Bontragers/Bowers/Helferichs 10: Where In the World Is Allison Bon-Diego??

[Bluebirdbluebell]

John and Chelsy are the most public members of the family so hopefully that excludes Chelsy.

5 hours ago, LanaBanana said:

They’ve edited the caption to Noelle, it must have been a typo originally. 

Thank you! Noel was originally a unisex name, and people sometimes use more masculine names for girls, so I wasn't sure. Noelle is a cute name.

 

Edited June 29, 2022 by Bluebirdbluebell

[anjulibai]

Noel proncounced like "Nole" is the English pronuciation of the French name Noel, pronounced No-el. Since the Friench language is gendered, both orally and written, the male and female versions are spelled differently, Noel and Noelle, though pronounced the same. There are a lot of names in French that are orally unisex, but written differently per gender. Not all, mind you (Dominique is an example) but a lot of them. Usually depends on the ending of the spelling, like -el for male and -elle for female. 

Edited June 29, 2022 by anjulibai

[ElizaB]

Ok so maybe this doesn't really belong here but it reminds me of something the Bonts/Bowers would love:

 I just saw an add for a book series "The Tuttle Twins" and it was crazy. You have to watch the ad. I can't describe it to do it justice. 

 

** ALSO- I have been following these people too much if this is what pops up on my facebook ads!!!!

[fundiefan]

What the hell did I just watch? My mind is revolting at the crap that has been thrown at it. 

[indianabones]

18 minutes ago, ElizaB said:

 I just saw an add for a book series "The Tuttle Twins" and it was crazy. You have to watch the ad. I can't describe it to do it justice. 

Jill Duggar has promoted their books before.

[JermajestyDuggar]

I’ve seen other fundies post pics of their kids books and the Tuttle Twins are often in there. 

[IsmeWeatherwax]

Ive been watching some Amish and Mennonite documentaries and one of the ladies maiden names was Bontrager and she was from Iowa, wonder if theres any connection? I just wanted to ask, shunning is such a major part of Amish culture, I find it strange that neither Becky or Marlins familys have shunned them for leaving. Would that not have caused trouble for the ones who remain?

 

[JermajestyDuggar]

2 hours ago, IsmeWeatherwax said:

Ive been watching some Amish and Mennonite documentaries and one of the ladies maiden names was Bontrager and she was from Iowa, wonder if theres any connection? I just wanted to ask, shunning is such a major part of Amish culture, I find it strange that neither Becky or Marlins familys have shunned them for leaving. Would that not have caused trouble for the ones who remain?

 

Since we’ve just recently been told that both Becky and Marlin’s parents left the Amish, I’m guessing that’s a huge part of it. If Marlin and Becky’s parents were shunned and hated it, I’m guessing they decided not to shun their own children when they also left the Mennonite church. We’ve seen the siblings of Becky and Marlin and they are not the only ones who left the Mennonite church. I doubt their parents wanted to shun a bunch of their children. 

[IsmeWeatherwax]

Thank you @JermajestyDuggar. I wasnt quite sure as in both sides of their families some still wear the plain dress, I mean it looks comfy but if youre not Amish why would you choose to wear it including the bonnets? I might ask next time they do a Q&A!

Also in the program I watched, the Mother, she was a maiden Bontrager, said "the amish dont hug their kids". She was talking about the last time she saw her Mother, the Mother had cancer was going into hospital. All the children lined up and the mother shook their hands as a goodbye. How awful! But it does confirm I suppose, the lack of warm in Beckys mothering. 

Edited July 10, 2022 by IsmeWeatherwax
More words

[gracegrace]

1 hour ago, IsmeWeatherwax said:

Thank you @JermajestyDuggar. I wasnt quite sure as in both sides of their families some still wear the plain dress, I mean it looks comfy but if youre not Amish why would you choose to wear it including the bonnets? I might ask next time they do a Q&A!

Also in the program I watched, the Mother, she was a maiden Bontrager, said "the amish dont hug their kids". She was talking about the last time she saw her Mother, the Mother had cancer was going into hospital. All the children lined up and the mother shook their hands as a goodbye. How awful! But it does confirm I suppose, the lack of warm in Beckys mothering. 

Some conservative Mennonite women wear apron dresses and a head covering. I’m soooo not an expert on Anabaptists, but If you Google “conservative Mennonite dress” you’ll see lots of info on the specifics and how it differs from Old Order Amish practices.

[JermajestyDuggar]

There are so many varying levels of strictness when it comes to the amish and mennonites. So one of the notoriously strict amish groups are the Swartzentruber amish. That’s about as strict as the Amish get and everyone else is just varying degrees of less strict from there. The biggest difference I’ve seen from the Amish and Mennonite is that mennonites drive cars. But it’s hard to make broad assumptions because there are some very modern groups of Amish here and there that might drive cars. And then there are some Mennonite groups that dress plain. And then there are some mennonites that dress more modern. Each group tends to have their own set of elders and they tend to make their own rules. So the elders might allow some things in their group that a group of Amish 60 miles away would not be allowed to do. That’s why it varies so much. 

[anjulibai]

A lot of the reason there are so many Amish and Mennonite groups is because they start arguing over whether or not something is allowed, and the argument becomes so huge that they decide to split. It kind of reminds me of a lot of IFB and NIFB churches. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

1 hour ago, anjulibai said:

A lot of the reason there are so many Amish and Mennonite groups is because they start arguing over whether or not something is allowed, and the argument becomes so huge that they decide to split. It kind of reminds me of a lot of IFB and NIFB churches. 

That’s how it alway seems to be with religion. It’s why there are even Catholics who completely disagree with the pope on a lot of things. 

[HereticHick]

People don't always get shunned when they leave an Amish or Mennonite community--I thought the whole point of adult baptism, and the whole "rumspringa" idea, was that you should make a conscious adult choice to be part of the religion.

If you look at the Bontrager's tour schedules, you will see that a significant percentage of their performances--no matter the country-- are in Mennonite Churches & community halls.

[JermajestyDuggar]

43 minutes ago, HereticHick said:

People don't always get shunned when they leave an Amish or Mennonite community--I thought the whole point of adult baptism, and the whole "rumspringa" idea, was that you should make a conscious adult choice to be part of the religion.

If you look at the Bontrager's tour schedules, you will see that a significant percentage of their performances--no matter the country-- are in Mennonite Churches & community halls.

If I remember correctly, getting baptized (as an adult) into the Amish church and then leaving is worse than leaving before you get baptized.

[Jana814]

1 hour ago, HereticHick said:

People don't always get shunned when they leave an Amish or Mennonite community--I thought the whole point of adult baptism, and the whole "rumspringa" idea, was that you should make a conscious adult choice to be part of the religion.

I think your right. I once saw a story about people who leave the Amish community because they were baptized. One guy left in 1980. He was never shunned because he wasn’t baptized. He runs a lawn care company & he also helps other Amish kids who are on rumspringa or have decided to leave the community. 

[wendy-sparkles]

I follow a former amish girl on tiktok whose family left when she was a child. They still appear very amish, she wears a bonnet and she said she just considers herself a plain person now. She said her community tried to help them find a place to go when they left, but it sounds like her father was an english convert and she's mentioned he had a vehicle when the rest of her community didn't, so maybe they had a different standard for them because they were english? 

[IsmeWeatherwax]

I just watched a series called "Breaking the silence" on you tube, very interesting as it covered how Anabaptists came about and also about the split to become Amish and Mennonite. 

We dont have any Amish or Mennonite in the South East UK, but we do have a Bruderhof colony, the girls from there would sometimes come into the catholic secondary school my girls went to.

If I had a choice of which cult to be born into, I would choose Hutterite, I think its because of their love of modern technology, I have no wish to live without modern comforts

[Bluebirdbluebell]

The Bontragers put up a new blog post on July 5, 2022. It's more "Random Life' while on tour. There is a picture of Liz and Rebecca with two young ladies who look familiar, but I wasn't sure who they are. They also announced tour dates. 

[indianabones]

On 7/11/2022 at 4:13 AM, IsmeWeatherwax said:

If I had a choice of which cult to be born into, I would choose Hutterite, I think its because of their love of modern technology, I have no wish to live without modern comforts

There are a lot of Hutterites where I live. They're known around these parts for their produce- they were the first booth of the year to have tomatoes at the farmers market last weekend! I'd never even heard of them before moving here. I always see them at Costco (and the occasion Amish or FLDS family.)

[IsmeWeatherwax]

@indianabones Ive been watching thru a blog by Giselle Waldner on you tube, she is Hutterite, I dont know where exactly her colony is but its a few hours from the Ontario border. 

Damn those ladies work so very hard! It exhausts me just watching. All the fresh produce is done by the ladies, and wow the harvests do look incredible! Next time you see them could you ask for their string bean soup recipe? Also veg soup, I need to try these 😂  

[Bluebirdbluebell]

I posted this on another thread, but the Spring 100 has a picture of Elizabeth and Taylor (link).

[JermajestyDuggar]

The Bontragers were answering some questions on Instagram stories. Of course Marlin said they won’t be going to Canada until the vaccine mandate is lifted. Let’s all hope for Canada’s sake that it isn’t lifted for a long time. And a question asking about the pros and cons of a big family was non answered by marlin. He only made a statement about the pros of having many arrows in the world. Nothing of the cons. Because as the boss and patriarch of the family, he likely sees very few cons. Now if you ask some others, they might think of a free cons. But would be too afraid to say them publicly. 

[browngrl]

The Bonts have been posting up a storm on their instagram. They used to rarely post but now do so often. I wonder what has changed. I wonder if this change is because their music sales and concert attendance are down and they have realized they need more social media exposure. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

They are answering some more question but the answers are so damn vague. It’s getting annoying. What’s the point of answering questions if you barely even answer them? They seem dodgy as hell when they do this. 
 

Some examples of vague answers:

They met the Duggars a long time ago at a family conference in Texas and they are still friends (of course they don’t say it was a conference for ATI/IBLP  even though we know it was).

They have best friends but of course none are named even though that was the question.

They will keep touring as long as god wants it. I’m sure god only tells Marlin. 🙄

And lastly they say they have more grandchildren on the way but they won’t be announcing since some of their family wants to stay off of social media. Hey at least they let us know that! Even though FJ figured that out.