Plain Values Magazine | June 2023 | The Water Issue

P U BL ISHE R

WHO WE ARE...

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

Matt Yoder SA L E S A DV ISO R

Aaron Stutzman SA L E S A DV ISO R

Chris Conant

WHAT WE BELIEVE...

Q UA L IT Y A SSU RA N C E / BO O K K EEP I NG

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 more than twenty times—and counting—and we will not stop until the orphanages are empty!

We will rest in Heaven!

HOW YOU CAN HELP...

Sabrina Schlabach 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

JU LY A D C LO SE

June 7, 2023

WR IT E R – CO N F E SSIO N S O F A ST EWAR D

Joel Salatin WR IT E R – RO OTS + WIN GS

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 adoption and children with special needs around the world.

Rory Feek WR IT E R – T HE G RA N DFAT HE R EFFEC T

Brian Dahlen WR IT E RS – T HE RO U N DTA BL E

Emily Hershberger & Daniel Miller

JOIN US FOR PORCH TIME! Friday, June 23 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.

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Wendy Cunningham WR IT E R – SE RV IN G O U R N E IG H B O R

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contents

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June 2023 // Issue 120 THE WATER ISSUE

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CONFESSIONS OF A STEWARD Making Rain

ROOTS + WINGS Do the Hard Things First

COLUMN BY: JOEL SALATIN

COLUMN BY: RORY FEEK

"If the time farmers spend complaining about the weather were invested in developing water abundance, we could re-create the hydration our lands enjoyed prior to modern agriculture."

"For me, at the end of the day, it’s not about how much I’ve gotten done, how many things I’ve knocked off my list, or even how productive I am. It’s about how much I’ve grown."

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HOMESTEAD LIVING Ripples

THE HEALING LAND Water Like a Blessing

COLUMN BY: MELISSA K. NORRIS

COLUMN BY: SHAWN & BETH DOUGHERTY

"It can be hard in the moment, but just like that rock, as it skips across the surface of the river to the other side, it sends out ripples.

The rock doesn’t see all the ripples it creates as it moves along."

"I tip my watering can and a shower of tiny droplets moistens the soil where chard and beet seeds are waiting to be awakened. It’s like a blessing."

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ON THE COVER Life can be hard, and we often need help—but asking for help can be just as hard. This month, Emily and Daniel provide some insight into how to accept help from others when disaster strikes.

Room to Bloom Report One Minute with Marlin The Kentucky Flood Disaster: One Year Later

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THE GRANDFATHER EFFECT Part Four – The Birthday Card

THE ROUNDTABLE Amish Insights on: Asking for Help

WORDS BY: BRIAN DAHLEN

COLUMN BY: EMILY HERSHBERGER & DANIEL MILLER

This month, we continue our multi-part series with Brian Dahlen as he unpacks the event that finally shattered his family's relationship with his grandpa—as well as some unexpected family dynamics.

When disaster strikes, the support of those around us are essential—yet sometimes hard to accept. Emily and Daniel provide some insight into how to accept help from others.

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THE WIDOWS PATH When a Phone Call Marks The Darkest Night

HONEST CONVERSATIONS WITH WENDY Dirty Water

COLUMN BY: FERREE HARDY

COLUMN BY: WENDY CUNNINGHAM

A retired pastor and his wife graciously share their experience of losing a child. We hope the warmth of a June day will soften this cold reality of grief.

"It’s time for radical change in our nation. Not just politically. I’m talking spiritually. It doesn’t matter who is in the White House, it matters Who’s in the hearts of the people."

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One Minute with Marlin POP'S FAVORITE HYMN was Trust and Obey. Every once

In the middle of that moment, I looked over at Bennie

in a while our church sings it, and I think of all sorts of memories with him in church. The last time we enjoyed the song at our church, it pulled me into a quiet and very sweet moment of reflection. I yearned for my dad to be with us and to enjoy our 10-year-old son Bennett and his pure sweetness.

and noticed a crayon hanging from his nose! The ladies behind us were cracking up and, in that moment, the combination of outrageous joy mingled with tinges of sadness that Pop wasn’t with us was almost more than I could stand. I drank it in!

John 10:10 talks about Jesus having come to bring us life, not a boring mundane everyday life, but a life packed to the gills. I submit the question: What kind of a life do you want? Eternity is a long time! Scientists toss around millions and billions of years as if it’s nothing. It's not nothing! Those numbers are huge—insanely huge. I had the thought the other day, “Will I remember what I am doing right this very minute in a thousand years?” Then it went to a million years, and then a hundred billion! Do you realize we will not be any closer to the end of eternity than we are right now? What are we doing with our crazy short time on this earth?

Some of the most profoundly meaningful moments in my life have happened while crying with a friend as we share our pains and regrets and talk about things we cannot change this side of Heaven. Jesus does not promise a healthy and wealthy life, but He does promise to meet us in the broken places, in the shadows of our pain. That brings joy and peace. Period. Let’s live this life to the fullest. I dare you to dangle a crayon from your nose and surprise those closest to you … or a total stranger!

As always, may you find joy in the simple things. //

MARLIN MILLER publisher, always looking for more friends

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Confessions of a Steward JOEL SALATIN

WORDS BY:

Making Rain EXCEPT FOR MILITARY SUBJUGATION, drought is probably the most common Biblical indication of God’s judgment toward Israel’s disobedience. When God’s special people departed from divine instruction, He withdrew government protection and rain.

While God could, and did occasionally, orchestrate these judgments, I submit that most occurred by natural principle. In other words, specific practices precipitated military weakness and drought (famine).

Some of God’s blessings were unconditional, like the Genesis 12 Abrahamic covenant. Most were conditional, meaning that to receive them the people needed to adhere to rules. The Pentateuch is full of rules, including religious, farming, money, and civil justice.

The hydrologic cycle is foundational to agriculture. Life requires water. Indeed, Christ’s plea “I thirst” on the cross is in stark contrast to His previously sitting by a well on a hot, dusty afternoon in Samaria and telling a woman He had water that eliminates thirst forever. photo by Millpond Photography

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If physical water is an object lesson of spiritual provision, surely Christians should be figuring out how to bring more water to our environment. In a day of increasing deserts and depleting aquifers, shouldn’t God’s servants be demonstrating to the world a protocol to increase hydration? In doing so, we lead people toward the ultimate spiritual thirst-quencher.

To most farmers, though, water and rainfall are not something people can affect. While I’m not ready to propose a rain dance, I do believe a farmer’s mandate is to stimulate abundance, including water. In general, historical agriculture depletes water. That needs to change; agriculture should increase water.

The Ogallala Aquifer underlying seven states (Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas) supplies thousands of irrigated farms. But farmers are pumping out of it far faster than it’s being replenished. According to The Wall Street Journal, since 1950 the aquifer

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has dropped an average of 100 feet. This massive underground bathtub of sand and water is dropping a couple of feet per year and is expected to be 70 percent depleted by 2063 at current use rates. Interestingly, it’s only recharging less than one inch per year.

Why? Consider how the land’s protective clothing has changed in the last 200 years. It was never plowed until recently. The University of Nebraska at Lincoln maintains a 2-acre plot of tall grass prairie. The grass is 8 feet tall and thick as the hair on a dog’s back. To imagine millions of acres of that vegetation clothing the soil and feeding bison is to realize why North America grew more food 500 years ago than it does today.

That vegetative cover did two things. First, it shattered raindrops into mist by the time the moisture got to the ground. Rather than pelting like bombs on exposed soil, the rain would literally wick into the soil. That means almost none ran off; it percolated into the groundwater and kept the

aquifer full. The biomass created high organic matter in the soil, which sponged the water and kept it from running off. One of the reasons the aquifer no longer recharges like it did is because modern mono-crop farming keeps the soil naked, depleting both organic matter and vegetative protection.

The second element is just being discovered by scientists and meteorologists who don’t hew to the mainstream climate change narrative concerning greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Leading the pack is an Australian named Walter Jhene, and his thesis is that the hydration cycle depends on bacteria wafting off vegetation. Water vapor needs a particle on which

"Plowing and monocropping, especially without cover-cropping between cycles, has denied ecology the vegetation that existed for millennia and built that massive Ogallala Aquifer."

to condense. It can’t condense in air alone; it needs to attach to something. That something is primarily bacteria given off from vegetation.

As a climatologist, Jhene promotes the notion that what most call climate change is not driven primarily by GHGs, but by lack of vegetation that denies the atmosphere its bacterial particles to enable evaporated water vapor to condense. He likens the process to a radiator that regulates the earth’s engine heat. Condensing water from vapor to liquid takes a tremendous amount of energy. That change in status is what regulates the earth’s temperature.

The point is that the hydration cycle is healthy only when enough vegetative cover exudes the bacterial particulate to leverage evapotranspiration into cloud formation and thence to timely rain cycles. Note that the devastating flooding and snowfall in California this

winter follows historic wildfire seasons. Those fires pumped particles into the atmosphere that attracted condensation and a wet cycle commensurate with the particulate discharge.

Plowing and mono-cropping, especially without cover-cropping between cycles, has denied ecology the vegetation that existed for millennia and built that massive Ogallala Aquifer. The double whammy of tillage plus massive irrigation destroys this magnificent bank of water wealth underlying America’s midsection.

To be sure, overgrazing insults vegetative cover too.

Experiments in the Middle East by Jeff Lawton, a permaculture teacher, prove that rain cycles can change even within a relatively small area. Some fifty years ago, University of Wisconsin weather scientists fenced out a couple of square miles in a desert in India to stop overgrazing. Vegetation started to grow and shortly clouds formed, changing the hydration cycle over that acreage.

Just like our activity in the spiritual realm affects the watering of our soul, so the activity on the landscape PLAIN VALUES

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affects the watering of the soil. The notion that weather is what it is without regard to human activity is simply not true. While—arguably—what I do on my farm may not create a noticeable effect on weather, banding together and changing landscape stewardship on a larger scale absolutely does change hydration cycles.

On our farm, management-intensive grazing maintains taller and thicker vegetation. Strategic tree harvesting takes out old trees and rejuvenates the forest with younger trees. Sawmills and local lumber should be the go-to provenance for construction, not imported material from thousands of miles away.

Perennial vegetative cover builds organic matter in the soil, which increases water-holding capacity.

Everything conceivable to slow surface runoff needs to be done. One of our first farm apprentices was from Sonora, Mexico. His grandmother, in about 1920, attended an elite boarding school in British Columbia.

The family took her once a year to school and brought her home. She remembered not being able to see the countryside due to the tall vegetation growing alongside the road—she said it was like driving through a tunnel.

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Today, that entire area is desert with scarcely any vegetation. Overgrazing for a hundred years changes everything. In Mexican arid regions, families who practice controlled grazing have revegetated their landscapes and increased herbivore carrying capacity severalfold. It can be done, and it is being done all over the world.

When he returned home, this Mexican apprentice duplicated something our family did here in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley in the early 1960s. With deep gullies slicing across our acreage, we put big rocks and even wood in the bottom to slow down water runoff.

Within a year these permeable dams created terraces of silt by slowing down the water and making it drop debris to pass through these barriers. When our family visited the former apprentice in Mexico, he took us out to some of his gullies and showed us what looked like golf greens in a desert—the immediate result of throwing some rocks in the bottom of a gully to slow down the runoff. The rainfall hadn’t changed—yet—but he enjoyed much more benefit from the sparse rain that did fall. That’s like making water.

In Australia, one of the biggest problems is incised creeks. The Aborigines strategically placed fallen trees and debris, called weirs, in the creeks to slow down the water. At flood stage, the water flowed over the banks gently, depositing silt on the nearby land. Over the years, this procedure lifted the landscape. When Europeans came, they cut the trees along the banks, took out the weirs, and now these creeks have cut deep incisions. The creek speed keeps the water from slowing down enough to drop silt on the adjoining land.

Catching roof runoff is a great way to build resilience into your farmstead. Buried cisterns are a wonderful safety valve to make sure we have water when all systems fail. In a 30-inch rainfall area, a roof generates 20 gallons of water per year per square foot. That’s a lot of water. Before modern well-drilling technology, every barn had a cistern.

Today, they’re crumpled in and the water comes from a well. Meanwhile, all that roof water runs off and is lost to the farmer.

On our farm, we’ve built many ponds in valleys to hold surface runoff during snow melts and major rain events. In a 30-inch rainfall area, every acre on average generates about 300,000 gallons of surface runoff per year. In my view, trapping and

What Would You Like Joel to Write About?

Joel is always looking for reader suggestions on which topics to cover. Please email all suggestions to: reachout@plainvalues.com

holding surface runoff is not hoarding because, by definition, surface runoff means the cup of the commons is full. It’s either saturated or the rain is coming too fast to soak into the soil. In either case, holding flood waters for later use blesses downstream neighbors by reducing floods.

Strategic use for irrigation or livestock watering feeds the hydration cycle during droughts.

The bottom line is that, individually and collectively, land managers can increase water volume and efficiency. If the time farmers spend complaining about the weather was invested in developing water abundance, we could re-create the hydration our lands enjoyed prior to modern agriculture. //

Joel's Upcoming Speaking Events June 2–3

Columbia, TN (The Homestead Festival)

June 9

Richmond, VA (Home Educators Association of Virginia)

June 21–22

Walnut Creek, OH (Food Independence Summit)

June 30–July 1

Kootenai County, ID (Pacific Northwest Homesteaders Conference)

July 17–18

Swoope, VA (Polyface Intensive Discovery Seminar)

July 21–22

Swoope, VA (Polyface Intensive Discovery Seminar)

July 28–29

Lancaster, PA (Family Farm Day)

August 4–5

Swoope, VA (Polyface Intensive Discovery Seminar)

August 17–19

Swoope, VA (Bio-Fert Seminar with Jairo)

August 25–26

Marshfield, MO (Ozarks Homesteading Expo)

September 7

Columbia, South America (Expo Agrofuturo Medellin)

September 12

Victoria, TX (Victoria College Lyceum)

Sept. 30–Oct. 1

Wheeling, WV (The Vineyard Church)

October 7

Greenville, SC (Farm Where You Live Fair)

October 13–14

Front Royal, VA (Homesteaders of America)

October 15–16

Camden, TN (The Self Reliance Festival)

October 21–22

Indianapolis, IN (Indiana Homestead Conference)

Joel co-owns, with his family, Polyface Farm in Swoope, Virginia. When he’s not on the road speaking, he’s at home on the farm, keeping the callouses on his hands and dirt under his fingernails, mentoring young people, inspiring visitors, and promoting local, regenerative food and farming systems.

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words by:

do the hard things first June 2023

“As much as I hate to admit it, Nike may have said it best after all…”

– rory feek

rory feek

I AM A CREATURE OF HABIT. I wake before daylight every morning and pretty much start my day exactly the same way. While my little girl is still dreaming away in her bed, I find my way downstairs, light a candle, make coffee, get out my fountain pen, and spend a few minutes journaling about the day before. This is followed most days by some Bible reading, and then I open my calendar and look at the day in front of me.

I’m also a serious list-maker. And I try hard to be a list doer.

Often, I will spend an unreasonable amount of time making a comprehensive checklist of the things I need—or want—to get done today and put them in some sort of order.

Some days, I’m incredibly productive. When the evening rolls around, I feel great, knowing that I’ve accomplished all or most of the things I had hoped to get done. But sometimes—more often than I’d like to admit—when dinner rolls around, I realize that I have gone through the day and not once looked at the list I made. The day will have gotten away from me, and I completely forget every single thing I had meant to get done.

I’m ashamed to say that I usually blame the problem on my list system: the organizer I’m using or the app on my computer (or iPhone when I had one). I’ve wasted great amounts of time, searching for something that makes more sense or works better, rather than paying anywhere between 99 cents and thirty dollars for the thing that is truly, truly going to help me be more organized and get more done.

Rory Feek is a world-class storyteller, songwriter, filmmaker, and New York Times best-selling author. As a musical artist, Rory is one-half of the Grammy-award-winning duo, Joey+Rory. He and his wife Joey toured the world and sold nearly a million records before her untimely passing in March 2016.

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"There is a sense of pride that comes from doing one hard thing that you won’t get from accomplishing twenty easy things... and like all difficult things, the more you do them, the less difficult they become."

That will usually be followed a few days or weeks or maybe months later by an epiphany that whatever new planner or app I’m using isn’t actually helpful. I’ll decide that what I really need to do is simplify. And so, I’ll grab a single sheet of paper and start hand-writing a list. This new and improved list will suffice for a short time but then be followed by some other new tool that someone will have told me about. And I will order it, get it in the mail, open it up, and begin. Believing that this is the thing I have been lacking…

In the end—I mean the very, very end—I’ve come to realize that it all comes down to one thing.

Do the thing you’ve been dreading … first.

That’s it.

I’ve found that whether I’ve made a list or not, whether it’s digital or old school, if I make myself do the one hard thing that’s been on my mind for days or weeks, that I’ve been purposefully, or coincidentally avoiding … it changes everything.

As much as I hate to admit it, Nike may have said it best after all. Just do it.

Skip buying their new sneakers. Instead, do the thing you don’t want to do. And do that one thing, first thing. Somehow, everything else has a way of falling into place. I strangely find myself getting more done and having more fun doing those things. Maybe because my mind and heart are a little lighter. A weight that I’ve been carrying around has been lifted. And I see my day and my priorities a little clearer.

For me, a writer, one of the things that often shows up at the top of my "I need to do, but I don’t really want to do” list is writing or finish writing this column or some other creative endeavor that I’m excited about, but dreading. Yes, there are things we can love and dislike at the same time. I’ve heard people say, “Writers love to have written,” and it is SO true. It’s 18

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usually not the actual writing that is hard, it’s the sitting down of the writer’s butt in the chair that is tough to make happen. But … once I make myself sit down and begin, more often than not, I get lost in what I’m writing or making, I blink, and it’s done. I am proud of what exists that didn’t exist an hour before.

I’ve found that all things on our “To Do” lists are not equal. Some are harder to check off than others.

They keep rolling over to the next day, and the next, and the next … There is a reason that hard things are hard. And it’s human to want to avoid making that call we dread making. Doing that work we really don’t want to do. Or whatever it is that subconsciously is weighing us down.

But there is something incredibly powerful about doing the hard thing first. About attacking and accomplishing difficult or scary things. I’ve found that most of the time, actually almost all of the time, they turn out to be not as hard as I thought they were. And I will invariably find myself thinking, “Why in the world didn’t I do this sooner?”

There is a sense of pride that comes from doing one hard thing that you won’t get from accomplishing twenty easy things. And when you do it once—do the hard thing first—and see the difference it makes in your day and in your life, you’ll find yourself excited to do it again tomorrow. And like all difficult things, the more you do them, the less difficult they become.

So the next time you have a big list of things in front of you that need done, start by doing the one on the list that you don’t want to do, first. And see what happens.

For me, at the end of the day, it’s not about how much I’ve gotten done, how many things I’ve knocked off my list, or even how productive I am. It’s about how much I’ve grown. Am I a little better today than I was yesterday?

Try it.

You won’t like it.

But then … you’ll love it. //

rory PLAIN VALUES JUNE 2023

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PART FOUR

THE BIRTHDAY CARD

Special thanks to Brian Dahlen and Moody Radio for allowing us to share this series with our readers.

WORDS BY: BRIAN DAHLEN

Last month, Brian Dahlen shared that after the passing of Grandma Betty, the relationship between Grandpa Tom and Brian’s dad, Bill, quickly began to erode with three marked incidents: 1) the returned inheritance check, 2) the requested train set that suddenly disappeared, and 3) the road map for apparently insufficient directions. And now, for the final straw … the birthday card.

IN THE ONE-HOUR CONVERSATION with my parents, they gave me a detailed account of the birthday card incident, which was the event that led to the break in our relationship with Grandpa Tom. Brian’s Mom: “If you look at a calendar year, your birthday is first in the year, Brian. Your birthday is in February and then your brother is April, I’m May, and Dad is September. And one year, February came for your birthday, and we didn’t hear from him … And then April came, and your brother got a birthday card [and a check]. And you said, ‘Why didn’t Grandpa send me a birthday card?’ And then it was May, and it was my birthday, and nothing. And I remember telling your dad, ‘If you get a birthday card, we’re going to have some trouble here.’”

September came around and my dad received a birthday card and a check. My mom didn’t think it was fair that my brother and my dad received a birthday card from Grandpa Tom while she and I didn’t.

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Brian’s Mom: “The check was no big deal— [it was] $10 or something. It wasn’t the amount, it was the principle that half of our family was being excluded or ignored or left out, whatever it was… I remember that I felt strongly that you children needed to be treated the same. That either he [Grandpa Tom] would acknowledge both of your birthdays or neither of your birthdays… I wanted your dad to somehow communicate to his dad that it had to be that way.”

And so, my mom pressured my dad to return his birthday check to Grandpa Tom. Brian’s Mom: “I insisted and made life pretty miserable.”

Brian’s Dad: “I wasn’t real thrilled with [returning the card] because I wasn’t exactly sure what the

No more birthday cards for anybody, no phone calls—nothing.

My mom added that, even though Grandpa Tom wasn’t speaking to our family, he continued to have a relationship with my uncle and his family.

reaction would be, but I was quite surprised with the reaction that came about.”

After my parents returned Grandpa Tom’s birthday card, they never heard from him again.

Brian’s Dad: “No letter. No call. No contact. It seemed like an extreme reaction.”

in the Minneapolis area. I haven’t spoken to him in at least 10 years. For whatever reason, he and my dad just aren’t very close. It’s [my mom’s] impression that Tom Jr. and his two daughters saw Grandpa Tom regularly.

So, with both skill and finesse, I wrangled my inner cheapskate and secured a flight to Minneapolis.

Brian with his cousin, Kelly

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So, there you have it: the birthday card incident.

Make sense? Probably not. Doesn’t for me. It isn’t clear at all. I’m more confused than I was before. To clear matters up, I decided I needed to visit my uncle and cousins. The only problem? I haven’t spoken with them in over a decade. But they have the answers that I need.

My Uncle [Uncle Tom Jr.] is in his 70s and still lives

And with an equal measure of linguistic gymnastics, I persuaded my Uncle and two cousins to meet with me over breakfast to talk about Grandpa Tom. My parents were out of town, so I commandeered their house as our designated meeting place.

My cousins Nicole and Kelly are gracious, kind, successful, and intelligent women. Without any difficulty, we settled into casual conversation. We laughed. We got caught up. My Uncle wasted no time cracking jokes, and my brother was chattier than usual.

It’s not just my dad. My Uncle Tom has vague recollections of their childhood that include Mom as the disciplinarian, and Dad as rather disconnected.

Maybe the memories of my cousins would shed some light on my mysterious grandfather. Was he Super Grandpa to them while he ignored us?

Brian: “Was he the ‘take you out for ice cream’ type of grandpa? Or 'Come on girls, come sit on my lap and let me read you a story?'”

Cousins: “No… I just remember him driving that big car.”

Uncle Tom: “Always had Cadillacs.”

Cousins: “I feel like I always remember him in a button-down shirt or a suit or something…”

Uncle Tom: “Very formal.”

Brian: “Was he talkative with you two? Like ‘Tell me about school?’ Did he seem very interested in what you were doing, [as in] ‘I can’t wait to go see you cheer or make a goal’?”

Cousins: “Oh, no, no.”

By this time, we were all getting uncomfortable.

So, I figured I better bring up the elephant in the room.

You know, how the guy we’ve been talking about disowned my side of the family—over a birthday card?

I’ve waited all these years and flown across the country. I couldn’t wait any longer to hear the other side of the story.

But I was completely unprepared for what I was about to discover.

Brian to his uncle: “As I know you are probably aware, they didn’t talk—your dad and my dad—for at least a decade.”

Cousins and Uncle: “I didn’t know that… So when did they not talk for 10 years?”

Brian: “Um … so that’s the odd story…”

" My Uncle had no clue that his brother and his dad hadn’t spoken for at least a decade ...

Did my grandfather really never bring it up? Did my dad really never mention this to his brother?"

Uncle: “After we put him in the nursing home, they still didn’t talk?”

Brian: “That was the first time they spoke in over a decade.”

My Uncle had no clue that his brother and his dad hadn’t spoken for at least a decade. I had entertained the possibility that my Uncle and cousins didn’t know why the disownment occurred. But I never imagined the entire disownment was an unknown thing to them.

Did my grandfather really never bring it up? Did my dad really never mention this to his brother? Was their communication that sparse and empty?

Brian recapped the birthday card story: “…So they sent him [Grandpa Tom] the letter and they never talked again.”

Cousins: “Wow… why did he write a letter versus call?”

Brian: “I have no idea… I think part of it is that my dad is [similar to] how you would describe your father [Grandpa Tom]… he just doesn’t know how to talk emotion.”

Cousins: “So he never sent another card after that?”

Brian: “Never… never heard from him again, never talked to him again. And the next time my dad talked to him was after you guys moved him to a nursing home. He didn’t know who my dad was… he didn’t know who he was.”

Cousins: “You almost feel like there is a piece missing.”

Brian: “There’s got to be.”

Cousins: “Yeah… it doesn’t add up.”

Brian: “What I did ask [Brian’s parents], 'Do you regret this at all?'”

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At this point, I shared some information with my Uncle and cousins that I haven’t shared with you yet.

It’s about regrets. And whether my parents had them about this whole mess. Here’s what they said in their own words: Brian’s dad: “In hindsight, if we had known the reaction, I’m sure we would have done something different, but it certainly wasn’t the reaction I anticipated.

Brian’s mom: “I wasn’t a real Christian at the time, and I hope that if I had been I would have acted differently. I regret I was so insistent about it … I really regret having been the cause of the break in that relationship.”

Maturity in Christian faith is a long, laborious, never-ending process. All followers of Jesus go through it. In that sense, my mom’s change of heart over time is understandable. My Uncle and cousins took it all in quietly. The tragedy of the whole thing hung in the air.

What could they say?

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What’s left? Grasping for answers, I cut right to the heart of it.

Brian: “Did he ever say things like, ‘So what’s Bill up to?’ or ‘What are the grandsons doing?’”

Uncle: “No.” Brian: “Didn’t come up? Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

Uncle: “Oh yeah.”

He never asked about us. I wish I knew why. I was hoping for a dramatic revelation. A simple explanation.

But after reconnecting with my Uncle and cousins, I walked away with conflicting emotions. They are wonderful people. And yet, I also walked away heartbroken over all the lost years of not knowing them. But that’s not all I walked away with. I’ve got three new clues on my journey toward making sense of this seemingly unexplainable disownment and familial separation.

The First Clue: The Phone Call My grandmother unexpectedly passed away at the age of 60 on December 31, 1975. I asked my Uncle about it, and he shared his memory of that terrible day.

Uncle: “I get a call News Year's Eve [about his mother’s death], and all of a sudden I have to go to

California… That’s when I called Bill, and we had to hop a plane to go to San Francisco to help my dad bring her back… she was dead.”

Could it be that my dad found out his mother unexpectedly passed away on the other side of the country… from his brother?

I texted my dad to see whether my suspicions were correct.

Unfortunately, I was right.

My Dad received two phone calls at work the day his mom died. One was to let him know that his mom had a heart attack on the plane back from Hawaii and was in bad shape. The second call broke the tragic news that she was dead. One of those calls came from his brother, and the other from his Uncle Marshall. He’s not 100% sure who made which call, but he’s confident about one thing—his dad didn’t call. Is that what you would do if your wife died? Have one of your kids break the news to the other?

The Second Clue: Alzheimer's The second clue flings open the curtain on my Grandpa Tom’s Alzheimer’s. All I’ve ever known about it was the crisis incident that ended up necessitating his being admitted to a nursing facility. As it turns out, there were many other symptoms and incidents.

Uncle: “We could tell he was really going… we went over to [a restaurant] for dinner. My dad was supposed to drive over. ‘Where’s dad?’ He was lost.

He didn’t know where he was at… Anyway, the former next-door neighbor would keep me up to date on what was going on. ‘Your dad’s down on the corner.

He thinks the bus is there.’ [Uncle Tom whistles with concern]. Then you knew there was something going on. My dad needed help. [As a cosigner] I would go through the checkbook, and I would see all these entries, ten entries of $5 each. [Those] are tell-tale signs. I’m afraid the stove is going to be on and he is going to kill himself. That’s when you knew you had to get him committed [to the nursing facility].”

The Third Clue: Buried Emotions The third and final clue in the breakdown of family relationships was actually about my dad. Without any prompting, out of nowhere, my Uncle revealed decades of hurt he’d been feeling.

Uncle: “It’s terrible, we [Bill and Tom] haven’t talked in a long time… I really got upset. Diane [Uncle Tom’s wife] and I took care of my dad, and cleaned the house up and got it ready, and where was Bill? He never asked, ‘Is there anything I can do?’ I really took offense to that… I’m a big boy, and I should have called your dad years ago and said, ‘Let’s sit down and let me tell you my problems and why I don’t talk to you.’”

My heart was racing. I had no idea my Uncle was holding on to this hurt for 30 years. I was so focused on my grandfather disowning us, that I hadn’t even considered what reality had done to the relationship between my dad and his brother. And the man he was describing doesn’t sound anything like my father. The dad I know is selfless, hard-working, ready to help. An all-around incredible guy. But I get it. From my Uncle’s perspective, his feelings are valid. It makes sense. If I were in his shoes, I’d be hurt too.

So here I am. I didn’t solve anything. In fact, I’ve got three more issues to resolve.

First, was it really possible that my grandfather was cold-hearted and narcissistic? He never asked about my family.

Second, his Alzheimer’s symptoms were much more intense than I realized. Could that have played a role in the disownment?

Lastly—is it too late to heal the broken relationship between my dad and his brother? How will my parents respond when they hear about this for the first time?

To get any sort of resolution, I’d have to share this difficult information with my parents. I’d have to talk to an expert in Alzheimer’s. And I’d have to track down the only remaining relative who knew my grandfather. // TO BE CONTINUED...

Brian Dahlen became a Cleveland morning show host after working at Moody Radio in Chicago as a radio host, producer, and co-host of a weekly podcast. Brian caught the radio bug while teaching history at a public high school near Minneapolis, where he was co-host and producer of a weekly radio program. After teaching six years and graduating with a master’s degree in education, Brian lives with his wife and five children in Broadview Heights, Ohio. For more information on Brian and The Grandfather Effect, visit www.moodyradio.org/grandfather.

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AMISH INSIGHTS ON: ASKING FOR HELP

This Month's Question: Life is hard, and we often need help. How can I accept help from others without feeling the need to repay them?

Answered by:

Emily Hershberger & Daniel Miller

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Emily: Forty-two hours is how long my niece and her husband were able to hold their beloved stillborn daughter before she was laid to rest. Adrielle Kate— her name meaning belonging to God and pure— brought heaven closer to her young parents. Farewell, dear baby—may we meet again someday.

Grief is hard. Family, friends, church, and the community weep with this couple and look for ways to help bear their burden... which ultimately does lighten the load and can help along with healing. But … being the recipient of all this kindness can be difficult in itself. After losing three babies to a genetic disorder, we have often found ourselves in this position, and to be honest, it wasn’t always easy. We wished we were the ones bearing the casseroles, sending the flowers, and reaching out in love. We wished it was our time to share instead of other people taking that time for us. Yet, I can’t put into words how much these things meant to us and how greatly we did appreciate every little gesture.

So how should we respond when we are in need of help and are not able to reciprocate? My mom gave me wise words years ago and they have always stayed with me. I was probably lamenting the fact that we were once again on the receiving end and how I felt bad about taking up people’s time. We had not asked for this, we don’t want to feel indebted, and so on. In plain language Mom explained: We are asked to help bear one another’s burdens, and by not graciously accepting that, we rob the giver of the joy and can lose the blessing for ourselves. Gratitude—the state

sighs and thinks that people really should be doing things for us. After all, we’ve got such a rough lot in life.

Maybe that’s pride, but you really, really don’t want people to think that of you.

The point is not doing things for the honor and glory, but most women probably have had the experience of putting a lot of thought into something and getting a tepid response, which simply rains on your parade. I had a friend whose relative had a new baby, so she put in a lot of time and effort crafting a beautiful blanket to present to them. “Oh, another blanket. He’s gotten so many already,” was the thanks that she got. How horribly awkward! She took the blanket back home again, but talk about a letdown!

Or at the gathering where the mother comments how her family groaned when meals were being brought in, fearing that it would be dressing-noodle casserole again. I can assure you that every woman there quickly wracked their brain, trying to remember what meal they had taken in. Maybe it’s our insecurities, but we

of being grateful and thankful. So, by not showing gratitude, we are not doing our part in the big scheme of things. That little talk was a tremendous help to me and encouraged me to always try to express my gratefulness. Another thing might be that we have this fear of coming across as sponges, someone who

We are asked to help bear one another’s burdens, and by not graciously accepting that, we rob the giver of the joy and can lose the blessing for ourselves.

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The Psalmist says, “You may weep for a night but joy cometh in the morning.”1 We can help this joy come by humbling ourselves, recognizing our need for help, and being a true and gracious receiver. women want our food—or whatever it may be—to be appreciated. So, by not recognizing what had been done for them and thinking of the giver, these women, in my opinion, missed out on a whole lot. The giver still received a blessing, but the experience could have been a lot more meaningful.

It is a humbling experience to get an outpouring of support knowing that you can never repay nor thank each one individually. Last summer, we had a major windstorm go through our area wreaking destruction for lots of people. Our friend’s daughter was getting married on a Wednesday, and this happened Monday night. Their heifer barn was gone, the wedding tent collapsed, and there were fallen trees and branches everywhere. Our friend related how difficult it was to not have a sure answer when his daughter asked if the wedding could happen.

Power lines were down, roads were impassable, and would people even be able to come? Then the people came. Neighbors, their son’s friends, and people they didn’t even know started coming from all directions, and by Tuesday evening things were cleaned up and ready for the wedding. This was community at its finest! The heartfelt thankfulness and appreciation of our friends was surely conveyed to everyone who was there. God’s plan was fulfilled: the people kindly gave, and our friends respectfully accepted.

Being grateful is something that should be taught to our children at a very young age, and by being an example, you set them on the right track. I’m not talking about falsely gushing or carrying on but just a sincere appreciation for their efforts. Writing thank-you notes is a great tool, although I could vastly improve in that area! Good intentions don’t make the cut.

The Psalmist says, “You may weep for a night but joy cometh in the morning.”1 We can help this joy come by humbling ourselves, recognizing our need for help, and being a true and gracious receiver.

1) Psalm 30:5

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Daniel: By divine design, we’re dependent on each other—the giver, the receiver. Accepting help graciously may be among life’s top attributes. Nobody said it’s easy. But for the glory of God and for the good of the giver and yourself, the biblical directive is to embrace this kindness with a grateful heart.

There is a destiny that makes us brothers None goes his way alone All that we send into the lives of others Comes back into our own.

- Edwin Markham Looking at the larger picture, aren’t we all in this together? In olden times, wise old Solomon wrote, To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heaven.1 Along those lines, there’s a time to give and a time to receive. Easy to say, much harder to do.

Accepting help we can’t repay does leave a feeling of indebtedness, which motivates us to pass it on whenever and however we can. Two thousand years ago, a tax collector named Matthew sat in his booth of customs in the town of Capernaum. By dint of his profession, he was detested and reviled, the lowest form of traitor. When Jesus came by, He addressed him, “Follow me.” And Matthew arose and followed him.2 He opened his heart to the help Jesus offered.

What he received was a new life, a changed heart, a second chance. Did Matthew feel indebted? As one of the 12 apostles, he helped spread the gospel of Jesus and died a martyr.

Life is hard in the sense of its uncertainties, its reversals of fortune and circumstances, its setbacks, heartaches, and misunderstandings. People carry heavy burdens. Families lose much-needed loved ones. Tragedies occur. Incurable sicknesses arise. And so often the crowning blow comes with a hospital bill that threatens to cripple the family in whose mailbox it arrives. Is it any wonder Apostle Paul wrote: Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.3

The awareness of need and the spirit of giving is notable in the community we live in. But it doesn’t stop there. Like the poem by James Foley goes: Drop a pebble in the water, just a splash and it is gone, But there’s half a hundred ripples circling on and on and on.

That’s how it is with giving and receiving—the circles keep going and going. They span church denominations and cultures; they break down walls. The Good Samaritan, despised in the Jewish world he lived in, showed mercy for the traveler who was beaten and left half-dead by thieves. He poured oil in his wounds and bound them up, set him on his own donkey, and brought him to an inn. The Samaritan himself paid the innkeeper for the wounded man’s bed and care and would stop back to pay for further expenses incurred in the recovery. By the way, the man who was beaten and robbed happened to be a Jew. The lesson in this is for all of us.

In the great scheme of things, though, life as we know it right here, right now, isn’t hard in the sense of material possessions. Taken in the context of people worldwide, we’re living on “Easy Street.” What generation of common people at any time in history has lived with more conveniences than we do today?

Ancient Greece experienced a period known as The Golden Age. Today we live on the cusp of our own “golden age”—common comforts, job opportunities, leisure time, tools to get any job done, freedom to do this, freedom to do that. What did we do to deserve this? How is it that we were born in this community at this time? Considering the difficulties and deprivations our forefathers encountered, before and after immigration to America, living the good life is certainly not our right, nothing we’ve earned or paid for.

In our rural setting of farmsteads, now and then a barn goes up in flames, which means a barn raising is in the works. The outpouring of funds and donated labor humbles the farmer who loses his barn, then he stands by as a new one rises out of the ashes. He understands first-hand the sacrifices being made by scores of volunteers who want no pay or recognition. At such a time, watching the community rally around one of its

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own puts a new dimension to: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.4 When it’s all over and done, there’s something touching in seeing the farmer standing there in the shadow of his new barn, hands in his pockets, wholly at a loss for words.

Sometimes what is given by way of help escapes our notice until a long time later. In my impressionable early teen years, a new farm family moved into our neighborhood. My high regard for this farmer amounted to nothing less than adulation, for more reasons than one. He was known as Roman A.I. From this point on, I was kept busy emulating him. Since we belonged to the same threshing and silo-filling ring, working shoulder-to-shoulder with him through much of the summer made age 14 a banner year for me.

Roman A.I. drove a team of beautifully matched dapple grays, Dick and Doc. His farm wagon, complete with side racks, was painted silver-gray, complementing that team of his. Two small leather loops on the front upright rack held his threshing fork, its handle worn smooth by many years of use. That upside-down, 3-tined fork jutting above the rack lent just the right touch of flourish to his whole outfit. Contented black and white cows occupied his stable stanchions in

double rows. The exceptionally hilly farm he rented yielded bumper crops some years, other years not. All that, plus Roman A.I.’s practical know-how about soil, horsemanship, and life in general held me in thrall.

It wasn’t just his dapple grays and silver-gray wagon that evoked my admiration. It was what he said and how he said it, what he did and how he did it. I must’ve asked the man a question every minute that summer. Though I was a raw teenager, Roman A.I. never talked down to me, sidestepped a query, or shortened an explanation. He treated me as his equal. The proverb, A word fitly spoken...5 conjures up images of his weathered face between a straw hat up top and a silvery beard below. I can hear him yet, that burry quality to his voice. “Well ...” he’d say, dragging it out while he pondered his reply. Another thing— the suspenders his wife sewed on his denim britches didn’t crisscross in the back. Instead, they were held together by a short connector bar. It sounds a bit silly now to say this, but back then I decided if I ever got married, I’d want my wife to make my suspenders just the way Roman Fannie made his.

Years went by before I understood what it was that drew me to him. It was simply this: Roman A.I. gave

About Emily and Daniel Emily Hershberger, with her husband and two children, have an organic dairy near Mt Hope, Ohio. She enjoys farming, gardening, garage sales, and a good book.

Daniel and Mae live on a 93-acre farm between Walnut Creek and Trail, Ohio. Five children, hay-making, and Black Angus cattle take up any spare time after work at Carlisle Printing. Questions and comments welcome: 330-893-6043.

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"Years went by before I understood what it was that drew me to him. It was simply this: Roman A.I. gave freely of himself, true-blue, unadorned."

– Daniel Miller

freely of himself, true-blue, unadorned. Of course, I can’t repay him. All I can do is give glory to God who oversaw the bringing together of a wise farmer in barndoor britches and a raw teenager.

To wrap it up, the account of the ten lepers drives home a telling point. They called to Jesus for mercy from afar. In answer, Jesus sent the lepers to the priest, presumably to be pronounced clean. And it came to pass, that as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell on his face at Jesus’ feet giving him thanks. Here Luke adds a thoughtprovoking side note... and he was a Samaritan. But Jesus addresses the thanklessness of the others. Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? 6 The point—give glory to God. //

Submit Your Questions!

If there's a question you'd like The Roundtable to answer, email it to: reachout@plainvalues.com or mail it to: The Roundtable, P.O. Box 201 Winesburg, OH 44690

1) Ecclesiastes 3:1 2) Matthew 9:9 3) Galatians 6:2 4) Matthew 7:12 5) Proverbs 25:11 6) Luke 17:11–17 PLAIN VALUES

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WORDS BY:

Melissa K. Norris

Homestead Living RIPPLES

MY FATHER IS AN EXPERT ROCK SKIPPER. His eyes are trained to scan the riverbank for the perfect skipping rock—flat, smooth-edged, and preferably round or oval. With a flick of his wrist, that rock will skip across the surface of the water clear to the other shore.

That’s saying something. Our rivers on the west side of the North Cascades in the Pacific Northwest are wide.

As a young girl, he’d pick out a rock for me and walk me through the steps of drawing back my arm level with the river and letting it spin off my pointer finger.

In my hands, the rocks never skipped like they did for him.

Water is something we have an abundance of in the Pacific Northwest.

It can be a blessing and a curse. Growing up on the banks of two rivers, the Skagit and Sauk, I learned at an early age that tranquil waters on the surface don’t reflect the true reality beneath the surface.

Undercurrents are swift, and the Skagit River claims at least a few lives every year to those who don’t know her true nature. Both a dangerous undertow and her glacier-fed, bone-chilling depths, even on the hot days of early summer, can be deadly.

And yet, one of my absolute favorite places to be is on her shores and in select swimming holes come the dog days of August. photos by R.K. Rivera

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"It can be hard in the moment, but just like that rock, as it skips across the surface of the river to the other side, it sends out ripples.

The rock doesn’t see all the ripples it creates as it moves along."

The Sauk River flows through the homestead, the property my father grew up on in the 1940s.

These rivers can be destructive. Flooding erodes banks, can wipe out a farm overnight, and steals acres of land with one high water. Yet we depend on the water to keep things green and growing during the drought months of summer.

And those floods, destructive as they are, create some of the best fertile farmland in the world here in the Skagit Valley.

There’s a lot of similarities between these rivers and the life of a homesteader.

Just like the turquoise jewel-toned waters of the Skagit, raising your own food and living close to the land are beautiful things. They’re to be admired, appreciated, and protected.

Yet both have their dangers.

Homesteading isn’t for the faint of heart. It is hard physical work. Gardens grow and harvests need to be brought in during the hottest days of the year. Animals need fed during frigid winter temps, when you’re sick, and they don’t take holidays off.

You’re often working when the sun comes up and still tending things as the sun goes down.

If you don’t watch out for the undertows, you can find yourself burnt out and throwing in the towel.

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In four decades, I’ve seen countless family farms in our valley die. In some cases, there’s no one to take them over. The farmer’s children (or grandchildren) don’t want to take it over.

Other times, it’s folks enamored with the idea of homesteading and farming, but after the initial romance wears off, they find it’s more work than they want.

In both cases, it’s looking at it with extremes. The first see farming as nothing but drudgery and hard work. They didn’t enjoy the chores as a kid or don’t want that way of life for themselves.

The latter see it as prairie dresses and soft glow sunlight kissing the day goodnight and hello each morning, without the harsh realities of poop, bugs, dirt, and sweat.

The beauty lies in the middle.

Farming is much of the same. Feeding animals, planting seeds, pruning fruit trees and bushes, weeding, watering, harvesting, and prepping for winter. Ritualistic some would say.

Almost daily there is something new that pops up and alters your schedule. The bull breaks out and you get two hours of cardio in chasing him through the woods, back road, and neighbor's fence line (Peloton can’t beat that). The barn cat brings out her newest litter. There’s nothing like babies on the farm to brighten your day.

How do you stay in that spot where you see the good, even when things are hard and you’re tired?

If you homestead long enough (or sometimes not very long) you’ll reach the tough. An animal will die.

You’ll be bone weary and wondering why on earth you’re doing this. Nothing will go your way for the entire day, maybe even the whole week or month.

When those things happen, I’m reminded of my purpose.

It can be hard in the moment, but just like that rock, as it skips across the surface of the river to the other side, it sends out ripples.

The rock doesn’t see all the ripples it creates as it moves along.

You and I don’t see all the ripples we create in people’s lives by the work we do. At least, not very often.

Twelve months ago, my husband and I bought a 40-acre farm down the road from us. It hadn’t been a farm for decades. The pastures were leased, and cattle ran on them, but it hadn’t been tended by a farmer in a long time.

Yet, I remembered how the farm looked when I was a girl. When Lawrence and Clara Hornbeck lived in the farmhouse and tended the barns and land.

Part of the reason new homesteaders burn out is because they’ve not had someone to mentor them in a hands-on fashion—to teach them the realities and help them bypass beginner mistakes. Even if they didn’t choose it, a few generations back, farmers would learn beside their parents how to do things.

They had guidance.

Many of the older farmers don’t see a way to make it in today’s age. That was one of the reasons the farm we purchased went up for sale. The son told me, “You have a unique way of looking at the farm. You see things I couldn’t.”

We knew when we purchased the farm that it needed a lot of work to bring it back to a place of functionality and to bring in an income. Most farms need to be profitable in one way or another, and we’re not an exception.

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weren’t keen on the idea of sharing a tiny room). The last major remodel and updating she’d had were from the 1960s.

From the moment we walked the grounds with the realtor, I knew it was to be a place of rest and peace.

Many folks today don’t ever experience the peace of the country and farm. The idea of one acre, let alone forty acres, without houses and buildings stacked on top of one another, is foreign.

On June 9, the 1916 farm was given a new name— Norris Farmstead (NorrisFarmstead.com)—and future.

We set about restoring the 1916 farmhouse with plans to open it up as a farm stay. A short-term vacation rental where people can relax and experience a farm.

One of our goals is to raise a larger amount of grass-fed, grass-finished beef for guests to be able to purchase during their stay. This is a longer-term goal as, currently, we don't have a USDA facility to allow us to sell by the cut. Right now we sell a whole, half, or quarter beef with local pick-up. We also hope to grow an organic garden for guests to pick dinner from or for community members to purchase as a u-pick, and eventually we want to use the farm for teaching.

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Some of these goals will take years. The last nine months have been filled with the additional work of the new farm and a new herd of cattle there, and honestly, we’ve had moments when we questioned why we took on all of this.

But I know the power of good food. Food raised regeneratively, without synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or anti-biotics, no mass amounts of grains, where animals roam on pasture as they were intended, working in harmony to improve the soil fertility with their manure.

Since changing my food twelve years ago, I healed completely from stomach ulcers and GERD. Rather, if someone purchases food from us, experiences a getaway at our farm stay and learns about food raised this way, or comes to learn at one of our in-person workshops, it will change them, and in turn, change someone else’s life through them.

Ripples.

What we thought would take three months for the house renovations turned into six. On December 30th, we opened it up to our first guests.

The word I see most in guest reviews is peace.

It is the word I’m clinging to. Peace that, even though I’m not seeing the full path to making all of this come together, the Lord does. He put this farm into my husband’s and my hands to bless and teach others.

Though not all the workshops are full for this year, and I find myself doubting at times, I know that the God of living water will provide.

When the days are hard, remember that what you’re doing isn’t in vain. The ripples go far beyond what either of us can see.

To learn more about our in-person workshops, visit www.melissaknorris.com/event-workshop. //

Blessings and Mason jars,

Melissa Melissa K. Norris is a 5th generation homesteader who married a city boy… but that city boy quickly became a country boy and turned into a bonafide farmer when they moved to Melissa's family property. With their two children, they believe in keeping the old ways alive. She is an author, blogger, and podcaster. Learn more by visiting: www.melissaknorris.com.

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WORDS BY:

Shawn & Beth Dougherty

Water Like a Blessing IT'S A WARM JUNE DAY, but I’m watching rain clouds in the west and wondering if they’re coming our way. Especially in June, the arrival of a shower may have us either giving thanks or wringing our hands—or both.

If there’s hay on the ground, we want those clouds to make a wide berth around us and not spoil it. On the other hand, if we’ve just planted corn, we’re hoping for a good soaking to set the seed firmly in the soil and discourage crows, who delight in pulling up sprouts.

I bring my attention down to the soil at my feet. Here in our kitchen garden, a heavy rain will wash away the chard and beets we’ve just planted. But the clouds are far away, and in any case, the last of the springsown greens definitely need water. I reach for the big watering can.

The Blessing of Water In farming, water is so important it almost defines our relationship with a place. Certainly, when we came to northern Appalachia thirtythree years ago, water almost made us leave; eventually, water is what made us stay.

Despite only moderate average rainfall, these hills are wet. When we bought our century-old farmhouse, the only running water was in the basement after a rain, pouring through holes in the foundation and out by the door. Outside, showers often interfered with our farming; in haying season, we seldom got the three days’ dry weather that is the minimum for putting up cured hay.

But when we remembered the long dry season in our native Southwest and the periodic monsoon rains that challenged our early homesteading years, temperate-zone Appalachia looked pretty attractive. Finally, it was the abundant ponds, streams, and springs

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"We’ve always tried to solve our problems in-house, so to speak, before we spend any money ... we had the conviction, even then, that God’s world was manageable by simple means, and money and technology should be reserved for emergencies." to be found seemingly everywhere in these hills that made up our minds for us. We stayed. There is no life without water; it is akin to God’s blessing.

Simple Ways In the beginning, virtually none of the water on our original seventeen acres was where we wanted it.

The water in the basement, of course, was worse than unwelcome. A french drain took care of the majority, but in our then state of ignorance, we directed that runoff into the nearby creek, just wanting it gone.

We’re wiser now. Today, if we are moving water, we plan to hold on to this cherished resource, direct its flow to a point of need: a pond, tank, or cistern. We detain water as long as we can. A problem in some places and at some times, water is nevertheless our most necessary resource.

It took us a while to come to think of it that way, though! We imagine our grandfathers, long in their graves, shaking their heads to see how slowly we learned. They, who grew up without plumbing or electricity, had no difficulty appreciating the value of water, or finding simple ways to store and move it. Rainwater capture and gravity-fed farm water systems were commonplace to them; so we, their descendants, set out to teach ourselves what our ancestors always knew.

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Not everyone understood our intentions, for sure.

With Appalachia’s healthy water table, we could have dug a well and laid down pipe to carry pressurized water to the barn, garden, and field. Our neighbors certainly watched our hillbilly activities with skepticism.

But something held us back from going straight to costly and high-tech water solutions.

Partly, of course, we were constrained by our budget. We’ve always tried to solve our problems inhouse, so to speak, before we spend any money. But there was something else, too: we had the conviction, even then, that God’s world was manageable by simple means, and money and technology should be reserved for emergencies. We felt sure that good water management, like good farming, could be accomplished by attentive and creative hand work.

Gravity is Free Rain barrels were our earliest foray into nonelectric water management. It didn’t take long for us to realize that the cute pickle-barrel-shaped ones just didn’t hold enough. An inch of rain on the roof of our modest house was almost 300 gallons of water—enough to fill six such barrels! We switched to 300-gallon capacity IBC’s or “totes,” readily available secondhand. Now we could really store some water.

We used 2” PVC pipe to link several together at the spigots so they would fill and drain simultaneously; after that, we collected hundreds of gallons every time it rained, enough to water our extensive gardens and two dairy cows.

Still, sometimes we went a long time without a rain—what then? Appalachia is full of streams; three small ones cross our little homestead. There was a solution here—if we could find it. We knew that if we gave our cows unlimited access to the creeks, they would make a muddy mess and have a negative impact on water quality downstream. But when we began practicing planned, holistic grazing with

portable fence, grazing our cows in small, shortduration paddocks, instead of doing harm, their creekside grazing stabilized stream banks and prevented erosion. Another problem solved.

All that readily-available water flowing across the farm really motivated us to find other uses for it. One was so simple we wondered why we’d never seen it before. We call them “creek hoses”—just a bucket or tub plumbed with a “cooler drain” and a garden hose. We set them in the bed of the creek; anchored with some big rocks, they let you direct water to any point you like downhill of the bucket. Three of these now deliver water to stock tanks in the barnyard and garden. Instant free, non-electric running water!

Water in the Hills Seeing that we come originally from the Southwest, it’s probably natural we discovered the most amazing water sources last of all. Maybe there were springs and seeps (slow-moving springs) back where we were born, but we never saw any. The idea that clean, drinkable water comes out of the ground still delights us. And when we realized that we needed pretty much no special equipment or know-how to capture this

water, we were thrilled. Our first spring improvement was dug by hand one cold week in October: just a simple trench and some perforated pipe, and we had running water in the barn by winter. That was almost fifteen years ago, and that spring has been running constantly ever since. Spring improvements dot the farm now, bringing water to livestock, gardens—even our guest cabin.

From the Right Side of the Temple Today, our little farm is flowing with water from springs, creeks, and roof capture. These simple, non-electric systems give us independence and resiliency. On the farm, water gives us new insights into God’s Word, reminding us of the water flowing from the Temple, water that becomes a river on the banks of which fertile orchards produce fruit yearround. In a world given over to substitutions, water is irreplaceable, like that Word.

The rain clouds have passed to the north of us. I tip my watering can and a shower of tiny droplets moistens the soil where chard and beet seeds are waiting to be awakened. It’s like a blessing. //

Shawn and Beth Dougherty live in eastern Ohio, where their home farm is 17-acres designated by the state as "not suitable for agriculture." Using grass as the primary source of energy, they raise dairy and beef cows, sheep, farm-fed hogs, and a variety of poultry, producing most of their food, and feed, on the farm. They are also the authors of The Independent Farmstead, published by Chelsea Green Pub.

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WORDS BY:

Ferree Hardy

when a phone call marks the

Darkest Night 42

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IT MIGHT BE FROM A DOCTOR'S OFFICE, the police, or even a relative or friend, but it’s a parent’s worst nightmare—to pick up the phone and hear words that fracture their existence—“Your child is gone.” It doesn’t happen to everyone, but no one is exempt.

A retired pastor and his wife graciously shared their experience with me while they were packing for a flight to Alaska in January. I hope the warmth of a June day will soften this cold reality of grief.

What Happened?

Marlin and Sharon Beachy, having moved from Alaska to Ohio only the year before, bolted awake when their phone rang at 3:09 a.m. on the day after Father’s Day, 2013. Sharon’s brother, Dan, was calling from Alaska. “I’ve got some bad news,” he said to prepare them. Their son Ryan, 29, had just been killed; his motorcycle had hit a moose. Topping almost 1,600 pounds, a full-grown moose is the largest animal in Alaska.

Stunned, they had to ask and know for sure if Dan had said, “Ryan,” their son, or “Brian,” Sharon’s other brother.

Dan confirmed he’d said “Ryan.” After they hung up the phone, Marlin called Dan back. “I had to call him back. I couldn’t believe it.” Then the state troopers called to confirm the report.

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Only an hour earlier, the sun hadn’t yet set in that part of “The Land of the Midnight Sun.” As Ryan motorcycled up a hill, it glared directly into his eyes. Visibility was also cut by a smoky haze from distant wildfires, and then that moose ambled onto the road. State troopers found no skid marks. Ryan was killed instantly, and so was the moose. Ryan’s girlfriend was thrown from the motorcycle; she survived after with serious injuries.

“For months following, I’d wake up at 3:00 in the morning,” said Marlin. “I’d look at the clock. And then, I’d tell myself, “Oh, at least it’s not 3:09.” Such happenings are the mechanics of grief.

Within hours, Marlin and Sharon had boarded a flight to Anchorage, Alaska.

Sharon said, “We worked through every parent’s nightmare over the next few days: writing your child’s obituary, planning a funeral service…” Ryan’s memorial service would be held at Glacierview Bible Church, where Marlin had pastored for 25 years before being called to another ministry.

Marlin Beachy

with his son,

Ryan, in Alask

a (1988)

Was Anyone Able to Help Them?

Although Marlin and Sharon had moved back to Ohio, Glacierview Bible Church was still without a pastor. Who would shepherd Ryan’s family through the valley of the shadow of his death? As it turned out, a retired pastor was nearby, on staff at a Bible camp.

Coincidentally, his son had died in an accident years before. Another nearby pastor had also experienced the loss of a child.

These two pastors, acquainted with grief, stepped in to minister. “This isn’t just Marlin and Sharon,” the Beachys realized. “Many others have also lost a child.”

“We found out right away that people who’d walked through this were really helpful. They didn’t have to say a thing. They just knew.”

“The most helpful thing people did was to simply come, sit quietly, and cry with us. A lot of chatter didn’t help at all. Your brain can only handle so much at that point,” Marlin and Sharon agreed.

Sharon also went on to explain, “The church totally took care of us. I didn’t have to cook. They brought meals. Someone cleaned my house. We still owned our old house in Alaska, and Ryan had been using it, but only between jobs—a couple of days a month. He had an average guy’s housekeeping skills, so this was a big help!”

Marlin reminisced, “I just remember that you’re in your own little world. You can’t believe it happened.

Shock—the emotional shock—protects you from the pain.

For me, it was maybe six months before the shock wore off. Then the pain set in and all the questions came.”

What Did This Do to Their Faith?

Eventually, both Sharon and Marlin asked, “Do we really believe what we believe?”

“We really had to wrestle with that,” said Sharon.

Marlin added, “All these years I’d been telling people, ‘God’s in control. He’s ordained. He’s allowed.

He works for our good and His glory…’ It’s all fine and good to say that. But when you experience this kind of pain, the question is—do you really believe?”

“We kept saying, ‘It’s not supposed to be like this.’

Then an associate pastor asked us, ‘Where does it say that in the Bible?’ He said it gently, but he was right.”

“You’ve got to have that foundation, that bedrock of faith foundation. Believe in God’s goodness and sovereignty before those hard things come,” said Marlin.

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“We really felt that God was walking with us through this. It doesn’t relieve the pain, but the knowledge He is there ... It was like His hand was reaching down and He was holding on to me,” said Sharon. “To turn away from God would be to turn to despair. We couldn’t do that,” she added.

“It’s a long process,” they both agreed, “but the turning point in pain was coming to peace with the fact that God allowed it.”

Key Points for Those Who Haven't Gone Through This Kind of Loss: •

“First, cultivate a deep relationship with the Lord because these things will happen. Maybe not the loss of a child, but life is hard. You’ve got to be walking with the Lord, and be in a good community.”

•

“Don’t live in fear. Entrust your children to the Lord. We dedicated Ryan to the Lord when he was a baby. He was God’s child, not ours, forever.”

•

“Don’t grieve before your time. Honor life by loving your children to the fullest. Do crazy things in order to see them. Do like we do—go to Alaska for a weekend, or go in the middle of winter!”

•

“Don’t dwell on death. It’s not healthy and it’s not helpful. If God deems it His will to call them home, He’ll give you the grace you need.”

How Did This Affect Their Marriage?

Sharon admitted, “One of the things I struggled with was that I wasn’t as emotional as Marlin. I’m the mother! I should be bawling my eyes out! I questioned, ‘What kind of mom am I?’” Marlin said, “I shed tears probably every day for a year.”

“I didn’t,” said Sharon, “and that was hard for me.”

Instead, Sharon read a lot. Lament for a Son by Nicholas Wolterstorff, and Holding on to Hope by Nancy Guthrie, were very powerful helps.

“It’s like we were on parallel train tracks. We cried together, we prayed together. But we were also in our own world of grief. It didn’t tear us apart, but we needed other people for help. We needed to allow each other to grieve in their own way, and not be critical.”

How Has Life Changed for Them?

“This opened our eyes to how often this happens.

You’re not aware of it until it happens to you. We’re far more compassionate now,” they agreed.

Marlin shared, “It made me more intentional to connect with our daughters, Melissa and Rachel.

We’re not guaranteed another moment in this life.

I am now inclined to do things that don’t make a lot of sense, just to spend time with our girls and grandkids. For example, last fall I went to Alaska for our grandson’s birthday! And I’ve become more intentional with calling.”

Sharon added, “We’ve never been party people, but now, not at all. We’re more serious. We’re not killjoys—we can still be pretty goofy. Yet, here we are, ten years later, and we still miss Ryan something fierce. The difference is that we can talk about him now. We LIKE to talk about him. We are joyous.”

“Pain is the price of love. If we didn’t love Ryan, we wouldn’t miss him,” Sharon said.

“It’s been an amazing journey,” said Marlin. “We didn’t know it, but God was preparing things. Ryan was calling us more often. His friends said he was having more spiritual conversations with them.”

Ryan had sent a text to Marlin the day before which read, “Happy Father’s Day, Pops.” And although there was that most awful phone call in the night, there had also been a wonderful, unexpected call from Ryan just that morning. “I got to talk to him that day!” Marlin fondly exclaimed.

Not a day passes that those of us who’ve suffered the loss of a loved one don’t live with the bittersweet truth that life is precious; our days are numbered. Dear Reader, is there someone with whom you need to talk?

Don’t wait until it’s too late. Be intentional and reach out to them today.

Marlin and Sharon, thank you for touching our lives with Ryan’s. // Until next month,

ferree l

To learn more about widowhood, order a copy of Postcards from the Widows’ Path—Gleaning Hope and Purpose from the Book of Ruth. It’s a gentle, biblical guide for widows that has many saying, “This is the best I’ve ever read!” Mail a check for $14.99/copy (paperback, 248 pgs.), along with your address to: Ferree Hardy, 76 Grace Ave., Ticonderoga, NY 12883. Please allow 2-3 weeks for delivery. Free shipping for all Plain Values readers!

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WORDS BY:

Wendy Cunningham

Honest Conversations with Wendy DI RT Y WAT E R IT'S BALL SEASON in the Cunningham household. Baseball for the boys, softball for the girl, coaching for dad, and juggling for mom. Any day of the week, whether it be a practice or a game, you can find me seated on those stiff wooden bleachers cheering for one of my kids.

Last night, as we rooted for my oldest son, I periodically scanned the surrounding area for my eleven-year-old daughter while she circled the field with friends at her side and a snow cone in her hand. Our town is small and safe, but there is still that tinge of panic when I look for her and can’t find her right away.

I’m sure she’s there, but … what if she’s not?

This thought has plagued every parent since the dawn of time. Even Mary faced this same fear as she searched the caravan for her adolescent Jesus. Where was He? Was He with His dad? A family member? I imagine as she grew more frantic her internal struggle went from attempting to calm herself down to picturing all the horrendous things that could have already become of her beloved son. Scholars believe this story is included in the Bible so we can see that Jesus understood He was the Son of God from a young age. I’m convinced it’s there to comfort us mamas. Even Mary lost Jesus, and He turned out just fine.

As a kid growing up in the 80s, I remember leaving the house on my bike—no cell phone, no GPS locator, leaving behind no list of friends I’d be with—just living my best life. I’m sure my mom worried, but things were different then. She certainly wasn’t concerned I’d be shot by another kid at school. I doubt she wondered whether someone was suggesting to me that perhaps I was really a boy trapped in a girl’s body.

"As a kid growing up in the 80s, I remember leaving the house on my bike—no cell phone ... I’m sure my mom worried, but things were different then."

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And I don’t think she feared I’d decide my preferred pronouns were “demon” or “ze.”

What happened? How did we get here? Why is the world so scary?

I’m reminded of the second chapter of Kings when the men of the city came to Elisha. He was freshly anointed, but the new prophet was already being put to the test. “The men of the city said to Elisha, ‘My lord can see that even though the city’s location is good, the water is bad and the land is unfruitful’” (verse 19).

Y’all, somehow, we’ve dirtied the water. It wasn’t always this way.

This country is amazing. Never before in history have we seen the lasting fruit of an experiment like our democratic republic. Freedom and liberty are ours to enjoy because God was at its foundation.

Even an atheist would be hard-pressed to disagree the great success of our nation is due in part, if not in full, to our Judeo-Christian values anchoring us to a higher purpose. And ironically, this has made us so comfortable that we have the luxury of worrying about

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whether men can, in fact, become pregnant. Some countries worry about their kids starving to death but not us. No, America has got bigger fish to fry.

The location is good, but the fruit that once was abundant has died on the vine.

Elisha had a plan to clean the water, to purify the source of life. Humans can go weeks without food, but only days without water. Elisha’s method was sound, and it’s the same plan God has for us today. “[Elisha] replied, ‘Bring me a new bowl and put salt in it’” (verse 20). The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result. The Church is wandering frighteningly close to insanity. It’s time that we get a new bowl.

What we’re doing—or maybe what we’re not doing—is not working.

When I look around, I wonder how much of modern culture—if any—has been influenced by the Church. Sadly, there are several places I can point to where the Church has been influenced by modern culture. And as we’re slipping further away from God’s order, so many of us are sitting back wondering where God is in all of it. Perhaps we’re looking for a pillar in the sky to guide us forward, or a Red Sea exit strategy to get us back on track. But God says in Isaiah 43:19, “I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”

The new bowl is Jesus. When we bring Him to the cultural water, it will be cleansed.

“After they had brought him [a new bowl], Elisha went out to the spring, threw salt in it, and said, ‘This is what the LORD says: ‘I have healed this water. No longer will death or unfruitfulness result from it’” (verse 21).

Jesus is the bowl. We are the salt (Matthew 5:13).

Together, we can heal the water.

Not because we are powerful, but because He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4).

It’s time for radical change in our nation. Not just politically. I’m talking spiritually. It doesn’t matter who is in the White House, it matters Who’s in the hearts of the people. Can you even imagine what this place would look like if we humbled ourselves before God and went where He called, did what He commanded, and let go of what He took away? If we were just willing to be the salt, we could be the difference.

Salt is healing. The best thing for a cut on your foot is to dip it in the ocean. A sore throat is made well with a little saltwater gargle. And an Epsom salt bath is life to aching muscles. Salt makes sick things well. We have the Holy Spirit alive inside us. We have the power and authority to heal in Jesus’ name. The Church can do a mighty work of restoration in our world if we’d be willing to name that which is truly sick.

Salt adds flavor. Whoever said the Church is just about rules, laws, limits, and restrictions has never walked in the freedom of Christ. It is an amazing time to be a Christian—let us not shy away but rather step in.

Never in my life have I felt more filled with purpose and calling. The Church is not dull and boring as compared to what the world is offering. That’s a lie. The enemy only has smoke and mirrors. The true flavor of life is found in salvation.

"It’s time for radical change in our nation. Not just politically. I’m talking spiritually. It doesn’t matter who is in the White House, it matters Who’s in the hearts of the people."

Salt nourishes. It’s rich in trace minerals that the body needs. Salt helps us stay hydrated and is an important part of our electrolyte balance. It sure does seem to me that culture could use some nourishment and balance. We’ve got to be the ones to bring it because we’re the ones who have it. We have Jesus. We have exactly what the world is so desperately searching for—soul nourishment.

Salt is valuable. In the old days, salt was an important bartering tool. If you didn’t have salt, you weren’t able to keep and store meat. Salt worked like currency. Faith works the same way. Faith is the currency of heaven and, Church, we’ve won the lottery. God gave us bank cards to hand out. What are we waiting for?

Why are we looking to Him to do something when He’s already done everything required?

We know that fear, not faith, is the constant of humanity these days. We can see that our culture is sick and in desperate need of healing. And we know the world offers nothing in the way of wellness. Jesus is the new bowl we need to bring to the water’s edge.

And you and I, we’re the salt—infused with the Holy Spirit of God—that has been poured out. It’s our job, our calling, to not just mix into the cultural waters, but to cleanse them.

“This is what the LORD says: ‘I have healed this water. No longer will death or unfruitfulness result from it.’” // ~ until next month, Wendy

Wendy Cunningham is wife to Tom and homeschool mom to three amazing gifts from God. In addition to that calling, she is an entrepreneur and author. Her book What If You’re Wrong?, blog, and devotionals can be found at gainingmyperspective.com. She is also host of the podcast Gaining My Perspective. Wendy loves Jesus and inspiring people to step into their calling—whatever that might look like in this season. When she’s not working, writing, traveling, or podcasting, she can be found homesteading and chasing kids and cows on her farm in Middle Tennessee.

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IMAGINE FALLING ASLEEP to the pitter patter of rain on the roof.

Your eyes drift shut, but not for long. The storm outside now sounds like a freight train attempting an entrance through your window, threatening to carry your house off its very foundation.

You wish to open your eyes a second time and wake up from this bad dream. My heart goes out to the folks of eastern Kentucky because, for them, this was not a bad dream. It was a nightmare come to life.

You may remember the record-breaking flood that claimed 42 lives in parts of Missouri and eastern Kentucky, among other nearby areas, last July. I traveled down to Letcher County, KY, the hardest hit area, to talk to some folks and see the extent of the damage for myself. Some locals likened the flood to “Hurricane Katrina, but in the mountains.” They weren’t exaggerating.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says the entire flooding event broke the $1 billion dollar threshold in damage. According to the Mountain Eagle, a local news source, 13,246 Kentucky homes were damaged, 19% of which were in Letcher County alone. “Researchers estimated that it would cost [around $450 million to $1 billion] to repair or replace homes damaged or destroyed by the flood,” says Rick Childress of the Lexington HeraldLeader. And this is only in Kentucky, let alone the other affected states. Twenty Kentucky counties received flood damage. A cluster of seven of those counties were hit the hardest, and the small town of Neon in Letcher County violently received the worst of the worst.

My face was glued to the window of the truck as I was taxied around the county, through small towns and past whole communities tucked away in the hollers. The trash and debris strewn along the creek banks, many vacant buildings, blown out windows, temporary campers used for housing, some irreparable buildings— these were only an echo of the destruction that had swept through Central Appalachia seven months ago. We met Andrea Taylor in her hometown of Whitesburg at the Pine Mountain Grill for some

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WORDS BY: Seth Yoder

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A makeshift City Hall

delicious southern cooking. She’s a friendly local woman who’s been involved in recovery efforts since day one.

Over breakfast, she shared bits and pieces of her story and the painstakingly slow progress made since the flood. I’ll share more on that later.

We continued our tour and arrived at Neon’s makeshift city hall, one minute away from the damaged original location. Here we met Allen Bormes, Chief of the Neon PD. He was warm-hearted and cordial, eager to lend a hand—something he’s been doing a lot of lately.

The heavy events of the past months have taken a toll on him. But not only him. He said that every person in the area suffers, to some extent, from PTSD. We took our seats, and he described what it’s like to stare death in the face.

alert system when he added, “Half of my house got the warnings on their phones in Spanish. Nobody in my house is Spanish.” Some people in the area got no alert at all. Even if Letcher County had received adequate warning, nothing could have fully prepared them for what was about to take place.

The menacing thunderstorms unleashed their fury during the early morning hours of July 28. From 12–6am, six inches of water dumped from the sky in streams. The steep hollers that many call home turned into drainage ditches. “I’ve been through hurricanes, I’ve been through tornadoes,” said Allen. “I’ve never seen rain like that. If we were standing just four feet apart in that rain, we would not see each other. If I

Chief Bormes’ Story The day of the flood, everyone was expecting some heavy rainfall, and flash floods are nothing new to the people of Letcher County. “This little town has had water in it before. It’ll get four or five feet deep and go away in an hour or so, and that’s that,“ said Allen, who lives in Jenkins, a few minutes away from Neon. “We get flash flood warnings constantly. [If] you cry wolf enough, nobody pays attention.” He was clearly frustrated at the

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“I’ve been through hurricanes, I’ve been through tornadoes," said Allen. “I’ve never seen rain like that."

An abandoned house due to mold (left) and a local church left in shambles (right)

turned a flashlight on, the water dispersed the light so much, I couldn’t see the ground. You had to scream to hear through the rain.” Within the first hour of rainfall, the road was covered in 1 ½ feet of water. Andrea had told me earlier, “When we were standing on our porch, it looked like we were standing on a boat dock.” Within one day, the north fork of the Kentucky River had risen from a slightly high four feet to over 20 feet, smashing the 1957 flood record by at least five feet.

Allen then told me about his family. Before the cellphones and power went out, “The last word that we’d had from [my wife’s] brother who lives in Burdine was his wife saying…” His words trailed off, and there was a long pause as he choked back tears. “It’s hard to even [repeat]. But she said, ‘I think we’re gonna drown.’”

By her tone of voice, Allen knew she had resigned and accepted the fact that they were all going to die. “[That was] probably one of the hardest things I’ve had to hear a person say.” But thank the Lord, death did not come.

He then described how his relatives fled their house.

Through chest-high water, his brother-in-law reached a telephone pole and hauled his family to safety with an extension cord. As he was pulling his wife through the water, the neighbor’s porch broke off. They were forced to cut and retie the cord to let the massive chunk of Seth with Chief Bormes PLAIN VALUES

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“There were cars on top of houses ... a Dodge Durango was up in a tree, and one house was [several hundred yards] off its foundation, sitting sideways on the creek bank.” debris float dangerously between them. They escaped with their lives and the soaked pajamas on their backs.

Allen nearly reached despair during the night, angry at himself for his inability to help anyone else, but once the rain finally subsided around 8:30 a.m., he and his two officers took to the flooded streets.

As they traveled from house to battered house, Dustin, Allen’s newest officer, came across a man yelling for help from his pickup trapped in an eddy. Allen interrupted his own story. “Listen, if this don’t raise a hair on your neck, I don’t know what will.” In full gear—vest, belt, everything, none of which floats—Dustin swam 3035 yards to the swirling truck. He told the man, “Let’s go.

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We gotta get you out of here.” The man looked at Dustin.

“I can’t swim.” “Grab onto that handle on the back of my vest. I’ll swim for the both of us.” So, with the added weight, Dustin swam the man all the way back to safety in full gear. Allen likened the feat to having two cinder blocks wrapped around your shoulders with a guy on your back, all while trying to swim 30 yards through moving flood waters. God only knows if there were angels swimming with Dustin.

Allen was dumbfounded when he finally made it into Neon for the first time after the flood. “Disbelief was the understatement of the year.” In our separate conversations, Allen and Andrea each described their

towns as warzones without bullet holes. Andrea said, “There were cars on top of houses ... a Dodge Durango was up in a tree, and one house was [several hundred yards] off its foundation, sitting sideways on the creek bank.” The following days blurred together for Chief Bormes as he worked with little rest to help where possible, making sure people were safe, attending to the ill and disabled, writing welfare checks, even building a makeshift bridge using a borrowed piece of culvert. In the weeks following the flood, intense heat turned the mud into toxic dust full of old coal mine runoff, heavy metals, and sewage. Months went by, and winter threatened the lives of displaced people.

Thankfully none froze to death.

Allen has since fixed his home, at least enough to live in it again. Some of his family is staying with him until they can rebuild their totaled home. The recovery progress has been far slower than they hoped for, and the people of Letcher County have begun to wonder if the help they need will ever come.

Many people are using state-loaned RV's as temporary housing.

The Current State of Things Appalachia is full of tight-nit communities. They are constantly looking out for one another, and when a local disaster happens, the communities form a support network. This flood, however, wiped out their entire support network. Every community in the area was hit hard. This has forced Letcher County to rely heavily on outside assistance, much of which has slowed to a snail’s pace.

Andrea told how the initial relief efforts of the National Guard, FEMA, and The Red Cross fell through due to incompetency and drug use among the displaced people. That pushed the masses into campers and tents where they then had to combat theft. Many people are still living in state-loaned campers on a monthly reapplication basis, or in sheds turned into temporary tiny houses. According to Andrea’s estimation, barely a quarter of the displaced people are back into their homes. In other words, roughly 7,500 homes in Letcher County still need rehab! Some are completely ruined, others are uninhabitable with mold, and most homes still don’t have working sewer systems. Disaster relief businesses and insurance companies are burdening the already poor people with unaffordable costs. It will take 2-5 years for Neon and Letcher County to fully recover, and that’s with the outside help that they only dream of.

Despite the overwhelming lack of help, there are a few people on the ground doing good work. Jeff Sim, founder of Heritage Ministries, has been traveling over the mountain from Lynch nearly every day since July to help with cleanup and rebuilding. He accommodates work crews that periodically come to help and has

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done much work himself. Andrea and my hosts spoke very highly of him. According to his website (heritagemin.org), “When Heritage Ministries was first founded [in 2005], Jeff and Linda knew that home repair was going to be a focal point of the ministry.

God had called them to eastern KY to help people, and with a background in construction, doing home repair was natural for them. Heritage Ministries uses mission teams to subsidize labor, materials, and/or funding for home repair projects. It is the belief of Heritage Ministries that helping our neighbors and showing the love of Christ is the best way to minister to them.” This poses an opportunity for you, dear reader.

God’s children are called to love Him with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love their neighbors as themselves. That’s a tall order. With so many disasters and needs everywhere, “Which one is the one that God wants me to contribute to?” you may ask. I’ve often asked that of myself too, so I can relate. But let’s not miss the trees for the forest. (Yes, I intentionally said that backward.) Don’t worry so much about the forest of “global disaster relief” that you miss the withering tree in front of you. God doesn’t want us to touch every need. He wants us to be faithful to Him. Are you being faithful? “By this we know love, that Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart

Whitesburg, Kentucky (left) Jordan, Jeff, Linda, and Lindsay Sim—founders of Heritage Ministries, Inc. (below)

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against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” (1 John 3:16-18) If the Lord is impressing it on your heart, Jeff Sim and Letcher County may just get an answer to their prayers. //

How to Help: 1.

Volunteer workers! (With/without construction experience.)

2. Finances (100% will be used to rebuild housing as quickly as possible.)

3. Construction materials 4. Pray for the victims’ anxiety and PTSD, for the elderly, and that God would send help.

Please direct all finances, questions, and voluntary labor to Jeff. If you’re sending labor, contact him at least 2-3 weeks in advance.

Heritage Ministries P.O. Box 821, Lynch, KY 40855 606-848-0550

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info@heritagemin.org

www.heritagemin.org Seth exists near Killbuck, Ohio. I suspect if you’d ask him, he’d tell you the most notable thing about his life would be the fact that Jesus has set him free from addiction! He is eternally grateful for that and is a changed work in progress. The things that occupy his time include hanging out with his wonderful friends and family, singing, studying Scripture, helping the music team at his local church, spikeball, art, sometimes hunting, thinking (sometimes too much), eating, sleeping, and more. He’s been blessed to work with the Plain Values team since 2016 as a graphic designer and digital media producer. He’s also single: (330-600-9524).