17-year-old Lena lives at home with her mother, a widow for more than a decade. During the day Lena cleans houses, and at night she texts and talks secretly on her cell phone by candlelight.
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During the day, 17-year-old Lena cleans houses, and at night she texts and talks secretly on her cell phone by candlelight.
"You have a big decision if you want to stay with the Amish or if you want to leave," said Lena, the youngest of 11 children. "I'm confused in my life."
Although Lena dresses in Amish clothes, underneath her simple dress and white bonnet she wears a T-shirt and blue jeans.
Lena still lives at home with her mother, who very much wants her to embrace the Amish lifestyle, but on weekends she parties with her boyfriend and other Amish teens going through Rumspringa.
"Well, my dream right now is to leave the Amish and do what I want to," she told Schadler. "I want to do a lot of stuff, and just go out and have freedom for a while, complete freedom."
Lena's act of rebellion is that she plans on getting her GED -- a full high school diploma. The Amish traditionally only go to school through eighth grade. They believe that life experience trumps formal education and that young people should apprentice to learn the basic skills needed to make a living.
An hour buggy ride down the road from Lena, 18-year-old Nelson drives a souped up buggy, complete with a stereo system, subwoofers and a iPod charger.
He laughingly calls himself a "hi-tech Amish," but even so, Nelson says he is not much different then the generations before him. "It seems like every generation takes it a little further and a little further. My grandpa told me when he was my age, they had a little radio, but it was a real old type and they still had to crank it to get music out of it."
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