"Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.' Eph. 6:17 NIV

Proud great grandpa and great grandma with Jada

We added these pictures to Jada's graduation

Jada and Joey by the lake

Joey at the playground

Jada and Joey, havin' fun

The graduate
Her brother

Her family

Her Grandpa and Great Grandma

Yesterday we went to Jada's pre-school graduation. We got up early to be there by 9 am. The pre-school is held in a church in her hometown.

They sang several action songs then the teacher asked each one of them what they wanted to be when they grew up.

The thing that impressed me was that they had memorized 26 Bible verses, one for each letter of the alphabet. She didn't hesitate on any one of them as she was going through the alphabet. These are 4 and 5 year olds. I doubt that very many in the churches could recite that many from memory.

We celebrated by going out to eat together after the graduation ceremony.

GOOD JOB, JADA!

My Melon Experience

I have been a farmer most of my life but my first experience of planting a seed was when I was 5 or 6 years old. Someone gave me honey dew melon seeds. I decided to plant them just west of our house. The soil was sandy and it takes a lot of watering to keep things growing. I dug up a small plot and planted four or five hills. It was close to the windmill so I kept them watered good. It didn't take them long to sprout and come up and they had good vines.

They started blooming, then came the little melons. About a month went by and I had several good sized melons. I decided to check one of them and see if it was ripe. It was still green so I waited a week and checked another one. It was still green. This went on until I had no more melons. I was really disappointed.

That fall the person that gave me the seeds asked about the melons and I told him what had happened. He started laughing and told me that they were green when they were ripe. So much for my honey dew melons.

Years later we planted watermelons down by the orchard. It was when the kids were still home. We had a beautiful patch of melons and they were big. I checked one and it was still green. I told my neighbor, who was known for raising good melons, and he said he would come and show me how to check and know when they were ready. He picked some and said they were ripe---no, they were green! I had a truck-farmer friend tell me he could pick out ripe ones but they were green, too! There were other people who told me they could pick ripe ones, too, but they were all green. They never ripened, they just started rotting.

I checked with K-State and they told me sometimes that happens. I never did raise good watermelons but several years we raised big cantaloupe that were wonderful.

"WHY DO YOU LOOK FOR THE LIVING AMONG THE DEAD? HE IS NOT HERE; HE IS RISEN!" Luke 24:5b-6a NIV

"Arise, shine, for your light has come,

and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.

See, darkness covers the earth

and thick darkness is over the peoples,

but the Lord rises upon you

and His glory appears over you." Isa. 60:1-2

"The true light that gives light to every man

was coming into the world." John 1:9

"But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light

we have fellowship with one another,

and the blood of Jesus, His Son purifies us from all sin."

I John 1:7

"But what does it say? The word is near you,

it is in your mouth and in your heart,

that is the word of faith we are proclaiming.

That if you confess with your mouth "Jesus is Lord"

and believe in your heart that God raised Him

from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:8-9

"For if when we were God's enemies, we were

reconciled to Him through the death of His Son,

how much more, having been reconciled,

shall we be saved through His life". Romans 5:10

Easter morning people gather here for Sunrise Service. There are people from many different churches plus some that don't go to any church. We all celebrate the Risen Lord. If He had not risen we would not have life. He overcame death for you and me. He paid the price that you and I could have never paid and the best part is it doesn't cost anything, it is FREE! Just call on the Lord. Read Romans 10:8-9 again.

We pray that the Risen Lord is in your life, and if He is not we pray that you ask Him to come in and be your Lord and Savior.

IF I HAVE A FAITH THAT CAN MOVE MOUNTAINS BUT HAVE NOT LOVE, I AM NOTHING. I CORINTHIANS 13:3b NIV

Waitin' for the train

Durango-Silverton train

Darlene & Max on the train

Jonas, Sheldon, Jeremiah & the train

Jeremiah & Sheldon

Jonas, Sheldon, Max, Jeremiah, Darlene

Jeremiah, Sheldon & Jonas

Jonas, Jeremiah & Sheldon

Sheldon & Mark (hangin' on!)

Sheldon

Jeremiah & Jonas

Grandchildren are a gift from the Lord. Jeremiah and Sheldon are about the same age and they spent a lot of time together when they both lived here. Grandma called them her Katzenjammers. They were always into something they shouldn't be. There is an old saying: "One boy is a boy, two boys are half a boy and three boys are no boy at all". The boys didn't have any idea who the Katzenjammers were so a couple years ago when we ran across an old Katzenjammer comic strip we copied it off and sent it to them.


When Mark and Sheldon moved to Colorado we sometimes took Jeremiah with us to visit them. On this trip, when we went to Durango, we took both Jeremiah and Jonas with us.


Wolf Creek pass is always exciting. We saw a truck that didn't make the curve and was hanging down on the side of the mountain. This was before they widened the road.


We had a great time riding the Durango-Silverton train, if you could keep the smoke and ashes out of your eyes. Mark took the boys fishing up at Siverton while we rode the train up.


One day Mark took us to the top of a mountain in his 4WD pickup. It was a totally undeveloped, one way path to the top, rocks and all. If you met someone one of you had to back up to where you could get by each other. There were new 4WD vehicles that started up and had to go back, but we made it. Then the real excitement came at the top. There was a place where you could turn around but it was only about 25' X 25'. Mark made us all get out while he turned the truck around. Sometime part of the back end of the truck was hanging over the edge of a sheer cliff.


That was enough excitement for one day! On the way down we stopped and the boys played in the snow. This was in the summer. We found two beautiful rock crystals there, one purple and one clear crystal.


We really enjoyed having our grandsons with us.

SONS ARE A HERITAGE FROM THE LORD,CHILDREN A REWARD FROM HIM. Ps.127:3 NIV

Crocker

Crocker

Pastor Joe, Crocker, Dad, Mom

Mom, Crocker, Dad

Dad & Crocker

Mom, Crocker, Dad, Max

DISTANCE IS NOT A PROBLEM

The following is an article written by Pastor Joe Thornton about our grandson and his family. It was published in a church publication.

For Jenny and Sheldon Hoesli, members of Lester's Chapel United Methodist Church in Jackson, Tennessee, distance has been a problem they have been able to overcome.

It was overcome to some degree when Sheldon was an exceptionally long distance away. He was serving in Iraq, when their first child, Max was born. Sheldon could not cover the distance in person, but it was overcome when he was able to view their newborn son via satellite hookup from Iraq to Jackson-Madison County General Hospital.

Distance was overcome in October when their second son, Crocker, was born in another location quite distant from Jackson and Lester's Chapel: Wyoming.

Solving the problem of distance can be challenging, especially with two young children. Still the family returns to Lester's Chapel even though shortly after Crocker was born the family was transferred to LaMarque, Texas, near Houston. When Crocker was eight weeks old he was back at Lester's Chapel where he had the role of Baby Jesus in the church's Christmas pageant, the same role that both brother Max and mother Jenny had played as babies.

The Hoeslis wanted Crocker to be baptized by the same pastor in the same church where Max and Jenny had been baptized, so once again they overcame a long distance, traveling the 750 miles to Jackson.

Then the big winter event that swept across much of the country's midsection descended on West Tennessee shutting down most locations, especially in rural areas. This included churches, and Lester's Chapel was among them.

The Hoeslis are blessed with determined spirit that overcomes odds as well as distance. They contacted the pastor, Dr. Joe Thornton, to ask him to baptize Crocker in the Thornton home in Brownsville, a hazardous 25 miles from Jackson. Not to be outdone, the adventurous travelers made their slow journey to fulfill their mission to have Crocker baptized. The Thornton home, located on a long road off a country road, presented the family with not only distance but ice. Neither was a problem for the Hoeslis.

Baptisms and weddings plus visitations for departed have been held before in the almost 170-year-old home of the Thorntons, built by Becky Thornton's great-great-grandparents. Some of the nine children born there were baptized and later married in the front parlor, and their father, a doctor, gave medical care to Civil War soldiers on both sides. Crocker was baptized in the same parlor where piano and guitar "concerts" were held for soldiers who had come for food and shelter and where generations ago babies were dedicated to God.

The church is not a building. It is where "two or three are gathered together," and the family who gathered in the Thornton home for the sacrament of baptism was the church.

Baptism is not only about dedicating the life of a child to God, but it is about the responsibility of the parents, grandparents, and church members toward the infant. This baptism, in particular, shows the determination of these young parents to make that happen, and that in caring for their sons, nothing can deter them. Truly, distance is not a problem.

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Ps. 51:10 NIV

Sister Donna with cousin Sue and the old rock

house in the background.

I want to tell you a little about the house. This

is where my sister, brother and I were raised. It

was a 5 room house, 3 downstairs and 2 upstairs,

built of native sandstone that was quarried in the

pasture east of the house. The original house was

built in 1873 with 4 rooms, one room was added

on the south later on. I want to draw attention to

the upstairs window behind Donna. That was LaRoy

and I's bedroom. The ceiling was tapered so that the

outside wall was only 4' tall. You had to be almost in

the center of the room to stand up straight. The stairway

was a steep L-shaped stairway so you had to watch

yourself when you went up or down. There was no heat

upstairs so it was very cold in the winter. The window

wasn't very tight so a lot of times when it snowed the snow

would sift through the window on the floor and sometimes

on our bed. As it was cold in the room, a lot of times

homecured hams and bacon would be hung there. When

the house was torn down we found a button-up shoe, a silver

spoon and 2 hedgeballs (osage oranges) in a hole in the wall

that had been placed there when the house was built.

LaRoy and I

When LaRoy was a senior he got a new 1951 Ford

pickup. There was nothing in a 4 county area that

could outrun it. Don't ask me how I know that. :-)

Me and LaRoy

Dressed up for something. Don't

remember what.

Me Donna LaRoy

LaRoy
8th grade graduation. We went to a rural
school so the graduation for all 8th graders
from rural schools in the county was held in town.

LaRoy by Donna's Pontiac

LaRoy

I THINK on senior trip...?

Darlene Postlethwaite and LaRoy

They started in country school together

in 1st grade and graduated from high school together.

My 8th grade graduation.

Mom Me Dad

Me and Don Casey (a neighbor)

In high school we had a relay team of guys over

200 pounds that we were both on. No one

could beat us because Don could run like a deer.

Donna

Donna

High school graduation.

This huge vine was on the west side of the house.