hell and it would youknow.
But the only way to not gothere was to do enough of good
works, and that was obeying yourparents and living out all the
rules and the traditions of theAmish.
(06:34):
And if I would ask questions, Iwould be told I don't know,
like if I would ask why did wedo it this way?
I was told, because that's justhow we've always done it.
So don't question, just do whatwe, what we tell you to do, and
it's just the way it's alwaysbeen done.
So you can't, you're notsupposed to question.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
That's what I was told, and what were some of the
things that didn't make sense toyou as a kid?
On some of the rules.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Some of the rules would be like why is it okay for
us to drive in a car, but notokay to own a car?
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah, that's one.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
I think about too.
And why do we have to wearthese certain clothes?
Like?
I knew better to not ask thosethings out loud and most of my
questions I really did not askout loud because I knew better.
I knew that I would not.
It would come with a lot ofdisapproval if I would ask.
(07:35):
But in my head a lot of thequestions were how does this
make sense?
Like we do, like just the waywe dressed, like is this
actually what's going to take usto heaven?
What about Jesus?
Because I also knew about Jesus.
(07:57):
And where does he?
What does he play part?
Like, where does he come up inall this, like you know.
And then I'm hearing, you know,my siblings talking about Jesus
and talking about, I mean, andthey're going to a church
outside of the Amish.
That I thought probably spokemore truth because I could
(08:21):
understand what they were sayingIn the Amish church I couldn't
even understand what was beingsaid because it was high German
and I didn't understand highGerman.
But when my siblings talked, itmade sense to me.
But then I was told well,they're going to hell because
they left the Amish.
Wow, and being afraid of hell.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
that, of course, was likeper, you know, it was just
like so confusing, so confusingyeah, and you mentioned earlier
before we started recording isthat German was your, your first
language.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Pennsylvania Dutch, which is a dialect.
It's not a written language,it's just a dialect.
So but we learned high germanin school.
So when we started school weusually would not know we would
only speak pennsylvania dutchuntil we started school, and
then we learned english inschool and our language in
school was english, alwaysenglish, but home it was always
(09:20):
pennsylvania dutch.
But then in school, like likefor one subject, we would learn
German, which is high German um,which is not what we talked or
what we understood, but Ilearned to read it because we
learned it in school and thenthat was at church.
You said that's what they talkedat church as well that's what
(09:41):
was prayed, that's because, like, prayers were prayed out of
prayer books and that was whatwas spoken at church.
So it was a language that wedidn't really understand.
I mean that the, the preacher,the ministers, would often use
some of the like our terminology, like our words, like the
(10:02):
pennsylvania dutch, but if theywere really good preachers they
wouldn't.
They would do the high, thehigh german, which we didn't
understand, kind of likecatholics and latin, really, you
know that's interesting becauseyou have a um, a way of belief,
religion if you will, that um.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
you have a lot of questions, but then the way that
it's presented to you is evennot in a language that's the
most natural to you, so it makesit harder to even understand.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
To this, day, even though I can still speak
Pennsylvania Dutch, I neverlearned how to have a spiritual
conversation in my mother tongue.
Like if I would ever want totalk spiritually to somebody, I
have to switch to Englishbecause I can't find the words
in Pennsylvania Dutch to use.
(10:52):
Isn't that bizarre?
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah, that's interesting.
Yeah, so at what point did yousaid you left the Amish church
once you got married, which wasin your 20s?
What made you guys leave?
Speaker 1 (11:09):
So that was a whole, a whole journey and and I really
like looking back God's handwas obviously so apparent, like
my whole life really, because atthe age of 12, then I did ask
Jesus to come to my heart.
I read a tract and I I realizedthat this is truth and I did.
(11:31):
I remember kneeling and askingJesus into my heart and then
feeling a prompting to go tellmy parents what I just did.
But I couldn't like.
I was like they're gonna be mad, they're not gonna be about
this.
So I was scared to tell them.
(11:51):
The fear of man was really real.
And then my thought process washow am I going to live this out
?
Because once we turn 16, thatis your time of rumspringa, then
, and it's when you really don'thave to obey your parents
really anymore.
It's, it's really bizarre.
So my thought process was howam I going to do that?
(12:14):
If I'm following the Lord, likeif I actually follow Jesus
wholeheartedly the way I wouldlike to, I won't be able to do
that like I won't be able to runaround, do the rumspringa thing
in clear conscience.
So I just kind of puteverything on the back burner,
just like I don't know what todo.
(12:35):
Because which, if I would tellmy parents, they would be mad at
me and probably really talkedme out of it, and so I just
chose not to say anything toanybody and just kept living my
life, but with God always there,you know.
(12:58):
So it was kind of it was reallykind of difficult.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
It's interesting because in some ways, you were
so independent and had your ownway of thinking and questioning.
That's unique, you know,especially in societies like
closed societies like that, thatand yet you felt because of the
reprimandation that couldhappen.
You kept it to yourself and wasexploring and thinking and
(13:26):
pondering, and you mentionedthat you read books.
With the books that you read,do you are you, were you guys
allowed to read books that werenot Amish or not by Amish
authors?
Speaker 1 (13:36):
we did.
We did a lot like.
I mean, our books were allEnglish, written in English,
which we understood, um, exceptthe bible.
I had an English bible and Iwould read that just more out of
like.
It never really did make senseto me a whole lot.
But then if I really wanted toearn brownie points I would read
(13:58):
it in German, which was usuallySundays, which I didn't
understand it, but I thought itwas like being better I was
doing.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah, I guess the thing that's interesting to me
as an outsider is that you havea close community that has very
strict rules and strict way ofdoing things, things, and at the
same time, you are allowed tobe exposed to information about
the outside world, which would,in essence, make you question
(14:32):
the inside world, and so that'sinteresting.
So if you were an avid reader,you got to explore all the
different things I did.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
I did and I read a lot of christmas carol kaufman
books.
I don't know if you're familiarwith them, but those were
always on our bookshelves.
I read a lot.
So, yes, it did cause lots andlots of questions.
But my thought process then from12 to 16 was, if I choose to
(14:59):
follow Jesus fully, then I wouldnot be able to run around and I
don't know what I would do,like as my home life wasn't that
great and I.
But for an Amish girl to leavethe faith or to leave the Amish
culture and live on her own waslike now they do it, but back
(15:23):
then was on like now they do it,but back then you just didn't
do that.
And if you did which my sisteractually did, and life was
really hard, really hard for herhow so?
Because she wasn't welcome athome, like she left when she was
like 19 and she wasn't welcomeat home very much, and then she
(15:43):
got a car but she had to find aplace to live on her own.
She had to get her own car, andshe just talks about how lonely
it was, like she's 15 yearsolder than I am and she talks
about how hard it was.
Like how I mean think about andthis is even thoughts that I
(16:04):
like, even when we finally didleave like how do you start
thinking on your own?
when you were taught to think acertain way.
Right, and you were taught.
You were always told what to do.
You just followed rules and now, all of a sudden, like you're
free.
(16:24):
But what do I do with thisfreedom?
How do I think for myself?
That is really difficult.
How do I actually know that I'mnot going to be deceived by
thinking for myself?
Speaker 2 (16:37):
wow, yeah, that's profound.
Yeah, it reminds me to you of abook I forget the author right
now, but um who left North Koreaand you know it's a different
structure there, but essentiallyalso very, you know,
dictatorship.
You can't think for your own,everything is you're told what
to do, and she said that it wasreally hard for her to adjust to
(17:00):
freedom because she didn't knowwhat to do with it.
She said I rather would havesomeone tell me what to do so I
can just do it.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Absolutely, absolutely of freedom, because
she didn't know what to do withit.
She said I rather would havesomeone tell me what to do so I
can just do it, absolutely,absolutely, absolutely.
And that is a lot to unravel,like when you're always told how
to think, what to do, and allthat.
Like even now, when I go backinto the amish settings I can so
easily pick up the way theythink because things haven't
changed a whole lot.
In some ways they have.
But you go back to yeah, it'sjust you realize how ingrained
(17:32):
it is how to think, how to beand how to perform, and when
that's taken away you feel lost.
So my sister doing that on herown, without a husband, without
a boyfriend, about anything I Ican't even imagine yeah, that
was really brave of her to do itwas really brave of her to do
it, really brave yeah, so youand your husband.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
At what point did you guys decide to leave, or how
did that come about?
Speaker 1 (17:59):
yeah, that's a good question.
We were okay.
So in our dating years and inour like when we were dating and
all that, those conversationsdid keep coming up between him
and I, because he too, at like11 years old, somebody had led
him to Jesus as well but thendidn't teach him how to walk it
(18:21):
out.
So we both had that backgroundand teach him how to walk it out
.
So we both had that background.
But at that time when we weredating like when I was 20, 21, I
was at 20, I think we starteddating when I was 21.
I there was times that I didhear, I heard the voice of the
(18:41):
Lord.
I really did, and I was likereally starting to lean in, to
like building my relationshipwith him.
Because now I actually I wasdating but I was really serious
about choosing the right husband, mm-hmm and so I knew that I
(19:03):
wanted the help of the father todo that.
So I was praying a lot actuallyand leaning into because now my
running around my room springus.
That was kind of behind me.
I was now dating and now likestarting to look at, okay, I
could settle down and like allthat is behind me and now I can
(19:24):
actually figure out who I reallyam and what life I want to live
from here on.
So there was, there was a coupleof times in our dating life
that hard things came up and Ikind of took a stand.
One of them was and I know myhusband doesn't mind me sharing
(19:45):
this because it's something thatI share a lot but in our dating
life he was still doing like hewas still drinking and doing
drugs occasionally and I wasreally against those things.
I never did those things, eventhough the guy, all the guys
around me did, us girls didn't,which is kind of at normal in
(20:08):
the Amish.
And the guys had the cars,right, but we never, we never
drove.
We just drove with them becausethey were not members of the
Amish church.
Yet guys usually don't get,don't join, don't get baptized
until they're ready to getmarried, where the girls get
baptized around 16 and 17.
So that was kind of thedifference that we would still
(20:29):
hang out with.
So we're dating, seriouslydating, but he's still drinking,
he's in a band, a rock and rollband, and traveling with that
as well at times, and then doingdrugs right.
So such an oxymoron, right.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
So the one time that he came home from doing a big
band, a big I don't know whatit's called, like a band.
So they had traveled out to Ohioto do it it was called the Pits
, I don't know traveled out toOhio to do it it was called the
pits, I don't know.
So and he came home and then hetold me.
He said hey, I have to, I haveto confess to you.
(21:11):
I was doing drugs again.
And I was like, oh, my word,like you can't keep doing this.
And so that night we broke up.
It was him that was like I'mnot, I can't keep doing this to
you and I'm not sure that I wantto settle down yet, so let's
just break up.
And I was devastated because wewere seriously dating and I was
(21:35):
devastated.
So the next day I'm crying outto the Lord, like seriously
crying out to him and saying,like literally crying and saying
just help me understand.
I was making noodles, homemadenoodles in our kitchen.
My parents had a woodworkbusiness so they were out doing
(21:55):
their woodwork thing.
So I was by myself in the housebecause I'm the only one at
home anymore.
All my other siblings had leftand I'm making noodles and I'm
crying and and just crying outto the Lord and all of a sudden
I heard like it was almost anaudible voice.
But not, but not.
But it was one of the a voicethat made me actually turn my
(22:15):
head to see if there wassomebody there.
But I heard this is an answerto your prayers and I was was
like whoa, that's crazy.
And then I realized I had beenpraying for a heart change for
my boyfriend at the time, my nowhusband.
Like I had really been prayingfor a change of heart because I
(22:35):
was so done with the sin life, Iwas so done with all that and I
want to just move on and livefor Jesus.
And so I was praying.
And so when, when I heard thisis an answer, answer to your
prayer, like I actually jerked.
I was like wait what?
And then with that came suchpeace, like complete peace, and
(22:58):
the tears dried up and Icontinued my day, probably
singing because I was so filledwith peace and I was just like
okay, whatever happens, it'sgoing to be okay.
And that evening, that same dayyet this was we broke up, sunday
night, right, and this wasMonday.
Monday night, he knocked on mydoor and he said, hey, do you
want to go shopping?
I was like sure, and I, justbecause I had such peace, I knew
(23:21):
everything was gonna be okay.
And on the way going to themall, he's like hey, I had a
change of heart today.
I realized that I don't want tocontinue this kind of lifestyle
anymore and I'm ready to readyto um.
He's like I don't want to breakup with you and I'm ready to
change my life.
And even though it was a yeah,like a dedication to the lord,
(23:44):
it was like I want things tochange.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
It was an acknowledgement that I want to
do things differently.
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
So from then on we did kind of live differently,
like, even though he had, he wasstill in the band and he would
go go, at times I would chooseto go home instead of going with
him to the parties and stufflike that.
And so we became kind of markedthat, oh, they're like being
different, um, but then we gotmarried, soon after that,
(24:11):
thinking, and then I'm thinking,once we get married,
everything's gonna be fine,right, but it wasn't because we
still especially he still didn'tdidn't have that change of
heart like he was doing thingsbetter, but more in a religious
way.
And then so it wasn't long intoour marriage that we're like,
(24:35):
oh, our hearts are still notsatisfied.
We thought that they it wouldfeel different once we could
dress real plainly and do allthe rules properly.
But that emptiness was stillthere.
And that's when we reallystarted searching.
So, not long into our marriage,and we always knew that the
(24:57):
Bible was truth.
So we turned to the Bible, likefully turned to the Bible, and
one day both of us were sittingthere reading our Bibles and I'm
reading the Living Biblebecause I, yeah, I had given him
the Living Bible when we weredating but he had never read it
(25:18):
and I found it in his whateverone of his pieces of furniture
that he brought anyway, and Iwas reading that and he was
reading the King James Bible andall of a sudden we started
understanding what the Bible wassaying Like.
Suddenly, like for the firsttime, it actually made sense to
us and we started havingconversations, reading the Bible
(25:42):
and comparing notes and reallydigging in and then having
conversations what would itactually mean to follow Jesus
fully?
Speaker 2 (25:50):
And we started counting the cost and it didn't
go long until we left then andwhat were, what would you say
were some of the biggestchallenges that you guys faced?
Adjusting to the life outsidethe Amish community at the once
(26:11):
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Speaker 1 (26:51):
Figuring out our way, because now you're outside of
the safety net that you'vealways lived in and it was
freedom.
But that freedom was scary.
Where did we actually want togo to church?
How do we actually want todress?
What kind of car do we want?
Where do we want to live?
(27:12):
Everything had always beenmapped out for us and all of a
sudden we had these how are wegoing to raise our children?
What are our belief systemaround that?
Our children like, what are,like, what are?
What are our belief systemaround that?
So there was so much of yeahthen, yeah, just, and then
stepping, you know, going into Imean stepping outside the amish
(27:33):
and going to um, a churchthat's right outside the amish
that believed in and um beingborn again and Jesus and all
that.
But then realizing it was stillexchanging one set of rules for
another set of rules and wewere like this doesn't feel
(27:54):
right.
And so there was a lot offiguring all that out, which was
such a journey and we're kindof by ourselves doing that.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
I mean, we would always make friends at the
church that we'd be going to,but then, we realize wait a
minute, this is not muchdifferent yeah, and whereas,
what was your family's reactionto that and his family's
reaction to you?
Speaker 1 (28:16):
it was hard.
It was really hard for them,because once you're married and
settled down, they feel likeyou're gonna stay and then that
kind of disrupts everything.
So it was, yeah, they took itreally hard, except I had
siblings that weren't amish, sothey were very supportive, but
(28:37):
he was the first one in hisfamily and so it was really.
It was really hard to navigateall that and to have those
conversations.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Yeah, you guys were disruptors.
Huh yeah, bunch of rebels.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, his dad actually wanted to.
My husband's dad actuallythought he should take him to
like a mental facility becausehe thought he lost his mind wow,
because he's abandoningeverything he knew, right.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
So?
Speaker 1 (29:06):
something's wrong, like you must have a chemical
imbalance.
You're not thinking straight.
This is like you're makingreally bad decisions.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
So you must, there must be something wrong with you
yeah, and do the amish believeracknowledge, like chemical
imbalances and mental illnesses,is that they do?
Speaker 1 (29:24):
they do, and his dad actually had one, and I think
that's why he thought that myhusband also did that's
interesting.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
So, and you transition into being a doula,
which is fascinating.
How did you discover that role?
How did that come about?
Speaker 1 (29:43):
So that was okay.
So we have seven children,right?
And when our sixth child wasborn, we decided to just have
him without any assistance,without a midwife, without a
doctor, and just on our own, byfaith.
(30:05):
Because obviously we were stillbig readers and I had gotten a
hold of this book called Born inZion.
I don't recommend it, but weread it and I read it and there
was, like some of us, some of myfriends, that had read it too,
and we decided to have ourbabies by faith, which meant no,
nobody, no prenatal care, youjust have.
(30:27):
You just go through pregnancyand labor and you have your baby
.
And so we did that with oursixth child, our second son.
I don't recommend that either.
For some people it's great, forme it wasn't great, like
everything turned out well, butI missed having my midwife there
(30:48):
with me.
I missed having that, you know.
And then when he was born, likehe didn't, he didn't have, we
had no birth certificate for him, nothing like that.
We actually didn't.
He didn't have that until hestarted school because he was
just under the radar.
It's just kind of a thing, Idon't know.
It was a thing that was goingon right at that time.
(31:08):
So but what, what that did forme was kind of planted that,
because then one of my one ofour friends, um, that we were
going to the same church at thattime and they had a baby six
weeks after we did and theylived in Baltimore but they
would travel up here for church.
And that one Sunday afterchurch I went to her and said,
(31:33):
hey, what are you guys doing forlunch today?
Because they often would juststay because we had church in
the evening.
We had church like Sundaymorning morning and sunday
evening at this church, and so Iasked her it was pretty common
for them to come with us homefor church from church and have
lunch.
So I went to her and said, hey,what are you guys doing today
for lunch?
(31:53):
And she said I'm really hopingthat we can go to your house for
lunch today.
She said I'm in labor and Ibrought my stuff along because
she too was planning on havingthe baby with the way we did,
right, with no assistance, oh mygoodness.
And she said I would love tohave my baby at your house and I
was like, sure, come on homecome home, oh wow, and you
(32:14):
weren't like, oh no, oh no, Iwas all about it all about it
because we had just got donedoing that and I had attended
one of my other friends birththe same way, and so I was
getting my feet in, you knowmidwifery without even having
any kind of experience otherthan my own babies.
And so they came to my, ourhouse and they're from sri lanka
(32:37):
actually, and but had moved,had located here and so they
came to her house and thatevening she had her baby.
Um, now a little backstory tothat.
Like their first child was bornin the hospital prematurely, so
he struggled for a while, theirsecond baby died at birth oh,
wow and so she's like.
(32:59):
Her stance on it was like I amdone with all that, I'm just
going to trust god.
Now I am done with the medical.
I am done like I just need to.
I'm just going to trust godwith this baby.
So that's the baby that she'scoming to my house and saying I
would have this baby at yourhouse wow, no pressure there but
I didn't I.
I mean I was so naive and soall about serving God in this
(33:23):
way that there wasn't pressurereally Like I just was all about
it.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
And did her second baby die in the hospital?
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, okay.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
So now this was their third.
Their first one reallystruggled in the beginning.
Their second one died, and nowshe's coming to my house to
birth her baby at my house.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Wow, so it's your friend's fault how you got into
the doula.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Kind of that whole, that whole era of time, yes,
like getting my like feet in the.
And so after that, um, thebirth went great, it was
beautiful, the baby was perfectand everything went well.
Great, it was beautiful, thebaby was perfect and everything
went well.
And after that I was like, ohmy word, I would love to become
a midwife.
So I checked into I mean Ialready had six children, um,
(34:17):
and they were all little, and Ichecked into becoming a midwife,
even talked to my midwife aboutit and all that, and then
realized it would take so muchschooling and so much more than
I had the capacity, because Ijust have an eighth grade
education, right, and I was justlike I just can't do college,
like I just so I just put itaway, just put it on on the back
burner.
And then, when our youngest onewas 10 and yes, she was, we
(34:43):
have seven children and theyoungest was 10 I was like, okay
, so what do I?
I kind of raise my children.
Now what do I want to do withthe rest of my life?
yeah and I went to get my hairdone the one day and at the
hairdresser, um, there was a,there was one of their employees
was sitting there and and westarted talking and she's she
(35:08):
was pregnant for the first timeand she's telling me how hard
pregnancy is.
She goes nobody has reallyprepared me for this and right
next to me there was another momthat was talking about their
one child and she was saying Idon't know that I even want more
children.
Like there was another mom thatwas talking about their one
child and she was saying I don'tknow that I even want more
children.
Like there was just a lot oflike hard around motherhood,
(35:31):
right that I was hearing thatday and I left there saying, god
, what has happened to joyfulmothers?
Like what is going on and howwould I be able to speak into my
mother's lives?
Like how, what could I do?
So I, driving home that day, Iremembered that friends of ours
(35:53):
that lived here from they had,they had moved here and were
going to church with us.
At the church that we weregoing to at that time came from
from Australia and they had 10children.
And she talked about a book,another book, supernatural
Childbirth book and how shewould have her children
(36:14):
supernaturally without pain.
And she had talked about thatbook like years before, and I
happened to remember that bookon the way home that day from
the hairdresser.
So I got home and I got onlineto look up this book because I
had never read it.
And it popped up and I'mlooking at it and somehow we
still have.
No, I still have no idea howthis happened, but somehow from
(36:38):
there I was linked to CariceChildbirth Ministry.
From there I was linked toCarice Childbirth Ministry,
which they're located in Florida, and I'm reading it and it's
saying how they train midwivesand doulas.
I had never even heard the worddoula, ever.
I didn't even know how topronounce it when I did see it,
(36:59):
when I saw the word, didn't knowhow to pronounce it and I was
like, or even knew what it meant.
And I was like, what is thisword?
And I read further and itexplained what a doula is and I
was like, oh my word, I could dothat, because it wouldn't take
the midway, it wouldn't take allthe schooling and midwifery, so
that.
So immediately I called thenumber on the website and
(37:20):
Kristen in Florida answered onthe website.
And Kristen in Florida answeredand and we talked and at the
end of the conversation, um,she's.
She was like why don't you prayabout it?
But this is something you couldprobably do.
And I prayed about it and Ialso knew that it would take
finances to do the schooling and, um, but it wasn't long, I
(37:41):
called her, her back and said Ireally want to do this and that
was in 2009.
Yeah, that was in 2009.
And, um, I had no idea what Iwas doing, but just jumped in
and said this is something Icould do and I want to do it
yeah, and then you built abusiness around that and have
(38:02):
staff on board and everythingand you recently retired.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Is that correct?
Right?
Speaker 1 (38:06):
right, exactly, I recently handed over to one of
my employees my business calledthree strands and let her run
with it.
But yeah, that was, and thatwas like I didn't know anybody.
That was a doula, like that waslike so.
But I was like it's birth.
I can do this.
(38:27):
But I remember like in thecourse of doing my schooling for
that which it took me almostthree years to get my
certification, and in that timethere was three different times
that I was going to quit.
I was like I can't, I justcan't do this.
This is hard.
This is because we're veryinvolved in our church at the
time and I was raising my stillraising my kids and it just was
(38:51):
hard at times.
But Kristen, my coach, wouldalways remind me what did you
know?
Go back and read your journal,because she had a journal in the
beginning and she'd say go readyour journal and see what god
said to you in the beginning andwhy you started it right.
Yes, the why behind, yes, thewhy behind it?
Yes, and I'd be like, okay, Iknow, I know what it was, and
(39:15):
then I just keep going yeah, andso the amish have a strong
sense of community.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Um, how is that rebuilding a community and how
did you go about creating yourown sense of community?
That was outside of that that'sreally interesting.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
I mean obviously, um, a lot of us that are ex-amish
will talk about that we havenever found that again Like that
sense of community the way itwas in the Amish.
Obviously it had a lot of likeflaws in it too, but the
community that we had in theAmish is very unique.
(39:55):
How so that, like women reallyhelp each other, like going to
like sisters would, like mysisters would always come and
help me and I would go to theirhouse to help work, like we did
spring and fall cleaning, and wenever did it by ourselves.
We would help each other.
(40:15):
And with canning if somebodyhad a busy day of canning we'd
all show up to help.
So that sense I think we'vestill most of us that have left
the Amish, most of us still talkabout that piece that we miss
because that has never beenrecreated again.
(40:36):
But the sense of communityoutside of that you kind of just
have to.
You just have to like do itfrom scratch in a way.
But obviously, churches that wethat we've been in there was
always that you know you eitherjoin a small group or you made
(40:59):
friends.
But the sad part about that isthen, when you leave that, you
leave that community, then tooRight.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
If you continue to evolve and, like you said
initially, you exchange your oneset of rules for another Right,
so I take that as you moved onfrom there as well, right, right
, and then, when you left, thatagain you're leaving another
community, which is difficult.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Yes, yes, very much yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
And so how have you fostered your own community?
Own community, because justdoing a little bit of background
research on you, it's easy tosee that you're very much family
oriented, community orientedand just all the wonderful
things different people havesaid about you and reasons to
(41:46):
bring you on, so it's clear thatthat is a value to you.
Community is a really, reallybig value to you.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
It is, it is, it is and that evolves with time too,
like it does change.
I know that when I retired,when I left my business because
that was a huge community for me, like my employees, my clients
all that was that was huge.
Oh, that was that, that washuge, that was very, because I
(42:12):
was out there.
A lot Right now, like steppingback from that, has has again
made me be like, ok, what do Ido now?
And it actually was a littlebit of a stripping of identity
(42:38):
and I realized, oh, this was apart of my identity is having
that, having the business,growing it and all that and just
being out there.
Right when you step back fromthat, it's like, oh, now, what
does that look like In my dayright now, in the space that I
am right now?
Um, my kids, my grandchildren,are a big, big part of that, my
(43:01):
grandchildren.
I have eight grandchildren andand I have dedicated my like to
just live life for them too.
I don't want them to grow, andI think a lot of that also comes
from what I didn't have in mylife and I have to be careful
with that.
But, um, I mean, obviously Ididn't have my mom died when I
(43:22):
was young, right, so I neverreally felt like I had a mom and
I never had grandmothers, likethey all all died before.
I don't remember them.
And so those missing parts ofmy life, I did not want that to
happen to my children and mygrandchildren because of the
(43:44):
void that was there for me.
So in that I think we can alsosometimes overcompensate.
We tend to just pour outeverything, and so right now,
where I am today is like doingthat and also being like okay,
but I still need my own autonomy, I need to, I need to.
(44:04):
So it is it's kind of anongoing like, since retiring,
like, okay, like, and we, and wealso have children living with
us, like we, we have our, ourdaughter, our youngest daughter
and her husband and two childrenlive in our basement and
recently, in the fall inSeptember, our oldest daughter
(44:27):
and her husband and child movedin with us upstairs, like up.
So we have, we have threefloors, so, um, so my house is
busy, very busy, very, you know,always.
So it doesn't give me a wholelot of space to dream and to um,
but that's, that's the seasonwe're in right now.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Yeah, when?
I think when Sarah initiallypassed on your contact
information, she said she's notgoing to get back to you today
because it's her grand day.
My Nana day, yeah, and so and Iwas like that is really cool,
like, yeah, I can respect that.
So what does that look like?
What is a grand day?
Speaker 1 (45:05):
My Nana day is.
The grandkids that are not inschool all come and, and once
they I, they come when theystart choosing to come.
So the babies aren't, thelittle babies aren't coming, but
once they are, usually around ayear old, um, they choose to
come by their.
Their own choosing is like, iftheir mom comes and to drop off
(45:26):
the other children and they like, oh, they're choosing to stay,
they can stay too.
So it's just, and we've beendoing this, oh goodness, for 11,
11 and a half years, I think.
Every Friday, thosegrandchildren come.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
It's not one Friday a month, it's every Friday.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Every Friday the grandchildren come and obviously
that evolves, because the olderones get older and they're in
school and sometimes they justchoose not to come when they're
older, um, but there's always agroup that's there.
Right now, there's consistentlyfour little girls that come.
I say little, there are seven,there are um seven and and
almost six, and then twotwo-year-olds that are there
(46:13):
most every Friday.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
And what do you guys end up doing on that day?
Speaker 1 (46:18):
That really varies Lately, like for this winter.
I think it started kind of inthe beginning of the winter,
Once we start being inside more.
I started doing stations andthat has worked really, really
well for me, Because I realizedthat I have to kind of stay in
control of the day, and to stayin control of the day means that
(46:39):
I'm present and that I havethings planned.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
And.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
I am like actually being there.
They're not just coming in andjust doing their thing, I'm
involved, right.
So the stations look like Ihave a plan ahead of time and I
actually have a box now too,like with puzzles in it and and
colors, um crayons and and pagesto color, and so then we time
(47:05):
like okay, for 20 minutes we'reat the station, then we all
switch to go into the stationand we just keep.
We switch, like we have likefive different stations and they
vary.
They're not always the same andthat has worked really, really
well.
They love it.
They love it.
They're always.
If we don't like, if there's aFriday that we're actually out
and about doing things becausethat happens too one of the
(47:27):
granddaughters does horse ridinglessons and there's two times
now we just we took her to thatand we stayed with her, and then
the one time from there we wentto watch a movie, and so we
just do lots of different things, but the days that we don't do
stations, that especially thelittle ones will say we didn't
do stations.
So that has been a huge, a hugething.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
It sounds like you're almost an event planner.
I don't know if you read thebook by Priya Parker called the
Art of Gathering.
It's a fabulous book.
It's one of the best books onhospitality or gathering events,
but she talks about being aguide.
When you are hosting in anycapacity, people need to be
guided, and so you createthoughtful things to do, but you
(48:14):
also guide them through andit's you're kind of being a boss
or you're using your authority,but it's the proper authority
that people want.
Because think about the timesthat, like, you've been invited
to a party and there's food andyou come, but there's no
direction of what to do, whywe're there, and you kind of
leave and you you feel like thiswas kind of a to do, why we're
there, and you kind of leave andyou you feel like this was kind
(48:34):
of a waste of time.
Right, you know, you may havehad a good conversation here and
there, but in general, like itfeels like there was no sense of
purpose.
Yes and so when you put thosethings together and it's
fabulous that that's what you'redoing to your grandkids your
guide at the event at your house, with all the different
stations- and those are the daysthat are peaceful and filled
(48:55):
with lots of fun, and I lovethat.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
I would actually love to read that book, I think,
because it is so true and I'mnoticing that too.
Whenever, like even times thatI host something like if I host
something and there is not aplan, at the end of the day I'm
like, was that really beneficial?
Because don't, yes, it's's so,but I've never read something.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
I didn't read anything like yeah, she calls it
being an authoritative host.
Wow.
And she says when you're notbeing an authoritative host,
you're actually doing adisservice to your guests, which
you know.
It sounds like you're bossy,but she's like people actually
need, want that and need thatthey do, because we all want to
know what's our purpose.
Yeah, when are we going and whywe're here?
Speaker 1 (49:38):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
Oh, I love that a lot and now that you're not part of
the Amish community, have youreconnected with the Amish
community?
Do you touch base or what doesthat relationship look like?
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Yeah, yes, yeah, very touch base, or what does that
relationship look like?
Yeah, yes, yeah, very muchactually.
Um, what does that look like inmy times and I mean, I've also
I've also been like big in young, living like the- oil the
essential oils.
so there I am still invited togo back to groups of Amish women
(50:10):
to teach them.
I mean, the big thing is, youshould teach on how to use oils
in birth, labor and postpartum.
So I have a whole topic on thatand the Amish are still
inviting me to come back toteach on those things and it's
been really, really interestingand I love it.
I love those days because, um,I, I, I can just totally be who
(50:37):
I am when I go and I don'talways even stay on the that
topic all the time, like I dofor the most part, but I still.
I will also bring in likethings of god and and and just
and my journey, because I'vefound a freedom to do that with
the Amish.
The Amish have changed a lotactually.
(50:58):
A lot and I love their culture.
And then there's also my Amishfriends, the ones that I ran
around with in my Romspringayears.
Right, there was 13 of us.
We still get together.
Speaker 2 (51:13):
Oh, that's fabulous.
And some of them are stillAmish.
Speaker 1 (51:15):
Some of them are still Amish.
Now the ones that okay, so theones that are no longer Amish.
There's five of us that are nolonger Amish.
We get together every Thursdaynight.
Tonight is the night Okay, sothat's a big part of my
community, like all five of usget together, and we've done
that for a year now, because westarted last january.
(51:35):
Every thursday night we gettogether, do we do something?
And then the the ones that arethe others that are still amish.
We'll probably get togethermaybe twice a year, and they're
just a beautiful group of women,oh my word, they're so we'll
probably get together two orthree times a year.
Actually.
Just, they're just precious, soprecious, and I always look
(51:56):
forward to seeing them and wehave great conversations and
that has been really beautiful.
I mean, we've been friendssince we're like 14 and 15 yeah,
there's something aboutlongevity of friendship.
Yes there is right very much andI, I just treasure, really
treasure each one of those.
I mean we're still all aliveand it's just been really,
(52:18):
really beautiful.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
What advice would you give someone who is thinking
about leaving the Amishcommunity when starting all over
?
Like, what would you wishsomeone told you when you were
thinking about it?
Speaker 1 (52:34):
That is a really good question, because I don't even
know, because everybody'sjourney is so different.
Obviously, getting into aBible-believing church like soon
, or at least a group of people,that you're not just
floundering on your own, however, I say that, but then I still
(52:58):
think of our journey where wewere kind of alone and we always
made friends and always hadpeople.
We always had people, but itwas still.
The journey was us and God.
So if somebody is thinking aboutleaving, I mean, just take that
(53:23):
leap of faith and let yourstory be written, because
nobody's is going to look alike,but journey with God, get
curious at what God has putinside of you and trust that.
I think for me, in thebeginning I didn't trust that
and I felt like we might bedeceived, we could go wrong, but
(53:47):
with time God showed me againand again, oh man, that I can
trust my inner voice, that inner, you know, and that is the
biggest part is you got to learnto trust the voice inside of
you and to be true to yourself,like you talked about earlier.
To be true to yourself.
(54:08):
Don't numb down that voice.
Be true to it and actuallycultivate it, because if we're
going to stray, god's going to.
He's so faithful he will bringus back again.
Speaker 2 (54:27):
He doesn't leave us, so we don't have to be afraid of
deception when we're doing itwith him I've heard it put it
this way before is that weeither operate out of fear or
out of love.
Right, and we're operating outof fear, it's usually not a lot
of good comes out of it and yourchoices are not.
You know you may be makingmistakes along the way from that
(54:50):
, but when you're operating outof love, that's like what can go
wrong.
Speaker 1 (54:53):
Yes, exactly, and just keep being curious, right
and expanding, knowing that, yes, like you talked about earlier
before getting on here, what arethe regrets of people at the
end of their lives that theydidn't dare to do what they
(55:14):
wanted to do?
Yeah, or be authentic to whothey are To be authentic to who
they are, because God needs, heneeds all of our voices, he
needs all of our gifts andthey're not all going to look
alike, yeah, but if we keepmaking ourselves, putting
ourselves in a place of, well, Ishouldn't be doing this because
(55:35):
because of, like, nobody elseis doing this or whatever, no,
just take a risk and see whathappens.
Yeah, dare to be.
(56:03):
I think when I was younger, Ijust felt like it's always going
to be like uphill, uphill,uphill.
You know, you go like, but it'snot.
It's the ups and flows, it'sthe ups and downs.
Yeah, and that's life, that islife in the, and the sooner you
embrace that, that that is life,the better you are, I think,
the more we can just flow withthat, yeah, and not be hard on
(56:25):
ourselves and not critiqueeverything when that, when the
downs happen, like, oh, tomorrow, oh, tomorrow's going to be a
better day again.
Because this is life, the ebbsand flows, and you can hold both
things at the same time.
You can hold grief and you canhold joy.
You can hold at the same time.
Speaker 2 (56:47):
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Speaker 1 (57:32):
Yes and no, because as long as we are willing to
grow and willing to learn, youjust keep going.
And obviously it's not going tobe perfect.
But even in that imperfectionthere's usually a purpose or
(57:57):
good ends up coming out of it,right.
So if I would have stayed whereI was, then I would have a lot
of regrets.
But I didn't, and some of theregrets would have been the way
I viewed or the way as a youngmom of a lot of littles was not
(58:23):
easy, but with time I saw thatit wasn't actually the children,
it was hurts within my ownheart that I had to take time to
heal.
That's a good one.
Yeah, if I wouldn't have donethat then, yes, there'd be a lot
of regrets.
But when I realized those, thethings in my own heart that
(58:46):
needed to be healed, and I tooktime to do that, and still, you
know, there's still times that Ineed to I guess I would say
regret would be that I didn't dothat sooner that I didn't do
that earlier in life.
But you don't know what.
You don't know, right, right.
So when I talk to young momsnow, I do say work harder on
(59:10):
yourself than you do on yourchildren.
Work harder on yourself thanyou do on your children.
Speaker 2 (59:18):
work hard on yourself , heal those places, because
then you will be, you will giveto your children what they need
yeah, I think that's so hugebecause I think we also we
underestimate how our health,our emotional well-being,
impacts our kids and how weraise them, and also just when
(59:40):
we are operating out of an emptycup.
I think in our culture there ismisconceptions about self-love
and self-care.
Obviously, the tandem canreally swing in either direction
.
Obviously the tandem can reallyswing in either direction, but
at the end of the day, I think Iwould say the same thing to
myself is you know five words togo back?
That would be the same.
Regret is heal sooner, work onyourself so that you're really
(01:00:03):
operating out of a beautiful,healed, wholesome self, because
then you have so much to give100, as if you don't, as many of
us know, things come outsideways.
Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
I always say, yeah, coming out sideways.
It comes out in ways that arelike what was that Right?
Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:00:22):
Yeah, but when you take time to sit in that and to
heal those places in your heartand then and yes, and you love
every part of yourself, I meanobviously there's still times
you know, but but as a whole,you, you embrace who you are,
and then you can do that forothers.
when we're like hard onourselves, we're hard on on our
(01:00:44):
especially our kids, yes, butwhen we're not hard on ourselves
, we have so much grace foreverybody else too, so that if I
would say there would be aregret, it would be that I did
not recognize that earlier in mylife.
Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
Mm, hmm.
One question I have, whichcomes from someone, a listener
on the podcast, is they want toknow how do the Amish do health
care, or do they use hospitals?
Do they have their own insidehealthcare system?
Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
It.
That really varies, just likeit does outside of the Amish.
Um, they, some of them, like,are fully medical and others are
very alternative medicine.
So it really varies kind ofdepending what your circle is or
who you're.
But I have like friends thatwould be fully, um, I mean now
(01:01:40):
it's even kind of both.
But I would say it's not anydifferent inside the Amish than
it is outside the Amish.
Do they have health insurance?
They have their own healthinsurance.
Speaker 2 (01:01:50):
Their own Okay.
Yeah, the church called amishaid, so they take care of each
other okay is that like a bucket, people essentially pay monthly
or whatever and it all goes inthe bucket and whoever needs is
used kind of a system exactlywhen there's hospital bills, you
hand it in and it gets paidfrom the bucket.
It's beautiful actually yeah,and it really works for them.
(01:02:14):
Yeah, well, I'm going to wrapup and honor your time here.
What is Mary Ann's best advicethat someone ever gave you?
Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
We did go through a really hard financial thing back
in 2012.
It really came to head likefinancially right, um, where it
really looked like we could loseour home that we had built.
And in that time, um, I have afriend, rondella, she's a life
(01:02:46):
coach and I had asked her, likewhat?
I finally changed the tone ofmy voice because before that, I
was always a stay-at-home momand I would always just depended
on my husband to do thefinances or to bring in the
money.
He was the breadwinner right,and I would like, when, when
times were hard, I'd be likefrustrated, I'd be like trying
(01:03:09):
to help him figure it out.
I I finally changed my tone ofvoice and I called my friend
Rhonda the one day and I saidwhat could I do to make a
difference in our finances?
And she said, well, look around, what do you have?
And we started talking aboutwhat we have Like we have
(01:03:31):
property, we have land we have.
And we came up about what wehave Like we have property, we
have land we have.
And we came up with likedifferent things, like go buy a
dog, raise puppies.
You have a full, finishedbasement.
Why don't you rent that out?
There was like several thingsthat we like immediately
implemented.
And I look back at that and I'mlike, oh my word, that was some
(01:03:54):
of the best advice that wouldthat really changed the course
of our lives from that point on.
Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
So yeah, that's good.
Yeah, what is the bravest thingthat Marianne's done?
Speaker 1 (01:04:17):
leaving the Amish was probably one of the like a big
thing, but then also becoming adoula like really that was
because of just having theeighth grade education and then
having to go back like kind ofdo schooling again was probably
one of the was probably one ofthe hardest, bravest things to
do.
Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
What are your top two to three books that transformed
your life?
You mentioned a few that youdon't recommend that you write.
What are some?
Speaker 1 (01:04:48):
that you would recommend.
Well, first of all, the Bible,really, because that was such a
life changer when we actuallycould read it and understand it
right.
And then, um, oh man, anotherbig one and that was in time of
our financial stuff was dannyjohnson's book.
(01:05:08):
Uh, first steps to wealth was areally big one for, like, when
we turn our finances around.
Joyce Meyer's book, theBattlefield of the Mind, was
another one that's like standsout to me.
Oh man, I did read a lotthrough the years.
Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
Well, Marianne, thank you so much for your time and
thank you for the interview.
It's been a pleasure getting toknow you and I'm sure your
episode will inspire people yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (01:05:36):
This was fun.
I enjoyed this and it wasreally.
Yeah, I feel like I'd like toget to know you better.
I had to put you in front ofthis sometime and ask you
questions yeah, maybe one dayright?
Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
thank you for listening to the Once we Dare
podcast.
It is an honor to share theseencouraging stories with you.
If you enjoy the show, I wouldlove for you to tell your
friends.
Leave us a reviewer rating andsubscribe to wherever you listen
to podcasts, because this helpsothers discover the show.
You can find me on my website,svekkapapacom.
figuring out our way, because now you're outside of
the safety net that you'vealways lived in and it was
freedom.
But that freedom was scary.
Where did we actually want togo to church?
How do we actually want todress?
What are we?
What kind of car do we want?
Where do we want to live?
(00:21):
Everything had always beenmapped out for us.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hey friends, welcome to the Ones who Dared podcast,
where stories of courage areelevated.
Where do we want to live?
Everything had always beenmapped out for us.
Hey friends, welcome to theOnes who Dared podcast, where
stories of courage are elevated.
I'm your host, Becca, and everyother week you'll hear
interviews from inspiring people.
My hope is that you will leaveencouraged.
I'm so glad you're here.
(00:46):
Mary Ann Stoltzfus, welcome tothe Once a Deer podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I am so excited to have you on here.
You came highly recommendedthrough different people and
Sarah recommended me to you andSarah recommended me to you, and
so I'm excited for you to shareyour story, your experience on
what it was like for you to growup Amish, and also how you come
about realizing it wasn'tsomething you wanted to do or be
(01:16):
the rest of your life, andwhere you are today.
So, wow, that's a big one.
So let's start by what was itlike for you growing up Amish.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Okay, so I was the youngest of eight, eight
children.
I have seven siblings.
Obviously it's very sheltered,but we, like I, grew up on a
farm.
My mom died when I was seven.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
And I was the youngest, right.
So.
And then my dad remarried ayear later.
So I grew up with a step-mom Um, what was it like?
I mean, we went to one roomschoolhouse, walked to school
every day to and from um.
If the weather was really toobad, they you know my somebody
(02:11):
would pick us up in the in thehorse and buggy, but most times
we walked a mile and a halfevery morning and evening and I
had cousins that lived realclose to so we would walk
together.
I mean, it was growing up.
Amish is a good life, like it's,um, very family oriented, like
(02:32):
it's good.
But at a young age I startedreally having questions, at a
really.
I remember, like at 10,starting to really have
questions if this is the way,because we were always taught
that being Amish and doing goodis what's going to get you to
(02:53):
heaven, right.
But so at a really young age Istarted questioning if that was
actually true.
And I remember clearly I thinkI must have been 10, because at
12, when I was 12, we moved offthe farm because my dad retired,
and I remember where I wasstanding at the age of 10, and
(03:15):
saying I'm going to have tofigure this out it's.
I don't know that I canactually trust that my dad is
telling me the truth about ifthis is actually the way to
serve god.
So I'm just got to figure itout on my own.
Wow, at the age of 10.
At the age of 10, I must havebeen like it had to be 10 or 11,
(03:36):
definitely not 12, because wemoved off the farm, because I
remember where I was standingand it was at the farm, so I
would have had to be definitelylike 11 or under.
So I'm assuming it was like,when I think about that, I think
of it as being 10 or 11.
And then just being like okay,I'm going to have to figure this
(03:57):
out kind of on my own.
But obviously time went on andI still stayed.
You know, I stayed, stayed trueto um, where I was, and and and
then joined the church when Iwas 17 I think, got baptized in
the amish church and then, um, Ididn't get married till I was
(04:20):
23 and it was after that when weactually, when we left, then my
husband and I, together withour three children.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
So between the time of you being 10 and having that
thought process of like I don'tknow if this is the way, um,
what were some of the thingsthat you were questioning?
Or what, how is it unravelingfor you?
I?
Speaker 1 (04:45):
just really questioned if, because I read a
lot too, I would read a lot ofbooks, obviously wouldn't have
tv.
So I did read a lot of booksand I also had siblings that
were older than I am obviouslybecause I'm the youngest and
they some of them had left theAmish as well and I knew in part
(05:07):
what they would like, kind ofsharing their story.
As a little girl I would hearthat in part.
So I know that that played abig.
That probably put a bigquestion in me at a really young
age.
Okay, what is true?
I'm hearing this from some ofmy siblings and I'm hearing this
and it was like opposite, yeahthat's interesting.
(05:28):
The opposite would have been mysiblings saying we got saved and
we know that we're going toheaven, where I was being taught
that nobody knows that If wesay that we know, we're actually
prideful, because you can'tknow that until judgment day,
only God is the judge if youhave done enough of good or not.
(05:50):
And that baffled me so much.
Like what if I die at a youngage and don't live long enough
to do enough of good works?
And how many good works do Iactually have to do to be good
enough to go to heaven?
Like those things?
That's all the things that Iwould think about a lot.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
And was going to hell , a fear growing up.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yes, absolutely, absolutely, because we would
hear about hell and it would youknow.
But the only way to not gothere was to do enough of good
works, and that was obeying yourparents and living out all the
rules and the traditions of theAmish.
(06:34):
And if I would ask questions, Iwould be told I don't know,
like if I would ask why did wedo it this way?
I was told, because that's justhow we've always done it.
So don't question, just do whatwe, what we tell you to do, and
it's just the way it's alwaysbeen done.
So you can't, you're notsupposed to question.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
That's what I was told, and what were some of the
things that didn't make sense toyou as a kid?
On some of the rules.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Some of the rules would be like why is it okay for
us to drive in a car, but notokay to own a car?
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah, that's one.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
I think about too.
And why do we have to wearthese certain clothes?
Like?
I knew better to not ask thosethings out loud and most of my
questions I really did not askout loud because I knew better.
I knew that I would not.
It would come with a lot ofdisapproval if I would ask.
(07:35):
But in my head a lot of thequestions were how does this
make sense?
Like we do, like just the waywe dressed, like is this
actually what's going to take usto heaven?
What about Jesus?
Because I also knew about Jesus.
(07:57):
And where does he?
What does he play part?
Like, where does he come up inall this, like you know.
And then I'm hearing, you know,my siblings talking about Jesus
and talking about, I mean, andthey're going to a church
outside of the Amish.
That I thought probably spokemore truth because I could
(08:21):
understand what they were sayingIn the Amish church I couldn't
even understand what was beingsaid because it was high German
and I didn't understand highGerman.
But when my siblings talked, itmade sense to me.
But then I was told well,they're going to hell because
they left the Amish.
Wow, and being afraid of hell.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
that, of course, was likeper, you know, it was just
like so confusing, so confusingyeah, and you mentioned earlier
before we started recording isthat German was your, your first
language.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Pennsylvania Dutch, which is a dialect.
It's not a written language,it's just a dialect.
So but we learned high germanin school.
So when we started school weusually would not know we would
only speak pennsylvania dutchuntil we started school, and
then we learned english inschool and our language in
school was english, alwaysenglish, but home it was always
(09:20):
pennsylvania dutch.
But then in school, like likefor one subject, we would learn
German, which is high German um,which is not what we talked or
what we understood, but Ilearned to read it because we
learned it in school and thenthat was at church.
You said that's what they talkedat church as well that's what
(09:41):
was prayed, that's because, like, prayers were prayed out of
prayer books and that was whatwas spoken at church.
So it was a language that wedidn't really understand.
I mean that the, the preacher,the ministers, would often use
some of the like our terminology, like our words, like the
(10:02):
pennsylvania dutch, but if theywere really good preachers they
wouldn't.
They would do the high, thehigh german, which we didn't
understand, kind of likecatholics and latin, really, you
know that's interesting becauseyou have a um, a way of belief,
religion if you will, that um.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
you have a lot of questions, but then the way that
it's presented to you is evennot in a language that's the
most natural to you, so it makesit harder to even understand.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
To this, day, even though I can still speak
Pennsylvania Dutch, I neverlearned how to have a spiritual
conversation in my mother tongue.
Like if I would ever want totalk spiritually to somebody, I
have to switch to Englishbecause I can't find the words
in Pennsylvania Dutch to use.
(10:52):
Isn't that bizarre?
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah, that's interesting.
Yeah, so at what point did yousaid you left the Amish church
once you got married, which wasin your 20s?
What made you guys leave?
Speaker 1 (11:09):
So that was a whole, a whole journey and and I really
like looking back God's handwas obviously so apparent, like
my whole life really, because atthe age of 12, then I did ask
Jesus to come to my heart.
I read a tract and I I realizedthat this is truth and I did.
(11:31):
I remember kneeling and askingJesus into my heart and then
feeling a prompting to go tellmy parents what I just did.
But I couldn't like.
I was like they're gonna be mad, they're not gonna be about
this.
So I was scared to tell them.
(11:51):
The fear of man was really real.
And then my thought process washow am I going to live this out
?
Because once we turn 16, thatis your time of rumspringa, then
, and it's when you really don'thave to obey your parents
really anymore.
It's, it's really bizarre.
So my thought process was howam I going to do that?
(12:14):
If I'm following the Lord, likeif I actually follow Jesus
wholeheartedly the way I wouldlike to, I won't be able to do
that like I won't be able to runaround, do the rumspringa thing
in clear conscience.
So I just kind of puteverything on the back burner,
just like I don't know what todo.
(12:35):
Because which, if I would tellmy parents, they would be mad at
me and probably really talkedme out of it, and so I just
chose not to say anything toanybody and just kept living my
life, but with God always there,you know.
(12:58):
So it was kind of it was reallykind of difficult.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
It's interesting because in some ways, you were
so independent and had your ownway of thinking and questioning.
That's unique, you know,especially in societies like
closed societies like that, thatand yet you felt because of the
reprimandation that couldhappen.
You kept it to yourself and wasexploring and thinking and
(13:26):
pondering, and you mentionedthat you read books.
With the books that you read,do you are you, were you guys
allowed to read books that werenot Amish or not by Amish
authors?
Speaker 1 (13:36):
we did.
We did a lot like.
I mean, our books were allEnglish, written in English,
which we understood, um, exceptthe bible.
I had an English bible and Iwould read that just more out of
like.
It never really did make senseto me a whole lot.
But then if I really wanted toearn brownie points I would read
(13:58):
it in German, which was usuallySundays, which I didn't
understand it, but I thought itwas like being better I was
doing.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah, I guess the thing that's interesting to me
as an outsider is that you havea close community that has very
strict rules and strict way ofdoing things, things, and at the
same time, you are allowed tobe exposed to information about
the outside world, which would,in essence, make you question
(14:32):
the inside world, and so that'sinteresting.
So if you were an avid reader,you got to explore all the
different things I did.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
I did and I read a lot of christmas carol kaufman
books.
I don't know if you're familiarwith them, but those were
always on our bookshelves.
I read a lot.
So, yes, it did cause lots andlots of questions.
But my thought process then from12 to 16 was, if I choose to
(14:59):
follow Jesus fully, then I wouldnot be able to run around and I
don't know what I would do,like as my home life wasn't that
great and I.
But for an Amish girl to leavethe faith or to leave the Amish
culture and live on her own waslike now they do it, but back
(15:23):
then was on like now they do it,but back then you just didn't
do that.
And if you did which my sisteractually did, and life was
really hard, really hard for herhow so?
Because she wasn't welcome athome, like she left when she was
like 19 and she wasn't welcomeat home very much, and then she
(15:43):
got a car but she had to find aplace to live on her own.
She had to get her own car, andshe just talks about how lonely
it was, like she's 15 yearsolder than I am and she talks
about how hard it was.
Like how I mean think about andthis is even thoughts that I
(16:04):
like, even when we finally didleave like how do you start
thinking on your own?
when you were taught to think acertain way.
Right, and you were taught.
You were always told what to do.
You just followed rules and now, all of a sudden, like you're
free.
(16:24):
But what do I do with thisfreedom?
How do I think for myself?
That is really difficult.
How do I actually know that I'mnot going to be deceived by
thinking for myself?
Speaker 2 (16:37):
wow, yeah, that's profound.
Yeah, it reminds me to you of abook I forget the author right
now, but um who left North Koreaand you know it's a different
structure there, but essentiallyalso very, you know,
dictatorship.
You can't think for your own,everything is you're told what
to do, and she said that it wasreally hard for her to adjust to
(17:00):
freedom because she didn't knowwhat to do with it.
She said I rather would havesomeone tell me what to do so I
can just do it.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Absolutely, absolutely of freedom, because
she didn't know what to do withit.
She said I rather would havesomeone tell me what to do so I
can just do it, absolutely,absolutely, absolutely.
And that is a lot to unravel,like when you're always told how
to think, what to do, and allthat.
Like even now, when I go backinto the amish settings I can so
easily pick up the way theythink because things haven't
changed a whole lot.
In some ways they have.
But you go back to yeah, it'sjust you realize how ingrained
(17:32):
it is how to think, how to beand how to perform, and when
that's taken away you feel lost.
So my sister doing that on herown, without a husband, without
a boyfriend, about anything I Ican't even imagine yeah, that
was really brave of her to do itwas really brave of her to do
it, really brave yeah, so youand your husband.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
At what point did you guys decide to leave, or how
did that come about?
Speaker 1 (17:59):
yeah, that's a good question.
We were okay.
So in our dating years and inour like when we were dating and
all that, those conversationsdid keep coming up between him
and I, because he too, at like11 years old, somebody had led
him to Jesus as well but thendidn't teach him how to walk it
(18:21):
out.
So we both had that backgroundand teach him how to walk it out
.
So we both had that background.
But at that time when we weredating like when I was 20, 21, I
was at 20, I think we starteddating when I was 21.
I there was times that I didhear, I heard the voice of the
(18:41):
Lord.
I really did, and I was likereally starting to lean in, to
like building my relationshipwith him.
Because now I actually I wasdating but I was really serious
about choosing the right husband, mm-hmm and so I knew that I
(19:03):
wanted the help of the father todo that.
So I was praying a lot actuallyand leaning into because now my
running around my room springus.
That was kind of behind me.
I was now dating and now likestarting to look at, okay, I
could settle down and like allthat is behind me and now I can
(19:24):
actually figure out who I reallyam and what life I want to live
from here on.
So there was, there was a coupleof times in our dating life
that hard things came up and Ikind of took a stand.
One of them was and I know myhusband doesn't mind me sharing
(19:45):
this because it's something thatI share a lot but in our dating
life he was still doing like hewas still drinking and doing
drugs occasionally and I wasreally against those things.
I never did those things, eventhough the guy, all the guys
around me did, us girls didn't,which is kind of at normal in
(20:08):
the Amish.
And the guys had the cars,right, but we never, we never
drove.
We just drove with them becausethey were not members of the
Amish church.
Yet guys usually don't get,don't join, don't get baptized
until they're ready to getmarried, where the girls get
baptized around 16 and 17.
So that was kind of thedifference that we would still
(20:29):
hang out with.
So we're dating, seriouslydating, but he's still drinking,
he's in a band, a rock and rollband, and traveling with that
as well at times, and then doingdrugs right.
So such an oxymoron, right.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
So the one time that he came home from doing a big
band, a big I don't know whatit's called, like a band.
So they had traveled out to Ohioto do it it was called the Pits
, I don't know traveled out toOhio to do it it was called the
pits, I don't know.
So and he came home and then hetold me.
He said hey, I have to, I haveto confess to you.
(21:11):
I was doing drugs again.
And I was like, oh, my word,like you can't keep doing this.
And so that night we broke up.
It was him that was like I'mnot, I can't keep doing this to
you and I'm not sure that I wantto settle down yet, so let's
just break up.
And I was devastated because wewere seriously dating and I was
(21:35):
devastated.
So the next day I'm crying outto the Lord, like seriously
crying out to him and saying,like literally crying and saying
just help me understand.
I was making noodles, homemadenoodles in our kitchen.
My parents had a woodworkbusiness so they were out doing
(21:55):
their woodwork thing.
So I was by myself in the housebecause I'm the only one at
home anymore.
All my other siblings had leftand I'm making noodles and I'm
crying and and just crying outto the Lord and all of a sudden
I heard like it was almost anaudible voice.
But not, but not.
But it was one of the a voicethat made me actually turn my
(22:15):
head to see if there wassomebody there.
But I heard this is an answerto your prayers and I was was
like whoa, that's crazy.
And then I realized I had beenpraying for a heart change for
my boyfriend at the time, my nowhusband.
Like I had really been prayingfor a change of heart because I
(22:35):
was so done with the sin life, Iwas so done with all that and I
want to just move on and livefor Jesus.
And so I was praying.
And so when, when I heard thisis an answer, answer to your
prayer, like I actually jerked.
I was like wait what?
And then with that came suchpeace, like complete peace, and
(22:58):
the tears dried up and Icontinued my day, probably
singing because I was so filledwith peace and I was just like
okay, whatever happens, it'sgoing to be okay.
And that evening, that same dayyet this was we broke up, sunday
night, right, and this wasMonday.
Monday night, he knocked on mydoor and he said, hey, do you
want to go shopping?
I was like sure, and I, justbecause I had such peace, I knew
(23:21):
everything was gonna be okay.
And on the way going to themall, he's like hey, I had a
change of heart today.
I realized that I don't want tocontinue this kind of lifestyle
anymore and I'm ready to readyto um.
He's like I don't want to breakup with you and I'm ready to
change my life.
And even though it was a yeah,like a dedication to the lord,
(23:44):
it was like I want things tochange.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
It was an acknowledgement that I want to
do things differently.
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
So from then on we did kind of live differently,
like, even though he had, he wasstill in the band and he would
go go, at times I would chooseto go home instead of going with
him to the parties and stufflike that.
And so we became kind of markedthat, oh, they're like being
different, um, but then we gotmarried, soon after that,
(24:11):
thinking, and then I'm thinking,once we get married,
everything's gonna be fine,right, but it wasn't because we
still especially he still didn'tdidn't have that change of
heart like he was doing thingsbetter, but more in a religious
way.
And then so it wasn't long intoour marriage that we're like,
(24:35):
oh, our hearts are still notsatisfied.
We thought that they it wouldfeel different once we could
dress real plainly and do allthe rules properly.
But that emptiness was stillthere.
And that's when we reallystarted searching.
So, not long into our marriage,and we always knew that the
(24:57):
Bible was truth.
So we turned to the Bible, likefully turned to the Bible, and
one day both of us were sittingthere reading our Bibles and I'm
reading the Living Biblebecause I, yeah, I had given him
the Living Bible when we weredating but he had never read it
(25:18):
and I found it in his whateverone of his pieces of furniture
that he brought anyway, and Iwas reading that and he was
reading the King James Bible andall of a sudden we started
understanding what the Bible wassaying Like.
Suddenly, like for the firsttime, it actually made sense to
us and we started havingconversations, reading the Bible
(25:42):
and comparing notes and reallydigging in and then having
conversations what would itactually mean to follow Jesus
fully?
Speaker 2 (25:50):
And we started counting the cost and it didn't
go long until we left then andwhat were, what would you say
were some of the biggestchallenges that you guys faced?
Adjusting to the life outsidethe Amish community at the once
(26:11):
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Speaker 1 (26:51):
Figuring out our way, because now you're outside of
the safety net that you'vealways lived in and it was
freedom.
But that freedom was scary.
Where did we actually want togo to church?
How do we actually want todress?
What kind of car do we want?
Where do we want to live?
(27:12):
Everything had always beenmapped out for us and all of a
sudden we had these how are wegoing to raise our children?
What are our belief systemaround that?
Our children like, what are,like, what are?
What are our belief systemaround that?
So there was so much of yeahthen, yeah, just, and then
stepping, you know, going into Imean stepping outside the amish
(27:33):
and going to um, a churchthat's right outside the amish
that believed in and um beingborn again and Jesus and all
that.
But then realizing it was stillexchanging one set of rules for
another set of rules and wewere like this doesn't feel
(27:54):
right.
And so there was a lot offiguring all that out, which was
such a journey and we're kindof by ourselves doing that.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
I mean, we would always make friends at the
church that we'd be going to,but then, we realize wait a
minute, this is not muchdifferent yeah, and whereas,
what was your family's reactionto that and his family's
reaction to you?
Speaker 1 (28:16):
it was hard.
It was really hard for them,because once you're married and
settled down, they feel likeyou're gonna stay and then that
kind of disrupts everything.
So it was, yeah, they took itreally hard, except I had
siblings that weren't amish, sothey were very supportive, but
(28:37):
he was the first one in hisfamily and so it was really.
It was really hard to navigateall that and to have those
conversations.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Yeah, you guys were disruptors.
Huh yeah, bunch of rebels.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, his dad actually wanted to.
My husband's dad actuallythought he should take him to
like a mental facility becausehe thought he lost his mind wow,
because he's abandoningeverything he knew, right.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
So?
Speaker 1 (29:06):
something's wrong, like you must have a chemical
imbalance.
You're not thinking straight.
This is like you're makingreally bad decisions.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
So you must, there must be something wrong with you
yeah, and do the amish believeracknowledge, like chemical
imbalances and mental illnesses,is that they do?
Speaker 1 (29:24):
they do, and his dad actually had one, and I think
that's why he thought that myhusband also did that's
interesting.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
So, and you transition into being a doula,
which is fascinating.
How did you discover that role?
How did that come about?
Speaker 1 (29:43):
So that was okay.
So we have seven children,right?
And when our sixth child wasborn, we decided to just have
him without any assistance,without a midwife, without a
doctor, and just on our own, byfaith.
(30:05):
Because obviously we were stillbig readers and I had gotten a
hold of this book called Born inZion.
I don't recommend it, but weread it and I read it and there
was, like some of us, some of myfriends, that had read it too,
and we decided to have ourbabies by faith, which meant no,
nobody, no prenatal care, youjust have.
(30:27):
You just go through pregnancyand labor and you have your baby
.
And so we did that with oursixth child, our second son.
I don't recommend that either.
For some people it's great, forme it wasn't great, like
everything turned out well, butI missed having my midwife there
(30:48):
with me.
I missed having that, you know.
And then when he was born, likehe didn't, he didn't have, we
had no birth certificate for him, nothing like that.
We actually didn't.
He didn't have that until hestarted school because he was
just under the radar.
It's just kind of a thing, Idon't know.
It was a thing that was goingon right at that time.
(31:08):
So but what, what that did forme was kind of planted that,
because then one of my one ofour friends, um, that we were
going to the same church at thattime and they had a baby six
weeks after we did and theylived in Baltimore but they
would travel up here for church.
And that one Sunday afterchurch I went to her and said,
(31:33):
hey, what are you guys doing forlunch today?
Because they often would juststay because we had church in
the evening.
We had church like Sundaymorning morning and sunday
evening at this church, and so Iasked her it was pretty common
for them to come with us homefor church from church and have
lunch.
So I went to her and said, hey,what are you guys doing today
for lunch?
(31:53):
And she said I'm really hopingthat we can go to your house for
lunch today.
She said I'm in labor and Ibrought my stuff along because
she too was planning on havingthe baby with the way we did,
right, with no assistance, oh mygoodness.
And she said I would love tohave my baby at your house and I
was like, sure, come on homecome home, oh wow, and you
(32:14):
weren't like, oh no, oh no, Iwas all about it all about it
because we had just got donedoing that and I had attended
one of my other friends birththe same way, and so I was
getting my feet in, you knowmidwifery without even having
any kind of experience otherthan my own babies.
And so they came to my, ourhouse and they're from sri lanka
(32:37):
actually, and but had moved,had located here and so they
came to her house and thatevening she had her baby.
Um, now a little backstory tothat.
Like their first child was bornin the hospital prematurely, so
he struggled for a while, theirsecond baby died at birth oh,
wow and so she's like.
(32:59):
Her stance on it was like I amdone with all that, I'm just
going to trust god.
Now I am done with the medical.
I am done like I just need to.
I'm just going to trust godwith this baby.
So that's the baby that she'scoming to my house and saying I
would have this baby at yourhouse wow, no pressure there but
I didn't I.
I mean I was so naive and soall about serving God in this
(33:23):
way that there wasn't pressurereally Like I just was all about
it.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
And did her second baby die in the hospital?
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, okay.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
So now this was their third.
Their first one reallystruggled in the beginning.
Their second one died, and nowshe's coming to my house to
birth her baby at my house.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Wow, so it's your friend's fault how you got into
the doula.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Kind of that whole, that whole era of time, yes,
like getting my like feet in the.
And so after that, um, thebirth went great, it was
beautiful, the baby was perfectand everything went well.
Great, it was beautiful, thebaby was perfect and everything
went well.
And after that I was like, ohmy word, I would love to become
a midwife.
So I checked into I mean Ialready had six children, um,
(34:17):
and they were all little, and Ichecked into becoming a midwife,
even talked to my midwife aboutit and all that, and then
realized it would take so muchschooling and so much more than
I had the capacity, because Ijust have an eighth grade
education, right, and I was justlike I just can't do college,
like I just so I just put itaway, just put it on on the back
burner.
And then, when our youngest onewas 10 and yes, she was, we
(34:43):
have seven children and theyoungest was 10 I was like, okay
, so what do I?
I kind of raise my children.
Now what do I want to do withthe rest of my life?
yeah and I went to get my hairdone the one day and at the
hairdresser, um, there was a,there was one of their employees
was sitting there and and westarted talking and she's she
(35:08):
was pregnant for the first timeand she's telling me how hard
pregnancy is.
She goes nobody has reallyprepared me for this and right
next to me there was another momthat was talking about their
one child and she was saying Idon't know that I even want more
children.
Like there was another mom thatwas talking about their one
child and she was saying I don'tknow that I even want more
children.
Like there was just a lot oflike hard around motherhood,
(35:31):
right that I was hearing thatday and I left there saying, god
, what has happened to joyfulmothers?
Like what is going on and howwould I be able to speak into my
mother's lives?
Like how, what could I do?
So I, driving home that day, Iremembered that friends of ours
(35:53):
that lived here from they had,they had moved here and were
going to church with us.
At the church that we weregoing to at that time came from
from Australia and they had 10children.
And she talked about a book,another book, supernatural
Childbirth book and how shewould have her children
(36:14):
supernaturally without pain.
And she had talked about thatbook like years before, and I
happened to remember that bookon the way home that day from
the hairdresser.
So I got home and I got onlineto look up this book because I
had never read it.
And it popped up and I'mlooking at it and somehow we
still have.
No, I still have no idea howthis happened, but somehow from
(36:38):
there I was linked to CariceChildbirth Ministry.
From there I was linked toCarice Childbirth Ministry,
which they're located in Florida, and I'm reading it and it's
saying how they train midwivesand doulas.
I had never even heard the worddoula, ever.
I didn't even know how topronounce it when I did see it,
(36:59):
when I saw the word, didn't knowhow to pronounce it and I was
like, or even knew what it meant.
And I was like, what is thisword?
And I read further and itexplained what a doula is and I
was like, oh my word, I could dothat, because it wouldn't take
the midway, it wouldn't take allthe schooling and midwifery, so
that.
So immediately I called thenumber on the website and
(37:20):
Kristen in Florida answered onthe website.
And Kristen in Florida answeredand and we talked and at the
end of the conversation, um,she's.
She was like why don't you prayabout it?
But this is something you couldprobably do.
And I prayed about it and Ialso knew that it would take
finances to do the schooling and, um, but it wasn't long, I
(37:41):
called her, her back and said Ireally want to do this and that
was in 2009.
Yeah, that was in 2009.
And, um, I had no idea what Iwas doing, but just jumped in
and said this is something Icould do and I want to do it
yeah, and then you built abusiness around that and have
(38:02):
staff on board and everythingand you recently retired.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Is that correct?
Right?
Speaker 1 (38:06):
right, exactly, I recently handed over to one of
my employees my business calledthree strands and let her run
with it.
But yeah, that was, and thatwas like I didn't know anybody.
That was a doula, like that waslike so.
But I was like it's birth.
I can do this.
(38:27):
But I remember like in thecourse of doing my schooling for
that which it took me almostthree years to get my
certification, and in that timethere was three different times
that I was going to quit.
I was like I can't, I justcan't do this.
This is hard.
This is because we're veryinvolved in our church at the
time and I was raising my stillraising my kids and it just was
(38:51):
hard at times.
But Kristen, my coach, wouldalways remind me what did you
know?
Go back and read your journal,because she had a journal in the
beginning and she'd say go readyour journal and see what god
said to you in the beginning andwhy you started it right.
Yes, the why behind, yes, thewhy behind it?
Yes, and I'd be like, okay, Iknow, I know what it was, and
(39:15):
then I just keep going yeah, andso the amish have a strong
sense of community.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Um, how is that rebuilding a community and how
did you go about creating yourown sense of community?
That was outside of that that'sreally interesting.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
I mean obviously, um, a lot of us that are ex-amish
will talk about that we havenever found that again Like that
sense of community the way itwas in the Amish.
Obviously it had a lot of likeflaws in it too, but the
community that we had in theAmish is very unique.
(39:55):
How so that, like women reallyhelp each other, like going to
like sisters would, like mysisters would always come and
help me and I would go to theirhouse to help work, like we did
spring and fall cleaning, and wenever did it by ourselves.
We would help each other.
(40:15):
And with canning if somebodyhad a busy day of canning we'd
all show up to help.
So that sense I think we'vestill most of us that have left
the Amish, most of us still talkabout that piece that we miss
because that has never beenrecreated again.
(40:36):
But the sense of communityoutside of that you kind of just
have to.
You just have to like do itfrom scratch in a way.
But obviously, churches that wethat we've been in there was
always that you know you eitherjoin a small group or you made
(40:59):
friends.
But the sad part about that isthen, when you leave that, you
leave that community, then tooRight.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
If you continue to evolve and, like you said
initially, you exchange your oneset of rules for another Right,
so I take that as you moved onfrom there as well, right, right
, and then, when you left, thatagain you're leaving another
community, which is difficult.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Yes, yes, very much yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
And so how have you fostered your own community?
Own community, because justdoing a little bit of background
research on you, it's easy tosee that you're very much family
oriented, community orientedand just all the wonderful
things different people havesaid about you and reasons to
(41:46):
bring you on, so it's clear thatthat is a value to you.
Community is a really, reallybig value to you.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
It is, it is, it is and that evolves with time too,
like it does change.
I know that when I retired,when I left my business because
that was a huge community for me, like my employees, my clients
all that was that was huge.
Oh, that was that, that washuge, that was very, because I
(42:12):
was out there.
A lot Right now, like steppingback from that, has has again
made me be like, ok, what do Ido now?
And it actually was a littlebit of a stripping of identity
(42:38):
and I realized, oh, this was apart of my identity is having
that, having the business,growing it and all that and just
being out there.
Right when you step back fromthat, it's like, oh, now, what
does that look like In my dayright now, in the space that I
am right now?
Um, my kids, my grandchildren,are a big, big part of that, my
(43:01):
grandchildren.
I have eight grandchildren andand I have dedicated my like to
just live life for them too.
I don't want them to grow, andI think a lot of that also comes
from what I didn't have in mylife and I have to be careful
with that.
But, um, I mean, obviously Ididn't have my mom died when I
(43:22):
was young, right, so I neverreally felt like I had a mom and
I never had grandmothers, likethey all all died before.
I don't remember them.
And so those missing parts ofmy life, I did not want that to
happen to my children and mygrandchildren because of the
(43:44):
void that was there for me.
So in that I think we can alsosometimes overcompensate.
We tend to just pour outeverything, and so right now,
where I am today is like doingthat and also being like okay,
but I still need my own autonomy, I need to, I need to.
(44:04):
So it is it's kind of anongoing like, since retiring,
like, okay, like, and we, and wealso have children living with
us, like we, we have our, ourdaughter, our youngest daughter
and her husband and two childrenlive in our basement and
recently, in the fall inSeptember, our oldest daughter
(44:27):
and her husband and child movedin with us upstairs, like up.
So we have, we have threefloors, so, um, so my house is
busy, very busy, very, you know,always.
So it doesn't give me a wholelot of space to dream and to um,
but that's, that's the seasonwe're in right now.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Yeah, when?
I think when Sarah initiallypassed on your contact
information, she said she's notgoing to get back to you today
because it's her grand day.
My Nana day, yeah, and so and Iwas like that is really cool,
like, yeah, I can respect that.
So what does that look like?
What is a grand day?
Speaker 1 (45:05):
My Nana day is.
The grandkids that are not inschool all come and, and once
they I, they come when theystart choosing to come.
So the babies aren't, thelittle babies aren't coming, but
once they are, usually around ayear old, um, they choose to
come by their.
Their own choosing is like, iftheir mom comes and to drop off
(45:26):
the other children and they like, oh, they're choosing to stay,
they can stay too.
So it's just, and we've beendoing this, oh goodness, for 11,
11 and a half years, I think.
Every Friday, thosegrandchildren come.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
It's not one Friday a month, it's every Friday.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Every Friday the grandchildren come and obviously
that evolves, because the olderones get older and they're in
school and sometimes they justchoose not to come when they're
older, um, but there's always agroup that's there.
Right now, there's consistentlyfour little girls that come.
I say little, there are seven,there are um seven and and
almost six, and then twotwo-year-olds that are there
(46:13):
most every Friday.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
And what do you guys end up doing on that day?
Speaker 1 (46:18):
That really varies Lately, like for this winter.
I think it started kind of inthe beginning of the winter,
Once we start being inside more.
I started doing stations andthat has worked really, really
well for me, Because I realizedthat I have to kind of stay in
control of the day, and to stayin control of the day means that
(46:39):
I'm present and that I havethings planned.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
And.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
I am like actually being there.
They're not just coming in andjust doing their thing, I'm
involved, right.
So the stations look like Ihave a plan ahead of time and I
actually have a box now too,like with puzzles in it and and
colors, um crayons and and pagesto color, and so then we time
(47:05):
like okay, for 20 minutes we'reat the station, then we all
switch to go into the stationand we just keep.
We switch, like we have likefive different stations and they
vary.
They're not always the same andthat has worked really, really
well.
They love it.
They love it.
They're always.
If we don't like, if there's aFriday that we're actually out
and about doing things becausethat happens too one of the
(47:27):
granddaughters does horse ridinglessons and there's two times
now we just we took her to thatand we stayed with her, and then
the one time from there we wentto watch a movie, and so we
just do lots of different things, but the days that we don't do
stations, that especially thelittle ones will say we didn't
do stations.
So that has been a huge, a hugething.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
It sounds like you're almost an event planner.
I don't know if you read thebook by Priya Parker called the
Art of Gathering.
It's a fabulous book.
It's one of the best books onhospitality or gathering events,
but she talks about being aguide.
When you are hosting in anycapacity, people need to be
guided, and so you createthoughtful things to do, but you
(48:14):
also guide them through andit's you're kind of being a boss
or you're using your authority,but it's the proper authority
that people want.
Because think about the timesthat, like, you've been invited
to a party and there's food andyou come, but there's no
direction of what to do, whywe're there, and you kind of
leave and you you feel like thiswas kind of a to do, why we're
there, and you kind of leave andyou you feel like this was kind
(48:34):
of a waste of time.
Right, you know, you may havehad a good conversation here and
there, but in general, like itfeels like there was no sense of
purpose.
Yes and so when you put thosethings together and it's
fabulous that that's what you'redoing to your grandkids your
guide at the event at your house, with all the different
stations- and those are the daysthat are peaceful and filled
(48:55):
with lots of fun, and I lovethat.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
I would actually love to read that book, I think,
because it is so true and I'mnoticing that too.
Whenever, like even times thatI host something like if I host
something and there is not aplan, at the end of the day I'm
like, was that really beneficial?
Because don't, yes, it's's so,but I've never read something.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
I didn't read anything like yeah, she calls it
being an authoritative host.
Wow.
And she says when you're notbeing an authoritative host,
you're actually doing adisservice to your guests, which
you know.
It sounds like you're bossy,but she's like people actually
need, want that and need thatthey do, because we all want to
know what's our purpose.
Yeah, when are we going and whywe're here?
Speaker 1 (49:38):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
Oh, I love that a lot and now that you're not part of
the Amish community, have youreconnected with the Amish
community?
Do you touch base or what doesthat relationship look like?
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Yeah, yes, yeah, very touch base, or what does that
relationship look like?
Yeah, yes, yeah, very muchactually.
Um, what does that look like inmy times and I mean, I've also
I've also been like big in young, living like the- oil the
essential oils.
so there I am still invited togo back to groups of Amish women
(50:10):
to teach them.
I mean, the big thing is, youshould teach on how to use oils
in birth, labor and postpartum.
So I have a whole topic on thatand the Amish are still
inviting me to come back toteach on those things and it's
been really, really interestingand I love it.
I love those days because, um,I, I, I can just totally be who
(50:37):
I am when I go and I don'talways even stay on the that
topic all the time, like I dofor the most part, but I still.
I will also bring in likethings of god and and and just
and my journey, because I'vefound a freedom to do that with
the Amish.
The Amish have changed a lotactually.
(50:58):
A lot and I love their culture.
And then there's also my Amishfriends, the ones that I ran
around with in my Romspringayears.
Right, there was 13 of us.
We still get together.
Speaker 2 (51:13):
Oh, that's fabulous.
And some of them are stillAmish.
Speaker 1 (51:15):
Some of them are still Amish.
Now the ones that okay, so theones that are no longer Amish.
There's five of us that are nolonger Amish.
We get together every Thursdaynight.
Tonight is the night Okay, sothat's a big part of my
community, like all five of usget together, and we've done
that for a year now, because westarted last january.
(51:35):
Every thursday night we gettogether, do we do something?
And then the the ones that arethe others that are still amish.
We'll probably get togethermaybe twice a year, and they're
just a beautiful group of women,oh my word, they're so we'll
probably get together two orthree times a year.
Actually.
Just, they're just precious, soprecious, and I always look
(51:56):
forward to seeing them and wehave great conversations and
that has been really beautiful.
I mean, we've been friendssince we're like 14 and 15 yeah,
there's something aboutlongevity of friendship.
Yes there is right very much andI, I just treasure, really
treasure each one of those.
I mean we're still all aliveand it's just been really,
(52:18):
really beautiful.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
What advice would you give someone who is thinking
about leaving the Amishcommunity when starting all over
?
Like, what would you wishsomeone told you when you were
thinking about it?
Speaker 1 (52:34):
That is a really good question, because I don't even
know, because everybody'sjourney is so different.
Obviously, getting into aBible-believing church like soon
, or at least a group of people,that you're not just
floundering on your own, however, I say that, but then I still
(52:58):
think of our journey where wewere kind of alone and we always
made friends and always hadpeople.
We always had people, but itwas still.
The journey was us and God.
So if somebody is thinking aboutleaving, I mean, just take that
(53:23):
leap of faith and let yourstory be written, because
nobody's is going to look alike,but journey with God, get
curious at what God has putinside of you and trust that.
I think for me, in thebeginning I didn't trust that
and I felt like we might bedeceived, we could go wrong, but
(53:47):
with time God showed me againand again, oh man, that I can
trust my inner voice, that inner, you know, and that is the
biggest part is you got to learnto trust the voice inside of
you and to be true to yourself,like you talked about earlier.
To be true to yourself.
(54:08):
Don't numb down that voice.
Be true to it and actuallycultivate it, because if we're
going to stray, god's going to.
He's so faithful he will bringus back again.
Speaker 2 (54:27):
He doesn't leave us, so we don't have to be afraid of
deception when we're doing itwith him I've heard it put it
this way before is that weeither operate out of fear or
out of love.
Right, and we're operating outof fear, it's usually not a lot
of good comes out of it and yourchoices are not.
You know you may be makingmistakes along the way from that
(54:50):
, but when you're operating outof love, that's like what can go
wrong.
Speaker 1 (54:53):
Yes, exactly, and just keep being curious, right
and expanding, knowing that, yes, like you talked about earlier
before getting on here, what arethe regrets of people at the
end of their lives that theydidn't dare to do what they
(55:14):
wanted to do?
Yeah, or be authentic to whothey are To be authentic to who
they are, because God needs, heneeds all of our voices, he
needs all of our gifts andthey're not all going to look
alike, yeah, but if we keepmaking ourselves, putting
ourselves in a place of, well, Ishouldn't be doing this because
(55:35):
because of, like, nobody elseis doing this or whatever, no,
just take a risk and see whathappens.
Yeah, dare to be.
(56:03):
I think when I was younger, Ijust felt like it's always going
to be like uphill, uphill,uphill.
You know, you go like, but it'snot.
It's the ups and flows, it'sthe ups and downs.
Yeah, and that's life, that islife in the, and the sooner you
embrace that, that that is life,the better you are, I think,
the more we can just flow withthat, yeah, and not be hard on
(56:25):
ourselves and not critiqueeverything when that, when the
downs happen, like, oh, tomorrow, oh, tomorrow's going to be a
better day again.
Because this is life, the ebbsand flows, and you can hold both
things at the same time.
You can hold grief and you canhold joy.
You can hold at the same time.
Speaker 2 (56:47):
Is there a regret that you have In my life?
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Speaker 1 (57:32):
Yes and no, because as long as we are willing to
grow and willing to learn, youjust keep going.
And obviously it's not going tobe perfect.
But even in that imperfectionthere's usually a purpose or
(57:57):
good ends up coming out of it,right.
So if I would have stayed whereI was, then I would have a lot
of regrets.
But I didn't, and some of theregrets would have been the way
I viewed or the way as a youngmom of a lot of littles was not
(58:23):
easy, but with time I saw thatit wasn't actually the children,
it was hurts within my ownheart that I had to take time to
heal.
That's a good one.
Yeah, if I wouldn't have donethat then, yes, there'd be a lot
of regrets.
But when I realized those, thethings in my own heart that
(58:46):
needed to be healed, and I tooktime to do that, and still, you
know, there's still times that Ineed to I guess I would say
regret would be that I didn't dothat sooner that I didn't do
that earlier in life.
But you don't know what.
You don't know, right, right.
So when I talk to young momsnow, I do say work harder on
(59:10):
yourself than you do on yourchildren.
Work harder on yourself thanyou do on your children.
Speaker 2 (59:18):
work hard on yourself , heal those places, because
then you will be, you will giveto your children what they need
yeah, I think that's so hugebecause I think we also we
underestimate how our health,our emotional well-being,
impacts our kids and how weraise them, and also just when
(59:40):
we are operating out of an emptycup.
I think in our culture there ismisconceptions about self-love
and self-care.
Obviously, the tandem canreally swing in either direction
.
Obviously the tandem can reallyswing in either direction, but
at the end of the day, I think Iwould say the same thing to
myself is you know five words togo back?
That would be the same.
Regret is heal sooner, work onyourself so that you're really
(01:00:03):
operating out of a beautiful,healed, wholesome self, because
then you have so much to give100, as if you don't, as many of
us know, things come outsideways.
Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
I always say, yeah, coming out sideways.
It comes out in ways that arelike what was that Right?
Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:00:22):
Yeah, but when you take time to sit in that and to
heal those places in your heartand then and yes, and you love
every part of yourself, I meanobviously there's still times
you know, but but as a whole,you, you embrace who you are,
and then you can do that forothers.
when we're like hard onourselves, we're hard on on our
(01:00:44):
especially our kids, yes, butwhen we're not hard on ourselves
, we have so much grace foreverybody else too, so that if I
would say there would be aregret, it would be that I did
not recognize that earlier in mylife.
Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
Mm, hmm.
One question I have, whichcomes from someone, a listener
on the podcast, is they want toknow how do the Amish do health
care, or do they use hospitals?
Do they have their own insidehealthcare system?
Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
It.
That really varies, just likeit does outside of the Amish.
Um, they, some of them, like,are fully medical and others are
very alternative medicine.
So it really varies kind ofdepending what your circle is or
who you're.
But I have like friends thatwould be fully, um, I mean now
(01:01:40):
it's even kind of both.
But I would say it's not anydifferent inside the Amish than
it is outside the Amish.
Do they have health insurance?
They have their own healthinsurance.
Speaker 2 (01:01:50):
Their own Okay.
Yeah, the church called amishaid, so they take care of each
other okay is that like a bucket, people essentially pay monthly
or whatever and it all goes inthe bucket and whoever needs is
used kind of a system exactlywhen there's hospital bills, you
hand it in and it gets paidfrom the bucket.
It's beautiful actually yeah,and it really works for them.
(01:02:14):
Yeah, well, I'm going to wrapup and honor your time here.
What is Mary Ann's best advicethat someone ever gave you?
Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
We did go through a really hard financial thing back
in 2012.
It really came to head likefinancially right, um, where it
really looked like we could loseour home that we had built.
And in that time, um, I have afriend, rondella, she's a life
(01:02:46):
coach and I had asked her, likewhat?
I finally changed the tone ofmy voice because before that, I
was always a stay-at-home momand I would always just depended
on my husband to do thefinances or to bring in the
money.
He was the breadwinner right,and I would like, when, when
times were hard, I'd be likefrustrated, I'd be like trying
(01:03:09):
to help him figure it out.
I I finally changed my tone ofvoice and I called my friend
Rhonda the one day and I saidwhat could I do to make a
difference in our finances?
And she said, well, look around, what do you have?
And we started talking aboutwhat we have Like we have
(01:03:31):
property, we have land we have.
And we came up about what wehave Like we have property, we
have land we have.
And we came up with likedifferent things, like go buy a
dog, raise puppies.
You have a full, finishedbasement.
Why don't you rent that out?
There was like several thingsthat we like immediately
implemented.
And I look back at that and I'mlike, oh my word, that was some
(01:03:54):
of the best advice that wouldthat really changed the course
of our lives from that point on.
Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
So yeah, that's good.
Yeah, what is the bravest thingthat Marianne's done?
Speaker 1 (01:04:17):
leaving the Amish was probably one of the like a big
thing, but then also becoming adoula like really that was
because of just having theeighth grade education and then
having to go back like kind ofdo schooling again was probably
one of the was probably one ofthe hardest, bravest things to
do.
Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
What are your top two to three books that transformed
your life?
You mentioned a few that youdon't recommend that you write.
What are some?
Speaker 1 (01:04:48):
that you would recommend.
Well, first of all, the Bible,really, because that was such a
life changer when we actuallycould read it and understand it
right.
And then, um, oh man, anotherbig one and that was in time of
our financial stuff was dannyjohnson's book.
(01:05:08):
Uh, first steps to wealth was areally big one for, like, when
we turn our finances around.
Joyce Meyer's book, theBattlefield of the Mind, was
another one that's like standsout to me.
Oh man, I did read a lotthrough the years.
Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
Well, Marianne, thank you so much for your time and
thank you for the interview.
It's been a pleasure getting toknow you and I'm sure your
episode will inspire people yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (01:05:36):
This was fun.
I enjoyed this and it wasreally.
Yeah, I feel like I'd like toget to know you better.
I had to put you in front ofthis sometime and ask you
questions yeah, maybe one dayright?
Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
thank you for listening to the Once we Dare
podcast.
It is an honor to share theseencouraging stories with you.
If you enjoy the show, I wouldlove for you to tell your
friends.
Leave us a reviewer rating andsubscribe to wherever you listen
to podcasts, because this helpsothers discover the show.
You can find me on my website,svekkapapacom.
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