Northern Farmer

Well, we got us a dusting of snow here today, but that’s about it. I tell you, we haven’t got any snow since the first week of December, makes me a little nervous with the lack of moister, but like the old timers say, it’s better to have a dry spell in the dead of winter than in July. I’ll agree with that. The response around here has been really good concerning the OP corn a couple of posts ago. I figure around next week sometime I’ll head to town and buy some packages to send the seed out with. It’s going every direction from here, amazing!

I was thinking this afternoon while cleaning out some pens, (by hand), thinking about all that has happened around here since my start in blogging coming up on three years this spring. I can’t hardly believe the amount of folks that I’ve met or at least wrote to. Incredible how this changed my life out here on the farm. And the caliber of the folks is very high to say the least. There’s so many that it would be very difficult listing them all. So many folks that helped as this blog struggled along!

There’s no way that I can predict what will happen around here in the future, except maybe this will be one of the top ten drought blogs on the internet, but I hope not! Let er rain this coming year I say! And through it all has been some moments, moments that really might have a lasting impact. One of those was when Good Farmer John started up Authentic Agriculture. It humbled me when he used this blog to launch it off. As it gets going I’m going to give it my total support because I know the importance of this vision. Incredible importance from my view of it. And the friendship we have with GFJ’s family is priceless! That in itself has made this blog worth it all.

One thing I’m observing closely is Acres of Hope. Barry Morgan, founder of Acres of Hope, is building a ministry that amazes me very much. I love folks that are doers and Good Farmer John and Barry are both doers. Willing to follow their faith and not just stand still as the world takes control. Stepping out and changing things as God leads. This is what is needed. Anyone can sit around and complain, most of us do, but to get up and initiate change takes special people. These are the kind of folks that I’m watching and hopefully able to help here and there in any small way that I can. John’s vision of family agriculture is right on track, and we can’t wait and figure the world is gonna change to our liking by us doing nothing. In fact by doing nothing we will be slaughtered where we sit.

Barry’s vision has me pondering daily here. As they build their website there will be a clear vision of what they are doing down in the south eastern part of this country. I tell you, we need that vision up here in the upper Midwest! Thus I’m watching closely.You know, a few weeks ago they were talking at our church how there’s a spirit of poverty in our immediate area where I live. The counties around us are considered some of the poorest in the state. Welfare is huge around here. Now in this area poverty doesn’t mean starving, in fact it’s quite the opposite, it’s a huge overweight thing. Funny, only in America can a person be in poverty and have enough additional flesh being carried around on their bodies to last a month or two without food, but that is truly the way it is. But this poverty will never get better. A person can sit in church and pray for this spirit of poverty to be broken, but those prayers mean nothing! Because the church is here, and the church is supposed to walk the walk and take care of these issues. But they don’t. Nowadays its easier to leave it to the welfare system that promotes basically a totally pagan lifestyle. A future with absolutely no hope what so ever. That said, those folks probably receive much more money than I make in a year, but are totally sucked into a system that has placed them in bondage, a generational bondage that is very difficult to break. Generation after generation, sucked into every vice that there is and they call it compassion. I beg to differ. It’s hell!

When I look around such a bountiful area such as we live in here its sad to see total waste of such a productive area. People living on small acreages that are drugged up or drunk most of the time, kids being brought up with the same morals as a deep inner city ghetto. And on the other end of the spectrum the folks that have half way stable jobs that get sucked into the modern American way of thinking and over borrow to what would have been considered insane ten or fifteen years ago, building huge houses for families that never eat together or anything like that. Activities where everyone is someplace else all the time, huge mortgages, payments on multiple vehicles, every toy known to man in a brand new shed by the brand new house that China’s money built. And families that are not families. The kids get sent off to college where they learn that there is no God, have any faith that they ever had destroyed, or worse, perverted into the modern American faith of what can God do for me. And all the while that devil of a debt hanging over their heads that will probably never be paid off in their lifetimes.

This is why I keep an eye on folks that are doing something about it. They’re walking the walk, not just talking the talk. Rural America is a huge mission field. And probably the toughest in the world. How does one go about spreading the Gospel to a population that doesn’t think that they’re lost? But go out a person must. And also live our lives the way God intended us to live them. With family farms and homesteads, with families that honor God, not just use Him, if that even. And how does one go about spreading the Gospel in this mission field if we’re so sucked up in the system that there’s no difference between us and the lost and fallen? A person just gotta walk the walk. Say no to so many of what’s considered normal in this day and age. Build a good life, it don’t come automatically. And never be afraid to spread it beyond the borders of your home, homestead or farm.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 4th, 2008 at 7:33 pm and is filed under Northern Farmer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.