Mose Gingerich

Early years

Gingerich was raised on a 255-acre farm and at a very young age worked in the fields and sawmill. He developed a love for reading as an escape from reality. Books such as Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Little Men, Little Women, Big Smoke Mountain, and Heidi had an influence in his early childhood years.

In his early teens, Gingerich became restless while living among the Amish and began trying to find a way to some day escape into the world outside. During these years, he lived in six Amish communities in the Midwest, trying to find some answers. Gingerich taught all eight grades in a one-room schoolhouse for four years. He made several attempts to leave the Amish community, but the transition was just too difficult. He often questioned the Amish way of life and whether there was more to religion than the Amish tradition that was all he had ever known.

Excommunication by the Amish

On July 3, 2002, after Gingerich finished his fourth year of teaching, he left the Amish. Making a decision to leave the Amish community after Believer's baptism is rare and frowned upon within the community, often resulting in excommunication. Gingerich was banned from further contact with his family and community.

Amish in the City

In 2004, 1 1/2 years after Gingerich left the Amish, he got an opportunity to be on the reality show Amish in the City, televised on UPN. The show featured six city kids and five ex-Amish kids trying to co-exist in a mansion in the middle of the Hollywood Hills. The season consisted of ten episodes. It was the first major television project done with Amish people. Mose made appearances on several late night shows to help promote Amish in the City, including Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Good Morning America, Live with Regis and Kelly, Good Day Live, and radio shows.

Amish at the Altar and Amish Out of Order

In 2009 and 2010, Gingerich shot and produced two documentaries with Stick Figure Productions. Both aired by the National Geographic Channel: Amish at the Altar and Amish Out of the Order. Amish at the Altar featured Eli and Mary Gingerich, a couple who had been married Amish but chose to leave, renewing their wedding vows in the outside world. Amish Out of the Order featured Mose, a group of his close ex-Amish friends, and the life they are now leading in Columbia, Missouri. The focus of the film was Mose's place as a leader within the ex-Amish community; he often helped the kids with housing, cars, driver's licenses, and jobs.

Current status

Gingerich has lived in the Columbia, Missouri area ever since. He owned and operated his own construction company, Gingerich Home Improvement, until 2010. In the fall of 2010, because of health reasons, Gingerich left construction work. Today he is a sales representative at an automobile dealership in Columbia. In the spring of 2016, Mose left his job in sales, and started driving truck over the road. The new job takes him all 48 states wide, sometimes being out on the road for two weeks at a time.