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.
WR IT E R – HO M E ST E A D L IV IN G
Melissa K. Norris WR IT E RS – T HE HE A L IN G L A N D
Shawn & Beth Dougherty WR IT E R – T HE WIDOWS PAT H
Ferree Hardy WR IT E R – HO N E ST CO N V E RSAT I O NS
Wendy Cunningham WR IT E R – SE RV IN G O U R N E IG H B O R
Seth Yoder CO N T R IBU T IN G P HOTO G RA PH ERS Millpond Photography R.K. Rivera
Plain Values is published monthly by Plain Target Marketing, LLC. Please contact us with any questions. A DDR E SS
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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."
PLAIN VALUES
JUNE 2023
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." PLAIN VALUES
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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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PLAIN VALUES JUNE 2023
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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