Journeys 11-25-12 Post-Thanksgiving

The Sunday after Thanksgiving

I think I like Thanksgiving leftovers as much or more than Thanksgiving dinner itself.  

See at the dinner, the appearance of your plate is important.  I go for balance on my Thanksgiving plate.  Not too much of any one thing.  An equal amount of Aunt Janet’s and Sister-in-law Dianne’s contribution is critical.  And there is only one answer to the question, “Did you like the ________?”  Of course you did.  Give the wrong answer and you might get booted from the table before the pies came out.  

The truth is not important at the Thanksgiving table.  It is appreciation that counts.  You can talk about how salty the dressing was in the car on the way home.  But when you’re around that table everything is “So wonderful!” . . . (or else!).

Leftovers are a whole other ball game.  By the next meal, you’ve had a chance to sample everything and make your post-Thanksgiving dinner choices appropriately.  You can put gravy and/or cranberry sauce on everything.  Appearance has nothing to do with it.  But your leftover choices are all about gratitude.  After Thanksgiving I’m really grateful for turkey dark meat and the crust at the bottom of the stuffing pan.  I’m thankful that I’m the only one who knows that grandma’s pineapple casserole is hidden at the back of the refrigerator in that cool whip container.  

This year, I’m thankful that we have an entire weekend between Thanksgiving and the onset of Advent.  This is a very rare thing.  So we better enjoy it while we’ve got it.  Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Grace & Peace,

Journeys 11-18--12 Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day is one of the few “stopping” holidays that still exists in the U.S.A.  Sure, there are some restaurants that stay open.  Hospitals, gas stations, and fast food places don’t close.  But schools, and most businesses and manufacturing places give folks the day off for Thanksgiving.  So most Americans stop and get together with family and/or friends to eat together as a way of saying thanks for the many blessings of our lives.

 A lot of families attach other traditions to this national day of thanks.  Some go hunting every Thanksgiving.  Some have to watch the NFL or NBA on T.V..  My wife and kids have always watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on T.V.  We also have to have both turkey and ham, green bean casserole, southern cornbread dressing, mashed potatoes, Grandma Karges’s pineapple casserole and chutney cranberry sauce for the meats.

Since our kids were little, we’ve also added going to a movie Thanksgiving night.  A lot of those were the new Disney animated feature (i.e., Beauty and the Beast, Lion King, Toy Story etc.).

When we lived in Charleston, South Carolina, my Mom and Dad would drive from Nebraska and meet us half-way in Nashville and we’d stay at some Residence Inn and go to Cracker Barrel for the Thanksgiving meal.

This year my family will be traveling to Raleigh, North Carolina to see our son Zack.  The seniors in the NC State marching band will be recognized at half-time of the football game on Friday.  He’s really enjoyed his four years playing the snare drum in the 325 member Wolfpack marching band.  We’ll get to see Cindy’s sister’s family; including her niece’s and nephew’s families while we’re there.  

Those who were members when my Dad and Mom, Rev. Gil and Connie Karges were here (for 13 years) will enjoy seeing them next Sunday as they come and take care of things while we’re gone.

May God be with us and help us to stop to give thanks for all the blessings of our lives.  May God also be with us as we step onto that moveable walkway called Advent that will accelerate us toward Christmas at break-neck speed.

Grace & Peace,

Journeys 12-11-12 Consecration Sunday

Today is Consecration Sunday at the Doniphan Church.  Our Stewardship Campaign concludes with a special guest preacher; my wife, Rev. Cindy Karges, Senior Pastor of Hastings Grace & Junieta UMCs.  We’ll also celebrate our church’s ministry at the Harvest Dinner at noon.  Today at Doniphan, we’ll begin to give folks an opportunity to fill out commitment cards, stating our financial commitment to our church’s ministry in 2012.

Cindy has served United Methodist churches in Nebraska and South Carolina.  She has been pastor at North Bend, Morse Bluff and Hooper, NE; Trinity UMC, in Charleston, SC and Barada UMC just north of Charleston in a national forrest.  Then, she came back to Nebraska at Ainsworth and Johnstown UMCs, Seward and Beaver Crossing UMCs; Faith UMC in Lincoln and Centenary UMC in Beatrice, NE.  

The emphasis of this year’s campaign is that our giving deepens our relationship with God.  When we give of our prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness, we are doing so because we’ve felt touched by God and want to reciprocate.  God has transformed us, healed us, or let us know we’re not alone and brought us through a time of regret, repentance and forgiveness.

As in all friendships, God has made a move toward us, and we want to make a move toward God.  So we give ourselves to God; to the work of God; to things we think will make God happy.    And we give back as a sign of our seriousness about the relationship, out of our need to grow into a deeper relationship.

I’ve not met anyone yet who knows the limits of a relationship with God.  Like a great friendship, the more you get into it, the deeper you want to go.  And the relationship changes you.  Over time you become more Godlike; bearing fruits of the spirit (love, joy, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness and self-control).  It is a growth process that never stops.

Today, we celebrate what we do in response to the love of God; our giving.  Today, we stand together to say that we want to grow closer to God.  And I believe that God has let us know that the way we do that is by giving ourselves away in service to each other, and, in serving the least and lost of our world.

Grace & Peace,

Journeys 12-4-12 Hurricane Sandy

I opened my kitchen drawer and pulled out my old fashioned hand operated can opener and had to laugh.  Ever since we survived hurricane Hugo while living in Charleston, South Carolina, we’ve sworn never to buy another electric can opener again.  When you live without electricity for 14 days, you learn to appreciate clean drinking water and appliances that work without having to be plugged in.  

Watching folks in New Jersey and New York recover form hurricane Sandy this week, I had to wonder if they’d picked up a good non-electric can opener while they cleaned out the canned goods from the grocery stores.  Without a good can opener, a natural gas stove and/or propane grill, cooking without electricity is nearly impossible.

After Hugo we also learned how big your generator has to be to run a TV or refrigerator.  Those little generators are for a few lights.  You need a monster generator to give you enough juice for a major appliance.  And you smell the fumes from those generators for several hundred feet. 

I also got to thinking about those non-powered weeks so long ago.  Unless you had a gas water heater, you had to go to a lot of effort to take a shower with anything but cold water.  And the national guard imposed a strict curfew after the sun went down.  So night time meetings ground to a halt.

It was so quiet those first few days after the storm.  Then the generators started arriving and it got real noisy real fast.

We also learned that the United Methodist Committee on Relief is known to be one of the first the arrive and one of the last to leave.  We are also known as great relief and community organizers.  

Please keep the victims of Hurricane Sandy in your prayers this week.  The recovery from this storm is going to take a long, long time.  Also be on the look out for special offerings from the victims of the storm (make your checks out to UMCOR US Disaster Response, Advance #3021787).  What we give goes directly to the victims ‘cause the church has already covered the administrative costs.

Grace & Peace,

Journeys 10-28-12 Imagine No Malaria

We’ve been doing a new thing the past several weeks during children’s time at the Doniphan Church.  We’ve got this big glass fish bowl for collecting coins that the kids can bring forward as an offering to help kids around the world buy malaria nets.  So not only do their coins help others, they make a lot of noise when you drop them in!  And, we adults get to see the smiles on the kids faces when they bring their coins forward.

One of our young dads, (thanks Josh Leth!), brought this idea from another church and asked if we could give it a try.  And it so happened that the kids had raised money for malaria nets during Vacation Bible School this summer.  So we thought we’d just continue doing that with the fish bowl during children’s time.  You can google “Imagine No Malaria, “ and see what our United Methodist Church is doing to stamp out this killer disease.  Here’s some tidbits from that web site:

“Every 60 seconds, malaria claims a life in Africa. Millions of lives, needlessly lost each year. Imagine No Malaria is an extraordinary effort of the people of The United Methodist Church, putting our faith into action to end preventable deaths by malaria in Africa, especially the death of a child or a mother.  Achieving this goal requires an integrated strategy against the disease. As a life-saving ministry, Imagine No Malaria aims to empower the people of Africa to overcome malaria’s burden. We fight malaria with a comprehensive model.

So here’s the plan: we’re gonna put 160 years of know-how and experience in Africa to work against malaria. This comprehensive approach is divided into four main parts:

Prevention: It’s about improving the ways people fight the disease locally.  Using bed nets. Access to diagnostic tests and medicine. Draining standing water. Improving sanitation.  Every person can take steps to prevent malaria deaths, from protective measures to taking swift action when malaria symptoms begin.

Treatment: Improving infrastructure. There are literally hundreds of churches, schools, hospitals and clinics operated by The United Methodist Church in Africa, but what good are they if medicines to treat malaria aren’t available?  We’ll make sure these facilities have the diagnostic tests and treatment needed to save lives.

Education: It’s about outreach to those who need it most. Last year alone, we trained thousands of local people in African communities to teach their communities about avoiding malaria. In Sierra Leone, these workers went door-to-door to deliver bed nets, install them in homes and teach folks how to properly use and care for the nets.

Communications: And finally, your support helps upgrade communications networks throughout the continent. Building new radio stations and providing hand-crank and solar-powered radios will ensure we are reaching great numbers of people with life-saving information about malaria.

Special thanks to all who’ve placed those coins in those little hands to bring up & put in our new fish bowl.  Grace & Peace

Journeys 10-21-12 "The Wind"

As of this writing, we are in our second day of 30-50 mile-an-hour winds.  I don’t know anybody who likes to be outside when the wind is like this!  

The wind adds an urgency to my life.  I feel more rushed when I’m in the wind, cause I just want to get out of it as fast as I can.  Driving up to the office on Highway 281 today the wind was from the west.  And when I drove past a farmstead on the left I almost went in the ditch cause I didn’t realize how much I was over-compensating just to keep going straight!

Then when I turned right to go into Doniphan it was as if somebody pulled the plug on wind fan.  Having the wind at your back is like taking a dip in the pool on a 100 degree day.  It was so refreshing. On the other hand, walking into the wind is a leaning, head down, continuous effort to breath/see where you’re going, and not get blown over kind of thing.

Then there is the dust in the air and the pink hew to the clouds from the sun trying to break through the haze.  Folks with breathing problems don’t even try to go outside with these winds.

The Hebrew word for wind is “ruach.” It also gets translated as "spirit" or "breath."  So Ruach Elohim is translated “Spirit of God.” In Genesis 1:2 it says, “ . . . the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while the spirit (or wind) of God was over the waters  . . . .”  Ruach was what God gave to Adam to bring the clay man to life.  When applied to God, the word Ruach indicates creative activity (Gen 1:2) and active power (Isa 40:13).  In (Job 33:4) it says, “The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.” 

This week we got to experience the full awesome power of ruach on the high plains.  After being in 60 mile-an-hour gusts, it is easy to see how our ancient ancestors in the faith labeled this all consuming force, "The Breath of God.”

Grace & Peace,

Journeys 10-14-12 Church Conference Meeting

There was a time in American United Methodist Church history when each church hosted the District Superintendent four times a year for a Quarterly Conference.  It was a time to check in and see how the church was doing.  Quarterly Conferences also happened when there were still large circuits of churches served by Circuit Riders who would cover their 10-20 churches one Sunday at a time preaching and serving Holy Communion where-ever they went.  Sunday School was what happened on Sundays when the Circuit Rider was not there.

Now, we don’t have huge circuits or circuit riders.  Pastors may have a three or four point charge.  But parishes larger than that are rare.  Now, we’ve also evolved to an annual “Church Conference” meeting with the District Superintendent (Rev. Harold Backus).  But the basic tone of the meeting is still a checking in; seeing how we’re doing; asking what our dreams are for the future.

So today at 1 p.m. at the Doniphan church our parish (Doniphan & Rosedale churches) will have its annual Church Conference meeting with our District Superintendent.  I am asking each person who attends to share what is their favorite thing about the church and/or where they have seen God in the church this past year.  

Church Conferences have evolved to be more a celebration of our ministry this past year, and sharing our desires for our ministry to each other, the community and the world in this next year.  Now, it is the District Superintendent who goes on a circuit each fall; meeting with 70-80 churches in less than 90 days.  Today, Rev. Backus has Church Conferences in three different towns at 1 p.m., 4 p.m. and 7 p.m.

Church Conference is open to all members and friends of the Doniphan and Rosedale churches.  You do have to be a member of those churches to have a vote, however.  Stop on by at 1 p.m. at the Doniphan church.  I’m pretty sure we’re the only church that will have a drumming circle as part of Church Conference this year.

Grace & Peace,

Journeys 10-7-12 World Communion Sunday

Meaning gets attached to food all the time.  When my kids come home from college, we fix their favorite food (White Chicken, Rice, and green beans).  In our house it is comfort food.  In some homes, on your birthday, you get to name your meal.  Certain foods are expected on Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter.  If those foods are not on the table, something is wrong. The meal doesn’t mean the same to us.

In the Christian tradition, everyone in the church family eating a bit of bread and wine/juice has meaning attached to it. It symbolizes taking Jesus’ presence into us. Consuming/digesting these elements of an ancient Hebrew Passover meal has meant something to the followers of Jesus ever since that last Passover meal that Jesus shared with his friends.  The bread and juice also symbolize starting over; re-booting; pushing the re-start button on our souls.  So anything we’ve done that we regret, or wish we could re-do can be left at the altar and given over to God when we come forward for communion.  And after we’ve taken the bread and juice, we can return to our seat as a new person; a more Godly/Jesus kind of person. It has that kind of meaning.

Today, hundreds of different kinds of Christian churches from all over the world are celebrating holy communion with us.  We may not agree on juice or wine, bread or wafers, but we’re all recalling that last passover meal that Jesus shared with his friends.  We’re all attaching some meaning to this symbolic meal.  In taking communion, we’re all  saying Jesus means something to us.  And without him, our lives would have less meaning.

Happy World Communion Sunday.

Grace & Peace,

Journeys 9-30-12 Homecoming

This week was Homecoming at Doniphan/Trumball and Giltner High Schools.  This next Saturday is the annual Fall Festival at Doniphan.  Homecoming/Fall Festival week is when a lot of former Doniphanites return to their roots to see old friends at high school class reunions and family reunions, or, to just have lunch with the entire town on Saturday of Fall Festival.

There are just a few homecoming times each year.  After this, we’ll have Thanksgiving, then Christmas, then Easter.  As one who has been away and come back, there is something to be said for checking in with your family/community of origin every once in a while.  

For years, when I lived elsewhere, we’d watch our kids in the Harvest of Harmony parade in Grand Island, then I’d bring Mom and Dad out to Doniphan for Lunch.  They’d work the room, thoroughly enjoying seeing friends from their 13 years here in ministry.  I’d stand next to my friend Mark Haskins and chat with him while he worked his shift at taking the trash out.  It was rare that harvest kept Mark from his annual contribution to the Fall Festival.  Little did I know that someday, I would be your pastor and be judging the Fall Festival parade along with the other pastors in town.

Homecoming implies giving thanks for where you came from and who you are as a result.  Coming home settles the traveling dust of your soul.  Our religious heritage is full of homecoming stories; coming home to who God made you to be.  Centering Prayer teaches the concept of finding your “True Self,” that deep inner-soul place where your spirit and God’s spirit co-exist.  

I like to think that our True Self is one that has found its way back to God and who God meant you to be.  So worship every Sunday can be a homecoming of sorts; coming home to God.

Grace & Peace,

Pastor's Page, Oct. Newsletter 2012

We all have the stuff that we do at about the same time every year. Then as the years roll around we can gage where we are.  So we ask ourselves, “Am I doing this earlier, or later than last year?  It is normal?  Or, is this year way different than before?”

This year harvest is a good two weeks earlier than last year.  You can tell that the farmers are both giddy about how much they’ve got done already, and, scared about what kind of winter we’re gonna get this year.

We’ve been living and driving in the corn alleys since mid-June.  Now, the corn walls are coming down.  And we’re having to get used to the wide open spaces once again. Our brains are having to readjust to this new view that stretches all the way to the horizon. 

Meanwhile farm families are zoned in on the multiple steps that it takes to get the crops tucked in at the elevator or grain bin.  All available resources and time are funneled toward this one month harvest effort.  The work of an entire year culminates now.  

Farm family or not, harvest effects us all.  You can feel the invisible urgency in the air.  And with the early harvest we’re all turning our attention to the pending winter earlier than ever.  

God be with us in this time of transition between seasons.  Will this year’s October be more like last year’s November?  Stay tuned!

Grace & Peace,

Journeys 9-23-12 Dust

Thursday was one of those rare days in Nebraska.  No wind. No breeze. Nothing.  Driving to and from a district pastor’s meeting in Geneva, I’d see these moving columns of dust that just went straight up into the clear blue sky.  I knew that somewhere in there was a green, red, yellow or slightly orange combine chewing up a field of soybeans.  Trucks or Semis were lined up at the end of the field. And harvest was rollin’!  In the morning that field was gray/brown and fuzzy.  By afternoon, it was shaved low to the ground and naked.

I don’t care how good the air-conditioning or how tight those seals are on those combine cabs.  Those drivers had to have felt like dust magnets.  No matter how fast you go, on days like that, you are the dust cloud maker.  Its a job that’s done from the inside-out.  You are at one with the dust; a living, walking “Pig Pen” from a Charlie Brown cartoon.  And you don’t want to hear anything more about how the bible says, “From dust you came, and to dust you will return.”

By nightfall that day, the dust from combines in bean fields and trucks on gravel roads had settled  and spread into low-lying areas as a moistureless fog.  The next day, that dust would be recycled and boosted with gusts of wind.  And a small percentage of Nebraska would now be Kansas.

It is impossible to live life without dust.  Part of me would love for everything to be clean and neat all the time.  But that’s just not possible.  If you’re going to harvest beans, dust happens.  You can’t have one without the other.  The dust is a well known marker that harvest has begun.

Thank you God for the harvest and all that goes with it.  May our equipment operators be safe as they bring the crops in.  And thank you God, even for the dust.

Grace & Peace,

Journeys 9-16-12 "Remembering the rain."

I found myself just standing in the rain on Wednesday afternoon, ‘cause it felt so good.  It had been so long since I’d felt good hard driving rain that it took my brain a little while to process the signals my skin was sending. Not only was it wet.  It was cold too!

After what seemed like an entire summer without rain.  I’d forgotten what it felt like.  The other day, I pointed to the sky and joked with my farmer friend Mark, “Look, . . .  those are clouds.  Remember clouds?  Water doesn’t just come from the ground, it can come from the sky too!”  He was not amused.

It is easy to forget the good things of life sometimes.  Rain doesn’t show up for 30 days and I’ve already forgotten what it looks like.  Your teenager pouts around for a week and you forget how when they are happy, their laughter takes over their whole body.  Your family member goes into the hospital and is pale and all hooked up to IVs and you can’t remember the last time you saw them standing up and smiling.

The bad of life has a habit of wiping out the memories of the good.  But I believe that the good memories are not gone.  They’re still there.  They’ve just been hidden by the dark clutter that causes fear; drought, illness, tragedy, car wrecks, cancer, fire, floods, strokes, tornados etc.

In the past, when I’ve been surrounded by darkness and fear, I’ve found myself asking God to help me remember just one blessing in my life.  And that one good memory can sometimes help me realize that I am not totally surrounded by darkness.  That one small glimmer of light can start a turnaround in my thinking that brings me back to a whole memory bank of blessings I thought I’d lost.

Remembering the rain is only the beginning.

Grace & Peace,

Rev. Kelly

Journeys 9-9-12 Blue Hill Bus Crash

Cindy and I were co-pastors at Seward when their buses carrying their high school band crashed on the way home from a competition in Omaha, killing four.  So when the fifteen passenger van filled with Broken Bow high school basketball players and coaches crashed this past year, my brother Todd, pastor of the United Methodist Church there called me to ask me about that Seward bus crash experience.

I shared with him our experience of community grief at four community-wide funerals.  And how that grief affected everything; the band, the school and churches for a very long time.  We also talked about how when children die tragically like that, it messes with we adults’ sense of the order of things.  We do not expect our children to die before us.  That’s not the way its supposed to happen.  

I told my brother Todd that my experience as pastor both at Seward and in Charleston, SC after hurricane Hugo was that if there were people on the edge, emotionally, before these tragedies, this sent them tumbling over that edge.  

Today we join churches all over this state in praying for the folks of the Blue Hill area.  Four people, (two adults & two children) were killed in a tragic bus crash on Wednesday.  We pray for the families who lost a loved one.  We pray for their churches and school and community.  We do what we know how to do to offer comfort and support to their overwhelming grief and shock.

When our child died in the midst of being born in 1994, folks gave us tons of books and pamphlets to help us.  For us, the best book turned out to be one called, “The Worst Loss,”  by Barbara D. Rosof.  We’ve given that book to families who’ve lost a child ever since.  At Seward, the folks from “The Compassionate Friends” in Omaha who specialize in grief and ministering to parents who’ve experienced the death of a child sent us boxes and boxes of materials to pass out to the community.  We’ve shared that web-site ever since.

These materials help folks when they start to come out of the fog of grief and are searching for a way to make sense of the brokenness of their lives.  The community of Blue Hill and all of us surrounding communities will be doing everything in our power to support and hold up those who have experienced this tragic loss; to keep them from drowning in their loss, until they can once again swim on their own.  So please include these folks in your daily prayers for these next several months.  I know from experience that they feel these prayers.  Thanks.

Grace & Peace,

Journeys 9-2-12 Labor Day Weekend

For Nebraskans, Labor Day Weekend used to be a major pilgrimage weekend to Lincoln.  You’d have all those UNL students who’d just moved in, the State Fair and the first Husker home football game, causing the population of Lincoln to double.  Parking was impossible.  Getting from one side of town to another took forever because of traffic.  

Now, we have evolved so that the State Fair and all those cars are in Grand Island.  So all you have in Lincoln is an additional 25,000 UNL students and 85,000 people dressed in red migrating to Memorial Stadium for the first home Husker football game.  

Labor Day is still a crossing over weekend.  We cross over into full fledge school schedules and all that accompanies them; Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, dance and lessons of all kinds.  With Labor Day we close the book on Summer and start looking towards Fall.  In Nebraska we can predict that from here, September can be as hot as July, followed by a slight cool off before the glorious two weeks of Indian Summer in October that precedes the first snowfall.

Labor Day weekend is also second only to Memorial Day weekend for the scheduling of family reunions.  It is the last four day weekend until Thanksgiving.  And if your local pool has not closed by now, it will shut down after Labor Day.

In the church, Sunday School, KIX (our children’s afterschool program on Wednesdays), and Youth Group all start up quickly after Labor Day.  We’ll have sign up sheets out there for the Fall Financial Peace University and the Fall Adult Study on forgiveness.  The summer break from programing ends after Labor Day.  And we have to get serious about filling out those Church Conference forms after Labor Day (Parish Church Conference, Oct. 14th)!

So now is the time to be in prayer, asking God to help you to discern if you need to take one of those new adult classes this fall.  This is when you put those children and youth programs into that calendar you’ve got on your refrigerator. And rest up today and tomorrow, ‘cause the speed of life is about to accelerate toward Christmas.  It will be taking off in five, four, three . . two . . . one.  Lift off!

Grace & Peace,

Journeys 8-26-12 Farmers & Irrigation

In talking to farmers over the years, one of the benefits of farming is that you’re not doing the same thing day in and day out all year long.  Variety is what farming life is all about.  Keeping several balls in the air at once is what you live for.  Its what gives you satisfaction as you reflect on your day those few seconds each night before you go to sleep.

This year though, our farmers who irrigate have been irrigating day in and day out for longer than they can ever remember.  Some pivots have been going since May.  And those who lay pipe have been changing the gates on those pipes (mostly twice a day) since mid-June.

Ask them how irrigating is going and they just growl and give you this blank stare.  It’s like those old computer screens.  If you left them on too long whatever was on them would be burned permanently onto the screen.  This summer, irrigating has been burned permanently onto the souls of our gravity farmers.  Their stare says, “its not supposed to be like this . . . I didn’t sign up for this.”

Farmers are genetically engineered to worry, but after this summer of record drought you can smell their fear and worry that this drought thing might bleed over into next year.  Dry land farmers are grieving the loss of their regular crop this year, and, worrying that if it keeps going like this they won’t be farming for much longer. 

Farmers are also some of the greatest teachers of hope.  If your crop did not come in this year, you plant that seed next year and hope and work and pray that next year it’ll be different.  Farmers also prove year in and year out that you can grieve and hope at the same time; you can be pessimistic and optimistic at the same time.  Cause you prepare for the worst and hope for the best and then take what you get.

Say an extra prayer for our farmers  as they shut down those tired wells and pile up pipe and start getting ready for harvest.  God help them as some of them grieve the loss of a crop, and as all of them start thinking about whether they are going to be able to get up the energy to invest in planting the seeds of next year’s harvest, or, . . . not.

Grace & Peace,

Journeys 8-19-12 Blessings to start the new School Year

This is the week to bless our students, our teachers, school staff, parents and grandparents. 

God bless our students.  May you soak in all that is given you this school year and grow into who God needs you to be.

God bless our teachers. May the content of your learning be boosted by the character and personhood that you present each and every day.

God bless our school staff.  You have no idea how the little things of your daily contact with our students and teachers; your smile, your look, and your prayers, support and make a difference in their learning and personal growth.

God bless our parents and grandparents.  All the effort to herd those kids out of bed and off to school and back will show in the adults that they will become one day.  God bless your being there for all those games and events; for making sure your children have what they need to be the best students they can be.  God bless you for those hugs and kisses before they go out that door, and, for the courage to trust their growth to the people of this school system in 2012-13.

God bless our school and our community as we enter into another year of this symbiotic relationship of being there for each other.  May we all; churches, school and community do what we need to do to live into the biblical command to live for the “good of our community” this school year.

Grace & Peace,

Rev. Kelly

Journeys 8-12-12 Back to School

School starts for a lot of kids this week.  From kindergarten through High School, Thursday and Friday are like orientation days before rolling on into a regular schedule next week. The start of school tends to pull the rest of us into its regular schedule as well.

Our Emily (age 16), will be a Junior this year at Hastings High School.  Our Zack (age 21), is starting his fourth year at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina.  Our Katie (age 23), is mailing out applications to law schools, hoping to start next fall.  

Emily is a Tigerette, (HHS Dance Team), and will be in Chamber Choir.  She also likes being in Drama Club.  She decided not to be in band this year.  So for the first time since 2002, Cindy and I are not High School band parents.  Zack is once again playing snare in the drumline of the N.C. State Marching band. He’s working toward his degree in Marine Sciences. 

School shopping for us now is more about clothes than pencils and notebooks.  I used to love getting the lists for my kids’ grade and heading to Walmart to get organized.  Zack isn’t even buying books until he goes to his classes and learns what he’ll really need.  Emily likes her back pack from last year, so there’s no need to hunt down the perfect new back pack this year either.  I am not invited to go school shopping for the clothes Emily wants. She likes to casually hunt for her school clothes all summer.  We’ve already hit the summer sales to get the homecoming and prom dresses for this coming year. 

The start of the new school year is a time of transition for everybody involved.  Teachers and students will be getting used to new groupings and classrooms.  Everybody will be adjusting to the multiplication of bells and alarms that will guide our lives for the next nine months.

God bless us during this time of transition: parents, grandparents, kids, teachers, administrators, school support staff.  Changing always needs a little extra blessing to get us through.  

I think I’m gonna go to Walmart and get a new mechanical pencil, and some notebooks, just for old times sake!

Grace & Peace,

Journeys 8-5-12 ERT to Springview

We got the call from Rev. Roger Gillming, our Nebraska Conference Disaster Relief Coordinator last Saturday night.  He said, he’d been up at Springview, NE looking at fire damage for a couple days and they could use some people to come and help.  

There were 50 people trained in Hastings by the United Methodist Committee on Relief to be Emergency Responders this past spring.  So Saturday night Cindy started e-mailing those folks about the possibility of traveling to Springview on Monday and staying until Wednesday.  In the end we had eight people who could stop, drop and go on less than 24 hours notice.  

I drove the Grace UM Church van the four hours to Keya Paha County on the border with South Dakota.  We were met at the Springview UM Church by their pastor and several members of the church on Monday afternoon.  Our churches were represented by Keith Hausler and Rev. Julie Bringleson from Rosedale and me.  The other churches represented were First UMC, Hastings; Grace UMC, Hastings; First UMC, Kearney.

Our first task was to go and clean the Norden Pavilion, 19 miles to the west.  It had housed some of the 400 fire fighters these past two weeks, and there was a Fire Relief fund raiser dance scheduled for Saturday night.  Doug Bruce from Grace church power washed the outside of the building and the rest of us wiped down all the tables and chairs and wet mopped the cement floors.  There were tiny drifts of soot everywhere inside that building.  The flames had come within a few feet of this historical building.

Each night the church fed us supper.  We cooked our own breakfasts at the church and packed our own lunches to take with us to the work sites.  Part of us slept in the church basement on the cots we brought.  Others slept in members’ homes or in the vacant parsonage.  In the mornings before we headed out, we’d share the best and worst of our previous day, and, where we saw God that day.  What was shared was just amazing.

Tuesday we split up.  Part of us went to help a young couple who’d lost everything but their house to the fires.  He is a custom carpenter and logger and he lost his shop, inventory and all his wood working equipment in the fire.  The fire had come within a few feet of their home, but the house was spared.  Some helped clean the soot inside the house.  Others helped cut burnt trees that had fallen on power lines and hauled off other debris around the house.  The other half of our group went to help a man who’s house was just being built and the fires had melted the exterior plastic wrapping off the outside of the house.

Tuesday, some went back to the newly built house, the rest of us went to a ranch 25 miles west and south of Springview to help clean off the red fire retardant that’d been dumped and sprayed on the buildings on a ranch tucked in a valley not far from the river.

The church folks at Springview were so gracious and hospitable.  Everyone we helped was so appreciative of our coming there.  Our short three days together changed them and us for the better.  

Thanks to both Doniphan and Rosedale for your extra offerings to help with this disaster in our state.

Grace & Peace,

Journeys 7-29-12 Doniphan VBS

Journeys

7-29-12

This week we had Vacation Bible School at Doniphan.  We met Sunday night through Thursday night from 6:30-8:30 p.m.  

Many thanks to Donna Bieck for coordinating VBS once again this year.  We had 75 kids and 20 adult and youth workers this year.  Each night we’d begin with a little music and community time then move on to stations with Crafts, games, skits, drumming circle, movies and music.  In the middle, we’d all meet for snack.  Every part had a message.  Then we’d all gather once again at the end for more songs and dancing.

Our scripture stories were about Jesus and the Roman soldiers, Lazarus, Pontius Pilot and Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.  Thursday night was the program for the parents.  Today at Doniphan, kids who can be there will perform the same program for us.

I try and remind VBS leaders that all their hard work and effort is truly worth it.  The ripple effect of 75 kids experiencing God’s love through the folks and food at our church will expand their hearts and make a world with more compassionate and loving people for generations to come.  

I like to think that we overflowed gift upon gift to those 75 kids until they got the feeling that gifting others is just the way to be in this world.  I think that makes Jesus smile.

Grace & Peace,

Journeys 7-22-12 "Thanks for your prayers!"

Many thanks to all who prayed for me this past week as I waited for the results of a biopsy on my prostate.  Thanks for the hugs, handshakes, texts, e-mails and phone calls.  Your expressions of caring meant a lot to me.

I had the procedure done in Lincoln on Tuesday and got the results the following Monday afternoon.  After 6 days of waiting, I got good news.  There was no cancer in any of the 12 biopsied samples!  We’ll keep an eye on my PSA in three months when I do my annual physical.  For now, I am in the clear!

Having been there with my wife Cindy through her breast cancer surgeries, I know how a diagnosis of cancer changes you for the rest of your life.  Even though she has been cancer free for three years, we’ll still worry about it’s return for the rest of her life.

So many guys who have been through similar situations with their prostate have talked to me and given me words of encouragement.  And the universal truth of all biopsies seems to be that waiting for the results is the worst part.  Even when the results are not good news, knowing seems to be preferable to not knowing.

I told several people last Sunday that the “What ifs?” were crushing me.  And the closer I got to knowing, the more my mind and soul became scattered.  The unknown unglued me. And the longer it went, the harder it was to hold it all together.

Thats where your caring came in.  You held me when I was having a hard time holding on to myself.  Your letting me know you were praying for me drew me out of my self-imposed isolation.  It broadened and fuzzied my focus and helped me know that I was not alone in this.

When I got that phone call on Monday it was like a veil was lifted from my soul.  The dark menacing clouds that’d been building up in my heart and mind gave way to sunshine.  All that worrying and gearing up for another surgery just disintegrated .  

My daughter asked me why I worried so much before I even knew the results.  I said I needed to worry . . .  just in case. 

 Thanks again.  And please know that no matter what the results, your expressions of caring were God’s presence come to life for me this past week.  Because of you, I knew that no matter what that nurse said about my lab results on Monday afternoon, God was with me, and we would get through this, together.

Grace & Peace,

Rev. Kelly

Journeys 7-15-12 Rosedale VBS

Journeys

7-15-12

This past week was Vacation Bible School at the Rosedale Church.  Many thanks to Jill Osler for coordinating VBS once again this year.  We had 24 kids and 13 adult helpers from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Monday through Thursday.  There were stations for Music, Crafts, Science, Snack, Recreation and Story Telling.  This is the second year I got to be the Story Teller.

This year’s theme centered around water.  You’d be amazed at how many Bible stories there are on or around the water.  The Bible stories were about Noah, Naamen, John the Baptist, Jesus and the disciples who were fishermen.  The kids got to make amazing crafts and artwork and take it all home on the last day.  Today in church, they will share three of the nine songs they learned during the week.  We’ll also share with you a little drumming circle I did with the kids.

I really enjoy getting to know the kids a little better through the week.  Our crowd is basically church kids and friends and neighbors and grand kids.  So they were basically the same these past two years.

Rosedale will enjoy seeing the kids up front sharing their music and motions today.  Doniphan is counting down to their VBS that starts July 22nd.

Grace & Peace,

Journeys 7-8-12

Journeys

7-8-12

I’ve always considered this Journeys article in the bulletin to be kind of a personal letter to my congregations.  This week this is true more than ever.

See, I’ve been debating if and how to tell you this.  I am basically a pretty private person.  And I’ve not always been the best at asking for help when I need it.  Though through these “Journeys” and in preaching, I believe God has stretched me to share my own journey as a way of getting you to maybe see your own journey in a way you hadn’t thought of before. And I’ve found that I can write some things a whole lot easier than I can say them.  So I’m writing this now, cause when I think about saying it out loud, the tears start to flow.  And I don’t want to be embarrassed by my tears.

See, I would like for you to pray for me.  This week, on Tuesday, in Lincoln, I’m getting a biopsy done on my prostate gland.  My Dad had prostate cancer when he was in his early 60’s.  His older brother had been diagnosed with it after it had spread beyond the prostate gland.  In the end, my Uncle Bill died after that cancer spread to his bones and brain.  So my Dad has said that his brother saved his life by getting him to get his prostate checked out.  So when they found cancer in Dad’s prostate, it was still contained within the gland and removing it removed the cancer.  He didn’t need any further radiation treatment or anything.  And he’s still out there preaching at the age of 82!  Now, my PSA numbers are high for someone my age, so the next step is to go in and sample some tissues for cancer.  This kind of cancer has a genetic component.  It tends to be passed down from one generation to the next.

I think my tears are about my fear of cancer.  I’ve seen how cancer can take a healthy body and grind a life to a halt.  I may get lucky and they’ll find nothing to be concerned about.  If they do find something, then we’ll talk about the options on what to do next.

I do believe that your prayers for me will make a difference.  I believe that prayers for another are a way of extending our caring across the space that separates us.  I’ve had multiple experiences when other peoples’ prayers helped me make it through a crisis.  This may or may not be a crisis.  But I ask your prayers for me and my soul in the midst of the biopsy process.  Its about the fear of the unknown.  There’s the test, the waiting for the results, and finally the conclusion of the lab work.  Thank you for praying for me this week.  It means a lot.

Grace & Peace,

Journeys 5-20-12

We are in planting season right now.  Planting corn.  Planting soy beans.  Planting seed corn, and sorghum.  Some are planted and some are seeded.  Then there are the gardens, where things are planted according to the moon and frost probability.  Some plant potatoes around here on Good Friday.  Tomato plants are started in people’s basements and green houses, then transplanted when its safe from frost.

I have very little knowledge of the mechanics of planting.  My farmer friends talk about planting by GPS, so you can actually pre-prepare the row of soil in the winter, then in the spring place that seed at just the right depth with just the right amount of fertilizer/weed repellant sprayed in there.  All guided by the satellite that guarantees everything is lined up.  

I am more into the philosophical aspects of planting.  It takes a lot of guts to risk sticking that seed in the ground.  It is an act of hope.  Hope has to do with an unknowable future.  If you know how the future’s going to turn out, there is no hope involved.  Hope is planted in a bed of uncertainty.  

You just don’t know if all the right rain and sunshine are going to happen at all the right times to produce fruit 60, 80 or 90 days from now.  You prepare your soil, then you plant your seed, then you live into the hope that everything is going to turn out O.K. 

You can also hope for another.  Hope can be a part of the glue of a relationship.  We can hope for good things to happen to our friends and loved ones. There’s a part of me that wants to believe that the more you hope, the better you get at it. I also don’t think that there is a limited amount of hope out there. We don’t have to be stingy with our hoping. My experience is that hope expands my view; opens up the pores of my soul to unforeseen possibilities.  Prayer is an act of hope.  It is a seed planted in our relationship with God.

Hope is very close to faith. Faith has to do with trust.  We trust that God wants the best for us.  We trust that God is always with us, no matter what.  Seeds of faith can be planted with hope. We hope that our future relationship with God can be trusted to be as good as or better than what it is now.   I wonder of the GPS could be helpful with that?

Grace & Peace,

Rev. Kelly