Sunday Wrapup 4/15/2012

On my way to school the past few mornings I've been peering into John Rhiel's field where his cattle are kept right now. Several days in a row I saw a wide-smile sight--five or seven black baby calves, curled into tiny heaps on the ground, clustered around one nanny cow. Their own mothers were no doubt elsewhere grazing, confident in the babysitting arrangement I've observed at other times when a bunch of beef cow mamas and babies are together.

*********************

We got an email account last week of Lee Kanagy's death in the Belleville, PA area. He was 96 years old. Death came the day after he had fallen and was hospitalized.

Lee and his wife Adella were dear friends of ours, although we did not learn to know them until Hiromi and I were dating and Lee was in his mid-sixties. They had been missionaries in Japan for more than 20 years, and we had contacted them to see what helpful insights they might have for a Japanese-Amish Mennonite couple. They were gracious and affirming. Lee came to our wedding and spent the night before the wedding at the house Hiromi had already moved into, and I would soon share with Hiromi. He spoke briefly at the reception.

Lee was part of a big, apparently lively but stoic Amish family from Belleville. While we were on our honeymoon, Lee told the rest of my family about the time his brother climbed the windmill at home and fell off. No one mentioned it to their parents till he failed to show up at the supper table, and they inquired.

"Oh, aiyah 'shpeert net gut (Oh, he's not feeling well.)," someone reported nonchalantly. Further investigation revealed several broken bones.

*********************

One of the song groups in the high schoolers' program was titled "Rain." It was my favorite part of the program, and it clearly resonated with the audience--all of us with the memory of last summer's misery of heat and drought, and now feeling deep gratitude for this spring's rains. The first song was "Famine Song," an African song composed to express the desperation and then the creativity focused on weaving baskets, which presumably provided funds to purchase food. Brandon's cover art for the program featured an African woman stepping along lively, carrying an inverted basket on her head to protect it from the falling rain. Fragments of written music surrounded the picture. The drawing conveyed exactly the right feeling.

I found the simple lyrics by VIDA online here.

Ease my spirit, ease my soul,
please free my hands from this barren soil,
ease my mother, ease my child,
Earth and sky be reconciled.

Rain, rain, rain.

Weave, my mother, weave, my child,
weave your baskets of rushes wild.
Out of heat, under sun,
comes the hunger to ev’ry one.

Famine’s teeth, famine’s claw
on the sands of Africa.

Rain, rain, rain.

The music conveys in some discordant notes the poignancy and longing of people at the mercy of an inhospitable environment. For a rendition of the song by another choir, click here. One thing you can't hear is the snapping of fingers at the end, which surprisingly convincingly simulates the sound of falling rain. Our high school choir did another surprising thing: created thunder by stomping their feet briefly. At the Center program this thunder was such a surprise that one lady in her sixties in the audience let out a little scream, whereupon she and her husband got a most entertaining giggling fit, according to one witness. I'm sorry I missed it. (Love you, Paul and Edith.)

Students did yet another surprising thing by setting up a video and donation box for people who wished to help alleviate the suffering of people who have no access to clean water. Charity Water is the organization through which the donations will be channeled. $20.00 will provide for one person (for one year?), and is the suggested donation.

In this "Rain" section, the second song was "Rain Down," (Rain down your love on your people . . . by Jaime Cortez) and the third was "Go in Joy," taken from Isaiah 55:10-12 by Gary Johnson. Delightful songs--all of them.

***********************

I've never wished so much for a "lyrics sheet" to go with a program as I did during the first high school program. I think there was just enough uncertainty about the words sometimes to make the enunciation a little muddy, and I sat at the back, with Hiromi, who was recording. Every song had familiar music, but the words were all new to me, since I've heard the songs all year only from a distance, and have not been able to hear the words.

The words were much clearer at Arlington tonight. The program all around was stellar--from my unbiased opinion, of course.

***********************

Gathering for church this morning was a special pleasure, with almost a palpable sense of relief in the air that all of us were safe and well, after an afternoon and night of very wild weather. We were under a tornado warning part of that time and huddled in our basements, while the clouds rotated overhead, and the rest of the time we were on edge with repeated warnings being given all around us. Every county around us had destruction from tornadoes, and one tornado was on the ground in our county, in the rural area near Pretty Prairie. I heard this morning that our governor said that 97 tornadoes formed over Kansas during the day and night.

The last storm came through around 1:30 AM, but lost most of its steam before it got here. That storm, however, caused fatalities in Oklahoma, just before it crossed the border into Kansas. One of the problems was that the tornado warning sirens had been knocked out by lightening, and people didn't get the warning they needed. At our house, we were both ready to go to bed around 11:00 when we noticed on radar the line of storms still southwest of us and heading our way. It didn't seem wise to go to bed as if all was well, after having taken such pains to stay safe earlier, so Hiromi offered to stay up and watch the weather. He went to bed around 1:30 when he got word that the danger had passed.

Three times the city of Salina had tornado warnings. There were tornadoes on the ground part of that time. Greensburg, which was more than 90% destroyed by a tornado five years ago, had a farm nearby destroyed, but the town was not hit this time. That would have seemed like too much. Their rebuilding has made them famous, but they need their town more than they need more fame. President Bush spoke at their high school graduation that year, and the new claim to fame for the town is their emphasis on building "green," a perfectly logical thing to do if you are from Greensburg.

Since a lot that happened last night took place too late to make it into newspapers before press time, I suspect that tomorrow's news will reveal a lot more about what happened in various places.

Wichita had an estimated $283 thousand in damages, with part of that at the MidContinent airport, and two airplane manufacturing facilities also heavily damaged--Spirit and Boeing. Our former tenant, Wes Smith is an engineer at Spirit. Oaklawn is the region of Wichita that suffered the most damage. McConnel AFB moved its in-air refueling tankers to North Dakota, ahead of the storms, and the Air Force Base in Topeka also moved equipment to New Mexico. Smart move.

After all my agonizing over what to "save" from the weather, I settled for carefully squeezing the van into the garage (It hasn't contained a vehicle since Grant moved out.), and taking my purse and school bag and a complete change of clothes down to the basement. I hauled it all back up this morning. I also tried to coax Brandi into the house to go the basement with me. She wouldn't come in. I would have had to pick her up and carry her, and decided she could just go hide under the porch if that's what she preferred. Hiromi was at work at Wal-Mart. A lot of cashiers did not show up, and they certainly weren't needed because hardly any shoppers showed up either.

**********************

Random advice: If you want to make your notes for a public presentation at church easy to tuck into your Bible and retrieve and use without a lot of fuss, type your notes into the computer in the format you would use if you were preparing a printed program for a musical presentation. This also makes a nice format for printing out Scripture portions you'd like to carry with you for memorization purposes.

Basically, these are the settings to use for the document:

Set the page orientation to "landscape."

Set all margins to 1/2 inch.

Select "Columns"--2, with 1/2 inch trough. (This will likely be the default.)

Type your material in the two columns and then fold the paper in half with the printed side out before tucking into your Bible. If you have more than one page, staple them back to back and put side one out and side two in. It's still convenient.

Double space between separate notes.

If you have a large desk or lectern to use, this compact form may be less necessary, but that's not usually what I have access to, so I've made this my standby format for all public speaking/teaching notes outside of school.

***********************

Kraig's dad, Perry B., was in church this morning and, in his testimony after the sermon on child training, he confessed that there was a time when he wished his son was more like other boys, but he determined to accept him as he was and not try to make him into something different. I suppose everyone that knows his son grinned to themselves at this revelation. We all know Kraig is "different"--in a way we like. His energy and flair is noted and marveled at and appreciated, as far as I know. Not everyone runs 13 miles home in crocs after the singing, but if Kraig wants to do that, no one objects. Not everyone paints his car in 13 colors either. (I didn't actually count.) But Choice Books has probably never had so much energy in one package before, as has been there since Kraig arrived. He is passionate about many of the right things in life. Who would have thought Pennsylvania had it in her to produce a Kraig? I don't know if Kansas feels like a good fit for him, but it works for us.

Kraig has some interest in writing. I wish he would decide to pursue journalism. I feel more and more indebted to good investigative reporters/journalists, and would love to see capable people I love and care about pursue such an occupation. An abundance of energy couldn't hurt in this pursuit, and a healthy dose of curiosity would be a boon.