LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. (WHP) — After spending a month with Amish families in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, an upstate New York woman has decided she wants to become Amish.
Billie Jo Heffron was one of six English “outsiders” to take part in TLC’s new show, “Suddenly Amish.” Each of the six participants, from all over the country, gave up their worldly possessions, cut ties with the outside world and donned Amish attire to give the lifestyle a try.
Billie Jo was one of two people who decided to pursue the Amish life after the show’s finale. She sat down with CBS 21 Monday to reflect on the experience, what made her decide to stay Amish, and what’s next for her. You can watch the full interview on the CBS 21 YouTube channel.
A lifelong interest in the Amish
Billie Jo’s introduction on the show revealed that she’d been dressing Amish for years before she applied to be on the show.
The Berkshire, New York, native told CBS 21 that her interest in the Amish started more than a decade ago, when she would visit the farmers’ market with her mom and was intrigued by how the Amish dressed.
The more she learned about the Plain communities, the more interested she became. For her 30th birthday, a Mennonite family helped grant her wish of taking a buggy ride. For her 40th birthday, she visited Lancaster County for a weekend in Amish country.
“I just had so much respect for the culture, and I started reading a lot of Amish authors,” Billie Jo said. “The more I learned, the more I really thought this may be the right lifestyle for me. This may be what I’ve been looking for. There’s a lot of chaos in the world these days, and it was a peaceful lifestyle that I think I just was super curious to see if that was something that I could be a part of.”
That’s why it felt like an act of God when she encountered a social media ad for TLC’s new show “Suddenly Amish.”
She sent a message, received a response and the rest was history.
Billie Jo joined five other non-Amish people from across the country who traveled to Leacock Township in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to live with two Amish families there for a month.
The goal of the TV show? To introduce more people into the Lancaster Amish community so members can repopulate with people outside the family. At the end of the month, on “Reckoning Day,” each of the English had to make a choice: commit to becoming Amish or return to their regular lives.
For Billie Jo, the experience was full of challenges, outnumbered by rewards.
Hard work, heat & an Amish blind date
The days were long and full of hard work.
The roles were different for men and women, Billie Jo explained, but she said most days she woke up around 4 a.m. to feed the farm animals, prepare food for the men, complete chores, plan lunch, do laundry, shuck corn, clean up, plan and cook dinner, and repeat.
“I really don’t mind cooking and cleaning, and I was able to learn from Sarah,” Billie Jo said. “So for me, it was like, oh my gosh, I get to live with an Amish woman who was going to show me how to make noodles and show me how she cooks.”
Billie Jo said they wasted nothing – if there was leftover food, it went to the chickens or the pigs.
“Day-to-day it was work, but also laughter,” she said. “Once the lights went down and the lanterns were lit, we had the best time.”
After the sun went down, they all played games, sat around the fire and got to know each other’s stories, and took in the beautiful scenery of Lancaster County.
While in Lancaster, Billie Jo went on a blind date with a soft-spoken Amish man named Jacob.
“It was definitely an experience,” Billie Jo said. “Jacob? Lovely. And I certainly did not expect Jacob to come as he did. When I saw the haircut, I was, like, smitten from the jump because, he wore blue, which is my favorite color, and I love the Amish bowl cut.”
Viewers saw the pair go on a short date where they sat together on a bench in a cornfield and confided in each other about their tattoos and piercings.
“He’s a great guy. He was a lot of fun,” Billie Jo said. “I didn’t expect to be able to find an Amish man, let alone find an Amish man with, you know, so many layers to him.”
As for whether or not the pair will go on another date, Billie Jo said they haven’t been in contact since the show ended, and she’s not sure how that would look now that she’s in New York.
But the hardest part of her “Suddenly Amish” experience was adjusting to life without air conditioning. At one point later in the month, viewers saw Billie Jo go to the hospital to be treated for heat exhaustion.
“I mean, even in the buggies, like, it’s still hot, and now you’re going to smell the horse. And even though you’re going pretty fast, the breeze is not doing anything for you,” she said. “So the heat was by far the hardest part for me, and I’m sure will be in my future, because I really do want to stray away from, like, air conditioning and, like, modern conveniences like that.”
She said the best part of the experience was the relationships she formed and how much she was learned from the Amish.
“I wouldn’t change it for the world. Maybe I’d choose a different season,” she said with a laugh, “but it’s not about that I’m so grateful that I had that opportunity.”
Part of becoming Amish is embracing a close relationship with God, as seen in the show.
Billie Jo said she was raised Baptist, and while she loved church from a young age, Amish church was very different and much more intimate.
Church lasts all day, she said, and during the service, men sit on one side and women on the other. There’s a lot of prayer and singing in Pennsylvania Dutch, listening and togetherness, often followed by community meals.
“I would say the church was probably the most emotional time for all of us. We all spiritually felt, ‘wow, that was incredible,’” Billie Jo said. “I mean, I think just speaking to everyone about it as we were leaving, as well, that was pretty incredible spiritually, even though we really didn’t understand everything that was being said.”
What’s next for Billie Jo?
After living in Lancaster for a month, Reckoning Day was finally upon them. The group was brought to the church in front of a small congregation, where they were asked to speak about their experiences and later choose whether they wanted to stay Amish.
For Billie Jo, there was a lot to consider, particularly when it came to giving up air conditioning and having limited contact with her family—including her mom, who she calls her best friend.
But after much thought, all became clear.
“After thinking it through, I thought, ‘I have to do this. This is something that I want, and my mom will support me in my journey, and it’s just going to strengthen our relationship.’”
But deciding you want to become Amish doesn’t instantly make the rest of your life disappear- after the finale, Billie Jo headed back to New York, where she’s working to tie up loose ends with her lease, bills and barista job.
She still talks multiple times a day with Judah, the only other English person who decided to stay Amish, and the two are now looking for a welcoming Amish community where they could move together. She referred to Judah as her “platonic soulmate,” noting that both of them continue to wear their Amish clothing, and they’ve gotten close with each other’s families.
“We really want to find a community that is welcoming to both of us. And I’m not sure if that’s back in Lancaster or if that’s here in New York or where that will be, so we’re just going to keep going, keep praying about it. And I all I can do is hope that I find a community that’s welcoming to me.”
In the meantime, Billie Jo is involved with the Amish community in upstate New York, still wearing her Amish clothing and continuing her discipleship. She also talks daily with the other English from the show and had reached back out to her Amish hosts in Lancaster.
She said that more than anything, she’s so grateful to the Amish community members like Bishop Vernon, Sarah and Allen, who took her in and taught her everything.
“I think for me, it’s really important that people know, the Amish that stepped outside of their comfort zone and were able to kind of show us the Amish life, I just give them so much more credit than they that they’re getting,” Billie Jo said. “I try not to, you know, feed into the comments and things like that, but, you know, these are beautiful Amish people that said, ‘We’re going to show our faith and we’re going to show others our faith, and this is how we’re going to do it.’”