The teens swap their iPhones, clothes, jewellery and diets for the Amish way of life. The first family they stay with are Jonathan and Marietta in Middlefield, Ohio, home to 14,000 Amish folk. Jonathan and Marietta want to show the teens how rich their lives are, despite their lack of worldly possessions. They believe that the Amish way of life has something to teach everyone, and there is so much more to being Amish than just horse-drawn buggies, beards and barn raising.
This episode is all about hard work, and another great Amish tradition: barn raising. But there's a gender divide, and one sex are set to enjoy it a lot more than the other. While the boys, Jordan, George and James, learn the joy of physical labour, the girls, Charlotte, Siana and Hannah, experience a woman's life, Amish-style. Since arriving in America 300 years ago, hard work has been central to the Amish way of life, often working with the abundant supply of wood that surrounds them. The teens stay with two Amish families who rely on timber for their livelihoods. Even the young must work hard, and Amish children leave education at 14 to contribute to the household by earning a wage. The boys thrive helping with the barn-raising, as 40 traditionally-dressed Amish men raise a barn in a morning. It's an awe-inspiring sight and a moving expression of community, which makes a big impact on all the teenagers. Meanwhile, the girls learn that the woman's place is in the kitchen, preparing food for the hard-working men - something of a surprise for 21st-century British girls.
The teens turn their hand to farming with some of the hardest working Amish around, and learn about New Order Amish courtship rules, where dating couples can't even hold hands before they're married. The boys stay with the Lloyd and Edna, New Order Amish who 'love God, live plain and dress plain'. They run their dairy farm as a family operation with no hired help. The teens are not used to chores - James has never worked and says his religion is 'to do what I like' - but Amish children learn responsibility at a much younger age. As soon as a child is old enough to pick up a shovel, they can work, usually around the age of eight. For some of the teens it's about converting to God, while others question their own attitude to sex before marriage after seeing the purity of the New Order way of life. With early mornings, hard work and close contact with animals, how do the teens, who barely wash up at home, and Siana - a vegetarian - cope?
The teenagers stay with the Burkholder family, members of a plain order called Horse and Buggy Mennonites. Back in the 1600s, the Amish split from the Mennonites to pursue a more austere way of life. Although the Mennonites modernised slightly - they're allowed electricity and telephones, and their women wear a brighter uniform of floral dresses and frilly bonnets - they share the Amish belief that a simple Godly life is the key to contentment. As the boys work on the family-run melon farm, the eternal pursuit of happiness starts to resonate with Etonian George, who begins to question his privileged and ambitious life back at home. The girls are invited to party Mennonite-style at a weekly scrapbook frolic, but the fun doesn't stop there; Saturday night is youth group and it's the place to play volleyball, sing Christian songs and, if you're lucky, meet that special someone. All the teenagers are intrigued by the innocent dating rituals of the Old Order Mennonites, none more so than James, who takes a bit of a shine to the Burkholders' eldest daughter Darleen, and becomes eager to find out how to make an impression, Mennonite-style.
Horses are essential to Amish life. In this episode the teenagers stay with two Amish families in Pennsylvania who still work their farms using horsepower. The teens visit a traditional Amish horse auction, and put in long, back-breaking hours helping with the harvest. The woman of the house, Becky, teaches Charlotte and Hannah about the advantages of staying pure until married, while Siana faces difficult questions about the lack of religion in her life, and learns something about the nature of forgiveness.
In this final episode the teenagers stay with some Amish rebels who are deciding whether or not to leave the Schwartzentruber church - the strictest and most secretive of all Amish groups. Schwartzentrubers wear the plainest clothes of all the Amish, and as well as not having electricity in their homes, they don't have running water or indoor plumbing. The boys camp out in the woods with some young Schwartzentruber men who are being shunned by their church for wanting to bring in a new piece of machinery for their sawmill. The girls stay with Becky, who was brought up Schwartzentruber, but has made the momentous decision to leave. While Becky and her cousins try to negotiate a course between the Amish values they grew up with and the 21st-century America all around them, the British teenagers find that they are becoming more Amish. As the time approaches for them to return to Britain, how has the experience changed them?
