A year ago today......

......was one of the most exciting days of my life!!!

Here's why:
The Lord allowed my brothers and I to find an elderly man who had been missing for several days---a man who people were afraid would be dead because of the time that had lapsed without him having a refill of oxygen in his tank---a man who was thought to be dead because of his mental troubles (he has dimentia), meaning he could be ANYWHERE---and a man whose last sighting had been on Sunday (and it was now Tuesday afternoon). It was a true miracle that we found him for several reasons, but I think the biggest is that our pasture equals about a thousand acres of rolling land, (can you imagine finding one person in all of that grass?) but it is divided up into many different cells... It "Just so happened" that our dad had asked us to go up to the flowing well that day to check that the water was going into the tanks and to check the fence. It also "Just so happened" that that cell we went to was the one that Mr. Millers' pickup was in. Once again, it "Just so happened" that Andrew had heard on the radio that a man was missing and remembered the description of the pickup and the phone number to call if you had any information that might be helpful in the finding of the missing man. And, once more, it "Just so happened" that my family home schools, but we don't start school quite this early, so we were all free in the early afternoon to go up to the pasture and do our assignment--and that's when we found the pickup and, later, the man! I really think that, if we had not found him when we did, he would not be alive now, as that night it got very cold out and it rained. It would have been hard for even a person in good condition to stay in good health--lying out in the middle of a pasture with no protection, let alone a 76 year old man who had Dementia and who was dehydrated and in need of oxygen! The last we heard of Mr. Miller, he was in a nursing home in Bismarck, close to his family. We received much thanks from his wife and his daughter, which we were grateful for, but which wasn't really necessary because the excitement of the day and the joy it brought when we found Mr. M. alive was payment enough for us!

I'm sharing a link to the article that was printed in the Bismarck Tribune a year ago today in case you'd like to read more: http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2008/08/27/news/topnews/163183.txt. I praise God again tonight for His guiding hand on that special day and for His letting us play a part in that real-to-life drama...

So, how did we spend our "Anniversary", you ask? Well, the boys went and picked up and payed for a calf from our neighbors, the Jankos, while I ground up the applesauce so Mother didn't have to do that when I left.... Then we spent the afternoon in the hayfield once again: Andrew & I moving around about 200 large square bales and Jacob bunching a fields' worth of round bales. We arrived home to the smell of freshly baked bread and to the news that our dad had just returned home about 5 minutes before us from his grain-cleaning job...

Those were the highlights of the day. It was nothing like last August the 27th, but it was a good day nevertheless!~