Missing Amish Teen Found “Alive And Well” At A Church — After Being Gone 5 Days
A 16-year-old Amish boy who walked away from a Lebanon County, Pennsylvania treatment facility last week has been found alive and well, five days after he went missing.
Jonas Smucker left Green Pastures, a mental health facility which treats Plain community patients, at around 6:30 p.m. on Friday, November 6. Police located him earlier today (November 11) at a church in Lebanon. From LancasterOnline:
Cornwall Borough police Chief Brett Hopkins said Jonas Smucker was “OK, alive and well” and being evaluated.
Hopkins said he was found at a church on Willow Street in Lebanon Borough.
No reporting so far says how he got to the church or who found him. The important thing is that he’s been found, and his family can breathe easier at that at least. A GoFundMe benefiting the search (more on that below) provided this brief update on things today:
Update!
He was found this morning November 11.
He is safe and receiving medical care.
The funds that aren’t used for the search team will be used for continuing care for Jonas Lee.
Five Days Missing
Police did not know which direction Smucker went after leaving the facility. They said he might be heading to his home in Northumberland County, or to family in the New Holland area of Lancaster County, according to WGAL.
Before he was found, LancasterOnline reported that Smucker had an encounter with a state trooper near a local Walmart the day after he left, and that the trooper dropped him off at the public library at Willow and North Seventh streets in Lebanon. The church where he was found four days later is also on Willow Street.
Asked about the teen’s ties to the New Holland area, Hopkins said, “From what we’re told, yes, from the Amish community.”
Daily Voice also identified him as Amish, and reported that his family had set up a GoFundMe to pay for the search – in particular to fund drones and to provide food and travel for volunteers looking for him. His uncle, Jonas Stoltzfus, organized the fundraiser. It had raised nearly $17,000 as of today.
Searches for missing Amish people have ended well in a couple of other recent cases. In July 2025, a 38-year-old man in the Sinking Valley community near Tyrone, Pennsylvania was found alive and well after a search involving state police, K-9 teams and several fire departments. This June, a 20-year-old Amish man listed as “at risk” in southern Illinois was found safe the day after he went missing.
Amish Mental Health Facilities
Green Pastures is one of a number of facilities set up for Amish and other Plain people with mental health needs. Many Amish have been wary of conventional psychiatric care, according to historian Steven Nolt, writing in the Journal of Mennonite Studies in 2011.
Families have worried about a loved one being sent far from home, about therapy in English with strangers of the opposite sex, and about counselors who suggested that leaving the church was the path to getting well. The facilities aim to offer professional treatment in a setting that respects Plain ways.
That means Pennsylvania Dutch is spoken, there is no television or radio, and church leaders are involved. These factors contribute to making a more Amish and Plain-friendly setting, encouraging families who may have once avoided getting help to seek care in a facility that understands their cultural and religious values.
Some of these homes are tied to Mennonite-founded mental health centers. A facility called Rest Haven opened in 2002 on the campus of Oaklawn in Goshen, Indiana. Green Pastures opened in 2005 on the grounds of Philhaven, near Mount Gretna, and was modeled on Rest Haven down to its floor plan. Amish men helped build it, according to a 2006 LancasterOnline profile.
Others were started by Plain communities themselves, including Harmony Haven Home near Evart, Michigan, Hofnungsheim in Dundee, Ohio, and Whispering Hope in Newville, Pennsylvania.
