Special Gift From Home

I grew up going to a church that I loved. The focus was on faith, family, and neighbors. Honestly, that basically defined the entire town I grew up in. Everybody knew everybody, and in turn Odin was more than just a town of strangers. It was a town full of neighbors. With my childhood, that was something I connected with. I loved it that Rusty, the postmaster, greeted me with a smile when I rode my bike in to get the mail. It made me feel good that the old men gathered for coffee at the grocery store wanted to talk to me about my latest softball game. I appreciated neighbors helping my dad get his crops out when he couldn't do it for himself. This particular story really explains what I loved about the community I grew up in. Most of you know that when I was 14 my dad became ill with cancer. He had a major surgery that he never fully recovered from. In the spring of that year, there was cultivating that had to be done in the fields. I had spent most of my childhood around tractors, so my dad thought I could do it. We hooked up the smallest, most manageable tractor my dad owned to the cultivator, and my dad sent me to a field several miles from our house. It turns out there is quite a learning curve to cultivating. Those tiny new corn plants don't stand any chance when they have been run over by the tractor and the cultivator. I was on my second round and not doing well at all. I came to the end of the row and found a huge John Deere tractor with an enormous cultivator behind it waiting for me up on the road. A man I'd never met, and whose name I still don't know, indicated that he'd like me to stop. I did and walked up to the road to talk to him. He asked me if I was Larry Thorn's youngest. I told him that I was. He told me to go on home, that he would take care of the rest of the job for me. He said that he had heard we had more important things to deal with at home. And basically that's what happened that year. The community organized Dad's field work to be completed. 

John and I were married at St. Olaf Lutheran Church in Odin. I won't try to tell you that it was important to me then. It didn't seem significant at all. In fact, I thought we should be married where we met, in Tennessee. Dad threw a hissy fit (no exaggeration), and I decided to give in and marry at St. Olaf. Now I'm glad I did. It's where I come from.

With all of that being said, you can better understand how much this gift means to me. Every year, St. Olaf's menfolk make faith chests for the kids who are being confirmed. It's their intention that the kids would put things like their Bibles (Here's a link to the first Bibles that I want to get for the boys.) and other memorabilia that played a role in them acquiring their faith. Kathy and Kevin decided to order chests for Jack and Luke this year with their baptism dates engraved on them. To top it off, Kevin and Jake were two of the menfolk who made the chests along with my confirmation mentor, Lloyd Carlson, and high school friend, Nathan Olson. They are stunning, and they mean the absolute world to me because they represent where I came from. Thank you, Johnson family. We are so lucky to be loved by you.