Beside Still Waters--Moments of Serenity inside Overwhelm

 Today was a beautiful day, watched from inside my house where I was scrambling all day long until about two o'clock when I knew that I really must go outside and get some sunshine and fresh air. I had been keeping meals on for the guys, including an extra guy working on electric and lights today, and helping Hannah with an essay as well as other school work. (All this while trying to remember to take my meds and all the stuff that you are tired of hearing me talk about anyway.)

I brought a little firewood into the house and then headed off around the fence and up the hill to the road and the mailbox. 

It was not exactly relaxing, because the cold wind was brisk and my hands were freezing. And looking behind me at one point, I discovered that one of the goats had discovered that one of her humans had gone for a walk and was looking at me and back at the other human who was operating the excavator, debating whether to follow the quiet, faraway lady up the hill or remain pasturing near the noisy but nearer human. 

I prayed the goat would stay. 

BUT  

you guessed it. When I was safely out of sight and headed down the fenceline toward the mailbox, I heard it. A distinct "maa!" 

No! I hurried faster, hoping that goat would stay inside the fence when I crawled through a low spot, and thankfully, I never did see the goat ever come over the hill. Perhaps the wind was bringing her bleating from way down where she was, I don't know. Anyhow, I arrived safely at the mailbox, pulling out three pieces of junk mail and one piece of something else. 

 

On the way back down the hill, I thought about some of the peaceful times Jonathan and I had spent morning and evening in Arizona where undone work was not constantly staring us in the face. 

And I looked again at the now-empty RV standing still there on the hill where we'd lived for months while working on our house. 

Me struggling to keep meals on for whoever was here, working in a very small, mostly dark space, and yet I couldn't help thinking about the happy memories.

The moments of serenity swinging on the porch swing a son had hung on a tree, 

or watching a sunset together,

or walking down the driveway just to go barefoot,

or listening to the meadowlark because I was doing dishes outdoors in the chilly air.

Now here it's been a busy week. I spent Tuesday traveling to the clinic in Sioux Falls (with Hannah helping to drive) and getting a series of IVs, staying overnight and getting another series of IVs Wednesday.

I tried to catch up with checking and grading weeks of Hannah's grammar and help her with her schooling while I sat in my clinic chair for hours at a time. Or I visited with both clinic staff and another patient who happened to be the wife of a man who ran the gubernatorial campaign for the South Dakota governor. Now she is fighting cancer, too, and I couldn't help wondering if down the road I'd be wheeled into the clinic in a wheelchair as she had been, hardly able to walk. 

But I must take each day as it comes, and yesterday came with a surprise! My brother Hoshea from North Dakota happened to be traveling through Sioux Falls on his way to help work on the little cabin the family is constructing for my mother beside Fain's home. After texting Jonathan and finding out that I was at the clinic, Hoshea stopped in for half an hour's visit! 

A rare window of time when his path would cross mine, but for half an hour it did. 

What a delight!

 

After stopping at Aldis and then Menards to pick up things Jonathan needed for his work, Hannah and I got home late enough last night that we got in on Jonathan frying two last hamburgers just for us!

And we had lots of stuff to bring in and put away and lots of dishes to do before going to bed. 

Definitely not what a lady who loves a quiet hour or two a day would consider being led "beside still waters." 

Though I had gotten some prayer time in while walking around the hotel I'd stayed in at Sioux Falls.

 Jonathan and I listen to an audio chapter from Isaiah each morning. That has been so special to me, as I love Isaiah. And today it was from chapter 62, the chapter God led me to the morning of the day Jonathan asked me to marry him in Kiev, Ukraine. 

"Her land shall be Beulah [meaning married]...For as a bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall the Lord thy God rejoice over thee."

I thought back to that day and I am so glad that even this morning, just before we would hear this chapter read on the audio, Jonathan and I had enjoyed a delightful morning time together while day was dawning in the east.

"You've been together almost thirty years?" a nurse asked me in awe at the Arizona clinic. 

It seemed unbelievable to her that someone could stay together with their first marriage that long!

 

God has been so good to us.

In the middle of overwhelm, He granted us so many "beside still waters" moments in Arizona.

And even though we have to seek those moments now to find them in South Dakota,

we can find them if we look for them,

if we seek for them with all our hearts.

Right in the middle of noise and overwhelm and busy schedules and piles of undone work and no end of ministry opportunities, we can pause at a window and decide that even if it is dirty, it is also sunny,

and we can have that quiet moment with God, beside still waters.  

We can sit in the van seat while a daughter drives, and walk beside still waters.

And we can pause on a grassy hill in the chilly wind,

or on the crunchy brown leaves under the leafless scrub oaks,

and know that even if our life is anything but still, He still does lead us beside still waters.

 

Those Crazy Goats!

 Our goats were never quite this crazy, but for some reason, they have learned to insist on being around their humans as often as possible!

Sunday morning when Jonathan and Hannah and I went for a walk down by the river early, we thought we had left the goats behind the house. But those goats heard our voices and did not like it that we had taken off without them!

We heard them bleating, quite upset, and the next thing we knew, they had trotted all the way down to where we were! 

How can you fuss at the silly things when they want so badly to be with you?

We let them follow us all the way to the river, where we found quite a number of good trees felled--or in the process of being felled--by beavers.

We stood on the sand bank, newly formed by the torrential rains of a few weeks ago, and tried to decide if these paw prints belonged to a beaver or a raccoon.  

Our dog enjoyed the river! 

She left her own prints in the middle of the beaver and raccoon prints. 

The goats pretended to be curious tourists checking out Little White River. 

Yes, we have some pretty crazy goats, but it's nice to know they seem to love their humans. 

T

They enjoyed nibbling fresh green grass peeking up in the woods and fields.

We still milk them twice a day, and when we turn milk into goat cheese, the brown goat, Heidi, loves to drink the sour whey! Here she is with her nose in the whey pot. 

What would we do without our crazy goats to give us lots of milk--and lots of laughs!

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.

The October 2023 Elk Hunt in Colorado

The October elk hunt last month had wonderful results!

Five of our children, including Danny, went hunting. Rose had driven all the way to South Dakota to pick him up so he could join the hunt. He's been such a help to us in South Dakota that we wanted him to have a break and be with his siblings during their favorite time of the year--hunting season in the Colorado mountains!

And as you can see, Rose got a bull elk!

Here are a couple more photos the hunting crew sent us.  It does my mother heart good to know that they are learning to weather all weather, do hard things, have fun, and harvest our own meat!

There goes Rose--very proudly--with her elk on the four-wheeler. 

Tim took half his elk with him to Crawford and sent the other half back with the others to butcher and send up with Danny for our family.

We feel very blessed!  

I am so thankful that the children keep doing the hard but healthy and happy things that their daddy taught them to do. 

Rather, perhaps I should say, that they learned to do together with their daddy who was learning right along with them! Letting go seems to be the thing I have had to do the most of as the children got older.

Letting go.

And I keep having to do it. I miss them being in my home. 

Moving away from most of my own family was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life--leaving behind the people I love the most and just plain saying goodbye while I headed into hard and unknown territory, camping in an RV and wondering if and when and where and for how long... 

And I don't suppose a mom who drank a little too much coffee on her way home from the clinic in Sioux Falls should do too much pondering out loud in the middle of the night!

She should just know that God works everything out for good--especially when some of the children who were going to be staying in Colorado for Thanksgiving might end up coming up here after all!

From Desert to Prairie By Plane--and a Gamut of Emotions

Last Wednesday Jonathan and I flew from Phoenix, AZ, to Rapid City, South Dakota--a distance of a thousand miles covered in less than two hours.

The sun was setting in Arizona, out beyond the wings of the airplane. 

Somehow we had managed to pack most of our belongings into our Honda Pilot because the house we'd been staying in was needed to house the children's workers at Gospel Center camp meeting next week. 

 

Since Jonathan and I wouldn't have another chance for a walk in Arizona for a long while, I suggested Jonathan and I go somewhere together, so he found a road up to some bluffs that overlooked Phoenix.

I'm learning to take just one day at a time, trying not to hyperventilate over what the future may hold or how I am ever going to manage all the trips back and forth from South Dakota to Arizona. Instead, we enjoyed one last walk together in Arizona for a while, and I managed not to get quite hysterical when, after we had long left the house in Arizona, I wondered if we had gotten a certain item that I need every day.

Somehow it got left behind somewhere in that house--or the car--in Arizona.

And I'm a thousand miles away in South Dakota. I tried to be a good, mature lady who didn't get over-dramatic about not being able to order the item in until a week later--when I need it every day. 

Instead I prayed, and within minutes found something that would work--one of those things that I had saved just in case!  It wasn't very great, but it would work.

 

 But the day after we arrived home was just plain hard. I thought about how much easier life was in Arizona where I only had to go to the clinic and take care of myself (and move several times in three months). 

We had even gotten to attend a baby shower for Daniel and Monica Anthony's family,

attended by several families who came from as far away as four hours!

We'd been thrilled to see Jason and Backy Corbin again, and to worship with them at Gospel Center Sunday morning where Pastor Trint Castle pastors.  

Now back in South Dakota, I couldn't remember where things were in the kitchen, I felt discombobulated, and after going up the hill for a load of water for the cistern and then driving up the field to the dry well and cistern, I couldn't get the flexible pipe to stay in the cistern opening in the top. Danny has always gotten the water for us but he was away hunting. 

Not having the least idea how Danny did it, I had to figure out which pipes to use that were lying every which way, and how to connect everything. I had offered to do this job since I thought it was something I could do while Jonathan did things I could not do at the house.  I figured out how to connect a white pipe to the water tank on the trailer, to which I connected a black flexible pipe to run into the cistern. But it kept flipping out of the cistern every time I turned on the water from the tank to gravity feed.

I had to walk all the way down to the house from way up the hill to get Hannah to come help. I was not having happy thoughts about our decision to drill a well that was dry, or the way the equipment quit working when Jonathan tried to dig the trench from the Rural Water Line nearly a mile away, and how nothing has worked for us so far about getting good water in. We have made nothing but decisions that went awry. 

How smart we are!

Not knowing how the Lord was going to provide lots of good meat even if we were having water troubles, I was just worrying about all the things going kind of wrong. And when the pipe came gushing out again for the third time, I was about to fall apart, too. It was deep and steep to climb into the gulley to get the fallen pipe in the wet mud. But Hannah used her head and figured out that if we twisted the flexible pipe a different direction, it would not come flying back out of the cistern. 

Presto! I could now turn the spigot on from the 200-gallon water tank on the trailer and let the water into our cistern safely. 

When I went for the second water tank, after talking to our kind neighbor who always lets us get water, we discovered that the water that had filled the tank was brown! This neighbor is at the very end of the line that feeds water to White River from the water tank overlooking White River, and sometimes the water is just dirty. And that is the water I got.

I was not too thrilled.

 

 But when days are like that, I have to remember to try to just get through them. Most often the next day will be better--and it was. 

 

Most of all, I need to remember to take my eyes off the present trials, and to look up.  Not to blame myself or others for decisions that didn't work, but to trust that God will work even this, whatever it is, for good.