The Grace of the Lord!

It has been a while since I have posted anything here and much has changed. We are once again living in Kansas. In what once was a garage/shop of my Brother-in-Law’s place. We built an apartment in part of that space and downsized ourselves into 386 square feet living space. And it has worked out for the best, for which we praise the Lord for his loving kindness. 

What you are looking at is the Lord’s grace. It is a chicken house, that I built for the McPherson ladies, who also live in this household. They have acquired many chickens and ducks. The Lord has allowed me to become a carpenter, again. He has not healed me, in the traditional sense, but enabled me. 

Back when we lived in Kansas, I had been a been a carpenter, among many other things, and I thought that ship had sailed over the horizon when we had moved back to Minnesota and been diagnosed with ALS.

I gave away all my tools and thought I had a early appointment with Jesus, but He had other plans. Which to me, is almost beyond my belief. We moved back to Kansas in May of 2023. Work on our apartment started in August and finished in August of 2024. A whole year for 386 square feet is, what it is. It’s done and we will move on from there. October of 2024, something happened which changed everything. I discovered that I could walk without a stick/cane.

I had been using a staff, a stick with elegance you might say. I have very little balance when standing. I sort of wave around unless I have something to hold on to. In October one evening, I was going to walk the dogs for last time before dark. As I headed out the driveway and I noticed I had no stick. And as I walked down the road, marveling at being able to walk and praising the Lord, I stopped to take a picture of one lone cloud. The glory of that sunset has remained in my mind. 

From there, I found that my interest in woodworking had started to return so I started to gather tools from eBay. The summer of 2025 found me with everything I needed to work with wood. Then the chickens and ducks started to show up, so I started to build what they need to live in. By the fall of this year, we had been accepted into the Presbyterian church, and we love going to Benton, Kansas, to worship our Lord at The Kirk of the Plains church. 

My Brother-in-Law also assigned me the task of building the chicken house. The month of October has been building this chicken house, in between rain and howling wind. And now with the end in sight, I will praise my Lord for his blessing, mercy and providence. None of this would be possible without His Grace.  To have the God of All, bless you, is humbling and exhilarating.

When I had the walls up and was thinking about how I was going to put the roof on and not really wanting to be on the roof… The Lord knows your thoughts before you know them; our beloved neighbors and friends, the Alquests, Alan and Sherry, saved the day by coming over and putting the roof on. And because the sheathing on the walls is basically wood chips embedded in glue, and will melt after too much rain, Alan said they had enough metal left over from their house build and would be pleased to get it out of their barn, another Grace from our Lord. Another beloved neighbor and friend, Steve Paul, also donated the red metal that has already been installed.

We are surrounded by neighbors who we love and that is another blessing from our Lord. Truly, His mercies are new every morning and have been. 

Now we are waiting for the howling wind to subside, 50 mph gusts for most of the day, to finish this building and the poultry and waterfowl can move in.