The Next Step

As Jan and I were discussing our past Christmases we agreed the steps of the past holidays to today is nothing like we expected. The holidays seem to make us think back. Below are Kurt, Mike, Brian, Karl, and Mark, visiting during our family Christmas.

Jan was mentioning that 30 to 40 years ago she would probably not have picked the professions our kids have chosen. Yet today we see how what they do allows them the freedom to often interact and raise their children at their sides while they work. Below is Karl and Sydnie. Thanks for the picture Karl. Karl is currently recuperating from sinus surgery.

This little guy had a birthday this week. We have a lot of December birthdays in our bunch. Jayden, his brother Jackson, and his dad Kurt, brought me coffee and cold medicine Friday night on his birthday while I was working in the field.

Boy, have farm sales changed and taken the next step. I remember going to farm sales with my brother Doug or my neighbors, Calvin or Kenny. It was a social event. The gals from a church or school would sell lunch as a fund raiser. Most of the time the crowd was from the local community.

Today you shop online. And you can literally shop around the country. Auction companies like Sullivan Bros, Steffes, and BigIron, come to the seller, take, and post pictures. The auction crowd now becomes huge and prospective buyers are literally from all over.

You even attend and bid online. And when you are outbid you get an email. When you have the bid your bidding number is green. It turns to red when you are outbid. You can now attend a farm sale while working or even Christmas shopping with your wife. :)

It's very wet in southern Iowa this morning. However I'm thankful it wasn't snow and feel sorry for our friends to the north and west. Some who still have crops to get out yet like in the picture below.

Last week was unusually warm here. Karl even got the waterways seeded that we visited about last week that Mike cleaned with his dozer.

We started applying NH3 Tuesday and Wednesday on chiseled corn ground going back to corn. By the day after Christmas the soybean stubble got dry enough as well. Fieldwork in December in Iowa is very unusual. Last year we had 40 inches of snow by Christmas however we lost much of it in January.

My kids and help give me a hard time about well water coffee. We have a coffee pot on our rented farm north of Pella and the house is on well water. Do some of you remember making coffee with hard water? After a time things come to the top of the coffeepot. Oh well. We older folks survived hard water, didn't we.

Thanks to Devin, his brother Ryan, and friend Arron, who helped cut firewood yesterday. We moved our work to the machine shed since it was raining.

Our landlord Buddy and his wife Eileen often spend time in Kentucky. A couple of weeks ago Buddy caught this catfish weighing 95 pounds. Their family sells bait all over the country. Thanks for the picture Brenda.

Our friend Del is taking the next step and has filmed The Engagement Project. Some of you will remember The Truth Project. Many of us saw these 12 sessions in our churches or in small groups. The Truth Project asks the question, what is truth? The Truth Project also asked the question, who are we? All of us, whether we profess Christianity or not, have to ask ourselves who we are. Then the next question is what are we going to do with who we are? I've addressed that a number of times on our visits. The Engagement Project addresses the same question.

This past Wednesday we celebrated Christ's birth. Can you imagine how Jesus' earthly father Joseph felt when he found out his girlfriend Mary was pregnant and he had not had relationships with her. He decided his next step would be to privately and quietly break up with her. God had another next step. He told Joseph to keep her. It was His plan.

Starting with what we celebrated last week Joseph took a step at a time and spent the next 33 years being our Savior's earthly father. We don't hear a lot about him. He was a carpenter. His profession would have allowed him to interact and have Jesus at his side while he worked being an example and teaching him. I'm reminded of a song. O holy night. When Christ was born. The weary world rejoices.

I have chosen not to focus on looking back on this last Sunday of the year. However 2019 will be a year we will never forget. As Jan and I looked back on previous Christmases I have discovered I have learned more down in my valleys than up my mountains. I have not experienced what many of you have this year with change, health, and loss, so I'm not even going to try and say I understand. However I can tell you from my experience that the only way out of my past valleys was a step at a time with God and others holding my hand. We live in a weary world. Lets take the next step into 2020 together with God and with each other.