Good morning. This week was packed full of farming. We are going to kind of visit this morning about a variety of stories (His-story) reminding me as the picture below says, God is truly our Landlord.
Dry weather and warm temps are a gift during planting time. Our crew took full advantage of it putting in long hours.
Early last Monday morning Dana, my seed DSM, and I delivered a load of seed to his parents in Lytton, Iowa.
I asked if we could stop at the country church where the neighborhood has been attending for generations. My favorite story about this church is when they close their Christmas Eve service, everyone who has attended Sunday School there is invited to come to the front and sing the last Christmas carol.
Dana's parents, Roger and Marlene, are genuine, hardworking folks. Roger sold his John Deere 730 diesel recently at a collector auction in the Quad cities. In their kitchen is an original painting of their tractor being worked on with their dog, cat, and neighbor kids all included.
Friday we took time to plant some sweet corn with the old 8 row. Ezra, Elliot, and Zach all helped.
It was Becky's birthday Friday and we enjoyed getting some of their crops in. We picked up rocks awhile. However this rock moved. The boys enjoyed getting to know this turtle before Becky dropped him off in a nearby creek.
Mark stopped with his planter to pick up some seed corn. He and Stacy had an anniversary yesterday.
Karl sprayed every day and even some nights this week. Our family is having lunch together today with Kristin's family to celebrate Malaki's first birthday.
Jan's Grandpa Frank had a sister Anna that married Louis. Many years ago they lived on a farm in the cement house on the North Skunk river bottom northeast of Rosehill. (It's the same farm where BJ had his anhydrous accident to his eyes by the way.)
When they lived there the road crossed the river to this country cemetery. Today the bridge is gone.
In 1923 Louis and Anna lost a set of identical twin girls at birth while renting this farm. They are buried in this country cemetery.
These are my great-grandparents Cornelius and Nellie. Cornelius had a hairlip. He was a (some dutch word that starts with D) which means a song leader in church.
Cornelius and Nellie had a large family including my Grandfather William who married Christine (Tiennie) in 1917. They also had 10 children of which my father is the youngest. Tiennie definitely looks like my cousin Christine.
My grandfather's oldest sister was Cornelia. She married a converted Jew (Johannas) who was the only son of a Jewish rabbi in 1920. I'll have to ask my Dad sometime what the family thought of that. Anyhow they had six children born in six years. Johannas and Cornelia came to America where Johannas went to Calvin College to be a minister.
Johannes felt a growing desire to go back to Europe and preach to his fellow Jews. He had a gift for speaking and would draw large audiences when he preached. In 1941 the occupiers prohibited the gospel to be preached and John's work (Elim-Mission) was dismantled. John boldly continued to preach. In January of 1942 John was accused of having "incriminating materials" and was taken to a concentration camp in Germany. In June his wife received word that her husband John had been exterminated for preaching the gospel. Wow. What a special man. I wished I could have known him.
John and Cornelia's son Isaac later became a Reformed minister. Isaac's son John also became a minister in the Reformed Church. John and Cornelia's youngest son David became a Reformed minister and later a counselor and chaplain in the Christian Reformed Church. John and Cornelia also have a grandson in Des Moines that owns several restaurants.
Thank you Lord for being in charge. Please continue to be our landlord.
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