Interview: Elizabeth Hilty - former member of Amish Community in Berne, Indiana interviewed by Joseph Miller.

E: Have you heard about the abuse awareness meetings in Adams County?

J: Yes, from what we witnessed from testimonies and heard from the Holy Spirit, is that it's just another layer of cover up. We were given addresses and names of committee members, but we felt we were not supposed to go to their houses.

E: That is exactly what I was going to tell you, is they are using that. So this abuse awareness team meets regularly with the prosecutor and they they are literally using that as a cover. They report enough cases every so often, and it all depends on who it is. They will report just enough cases so that they can say that we do report. I've told the prosecutor that “they are literally manipulating you.” He's afraid that they will never talk. Before our case, they used to never talk to him. They could never get the Amish to communicate with them. They would just not talk at all. They wanted no meetings, no nothing. Then after I left with our case, they finally got to the point where the Amish were saying, “we gotta work with them, or they're going to just send them off to prison and not listen to us.” So they started meeting every so often. The prosecutor said, if I lay it down the way I think it should be, then they're going to close down, and we're back to step one. To me, where I'm coming from, I told him “that is what is going to have to happen because right now, you're compromising with them, and you're not getting anywhere.” The abuse awareness committees are still pulling the strings. They're they're doing exactly what they are so used to doing. They're controlling everything. They're controlling what the prosecutor gets, what he doesn't get, what he finds out! They will tell you they have this set up, [in hand] and I am so glad that you guys didn't go to their houses because it's actually a lot of my exhusband’s‘ family.

J: Really? The abuse awareness team people?

E: Yes. And involved with it.

J: When did these abuse awareness groups start in Berne?

E: So they started up when I left in January 2017. They started after I left, and at first they thought they could sway the judge. That first hearing we had, I had no attorney. I had nothing. The first hearing we had was on the protective order that I had filed for. I didn't know that the state had a no contact order. When I filed for that protective order, I didn't know the state is making a case on a no contact order. So I literally wouldn't have needed that, but I didn't know that. The Amish started scrambling after they seen how the judge responded to my exhusband because they had hearings when I wasn't there. And I guess the judge, spoke to my ex-husband where it just looked like he wanted to tear him apart. Well, I think he did because he was so angered by what was going on and the reports he was receiving. Then I find out, my ex husband’s brothers weren't just coming into court. They were also writing letters into the court, sending them to court, to the judge.

J: So you're saying they were the beginning of these abuse awareness groups?

E: That was the beginning. It was 2 of his uncles. His brother who you spoke with is not on that abuse support team. He is on a team for my ex-husband supposedly for accountability.

J: I heard was in a newer order from a more refined community, not quite as conservative. That's what I gathered from it anyway. J: So you would say that these abuse awareness groups were formed to fend off the government more than help the victims?

E: They were formed to fend off the government, and to be a middleman between the Amish and the government. When I went, I went straight to the government. The bishops and ministers had no say in anything. If they have these abuse awareness teams and the victims come to them first, then they can play it where the victim talks to them and they (the abuse awareness group) talk to the government. They then only reveal what they want the government to know, if that makes sense.

J:Is it true that in the members meetings or in Ordnung’s church service, they train their own people how to confess sin in the church in a way that other church members don't expose or turn them in?

E: Well, the bishop says it in a way that nobody else will know what it's really about.

J: So they would never say, “I sexually molested or touched my girls”?

E: No. In some cases when we found out that abuse was happening, it was just said that “something happened.” I can't say how they would exactly say because it was in Swiss (dialect of Pennsylvania Deutsch). If I would be talking Swiss, I could say it. But you would never find out that it was two little girls or, how old the girls were, or what was even going on.

J: Do they have any standard against a father molesting his girls? Are the children seen as the parents' property?

E: Yes. They are.

J: That's what I always assumed after I heard these reports. Another question I have. “In the church district you came from, and I know we're shooting in the air, but you’re just the closest contact we have; how many families or people that you know about right now, do you think are being abused within the home or where you know this stuff is happening? What percentage?”

E: If you're talking about abuse in general, not just sexual abuse, it happens in pretty much every household in some form or way. The sexual abuse happens in schools. It happens in church, and it happens at home.

J: What do you mean in church?

E: There are places at church where the men or the boys molest other girls or boys molest boys.

J: And there's adults that know about this?

E: I never knew about it growing up.

J: Do you think the bishop knows about it? I mean, obviously,

E: Yes. It's almost a thing where you just turn a blind eye and think, these things aren't actually happening. They actually had a teacher that was sent to prison in Adams County since I left that he had been molesting the girls in school.

J: So since you left from Berne it happened.

E: Yes. Since I left, that happened. And it doesn't just happen to girls. It happens to boys too. But to actually have proof, you have to have the victims come forward or then catch them in the act because, otherwise, you can't take these things to court or to law enforcement without proof because nothing will be done about it. J: Did did your husband rape your boys?

E: That, I do not know. If he did, it would have been probably my oldest son. He is the strongest and the fact that he wants nothing to do with his dad. Nothing. Things happened before they were even old enough to remember or it could be blocked out. Well, I do have an incident when I was at risk, involving my ex-husband and his parents. When I went to Rest Haven (counseling center), we had come to a decision that the boys would stay at my parents and everybody agreed to that. If my ex wanted to spend time with them, then he would have to go to my parents' house. My parents invited him, said you can even stay here, like, for the weekend or overnight, to be here with the boys. After I was admitted at Rest Haven, my ex husband and his dad came to my parents and they took the boys. They had them one week at his parents and one week at my parents. When I got back home, though, after being gone for seven weeks, those boys were a mess.

J: Was that emotionally or physically?

E: Everything. But I'm forever grateful that I went because it was what I needed to get myself back on track so that I could be there for them.

J: Right. And in the long term, they wanted it for you too.

E: Yes. It was just hard really, really hard on them. What would have been so much easier is if they would have left them at my parents the way it had been agreed upon instead of taking them back and forth. My oldest son was seven years old at the time. In Berne, we didn't have running water so to shower, I would always help them fix their water hot and cold and get it ready for them, for the boys at that age. Then they would usually shower on their own. When I got back I was helping my oldest son wash his hair one night, and then I asked him. “When I was gone, who helped you shower and get you ready for bed?” He just said, ___anonymous___. That’s their dad's sister, which, by the way, their dad molested her when she was growing up, and I found out later that it was happening all the way up until we got married. But back to my son, he made a comment. “Everybody else was allowed to come that night to grandpas on the day that you were supposed to come home, but I had to stay with Dad.” I said, “well, why weren't you allowed to come?" He said, “Dad thought I had to sleep with him because he never wanted to sleep alone. I had to rub his back and his hair, and I had to massage him. My son shut down after that and always refused to talk about it. So I know there's probably something, but I don't know. And he's now 17. He has been through a lot. All of my boys have gone through a lot of counseling and therapy. I felt like they found closure and SCAN has now closed the case. There's always the possibility that their dad could take it back to court. Right. And we would have to go to court again. But if he does, then, um, we will get the case notes from the agency and have those submitted to court, and we will bring the boys into court to talk to the judge. My 16 year old told me “Mom, it's literally hopeless in trying to talk to him. It's all about himself. He’s always right. My ex literally takes no responsibility for what he did. My 14, 15 and 16 year old were talking to their 40 year old dad, telling him, you need to just go find Jesus.

J: That’s amazing. So good. That's what he needs to hear. You know, Elizabeth, without repentance, there can be no forgiveness. When it comes to the Lord, we are required to forgive. It doesn't matter if we are abused our whole life, the Lord said, forgive as I've forgiven you. Because I am forgiven from the biggest debt that I've that I could possibly owe. I deserve hell, but the Lord has set me free. I have been given his righteousness. But on this earth, the only sin the Lord cannot forgive is one we don't repent of. Because if we don't repent of it, we’re lost. That’s why he's lost. He is lost without repentance. The Amish system has perverted forgiveness to the point where it is inverted. I’ve looked up scriptures where the Lord talks about perverting justice. He hates it when the justice is perverted, and it targets the victims instead of setting them free. Another question I have for you, Elizabeth, is in leaving the Amish, did you ever have, at any time in your life before you left, like I mean, let's say, prior to getting married or even after you're married, did you ever have a desire to leave the Amish just randomly just because you're tired of the Amish?

E: I was sometimes kinda confused, but, my mom and dad would always almost go out of their way to be nice to the people that weren't Amish regardless of where they came from or who they were. That's just who my parents were. I think that is where I got that. I would always make sure that I talked to them if I seen them. But there were times that I would, like, wonder, and I would say. “God, what is all of this? What if they are right and we are wrong?" I would ask God to show me the truth, just bring it to me; and he did. It didn’t happen in just one blink of an eye. It happened slowly over time. When I actually left my ex husband, Adams County crisis intervention, their safe house for the domestic violence (where I was for about a day and a half) they offered to help me leave the Amish. They all knew. They all know, but it's like the prosecutor told me. He said we've never been able to get anyone to come forward and talk to us. Yet the Amish review by the public is they are the quiet in the land and there’s a kind of respected holy hush about it.

J: Why do you think there's not more exposure happening if these prosecutors and attorneys and crisis centers know about it.

E: Well, I will just give an example. Out in Pennsylvania, there's a case and the judges and the attorneys are being paid off by the Amish.

J: I felt that that's what's happening. I didn't have evidence of it. And so here's another example of what the extent is they will go to intimidate. So after my ex was sent to prison, one of the power of attorney guys went to the detective of Adams County, and he told him that Elizabeth is not fit to have her children. She's on medication and has put one of her sons to the grave already. [One of my children died of SIDS.] One of the power of attorney guys for my ex husband went in to the pharmacy in Berne where I got my medication for my nightmares. [When I went through Rest Haven and Oak Lawn, they put me on medication for depression and anxiety and it helped me.] But after I left Berne, the one power of attorney guy went into the pharmacy where I got my medication, and he got a printout of medications, exactly the dose. All my records there. He made copies and he sent it out to the Amish people here in Northern Indiana to some of the bishops. Copies were sent to bishops up here in Northern Indiana, then those bishops sent it to the people that were helping me. They received it, I seen it, and I was so mad.

J: Was that to try to prove that you were mentally ill or what?

E: Yeah. It was trying to prove that I'm not mentally fit to have my children. In that time, it was right after I left, and I was so upset about it.

E: It was an Amish person that went in and got it and so they gave it to him because that's what they do. These Amish people go in and they ask for things, and they say we're here representing this person. And they don't even question it. They just give it to them.

J: They have a wool pulled over their eyes.

E: I had wanted to go to some of their abuse awareness team meetings to just see, like, what what are they actually talking about? What is actually happening? Because what I found out is these meetings were supposedly open to all the Amish. Well, there were only certain Amish people that are finding out about when the meetings are. They limit who finds out what. Yeah. And they do that on purpose.

J: But these are called public meetings?

E: Yep, and I was told the only way I can attend a meeting is if the Amish give the okay and I never received a confirmation that I was okay to go. They do say they are public meetings. There are only certain people there, like, even the pros will sometimes bring in a law enforcement person; sometimes it's the prosecutor, sometimes it's the sheriff. They will bring them in to talk to the Amish people there. But the one Amish preacher (___anonymous___) my great uncle, he keeps telling people that he really hopes ( __anonymous__) keeps up that connection with the prosecutor because we need someone like him to be the middle man so that the law doesn't take over, we need to keep things under control.

J: If we back up and look at the situation, “who is actually in the communities saying, there’s a problem?” If we have this much of a problem, why are we trying to hide it and cover it up instead of going back to the Bible, going back to the foundations of our faith and saying, There needs to be freedom, not finding more ways to hide. Fundamentally it's not going to go away until the alter and the false idols are crushed. They spend all their time defending a system that is cult-like in nature. Abuse is a generic word. It's thrown out there, but it's part of Babylon.