RevJeffreyNE's Xanga Site

This is my life. Sometimes it seems funny - sometimes it is.

Latest posts

Friday, October 10, 2008

Forget Global Warming... it's autumn...

watch for "elevated squirrel activity"

Extreme Weather Alert: Meteorologists Predict Intensely Brisk Autumn

Thursday, October 09, 2008

Why every dad needs a Wii

I submit that this is just the first of a zillion things they will not understand about their child...

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Ronald E Tatro

Ronald E. Tatro 67, Geneva, died Wednesday (10/1/08) in Lincoln. Born at Geneva to Duane & Hazel (Hall) Tatro.
Survivors: wife, Alice; daughters, Leann Dockins, LaGrange, Ill.; Laura Gestring, Ankeny, Iowa; Allison Jensen, Kansas City, Mo.; Andrea Perrin, Scottsdale, Ariz.; brother, Robert, Turlock, Calif.; sister, Mary Cantrell, Turlock, Calif.; eight grandchildren.
Funeral Services 1:30 p.m. Saturday (10/4/08) at Congregational United Church of Christ, Geneva. Burial: Geneva Public Cemetery. Memorials in lieu of flowers to: United Church of Christ, Geneva; Geneva Senior Center or Rescue Squad; or Fillmore County Hospital. Farmer & Sons Funeral Home is handling arrangements.
Published in the Lincoln Journal Star on 10/2/2008

THIS does not even begin to describe the man... I know stories that would be inappropriate to tell in the church, but I have the blessing of being able to share a more detailed and personal eulogy.

Please pray for Alice and the kids.

Friday, October 03, 2008

Since Laughter does good...

Paul Aldrich is just irreverent enough for me to really like him!
Here's some comic church history education...killing two brain cells with one stone...
And... politically inappropriate...

Thursday, October 02, 2008

A merry heart

"Slightly Out of Focus" - the Mark Lowry novel
"It can't hurt if it don't matter..."
I need to break out...

More appropriately I need to be broken out...
I don't have it in me to do much of anything myself.
SO... instead I will reflect on the weekend past.
We had visitors from Mustang, OK. Jason and Stephanie Briggs are going to come as candidates to (maybe) be our associate pastor and wife (with baby - it's OK it's not a secret). They arrived Friday night and left Monday morning and in between we did the whole eat a lot and talk a lot and tour the town stuff. it was fun. They are good people (as my friend PC says).
Sunday AM we were shocked to find our very close friends from MN in church! They were on their way home from a three week home-school education tour of ... De Smet, SD; Mount Rushmore; Yosemite National Park; Redwoods National Forest, and the Grand Canyon...and they stopped by unannounced.
After pulling myself back together and getting through the morning service, we went out for lunch and then sat in a park and talked for four hours! It was just like our best Sundays "back in the day." The world just seems a lot smaller when friends stop by.
The rest of the week kind of has blurred into getting ready for another funeral... Saturday at 1:30 we will celebrate the life of our friend Ron. Pray for his wife, sister and brother, four daughters and their families... it will be a long week for them.
For now, I am thinking about this week... but there are relatives coming in the near future and things to accomplish.

Rumor has it we may get a basement hole dug by the end of next week.... you know rumors, though.

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

RON

Our landlord and friend passed away this morning.
RON was a fighter. HE had a triple bypass thirteen months ago, and then as he was recovering they diagnosed him with hodgkins lymphoma. HE has been getting the treatments ever since. Friday, the 12 of Sept. he was rushed to Lincoln and he had been in the critical care unit since then for extremely scarred lungs and complications from the chemo drugs.
We visited the hospital a couple of times, and Ron and Katie blew kisses to each other. Monday, he was barely roused once while I was in the room... The big, tough, farmer had tears in his eyes often these last days as he looked at his wife, his daughters and friends around him.
So I have a deep theological quandry this AM. If John Deere truly is the tractor of heaven, where do the "red tractor" Christians hang out... I need to know where I'll find Ron.
Ron, your harvest is in...rest peacefully.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Perspective...

"A daily session with God is far more valuable than a weekly visit with your therapist."

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Rough week... big God

Last Thursday on my way to the cross-country meet I drove past the medical center.
The clinic parking lot was empty and the ambulance was blocking the entry... Life-Flight was inbound. A young man wrecked his four-wheeler and was airlifted to Omaha where he spent the weekend on life-support.
Friday night at a local football game I was asked if I had heard about a man inour community who was a flight instructor... no ... you're kidding me... NO!
There were other events too. None at the level of shock and awe as Friday's.
So Sunday, I stood in the pulpit, again. I borrowed words from a pastor in another crisis 10 1/2 years ago...

"GOD WAS NOT SURPRISED. Nothing that happened this past week shocked Him." So now, I turn to HIM with all of this stuff, and I invite you to also.
Psalm 139
¹⁶     Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
     in your book were written, every one of them,
          the days that were formed for me,
          when as yet there were none of them.
¹⁷     How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
          How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸     If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
          I awake, and I am still with you.

The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 (Ps 139:16-18). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.