We don't write papers, we build scrapbooks
We don't write papers, we build scrapbooks
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When my boss asked me who is the dumb one, me or him? I told him everyone knows he doesn't hire dumb people. My first paying job other than working on my parent’s farm was working on our neighbors’ farm. I was just a little guy, only about 10 or 11 years old at the time. My brothers and I got the job of picking up rocks in the neighbor’s field for 50 cents an hour. That was real pay that we were real happy with. One of us would drive the tractor pulling the wagon between the young corn rows...
Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. There are several reasons, but one of the main ones is that growing up on the farm, Thanksgiving always was a celebration of the end of the work year. All those long days and nights in the field working, all the effort spent worrying about the weather and the crops and walking the fields. All the work it took to gather in the harvest – it was always a celebration when we got done. I remember one year, Dad finished picking corn on Thanksgiving m...
Being in the profession that I am in, when meeting strangers, their reaction to me can be all over the board. My profession can either be a conversation starter or a conversation killer. When hearing that I am a pastor some people clam up and hardly say a word. One time a young couple showed up at our front door on a blistering winter night after having car trouble. I offered them a ride to their destination where they could get the necessary help they needed. It was about a 40 minute drive....
“Signs, signs, everywhere a sign, blocking out the scenery, breaking my mind. Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign?” So say the vocals to the song “Signs.” According to YouTube, “Signs", by Canadian rock group The Five Man Electrical Band (formerly The Staccatos), was written by lead vocalist Les Emmerson. It was released as a B-side single in 1970 from their "Good-byes and Butterflies" album and then re-released as an A-side single in 1971 where it reached #3 on the US Billboard Hot...
A few months ago, somebody sent me an anonymous package in the mail postmarked from Tinley Park, Illinois. I was most curious about this package, because I don’t know anybody from Tinley Park, Illinois. When I opened it, I found a 4” x 12” wooden plaque with the emboldened words on it in all caps: WORK HARD STAY HUMBLE. I’m not sure why this was sent anonymously, apparently somebody sensed the need. Although I don’t care for anything anonymous, this saying has captured my thoughts lately - mainl...
Not long ago I had a meeting in our church parking lot with the editor of this newspaper, Dan Stevens. He’s a likable chap, (although he can get a little intense around deadline time). We met in the parking lot because he had a volume of books to give me called The Interpreter's Bible - A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, published by Abingdon Press. It has a total of 36 contributing editors from various prominent universities and seminaries from the era of time when the books were published. The t...
We went shopping for trees today. It seems when you plant trees in the fall they have a better survival rate than spring planting. Last fall at this time, we planted nine trees around our new parking lot at church. They were a variety of different types of maple trees. The soil they were planted in wasn’t the greatest, it was a mixture of mostly clay and a little topsoil that got pushed to the edges during excavation. In spite of not watering them all summer, they are all doing well. Last s...
With fall comes the harvest. And with the harvest our church has an annual garden produce contest. So far, the biggest watermelon has weighed in at 38.8 pounds and the largest tomato is 16 inches in circumference. Our granddaughter has the biggest pumpkin - (many thanks to Grandma) - let’s just say it’s huge! Somebody else entered a pear that’s over 10 inches in diameter. It’s a lot of fun celebrating God’s goodness. With fall also comes the election season. Our mailbox is full of fliers ev...
My phone rang just after five o’clock. I was still in bed and I figured I’d get it when I got up in a few minutes. Sometimes one of my brothers will call early so I didn’t worry about it. About five minutes later my phone rang again. By the time I was able to get downstairs to answer, it was too late. I saw the calls were from two different brothers. At that early hour, that can’t be good. I called one of them back and was told the silo at my other brother’s farm had collapsed in the night and...
Today I’m going to blow off a little steam. This is an opinion piece after all. Recently, I was reading a story in a newspaper publication on why the Dairy Breakfast was canceled this past June in Lafayette County, Wisconsin. What caught my attention was the headline: “Road disrepair dead ends dairy breakfast”. The article said that the dairy breakfast “organizers decided that a spate of road and bridge repairs would make it difficult for people to even get to the June 11 event. With numerou...
My day started early yesterday and ended late, but it couldn’t have ended better. A young man who was visiting our church with some friends, came to Bible study, heard the message of God from the Bible, and decided he’d rather go to heaven than hell, so he committed his life to Jesus before he went home. We ended up standing around in the kitchen at church, talking about eternity, man, sin, and angels and what God expects from us and he decided he wanted to ask Jesus into his heart. So, he pra...
My wife and I were working on a home improvement project and needed to rent a certain piece of equipment that would spray and scrub concrete and then suck up the gray water. We checked all the local rentals but none of them carried this particular tool. So, we had to expand our horizons. We found one an hour and twenty minutes away in Madison, Wisconsin which meant we’d have to pick it up, use it, and get it back in 24 hours - or pay for two days. I love a good challenge. As August gives way to...
Last week my wife and I took a trip to Nashville, Tennessee to visit our daughter and son-in-law. It used to be when we traveled, we hit the pavement with the tires squealing and we didn’t slow down until we got there. That meant not stopping along the way unless we absolutely had to. It still is that way in a sense, but not quite as intense. I hate to say it, but one of our goals is to not buy gas in Illinois. I know this hurts the border town gas stations but it’s a lot more economical to dri...
Did you know that the first french fries were not cooked in France? They were actually cooked in grease. Fun facts about teeth The first set of teeth (baby teeth) has 20 teeth. The second set of teeth (adult teeth) has 32 teeth. Baby teeth start to form when the baby is still in the womb, but don't begin to erupt until a child is between 6-12 months old. Teeth are the only part of the human body that can't repair itself. I have a dentist appointment tomorrow. I had to find a new dentist because...
Everybody messes up from time to time. One time when I was a kid working on the farm, Dad decided to sell some grain. The guy came out with a semi and parked it under the auger and started loading. The auger was only a six inch auger so loading the truck took a long time. After getting everything set and the grain flowing, the driver sat inside the truck and fell asleep. He must have been really tired because by the time he woke up, the truck had overflowed. It wasn’t a small mess, it was a h...
It had been a few years since my wife and I visited Branson, Missouri. When we were last there, our children were small and the town was too. Actually, we’ve been there twice before. The first time was in March and they had 14 inches of snow (which is very unusual) and most of the shows weren’t open. The second time was in the summer and we made it to some of the shows - whatever our budget would allow. The show we remember the most is “The Titanic.” It was still there this time and looking...
My wife and I are in Branson, Missouri this week along with some friends at a Fellowship of Christian Farmers International Convention. On the way down here, St. Louis got 9 inches of rain before we traveled through. We knew it was wet, but it wasn’t until the next day we found out how much rain they got. Just west of St. Louis, we came across a semi stuck in the median, another was tipped on its side, and there was a car that spun out in the rain and went through the guardrail - but God was g...
Sometimes God brings very unique people into our lives for reasons only He knows. Such was the case recently when we were introduced to a saintly elderly woman who walked into our church one Sunday a couple of years ago. She started right in telling me about her farm - and asked me to pray that God would lead her to find good help - because good help was hard to find. She told me about butchering meat birds and feeding her cattle. Every time I sent out a prayer request over email, she responded...
As cataclysmic events are taking place all over the world, and we see so much evil manifested in so many unprecedented (to us) ways, many Christians are wondering, "Is the Holy Spirit going to revive the church before Jesus returns or is this the great falling away in the last days that the Bible talks about? The New Testament is filled with predictions of a last-days falling away. False prophets will rise up and lead many astray. Wolves will come in sheep’s clothing, deceiving many. W...
Sometimes I’m asked what kind of advice I have to give during tough times? Well, good advice for hard times is the same thing as good advice for good times - Worship God faithfully. Tithe. Minimize debt. Save. Invest in people. And cultivate practical skills that will always be useful. There will never come a time in your Christian life where you can just coast along. You will never reach an age where it will be unnecessary to trust God. There will always be something that you need to trust G...
Last Friday was a historic day as the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. I have always held to the belief that God would not bless our nation as long as the bloodshed of the unborn was on our hands collectively as a people. I am praising God today and thanking Him that President Trump kept his promise to appoint conservative judges to the Court. In the words of an Executive Director of a Crisis Pregnancy Center: “This is a new beginning for our nation! We have taken a monumental step in p...
Our family has done a lot of grieving the last couple of weeks over the loss of our nephew’s little boy, but our faith is well-grounded and we are trusting God in all His Sovereignty to bring good out of this tragedy. I’d like to dedicate this column to reprinting my great nephews obituary: Christian Joseph Cernek, 2, of Secor, passed away on Wednesday, June 1, 2022 at OSF St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria. He was born November 24, 2019 in Peoria to Jacob and Samantha (Zehr) Cernek. Sur...
“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies.’” I’m getting tired of crying all the time. It’s been another roller coaster week emotionally. My family is enduring much sorrow at this moment in the loss of my nephew's 3 year old son due to a drowning accident on Memorial Day. That, and the loss last month of a 10 year old boy from our congregation in an accident and we are weary with grief and sadness (not to mention the national tr...
I’ve been serving the Lord in “my” church (it’s not mine at all) for almost three decades. The paradox of that is that it is a long time, but also, it’s not a long time. At this stage in my life, I look back and wonder where all the years have gone? It seems like yesterday my wife and I were moving across the country pursuing God’s will and purpose for our lives. Then we were moving back. Then our children were babies. Then toddlers. Then adolescence, teenagers and now married. Time flies. The...
Occasionally when a member of our church is moving out of the area, they will ask me what they should look for when they are searching for a new church? I always tell them one of the first things they should look for is to see if the people are carrying their Bibles into church with them on Sunday. If they are, that most likely means the Pastor uses the Bible to preach from, and they are turning there to follow along as he preaches. I would have to wonder why one would even go to church, if...
