Come and join me on a journey to the past where I got a peek into the lives of Mennonites, a community living in the 1800s even today. This secluded Christian sect is one of the most intriguing communities in the United States, choosing to live without modern amenities such as the internet, TV, and music. Despite the stark differences from modern society, they live contentedly in small communities in the Midwest as well as countries in Latin America.
This eye-opening video offers you a unique opportunity to catch a glimpse of the Mennonite way of life as I infiltrate one of their communities in northern Wisconsin thanks to the help of my friends. I was even invited into a Mennonite home for a meal, providing me with a once in a lifetime experience.
As I explore their unique way of life, some of the most intriguing revelations include their firm ban on modern technology, their extremely simple lifestyle, and their segregated living. Through my interactions with the community, I was able to gain insights into their fascinating beliefs and practices, such as their ban on higher education and strict approach to dating and relationships.
The conversation and sharing at the lunch table was an out-of-body experience that provided invaluable insights into their deep-rooted traditions and sense of community. This video will surely inspire you to ponder the Mennonite way of life and spark a discussion about their unique perspectives and values.
Give this video a watch and let me know your thoughts in the comments about these extraordinary Americans who are truly stuck in the 1800s. Would you agree or disagree with their way of life? I look forward to hearing from you! And if you enjoyed this video, don’t forget to subscribe to my channel for more intriguing content.
Watch the video by Drew Binsky
One of the most mysterious communities in America lives right over that tree line you’ve heard about the Amish but what about the menites this extreme Christian Community doesn’t believe in high school or college lives off what their land provides and completely bans the internet are you familiar with
YouTube I mean I’ve heard the name a lot what would happen if I sneak in to spend 24 hours in their lives I’m heading to Northern Wisconsin to find Out me Marcus Martin’s my name I’m worship with the menites take Church very seriously and if you’re wondering why those dudes just kissed it’s because of their strict interpretation of the Bible take this line from Thessalonians greet all with a holy kiss I shake a few hands and
Everyone is wondering what am I doing here Outsiders never come but the minister invites me to join Sunday mass and hear their choir Sing the of my notice how the men and women are separated it doesn’t matter if you’re a family because gender is one of the ways that Menan nights organize their society and understand their roles amen depart in peace well it was different wasn’t it very nice I enjoyed it thank you name
Again Drew Drew yeah after Mass the minister Joel takes me under the church to check out the only School in the community which stops after 8th grade this is first and second grade we don’t generally do college and that type of thing a lot of downsides to college and
If you’re interested in serving the lord and living out the Bible I’m inside the first grade classroom here in the school pretty bizarre The menites traced their route to Europe during the Protestant Reformation a revolt against Catholicism they’re inspired by this guy meno Simons a Catholic priest who is excommunicated by the church but he disagreed with other Protestant reformers about the Bible and infant baptism promoting adult baptism instead facing persecution for their
Beliefs the menites moved to the US and elsewhere where they formed tight-knit communities which has been mingling with the people here and one of the families invited us into their house for lunch so of course I said yes I’m really excited to try local food and enter a man
Night’s home Welcome to our house thank you very much how are you glad to have you with us thanks for having us hi hi thank you so much to meet yo first thing you see when you walk inside a man I’s house are all the shoes for all the kids
Look at this all in a rack right there there a lot of shoes this house is really amazing really pink and purpley and there’s so many rooms in the bathroom there’s this wall of toothbrush for all the kids look at all these toothbrushes so this is my wife’s side
Of the family how many grandkids do your parents have they’re around 70 on her side and then on this side this is my parents here MH and they have 15 children and they have 135 grandchildren they have 135 grandchildren right they just had their 135th and my brother
Matthew was number 15 and so you can see he’s just getting a good start on his family so you know do you know the names of all your first cousins not quite not quite close almost how you guys doing remind me have your name again it’s get what is it kenlin kenlin
I’m Christopher Christopher this is your house y can you give me a little tour sure that’s my oldest brother’s Christopher and Carlos’s room mhm and then this is Joseph and I’s room nice how many people are sleeping in this house including your family and the company 13 well right now it’d be 16
Yeah and I think the most we’ve ever had in one night is 40 W I think was the most yeah and so we just kind of stacked them in open the jar oh wa what is in here uh that’s my wife’s canning shelves like so she cans a lot and then you know
Freezes and so uh wow so she she sells them or no it’s just for our family wow that’s a lot of uh yeah just a lot of work yeah well this is you know we’re coming into winter so she’s put up a supplier for a whole year all right give
Me the tour up here this is my dad and mom’s bedroom nice so that’s where they sleep and then there’s a master bathroom right there nice and pink that’s right it’s my oldest two sisters this is their room nice my younger sisters youngest Four Sisters sleep in here how many
Siblings do you have 10 what are their names go youngest oldest Kimberly Adela Liliana fene Janelle Jalisa Joseph me Christopher jinda Carlos all Right then sings my soul God to the so we uh start with prayer ask God’s blessing on the food let’s pray our heavenly father we thank you for your great goodness to us we thank you for the beautiful day thank you for the food when many in this world
Are hungry we pray that we would remember that these gifts are from you amen amen and so you help yourself and if it’s not good well pass it on and baked everything in the oven I think the chicken could be a little softer so I’m sorry about that it feels
So strange to sit at this lunch table not just for me but for the menites they are not used to having guess but they are as kind as any Midwestern family and they’re eager to teach me about their faith so we do not have casual dating and we practice hands off no physical
Touching okay and it so the idea is to to discuss ideals and goals and our Focus often courtship is between a year and a year and a half if they believe that this is God’s Will and then they there’s a an engagement period he asked
Her to be his wife and a wedding date is set and uh and then marriage is permanent marriage is one man one woman for Life unless there’s the death of a spouse so we teach that the Christian Life is a battle in the biggest fight that we’re in is a battle against the
Flesh and we’re tempted with selfishness greed covetousness the sins of humanity just like everybody else well the one young man it was issues of pornography that’s a that’s an issue that would cut your membership off that’s we have a zero tolerance for porn and he was dabbling into it we
Instructed him he wasn’t willing to give it up and so he understood he understood when he was that no I it’s not tolerate it’s not tolerated after a delicious meal and some awkward conversation the kids take me out back to visit the slaughterhouse where they start to work
At a young age okay so we got a couple of dead deer on the floor today is a gun youth hunt ages 15 and under the person that shoots it brings it in and they usually eat himself we did 750 year last year yeah so this is actually our kill
For right here so it’s a it’s like our Slaughter room and they come bring them to the kill Sho knock them bleed them out and then we skin them out we split down through the back faite thing to do I enjoy working better than S so you here working every day yep
These are beef SP and half you did all this yep aren’t you proud of that it’s nothing to be proud about you should be wow it’s pretty easy anybody can do it this is crazy look at this as we inch closer to Sunset I meet back up with
Joel to tour the town and see what else is happening on the farms got the little ones here I got one of them hi how are you she so cute all right so we going to take a little tour yeah we’ll drive around and look at a couple of local
Small businesses are you familiar with YouTube I mean you know what it is I mean I’ve heard the name a lot and I know somewhat what it is yeah what do you think YouTube is well there’s a lot of content on there a lot of videos anything from how to
To um songs to what would be your description yeah no YouTube is a a database of hundreds of millions of videos but that being said there’s also a lot of evil things on YouTube which is why I envy your guys’ lifestyle that you don’t you don’t consume any of that you
Know y if there’d be a good way to filter out all the the content that recks your mind it would be so if you walk into a restaurant and there’s a TV on would you watch it well I we try not to just sit there and watch it have you heard of Justin
Bieber yeah he uh singer a famous Idol of a singer B have you heard of Taylor Swift yes I mean I recognize the names I wouldn’t be able to say exactly what genre they right are promoting or those are like two of the biggest probably American singers pop
Singers but yeah I mean a lot of it’s just a waste of time I I as I said earlier I really envy and respect the way you guys live just you remove all that stuff from your life you know you seem to be self-sufficient like if you need a mechanic you have a
Mechanic if you need a butcher you have a butcher cuz you guys are all kind of together without the internet life can get pretty boring but the menites have huge families to keep each other company and a lot of animals to look after for instance chickens wo if you ever wonder
What a chicken house looks like it looks like this this simple lifestyle intertwined with the beautiful landscape is something the menites do not take for granted it’s starting to make sense why they choose to live in isolation and why they never feel tempted to leave as I walk around the green field with
Colorful trees the fresh air feels as good as ever the kids are in the trees picking apples fresh apples so good be careful out there coolest thing is that they’re innovators and they’re the menites are really resourceful walking through the Apple Fields here they’re hard workers they’re
Business people and they care a lot about their Community menites are tough people and very kind as well so we try to focus on Spreading the News of the Gospel so when the church gets full instead of just building bigger and bigger churches we try to find an area
That there’s not a church and plant a church there and you guys have phones but they’re flip phones we don’t have smartphones so most of them are flip phones just because that’s what’s available and The Internet’s been a tough issue for us you know because it’s so wrapped up in business and everything
Anymore we made it to a cow Farm here we’re all lined up and ready to go inside we don’t want to get yeah we don’t want to get tackled by cows so we are out here in the field and uh you know Wisconsin is known as America’s Dairyland and I happen to love
This St because I went to college here University of Wisconsin Madison for 4 years so it’s always great to be back here we are it’s really interesting just being out here with the men I they’re very calm still people just like no internet no movie theaters no smartphones they just live very humble
Lives there’s something to admire about that I just wonder what it would be like if we live like that I certainly wouldn’t be making a career off YouTube W man neither my big ones this is awesome dude I’m from a city in Arizona where we don’t have tractors where I’m From the tire is taller than me oh CRA going in the tractor thanks man where should I sit right here this is my first time in the tractor really yeah are they fun to drive yeah I it’s probably one of my more favorite parts of f than actually lots of tractors out
Here working in the fields it’s pretty freaking cool what does it mean to you to be a menite my belief in God and what he asked of us is Through the Bible I we believe that it affects all of our life so yes I grew up a metanite but I
Am I am also a metanite by choice yeah that was cool people will talk about the quaint lifestyle or the peaceful and and all of that and that’s a lot of Truth to that what I would like for my personal vision is for people to see beyond the
Lifestyle and to see Jesus and how he would want them to live you know what what’s taught in the Bible live out those doctrines is is a we have right so do men and I believe in anything different than the Bible or strictly Bible teachings well we try to face our
Life off of the Bible and God’s will for us you know the Bible doesn’t obviously tell us exactly how to look at present day things like internet for instance that’s a good point but it does give us principles like there’s a versus say evil Communications corrupt good manners
For instance talking about keeping bad influences out of our Lives as much as possible yeah in my family it’s a big deal to go to university but here it’s opposite so what do people think about purpose of the purpose of University in your family uh to learn to get a higher
Education and specialize in your skill it’s also a time where you make new friends learn how to live independently as an adult so universities a lot of people will I don’t know what percentage it is a lot of people will go through multiple years of University and rack up
A sizable debt and then but even if they do sometimes yes I believe that it’ll help you gain a higher income at times but I guess the family model is one that we appreciate where dads and moms help their children to grow up and then some point obviously
We go off on our own and I suppose a lot of Hands-On learning is there a choice if the kid wants to do something else what if they want to become a doctor or that’s just not even a thought to them a doctor would be a fine profession to
Have to be yeah healing helping people great but to go through four years or 6 years of college away from home and away from away from your your religious support group yeah it notth it it it tends to be a pretty big risk to their uh spiritual life and how often do you
Pray like is it throughout the day so there’s a verse that says pray with without ceasing which means in an attitude of prayer we would feel that it’s important to to pray daily it’s it’s not not this thing where you got to go to a certain place and get in a
Certain position and do all this we can be driving and pray pray to God or we can be working in the shop or whatever you know in an attitude of worship and prayer to God and so it’s it’s a constant thing of trying to keep the
Dirt out and keep the keep filling our minds with good things we all know that we have want to to do things that we shouldn’t we realize we sin we go to Jesus repent of our sins go to him and try to live our lives for him and at the
End of life whether it be when we die and go to be with him or whether he returns for us we could be with him in heaven you know the Eternal reward sure do people believe that he will return in your lifetime I don’t know whatever you think about the menites the commitment
To their faith is Honorable and I’m grateful for their kindness and respect personally I think their views on College and marriage are a bit extreme but who am I to judge I am always so happy to be back in Wisconsin and I hope you learn something new about the secret
American culture I’ll see you guys next Week
Video “These Americans Are Stuck in the 1800s” was uploaded on 01/20/2024. Watch all the latest Videos by Drew Binsky on Gretopia