Work and Worship

Only 4 days of working on this project and we will move on. Since our project in Oklahoma doesn't start until Oct. 11 we have more than adequate travel time so we are planning on taking a little break and going to Branson, MO for a few days. We will leave here Friday, the 2nd, arrive in Branson on the 3rd and leave there on the 9th for Colcord, Oklahoma. Start working again the next Monday. Some of you have asked about our immediate future plan, that's it.

We've made a lot of headway on the house but will leave it far from finished. We usually work in pairs, probably that is so because none of us are experts in what we do so we have a buddy check before we actually go ahead and do something.

One job I mentioned last week was that Dad and Bob had to work on plumbing under the house and since it was moved in it no longer had a basement. You can see on the picture what working conditions they had for a few days. Dad got a scratch on his head from meeting the beam above him too suddenly but aside from stiffness in neck and legs they did very well in their limited space. But part of the work involved first taking the wainscoting off of the "ceiling". This picture shows what I tried to explain last week when they took it down and the years (the house is 105 years old) of dust descended on them. Couldn't help it, we all burst out laughing. Thank goodness it was not oil as it looked but dust that came off fairly easy. I am sure some of you would have coughed and sneezed and blew your nose for hours if you would have been exposed to so much old dust.

The kitchen cupboards needed to be relieved of layers and layers of old paint. Not an easy job. For some reason that I don't understand no paint remover was used but the layers were sanded off. I started with this group and we all had sandpaper. Well that seemed like a job that could take the whole 4 weeks. These ladies had been promoted to electric sanders but it still was an arm muscle building job and a dusty one. I soon found I could better use my strength somewhere else. They painted the cupboards a creamy color after sanding for hours and they really do look nice now. The integrity of the cupboards was maintained while giving them a face lift.

I did not get on the scaffolding when they asked for people to paper the ceiling in some rooms that were 10 feet high so I ended up being the resident paster (not even close to being a pastor) and measurer - feet on the ground except I pasted downstairs and they papered up stairs. Oh well, good for leg muscles to be strengthened. Seemed ironic when yesterday we went to McCook, NE just to see what that town had to offer and I find myself on a Saturday afternoon checking out what kind of professional tape measure I wanted. Of well! The lady in yellow in the picture is the director of Shepherd's Staff and she and I work very well together. She really lives in Texas but comes up here a majority of the time. She doesn't move up here because her husband wants to stay living in a city. So he comes up here for some months and she goes to Texas for other months. Her husband was an MD and has retired but still likes to live in that area. Can't say I really blame him, this town doesn't exactly provide everything socially and culturally that some of us think is quite necessary. Say like cell phone coverage and access to the Internet from our RV's. Actually this town has no commerce at all. It has one gas station that, according to the sign, sells gas, beer and cigarettes. That is it.

Since RVICS is for retired people our hours are pretty good but I am glad we are not getting paid by the hour. Of, that is right, we aren't being paid. By Thursday noon we are both done for the week with work. Then we tour. This week we toured a sun flower processing plant. The guide was excellent and the information fun. They bring in sunflowers from hundreds of miles around. The plant is old but the technology of cleaning, drying, processing into mostly edible product and bagging is mostly automated.

Many times during the week before we travel or after devotions, etc. we circle up. and that is what the picture depicts. no matter where we are we join hands and one of the group leads us in prayer. We think this would be a wonderful thing to do in other settings as well in RVICS.

At other projects we had pop on the patio. Three thirty, after the guys are done working, we bring our lawn chair and drink and set for a spell. Good way to rehearse what the day had brought and we just have a social time. Another good "habit". One couple was missing when this picture was taken.
We worshipped at the town church again this morning. We have grown to love the people and that is something that is more possible because of the small size. They will host a dinner for us on Wednesday night, that will be fun. Then on to whatever the Lord has for us to do in Oklahoma.

We really enjoy working in this capacity but also miss being closer to some family and friends. We pray we will be open to what the Lord has in mind for us in the months ahead. Our life has never been one steady course for years on end so often we examine the road and try to determine which direction, which road, we are to go on. Covet your prayers for that direction.

We appreciate the blogs, emails and phone calls we receive. The phone calls are not always clear or without disruptions (right Cindy?) but we can get some conversation in. We could not function without knowing how you all are doing.

Love to all.

Dad and Mom

Big businesses in small places

The "big house" looks a lot different and better than it did last week. Dad and Bob have most of the plumbing work done that they can do. No. their work doesn't really show the improvement but it is a vital step in the process anyway. The rest of us are continuing to scrap, prime, paint, restore old doors and even do wallpapering. So after relating the scaffolding option last week I got some resounding reprimands about getting on a scaffolding so the morning they asked me again if I would put ceiling wallpaper on from a scaffold and ladder I told them I had orders not to get on the scaffolding. So I measured and pasted and two men put the paper up. They have the ceiling on in one big room so we are anxious to start with side paper. That will really make those rooms come alive. Don't think we can wrap it up in the 2 weeks we have left here but we will definitely have made a big dent in the work.

On Friday we tour but the tour committee has to be creative to find interesting places to tour in this place. Have to admit that when they came up with a book binding company in a little town a few miles away from Rexford we almost yawned. But the tour committee (one couple) do a lot of research on such things so we all went to Selden, KS. The buildings were not impressive to say the least but when one of the owners started explaining the process and what they all do we had to admit it was awesome. The address on the web is kbindery.com and that gives a better picture of their work than I can write in this blog. (even though it will be shorter than last week, I think). They bind books by sewing which is not done much anymore but it is much stronger than the glued method many use nowadays. They will redo old books such as family Bibles, personal Bibles, text books, etc. as well as add new covers, emboss or stamp them in unique ways as well as bind entirely new books. The tour leader was one of the bosses and he was a very amicable person and made the tour very personal. Then have been in business for 40 years so have some credibility. Because of the method of binding they get orders, large or small, from all over the country.
On Saturday Dad and I did some of our own touring in an occupation we are familiar with. This picture is of the road sign of the Thomas County Feeders, Inc. feed lot. Don't think you can read it but it is all Certified Angus Beef, they co custom cattle feeding and their capacity is 18,000. Looked to us like every yard was full with black Angus with the exception of one red Angus. We could not get up close to the operation but we appreciated the fact that in the middle of what seems to be pretty much only crops and not much else for farming that a feedlot of this proportion was out here on the Kansas prairie.

Then just a tad down the road was this dairy that we had seen from a distance on the road into Colby. We took the opportunity to drive on the yard and look around. While the picture is not especially impressive the talk with the young owner was. They have had this dairy up and running for about 10 years. They come from Lancaster, PA area. As some of you know, milk production is not profitable right now. In fact, some people are selling "cows for cash" a government program which enables you to sell your cows with some definite guidelines involved which I won't attempt to explain. This place milks 1700 cows and I was told they milk 3 times a day. ( that detail I heard at the beauty shop) With the price of milk right now they lose $100. a cow a month. Figure that times 1700 cows. Dad told one of the RVICS people that figure and he thought the dairy should fold right now. Could tell he had always lived OFF the farm. (he is a PK and also a retired Pastor) Anyway, the young dairyman was the typical optimistic farmer who remembered when they PROFITED about that much and hoped the prices would rebound and make up for these loses. The same family has a dairy 40 miles from here and milk 2100 cows. The two sons run the operations now but have set up precautions to protect their parents from financial disaster. They were cutting silage the day we were there and both parents were working in difference capacities so they are still physically involved but financially protected.

Because of an abundance of rain this summer the crops look very good. A large area had hail some time ago but it must have come too late to hurt the corn. However, most years the irrigation rigs have to be used. The rigs still stand in the fields and make a great resting place for birds that are migrating from the area. I hope you can see that all the black spots are birds. The picture shows only about 10th of the rig and most of it was covered with birds.

So our Friday and Saturday tours of Kansas Prairie enterprises were enjoyable.

Everyone of our group has really put a lot of effort into this project and we are all starting to take possession of the project. We have a better understanding of the necessity of the house and have really gained in our appreciation of diversity of abilities of each group member. In our group devotions Dad and I have used our family as an example of how diversity brings learning and appreciation of various abilities as well as ethnicity. That is one lesson we have tried to learn as we toured the country the past year as well.

We are doing well, enjoying the almost perfect weather and praise God for this opportunity to work in this particular area assisting an organization in reaching out to people in a unique way.

Love to you all,

Dad and Mom

Prairie Project

Riding through Nebraska has always been kind of a sleeper. Well, the western side of the state of Kansas is much the same, that is if one just rides through it and doesn't stop to get acquainted. We have started our "acquaintance" process with Kansas and find it has much to offer even if it is different than the states our group members come from. We do have a Kansan in our group so she fills us in on some of the finer aspects of this state.

Last week I sent a very dark picture of our campground. This picture will give you a "clearer" view of what the campground is really like. Sorry I didn't take the time to straighten up the elevator before I sent the picture. It really does stand tall. We have added one couple to our group and they come from Cambe, MN so they live less than 100 miles from Sioux Center. Dad has been the oldest male in our group and he thought this man probably beat him in that competition but find out he is just 3 months younger than Dad. Afraid I still am the oldest female. Not necessarily a contest I wanted to win but then again I can always play the age game when it comes to putting on ceiling paper, climbing on ladders, etc. Actually the whole group is well aware of what we are comfortable doing and we feel free to say where our limit is. NO putting on ceiling paper from a scaffold.

This week Dad and Bob were busy with updating the plumbing in the house shown. It was built in 1905 and was recently moved into town from 30 miles away. It cost $30,000. but they did it all in one piece so they had a very experienced house mover. Not even cracks in the plaster. The plumbing will take them a least another week. Some of the work is done beneath the house in the 4 foot crawl place. They don't have to crawl so that helps but when removing wainscoating from the under side of the house (which would have been the basement ceiling when the house had a basement) they were so dirty that they actually looked like black men. Sweat and dust is not a pretty sight. I and another person spent our time steaming wallpaper off ceilings and walls and then priming the walls. Of the 7 or 8 rooms in the house we got less then 2 finished. Since we now have another couple we will have 2 or 3 people papering and then 1 or 2 will continue steaming and priming trying to keep ahead of the wall paper people. Sometimes we think it is a stretch to think this is a mission project but we realize it will be an added attraction for people who come to Shepherd's Staff for retreats or even just to visit. The house will be decorated in the style of the era when it was built. Flowered wall paper, etc. I can almost hear some of you cringe thinking about the decor. However, the dishwasher and garbage disposal will expose its recent refurbishing

Our Thursday tour was to the Prairie Museum at Colby, the biggest town around here and it boasts of having 6000 people. The Museum was even greater than the publicity about it. The spark which started the collection was kindled when Nellie Kuska, at the age of 7, received a bisque doll for learning her multiplication tables. The Kuskas lived in California after marriage and she continued to collect dolls and various other things until her death in 1973. The artifacts were moved to Colby in 1975 and the Smithsonian appraised the collection at a value of more than one million dollars in 1975. Imagine the worth now! It took 3 moving vans to move the seventeen tons off artifacts to Colby.

The one part of the Museum I was interested was the large genealogy room. They like their history and many families had researched and printed the family tree. It was good for me to see the different ways a family tree can be constructed to be interesting and still hold to the facts.

I cannot begin to describe the museum pieces but the heritage buildings outside were interesting too. The only discouraging part is that Dad and I both remember seeing or using the building they considered heritage buildings.
The one building we had only heard about but not lived in was the sod hut. I recall hearing that those in Sioux Center had dirt floors and ceilings. This one had to be modified enough so people could see the development of sod houses. It also was furnished in a style later than the actual sod house. Such ingenuity those homesteaders had. The hut was built of sod blocks 1 foot by 2 feet by 4 inches deep. The walls could be plastered or newspapers (wonder where they got them) could be placed on the walls. Muslin was stretched across the ceiling to catch the dirt, bugs and an occasional snake. This hut had windows so some day light could be seen. Still I think depression would have been a problem for the wives especially as they were in that dark, damp house so much of the time.

The Cooper barn is the largest barn in Kansas measuring 66 wide', 114' long and 48' high. It is now used for the bigger displays. It also was moved to the site in one piece. Some of the things like hay mow, grain bins, stanchions etc again reminded us of activities we had done years ago. The metal "leg ties" put on cows legs to get them to stand still we remember vividly because when milking if you didn't get the cow's tail tied in with his legs you might get that dirty tail come flying around your face as you sat and milked the cow. And those were the good old days? Some of you recently romped around in a hay mow. Imagine trying to pitch hay down out of this mow, had to carry some of it 144 feet to the opening and then still throw it down to be picked up and brought to the cattle bunks. Diets usually weren't necessary in those days. Of course, first we did chores and then we continued the day with fried eggs, bacon, bread with fat and syrup and drinking whole milk, we had a lot of heavy food to burn off.

My favorite building is always the one room school house. This one is small and all the desks are made for two people. That is close company if you ask me, we always had our own private desk. We also had a furnace instead of the oil stove in this picture. Ours was coal burning so the teacher always had to go to school early and start the furnace before the students arrived but they could easily do that on the $40.00 a month they got (according to a teacher we had with us), right? I remember taking a potato to school and laying it on the ledge where they scooped the coal into the furnace. At noon that potato was just done and actually was a warm food which we could eat. Else we could take a tin of soup and set it on the furnace register (one in the floor) and have a warm entree for lunch - unless some clumsy person came along and tipped your soup container down the register. Still those days were good because we didn't know any better. Even wearing the same underwear for a week and long stockings in the winter and dresses made of feed sacks. What memories.

We pray for all of you often. If you have a specific request let us know and we will intercede for you in that way. We love you and enjoy all the means we have of communicating even though ours aren't totally reliable here we usually get through.

Love, Dad and Mom

Why Kansas?

Don't let the title fool you, I think we will enjoy this project and get to learn a lot about the surrounding communities. We arrived in Rexford, KS at noon on Sat. Sept. 5. RVICS tries to plan projects that are in the same area of the country and are near enough to each other that the RVICSers can move in an orderly fashion between them. We chose projects in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas with one project a month.

To say this area is somewhat isolated is an understatement. Most of the land is farming land but lack of moisture and hail has greatly diminished the crop that farmers had hoped to harvest. Then the cool temps throughout the summer means the frost will have to stay far away for a long time yet. That is also true in Sioux Center area even though the crops look lush and bountiful right now. The heat units just are not fast in coming so the harvest will be later then usual and the grain will need drying. That is the way it looks right now anyway. Back to Rexford, Kansas. The project we are working at is The Shepherd's Staff. It is a Retreat Center for local pastors, school groups, Bible Camp groups, etc. About 1300 to 1500 people come through here in a year's time. No groups are here this weekend so it is really quite around here. The Shepherd's Staff makes up most of the town's building because most of the businesses are closed. The grain elevator and some farm related businesses are open. I will show more town pictures next time. The picture to the left is our "campground".and taken against the sun so is too dark I know but I haven't been very active with the camera hear yet. It does furnish us with a free spot to park, water, electricity and sewer so we are set up good. Because of illness 2 of the couples cannot join us so right now we are just 6 people. Our work is to begin restoring a big old house that was moved into the town. With just the 6 of us we will not make a dent in the restoration but we will do what we can considering the limitations of seniors who make up the project staff. Numerous other old buildings have been restored and become conference Centers, dorms, cafeterias, etc. Interesting that all the rooms are restored to a particular theme and those themes are taken from past history of this community. The furnishings come from community people and include some good looking antiques but most of the rooms look like they belong in a museum. There is a church here within walking distance so we attended S.S. and church here this morning. I think we will continue going to this church. We do increase the attendance of the service by quite a high percentage. Before we left home on Friday morning we had a great time at Butler's with Maddie, Becky and Alec. What a fun time we had. So glad they all took time out from work and school schedules to do that with us. And we weren't in a hurry as we had only 300 miles to make that day and as some of you know that is our unwritten rule anyway, 300 miles! And our schedule is to hang loose, no tight structure. It's working for us.

The next picture shows what determination and perseverance is all about. As some of you know Cindy's health does not allow her to work very long at a time if at all, still, early this summer she decided to start improving the basement in her house. A monumental task for most of us. She did get willing help from the girls. Slowly she primed, painted and decorated the two play rooms in the basement. You can see the basic decor except that one wall is all light green. The floor is painted black but some carpet will cover part of the floor in time. The love of Paris - hence the Eiffel tower. All the walls have some Paris accents and this wall actually does make it look like you are looking out of a window at the tower. She certainly has added value to our house and made it very attractive for her girls and the numerous neighbor girls that play with her girls.

We are anxious to see exactly what we will do and how we will adjust to this culture. It certainly is exact opposite of Miami, FL or Hawaiian Gardens, CA. However, there is a Super WallMart just 20 miles down the road in Colby. Other then that town most of the towns boast of about 150 people as Rexford does.

Love and best wishes to you all. God Bless You as you celebrate the Labor Day and as you get back into the Fall schedule after that.

Mom and Dad