Lessons learned from losing an AWESOME PASTOR

I told my husband, I haven’t felt this sad since the last funeral I went to.  WOW that seems a little odd, since no one died. But since saying good bye, ‘see you later’ to an amazing pastor and her family, I’m grieving and these feelings aren’t comfortable. But I’m praying and finding comfort in trying to deal with my sadness.

Lesson 1:  I’m so grateful for the friendship and memories I have to cherish from the last 4 ½ years.  I know that my faith has grown since Pastor Kelly arrived and am feeling that more growth is in store in having to ‘keep going’.  Each member of my family is better because of our friendship.

Lesson 2: Obviously God has a plan. Because having our pastor leave was not my plan or our congregation’s plan. But I know that God’s plans are always best. So we need to pray and ask for God’s directions and leadings.   I know that I can’t continue in my sadness too long, as who knows what God has in store for our church or Pastor Kelly’s family – who knows, maybe they’ll be back in another chapter of their life!

Lesson 3:  The joy that comes from knowing that in this case we don’t have to die - we will see Pastor Kelly, Greg, the boys and a new one before heaven, because God has made us brothers and sisters in Christ. Their friendship has shown my family what fellowship is about.

So I am praying that I will be one of God’s faithful people-through the grief , and that each of us will continue to serve as we are called to do.  Let us strive for faithfulness, love, endurance, and gentleness, giving and receiving comfort as we serve within the Church. May God especially strengthen each of us, even in our sadness to be Your Church in all times and seasons of life – a place where all are truly welcomed and embraced in your love.

Thank you Pastor Kelly and Greg  you have been such a blessing to me and my family.

Merry Christmas from our Farm to you...

Raising girls to hold on to old fashion morals...respect from boys.

Today I received a snapchat from my daughter’s personal ipad – so I opened it and it was from a high school senior boy who thought the snapchat was going to my other daughter (she has her snapchat on my phone because we have not supplied her with a smartphone) who is a junior.  It was inappropriate and fortunately it didn’t contain pics of any inappropriate body parts.  However, it got me thinking! 

How sad is it that a high school boy would feel compelled to send such an ugly statement?  That he doesn’t have enough respect of the opposite sex – that they find sending snap chats with vulgar language funny.   So heads up boys—take Kate Pinke’s advice: Dear young men…http://thepinkepost.com/2013/09/dear-young-men-of-social-media/.

What concerns me is that my daughters have to be exposed to that behavior and then say ‘mom, everybody talks that way—it’s no big deal!”

The other day I read a post from a mother of high school boys that gently tell his Face book friends of the opposite sex to not post inappropriate selfies (/http://givenbreath.com/2013/09/03/fyi-if-youre-a-teenage-girl/).  I thought it was a very good reminder for girls to think before they posted photos.

 

I have learned that peer pressure is daunting in high school and it is hard for girls to be conservative and hold on to high morals—so what kind of encouragement can I give to my daughters and my young son to stand tall and turn away from such vulgar behavior when it is running rampant in our high schools—thanks to technology?

It cuts both ways!

Our Ag kids need our Encouragement

Our Ag kids need our Encouragement          

I will soon have the opportunity to coach some “Intro to Ag” kids about the importance of livestock judging and oral reasons.

To me it’s easy, looking back having the privilege of being a member of the livestock judging team at Colorado State University was the best thing I ever did.  First of all, it was very hard and my foundation started in 4-H at age 16.  When I was doing it I didn’t understand how VALUABLE the opportunity was.  But early in my career of selling, I had a colleague say to me “how did you learn to speak so well—on your feet?’.  The answer was I judged livestock and they said ‘what?’ 

The life skill of evaluating, making decisions and then telling my story (AKA oral reasons or why I placed them the way I did)  is what I believe to be one of the most important skills I have. Because every day we need to communicate within our family, volunteer activities, our chosen career and now our consumers!

Now that I have the opportunity to encourage my own daughter along with another handful of ag kids, I wonder what is the right thing to say.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to share with my children how unique they are and fortunate to have the experience of growing up on a farm.  With only about 1 ½-2% of the population producing our food needs and a much smaller percent of those farms have kids too!  They are unique which sometimes causes them to stick out and if we all remember, sticking out as a teenager isn’t what many want to do. 

Having the opportunity to learn the value of hard work is fairly easy to accomplish on the farm. But how do we encourage them to stick with agriculture when the majority of their peers have few ideas what farmers do and would rather put them down than recognize it as a noble career? Or viewing it as an important piece of the puzzle of feeding the world?

Feed Recipe

Just wanted to share how we feed each pen of cattle that we have. Each pen has a recipe and it changes as the cattle grow. The one we are mixing here has 4 ingredients: wet corn distillers, corn silage, alfalfa and liquid protein. We mix a full batch at a time and feed half in the morning and rest in the evening.
Farmkid3 can load his feed wagon and also helps load the big feed wagon. At age 10, he is very helpful and VERY eager to do what he can to help around our family farm.

Farmkid3

Mixing a ration for his bucket calves in his feedwagon.

Shocked and Disappointed with NE Farmers Union

I am so disappointed in the Nebraska Farmers Union for their recent agreement with the HSUS. (See it here: http://kticradio.com/news/agricultural/index.php?more=hz7j8tzn ) So rather than sit and talk to my friends I decided I should write to the board members who made the decision and point out just a few facts why we don’t want HSUS in our state or actually anywhere.

What is so unfortunate about all of this, is this action only adds to the consumer confusion and divides agriculture even more – the exact things HSUS wants to happen. So after writing this I will again turn my focus to sharing our ag story and hope the consumer can find truth from the NE farmers and ranchers (all sizes) who work every day to help put food on each of our tables. If you are a consumer looking to visit with a farmer to learn more about NE food production, I would recommend starting here: http://www.facebook.com/CommonGroundNebraska?ref=ts&sk=app_190322544333196 or here http://www.becomeafan.org/

Here is my note to the board members:

Hello, I am a farm wife (on a small 5th generation farm), mother and lover of all things agriculture. Our farm is in northeast Nebraska and we work hard to take care of our land and our animals. It's a moral obligation that we have to do it humanely and sustainable and we do. It's been happening on our farm for over 125 years, long before a well-funded DC based group started telling farmers how it should be done.

I can't believe that you supported inviting the HSUS to Nebraska and believe that you can change their track record. They want to eliminate all consumption of animal protein--why would you support elimination of animal protein from our diets?

They mislead and their track record is 'their way or no way'. Have you studied their involvement in Ohio Livestock Standards Board?

NFU needs to do their homework about this organization and I am COMPLETELY embarrassed, appalled and disappointed by your actions. Your organization may feel like it is representing the small guy, but it doesn't matter what size you are or how you raise animals. HSUS doesn't care--they want them all gone, including your pets. They say they care about pets but have you followed the money? HSUS’s advertisements employ the images of downtrodden dogs and cats to tug at the heart strings and wallets of America’s pet lovers. But a new analysis finds HSUS is a “Humane Society” in name only, sharing only $527,566, or 0.4 percent of its $120 million budget with sheltering organizations nationwide in 2010. In the same year, HSUS spent an astounding $47 million in fundraising-related costs (37 percent of its total budget) and parked $32 million in hedge funds.*

Is this the type of organization that you want to work with? I personally don't know why you would--it's not the Nebraska way.

I am a small farmer, hoping, working and praying that my children (sixth generation on our farm) can continue the family business but with actions like yours - their chances have just been reduced.

Sincerely,

Debbie Borg

farmer, mother and agvocate for all sizes of agriculture

*humanewatch.org