Sunflower Sunday--and a Broken Man Healing

 I wish I could express what a happy day Sunday was here in South Dakota. Friday had been so hard for me with the difficult water situation, but then Saturday and Sunday were good, happy, and fulfilling days.

While Jonathan trenched to put a gas line in at the Rosebud mission parsonage, Hannah and I loaded our van to the brim with belongings from the garage where our stuff had been stored. We were grateful for the help of a family who was staying there temporarily. 

The children had a blast watching Jonathan unload the excavator and start operating it behind the house.

 He let some of the children take a turn being up with him in the cab. They begged their daddy to let them come to our place the next week to "help" us trench for our water line!

After having a dry well, we've had to make the decision to have water line brought in nearly a mile from up the way.

Jonathan was going to try to do the trenching himself, but after two long days of slow digging, he realized it simply wasn't going to work. We were going to have to bite the bullet and pay the water company to do it. 

But Saturday was just plain fun in the beautiful weather, dealing with an issue for SIM, doing what we came here to do, trenching and laying the gas line that had been vandalized a long time ago and never replaced yet.

Sunday morning dawned with a gorgeous sunrise. Jonathan, Hannah and I took off for an early morning walk down to the river (more about that later, with our goats following us the whole way like pet dogs!) and then got ready for church. Little did we know what a delightful surprise awaited Lakota Chapel! 

A good number of folk showed up that morning, including a young man who had been in a terrible incident a couple months ago where he had been run over purposely twice by a car, and then the car had been left to sit on top of him! When someone came to rescue him and jacked the car up, the car had fallen off the jack--right on top of this young man all over again! He had been taken to Rapid City hospital with multiple broken bones and injuries. Lakota Chapel had been praying for this young man, and Pastor Ambrose had gone to visit him at the hospital. 

He had been released early, and a man from our church brought him to church Sunday morning! The young man was quite joyful and recognized God's hand in his escape from death and in his speedy healing! The whole church rejoiced and praised God with him.

It was such an honor to get to take him a plate of food downstairs during the meal after the service. I had taken a crockpot of venison, potatoes, carrots and cabbage, and the native folk seem to really enjoy what they call the hot "stew."

Shortly after returning home, we left again right away for the afternoon service at the SIM mission, another Lakota Chapel in Martin where John and Sherri Poff pastor. Nate Kline was the speaker, and we had hoped to take some native folk with us, but they ended up not able to go. 

On the way, we passed fields of sunflowers ready to harvest, sunflower heads drooping in the sunshine.

As we pulled into the church parking lot, this juniper tree with lots of blue juniper berries was right in front of us, framing the church sign with a Bible verse on it. 

Nate had a good message, and it was good to be with more of the SIM and native folk on the South Dakota prairie.

On our way home, we decided to drive by a wild bird refuge called LaCreek. Our pastor and his wife had told us how they have loved to go here for a break sometimes, seeing the water birds, pelicans, and trumpeter swans.

Unfortunately, most of the water fowl have migrated, and all we saw were a lot of redwinged black birds, but we found the place and know where we want to come back in the spring when the pelicans come back to nest. 

We hear that thousands of pelicans nest here, a very special spot in South Dakota.  

We learned some lessons in Arizona. 

Don't just sit around feeling sorry for yourself because you have some health condition. 

Instead, find something happy to do.

Go walking.

Visit a new place near you--or even a couple hours away.  

Get into the sunshine and revel in God's creation.

We can do this in South Dakota, too--right on our way home from church!

How near God seems when all is quiet with the sun setting in the west, water shimmering in the light, and birds silouetted against the South Dakota sky.