WHO WE ARE...
P U BL ISHE R
From 2007 to 2012 we, the Millers, adopted our first three children, a preschooler on the autism spectrum and two babies with Down syndrome. We published our first issue of Plain Values in 2012 to highlight Biblical ministries, share the beauty of adoption, and to cultivate anchored community. In 2018 we welcomed our fourth child in a surprise adoption, this time a baby with Mosaic Down syndrome. We homeschool our family and enjoy working together to grow and raise food on our twelve acre homestead.
Marlin Miller SA L E S A DV ISO R - O HIO
Matt Yoder SA L E S A DV ISO R - M IC HIA N A + P ENNSY LVANI A
Aaron Stutzman E DITO R IA L M A N AG E R
Nic Stoltzfus Q UA L IT Y A SSU RA N C E
WHAT WE BELIEVE...
Sabrina Schlabach
Our values are plain values, steeped in the rich traditions of yesterday. We enjoy the simple things in life. Gathering eggs from the coop, getting our hands in the dirt to grow food, and cooking meals from scratch. Sometimes we sit around a fire and share life. We strive to walk humbly to strengthen authentic relationships with our families and neighbors. And, yes, we have taken a fresh pie to a front porch and surprised a friend… we didn’t even text them before! We just stopped by, walked up the steps, and knocked on the door! Just the way our grandparents used to do on a Sunday evening. They called it living in community. We seek to serve our neighbors. Plain Values began with a prayer, hoping to play a small role in connecting a child with Down syndrome to his or her forever family. We have checked that box over a dozen times in the last ten years, and we will not stop until the orphanages are empty! We will rest in Heaven!
P RO DU C T IO N M A N AG E R
Isaac Hershberger M U LT I- M E DIA P RO DU C T IO N
Seth Yoder O F F IC E M A N AG E R /C U STO M ER S ERVI C E
Jan Schlabach F E BRUA RY A D C LO SE
January 9, 2023 WR IT E R – WHISP E RS O F HO P E
Stacey Gagnon WR IT E R – CO N F E SSIO N S O F A ST EWAR D
HOW YOU CAN HELP...
Joel Salatin
Join us as we pursue a more authentic life. By subscribing to Plain Values, a portion of each subscription goes directly to Room to Bloom, our non-profit that supports children with special needs.
WR IT E R – RO OTS + WIN GS
Rory Feek WR IT E RS – T HE RO U N DTA BL E
Ivan Keim & Jerry D. Miller WR IT E R – HO M E ST E A D L IV IN G
JOIN US FOR PORCH TIME! Every third Friday from 1:00pm – 4:00pm
Stop by, enjoy a cup of coffee or tea, sit on the porch, and visit for a while. We'd love to get to know you! We're located in the heart of Winesburg, Ohio—just down the street from the church.
Melissa K. Norris WR IT E RS – T HE HE A L IN G L A N D
Shawn & Beth Dougherty WR IT E R – T HE WIDOW ' S PAT H
Ferree Hardy WR IT E R – HO N E ST CO N V E RSAT I O NS
Wendy Cunningham WR IT E R – SE RV IN G O U R N E IG H B O R
Sabrina Schlabach CO N T R IBU T IN G P HOTO G RA PH ERS Millpond Photography Landon Troyer Photography Ashley Rivers Photography Cheryl Constable
Plain Values is published monthly by Plain Target Marketing, LLC. Please contact us with any questions. A DDR E SS
P.O. Box 201, 2106 Main Street Winesburg, OH 44690 P HO N E
FA X
330-601-6106
330-601-4099
E M A IL
reachout@plainvalues.com WE BSIT E
www.plainvalues.com This publication and its contents are © 2023, Plain Target Marketing, LLC. Individual copyrighted items, trademarks, etc. contained within are the property of their respective copyright holders. No part of this publication may be reproduced or redistributed by any means without authorization from the publisher. Publisher is not responsible for advertisers’ offers, products, or services, and publication neither expresses nor implies an endorsement. PLAIN VALUES
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contents
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January 2023 // Issue 115
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CONFESSIONS OF A STEWARD Marketing 101
ROOTS + WINGS Little Museum on the Prairie
COLUMN BY: JOEL SALATIN
COLUMN BY: RORY FEEK
"Farmers' favorite pastime is leaning on pickup trucks or buggies and complaining about four things: weather, price, pestilence, and disease. I call these the four horsemen of the apocalypse."
Rory and Indiana travel to Mansfield, Missouri, to visit the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home and Museum. While they are there, they visit another place Rory has always wanted to see.
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THE HEALING LAND The Way Home
THE WIDOW'S PATH New Year's Resolution: Prepare
COLUMN BY: SHAWN & BETH DOUGHERTY
COLUMN BY: FERREE HARDY
Shawn and Beth share incredibly entertaining tales of something to which many of us can surely relate—runaway livestock. The escape artists at the focus of these tales? The humble dairy cow.
"Will you join me and my husband, Tom, in our New Year’s resolution? We both want to be better prepared for widowhood than we were the first time."
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ON THE COVER Mark Gregston—author, speaker, and founder of Heartlight Ministries—has spent the last 40 years working with teens and parents.
Room to Bloom Report Whispers of Hope: Real Love One Minute With Marlin Prayers for the Nations: Slovakia
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THE ROUNDTABLE Amish Insights on: Technology
HOMESTEAD LIVING Welcome to My Homestead
COLUMN BY: IVAN KEIM & JERRY D. MILLER
COLUMN BY: MELISSA K. NORRIS
This month, Ivan and Jerry answer a question that every one of us struggles with at some point: "How do we balance using technology with staying connected to our community?
We are honored to introduce our newest columnist to Plain Values, Melissa K. Norris! She is an accomplished homesteader, author, blogger, and podcaster with a passion for keeping the old ways alive.
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HONEST CONVERSATIONS WITH WENDY Chosen
SERVING OUR NEIGHBOR Heartlight Ministries with Mark Gregston
COLUMN BY: WENDY CUNNINGHAM
WORDS BY: SABRINA SCHLABACH
"Was I really loved by God? It seemed impossible and confusing. No one chose me. I was the one who had built an identity around being unchosen."
"At Heartlight Ministries, founder Mark Gregston says, 'I've never met a bad kid. These kids are just like anybody else's. They are good kids; they're just making poor choices.'"
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whispers of hope
Real love S U P P O RT F O R T H O S E W H O F O ST E R + A D O P T
COLUMN BY:
I'M GOING TO TALK ABOUT what people don't often talk about within the foster care and adoption world. And what I share might make you uncomfortable or even angry. You might think I'm pretty messed up because what kind of person doesn't love their adopted child instantly? What kind of person would be scared to death to bring home a child? Me. I did not love my adopted child right away. Adoption is not "instant love, just add water." It is seeds of hope thrown into a drought-ravaged field and a mother carefully cultivating any tiny, withered sprout that can grow in such rocky soil. Adoption taught me that love is a choice; even when it is not received, I must still pour it out. I have learned that love does not fix everything, and some wounds may never heal, and that is something we just don't say with adoption.
"Adoption is not 'instant love, just add water.' It is seeds of hope thrown into a drought-ravaged field and a mother carefully cultivating any tiny, withered sprout that can grow in such rocky soil."
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PLAIN VALUES JANUARY 2023
Stacey Gagnon
When we first picked Israel up from the orphanage, I did not love him. He smelled bad, his body looked scary, and his teeth were yellow. He screamed and cried for hours, and I locked myself in the hotel bathroom and cried. I actually googled "how to take your child back to the orphanage." At that moment, I was in a deep, black hole. To not love my adopted child was devastating and scary for me. When we finally got him home and things began to normalize, I still wasn't bonded to him. Yes, his teeth were now white, I was getting used to the deformity of his spine, and the way he crawled across the floor with dislocated hips disturbed me less. Israel started smiling and learning a few words in English. But still, I struggled. In fact, I was scared to be left home alone with him all day. I was scared to death that I had brought home a child that would live with me the rest of his life, and for some reason, this seemed unmanageable and terrifying. But worst of all, I sat there and realized I didn't love him like I had told everyone. Yes, I had spent months fundraising and dreaming about this little boy, a child I had claimed to deeply love. Even across the ocean, I claimed him with a mother's selfless love. In that moment, I realized I had lied. As I write this, I actually feel ashamed. I feel guilt that I did not instantly love and cherish this fragile boy. I know it had nothing to do with him; it's more a stunning realization of my human nature. I had masterfully juggled and orchestrated an expensive international adoption,
read all the books, and followed all the advice. I wore my "Adoption is Love" t-shirt, carried his picture as my phone screensaver, and dreamed daily of this little boy being safely nestled in the love of our family. I remember driving to the orphanage, picking Israel up, and the six-hour drive to the capital city to our hotel. In the moment when I adopted him, all I could think was, "What have I done to my family?" and, "Is there a way for me to undo this?" The sweet boy from the orphanage had turned into an uptight, screaming mess. There was no way I could fix this level of trauma and brokenness. So there's the raw and messy truth: I did not love Israel when we first picked him up. But, since that day, I have learned something beautiful: real love is not adoption. Real love is a choice. Real love is wiping tears, wiping butts, and not counting the service; it's sitting for hours in a hospital room and comforting a small boy terrorized by trauma and nightmares; it's silently sharing the trauma and pain he has endured when there are no words; it's picking the
boy up when he is stimming (using repetitive behaviors to self-sooth) and rocking him in your arms. Real love is listening to his non-stop chatter to fend off the silence that's filled with memories he fears; it's adding one more diagnosis to the bulging file and adding one more specialist to the schedule; it's reassuring him for the thousandth time that "yes, this is Israel's home, bed, chair. Yes, I am Israel's mommy." Real love is gritty and sobbing messes that have no fix, emotional wounds that will never truly heal, and a chance to encourage a story steeped in survival and strength, not weakness and defeat. Real love takes it one moment, one hour, and one day at a time because the future seems too big for one so small. So, truly, real love is found in the actual choice to love, not in the return of favor. And as the moments rolled by and the hours became days, I learned that as I cared for Israel and poured love into him, it was no longer a job or a choice. I loved him, and it was real. //
Stacey Gagnon, along with her husband, Darren, are the founders of Lost Sparrows. They can be reached at P.O. Box 751, Winona Lake, IN 46590. Learn more about Lost Sparrows at www.lostsparrows.org. PLAIN VALUES JANUARY 2023
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One Minute with Marlin OVER THE LAST WHILE, Lisa and I have made a concerted effort to slow down and move away from technology. There are many reasons for this. At the same time, our team has been working on the editorial schedule for 2023, and a shift has been made to build themes into the magazine when it's good and appropriate. The irony is beautiful. My right hand surely didn't know what the left hand was up to in this case because, months ago, we themed January's issue around technology and how to keep the monstrous Hydra in check.
Our son Bennett celebrated his tenth birthday in November, and a few weeks ago, we heard an answer to many prayers come out of his mouth. Bennie is the sweetest little guy. Even though he isn't able to say many words, he gets his point across using a variety of means. The technology of a speech app on his iPad is one way he lets us know what he wants or needs. So, we find
ourselves in this tug of war where, in this case, embracing technology opens the door for something good. We have prayed for years that Bennett would learn to speak more. And then, when I was tussling with him one evening, he suddenly said, "NO WAY!" Let me tell you, it was so clear that we all just froze. We asked him to say it again, and then we all exploded in praise! It was a wonderful moment, and he is now proudly walking around the house with a hearty "NO WAY" in his back pocket, looking for reasons to let it rip! Back to the first point, technology claims to make us better able to "multitask." I think that's a joke. In my experience, when I try to multitask, I do many things poorly! I want to become a "single-tasker!" For me, being a "single-tasker" means focusing on one thing at a time and doing it to the very best of my ability. My desire is to truly be where I am in that moment, with the people I am with every second of my day. When I fail, I will take a step back, slow down, and refocus on being present. The theologian Walter Brueggemann said, "Multitasking is the drive to be more than we are, to control more than we do, to expend our power and our effectiveness ends. Such practice yields a divided self, with full attention given to nothing." Today, I dare you to be fully present, put the screens away, and live in authentic community like Jesus and his disciples did. You never know, you might just hear a massive "NO WAY" shouted for the first time! As always, may you find joy in the simple things. //
MARLIN MILLER publisher, always looking for more friends
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Bennett Miller
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Confessions of a Steward JOEL SALATIN
COLUMN BY:
Marketing 101 FARMERS' FAVORITE PASTIME is leaning on pickup trucks or buggies and complaining about four things: weather, price, pestilence, and disease. I call these the four horsemen of the apocalypse. These four vagaries form the argument that farmers are in such a unique business, unlike all other businesses, that they need special governmental subsidies. After all, droughts don’t destroy phone lines, and grasshoppers don’t eat rubber tires off delivery vehicles. Victimhood creates excuses for all sorts of maladies, from sick animals to unprofitability. We farmers love to absolve ourselves of responsibility because, after all, we’re subject to weather, price, pestilence, and disease—unlike the butcher, baker, and candlestick maker. A close cousin in the whining department is the notorious middleman. “The middleman makes all the profits,” the farmer laments, excusing his poverty as if it were a requirement of his chosen profession.
photos by Millpond Photography
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"Marketing is all about serving others, finding out what they need, and then figuring out how to get it to them. Marketing is a different way to spell ministry." The retail dollar goes to four primary places: producers, processors, marketers, and distributors. Primary producers, otherwise known as farmers, get about a quarter of the retail dollar. It varies substantially from commodity to commodity. Wheat is one of the lowest, at around 7 cents, while beef is one of the highest, at more than 40 cents. For the sake of discussion, let’s assume the retail dollar splits into four quarters, each going to those four aspects of the food system. Everything other than the farmer—processor, marketer, distributor—gets roughly 75 percent of the consumer dollar and comprises the middleman. If the farmer’s income derives solely from production,
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all that income is subject to weather, price, pestilence, and disease. But the middleman income is not subject to those special vagaries. True, the delivery van engine could malfunction (motor sickness), but mechanical problems are quite different than plant or animal sickness. You get a part and stick it in. Animals and plants aren’t machines. The more income a farmer can load over into these middleman components, the less subject his income is to unique farmer vulnerabilities like weather, price, pestilence, and disease. As I already pointed out, a drought does not make your phone lines go dead. Grasshoppers don’t eat the tires on the delivery van. Mold and viruses do
not invade your stainless-steel processing tables. If farm income only derives from production, the farmer sits on a one-legged stool. But if the three legs of processing, marketing, and distribution can be added to the income stream, the farmer enjoys a more stable four-legged income stool. Most farmers break out in a cold sweat as soon as I mention marketing, partly because it involves talking to non-farmers. Few professions are as cloistered as farming. To be sure, farming is a lonely occupation. Conversationalists need not apply. I joke that most farmers don’t like people. In fact, they rather enjoy the tractor, cows, and tomatoes because none of these things talk back. Animals are always glad to see you. Plants don’t run away from you when you have a bad attitude. I understand the allure of noncommunicative partners. But human relationship is what God is all about and what we should be about. That means loving people is at the heart of fully-functional humanness. Marketing is all about serving others, finding out what they need, and then figuring out how to get it to them. Marketing is a different way to spell ministry. Beyond the communication hurdle, though, lurk two critical reasons why farmers shy away from marketing. The first is the fear of sounding greedy. “Buy my tomatoes” sounds self-serving and greedy. Indeed, the notion that someone should buy my tomatoes instead of those over there sounds prideful. Farmers are a self-deprecating lot, often presenting an “aw just me” attitude. When have you ever heard a heart surgeon greet you, head down, with an
"...if we see our vision as providing health, building soil, stewarding God’s creation, and bringing the best to our altar of service, then our mission takes on new vitality."
embarrassed, apologetic “I’m just a heart surgeon”? But we farmers too often don’t hold our heads high; we bring provenance to people and act like it’s not sacred or noble. We even fear sales rejection as something personal, as if people who won’t buy dislike us. What we sell does represent a more intimate expression of ourselves than most things, but choice is everywhere, and we certainly don’t have to take it personally. If somebody doesn’t buy my eggs, it doesn’t mean they dislike me. How do we overcome this general reluctance to hawk our wares? I suggest the answer is understanding our mission, which comes from defining our vision. If our vision is merely to produce something for people to eat, our mission is equally unimpressive. But if we see our vision as providing health, building soil, stewarding God’s creation, and bringing the best to our altar of service, then our mission takes on new vitality. We’re God’s feet and hands, and God probably cares how His feet and hands interact with His creation. Don’t you think? This thinking brings purpose, nobility, and sacredness to the most menial task. The second reason farmers don’t like to market is that they often feel undeserving of patronage. America’s agricultural industrial complex preaches “cheap food” and “feed the world,” which places a heavy burden on the back of farmers that, somehow, we owe the world food. Not that the world should pay us a fair amount for providing food and fiber, but that
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