Saturday, October 21, 2017

Holding On To A Promise

Last Sunday Karl and Kristin's two month old daughter Sydnie was baptized. The text was used where Jesus says, "Let the little children come to me". The same text was used at Ryker's funeral just two days previous. In both cases we hang on to a promise.
At Sydnie's baptism Karl and Kristin promised to teach their daughter about Jesus. Christ promises to give them the help and strength it takes. The church promises to help as well with things like Sunday School, worship, relationships, and prayer.
It was fun to have not only our family present for the service but some of our farm help as well.
Older brother Malaki often acts like he's too busy for his little sister however once in a while you can see him making sure she is doing ok.
After a baptism noon get-together meal at the cabin on Sunday Jan and I drove to Sioux Center where I had an Ag Advisory board meeting on Monday. Dordt has done an excellent job of adapting their farm curriculum to changing agriculture while still having a Biblical perspective. Several larger Ag businesses are seeking out their interms for summer positions from Dordt.  It was fun to visit with fellow board members from all over the country as well as the Ag faculty and a few students.  
One morning this week I started combining beans a touch early and plugged the combine. That is never any fun. Fortunately our crew gave me a hand.
John crawled inside and helped pull out the wad of soybeans from behind the beater and chopper.
Because he was such good help I let him combine. Yesterday he ran this combine most of the day while I drove semi to Burlington with contracted beans.
Thanks to Kristin for bringing us pizza one afternoon and Emily with a casserole one evening. Friday evening I also found a pan of bars Cassia had made and sent to the field.
We had a huge week working on getting the beans out. Both the bean yields near Otley as well as Lacey were exceptionally good.
Putting the outlet pipe in a cost-share pond is a big job. The steel company comes and welds it together on site. This one was a 12 inch heavy pipe that was 145 feet long. It took a trackhoe, a tallehand, and a dozer to get it in place.
The finished pond looks great. It already has four feet of water in it. Mike does good work. He and Suzanne's 17th wedding anniversary was yesterday. 
 BJ and Cassia's new home is slowly progressing. This is the same yard where they lost their previous home to a fire in April. Cassia is busy making decisions and BJ has been working at their new home site before and after being in the field.
This past week our local Christian radio station, 99.9 on FM, had their fall sharathon where they raise money for their operating budget. The first day they raised just $7000 of their $87000 budget. However Bev and her crew continually said they were relying on God's promise to provide for them so they could provide great Christian music and programing for our community. Three hours into their third morning they surpassed their goal. Thanks southern Iowa.
Yesterday we were combining Becky and Brian's soybeans near Taylor and Katie's home. The weather had gotten cloudy and you could feel there was rain coming.
 Brian and his boys combined into the evening. Ezra and I watched the lightning in the west. Just as we finished and were taking the grain head off to drive home the rain cut loose. As Ezra and I were driving home in the rain we had a conversation about God holding off the rain until we could finish. I know it's just a little thing.
However remember. The God that's in charge and helps with little things also promised to help us with the big things in our lives and that's what we hang on to when everything else seems to be shaking. Thanks for the visit and have a good week.