Chris Loehmer Kincaid's Blog, page 36

A Stop at the High Ground

             I feel like I’m way behind on blog posts this year already. It’s only the first of February, and I have no idea where 2023 has gone. And yet, I’m still blogging about places I went last fall.

            In October, after coming home from Kenya, I took off one weekend to visit my friend in Minnesota. I’ve been there a few times a year since she moved there, and I know I’ve traveled highway 10 through Neillsville before. I’ve seen the signs for this place but never took the time to stop. Until this time.

            From their website:

            The Highground Veterans Memorial Park, located four miles west of Neillsville, started as the Wisconsin Vietnam Veterans Memorial Project in 1984. It has grown to a 155-acre Park that includes a museum, a gift shop, pavilions, picnic areas and four miles of hiking trails. The private facility, which receives no ongoing federal or state funding, is supported by donations and grants. The Park is free to the public and open 24/7/365. Today, The Highground is the largest manned Veterans Park in the nation.

            I wish I would have spent more time there. I’ll definitely go back again, hopefully in the summer when the gardens are in bloom.

            A beautiful place with a beautiful purpose. Let us never forget the service our veterans gave our country.

All gave some, and some gave all. 
Click this link for more information. 

I promise . . .

I know. It’s been three months and seven days since I returned from my last trip to Kenya. I promise this will be the last blog post about it.

 

I wanted to share some pictures from The Hub mall in Karen. We went there our last Saturday in Africa; I needed to buy some nuts and treats to take home.

On the back side of the mall there are beautiful gardens surrounding a pond.

Since I was there last, they installed a bouncy house and a climbing wall, along with a zip line over the pond.

On Sunday, our very last day in Kenya, our host Marta took us and her two boys to a park outside of Kikuyu.

It’s called Leilani Gardens and has space for outdoor weddings and other events.

Parks like this always seem out of place in the dust and clutter of the cities of Kenya or the desert-like landscape of the Rift Valley.

There is a name for this grass by the way. We called it lumpy grass.

Speaking of lumpy, I never did tell you about how on our first full day in Kenya, I missed the last step going downstairs for breakfast.

This was my foot the second day.

And five days later. No, I didn’t bother going to the doctor or getting an x-ray. It finally stopped hurting and my full mobility returned around Christmas.

It was another eventful trip. And though I hated the thought of flying into Chicago at the end of it, it’s still always nice to get my feet – broken or not – on home soil.  

Searching

  When Jesus’ parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why did you do this to us? Your father and I were very worried about you and have been looking for you.”

 Jesus said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand the meaning of what he said. (Luke 2:48-50, New Century Version)

The story of Jesus’ birth is covered only in the book of Luke. He grows quickly from that Baby in the manager to a twelve-year-old Boy.

I’m sure He was the ideal Son, never giving His parents any grief. Yet, there stood Mary and Joseph at the Temple in Jerusalem, worried sick that Jesus had disappeared on them several days before. Then, they finally found Him conversing with the rabbis there.

“Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

These are the earliest recorded words that Jesus speaks in the Bible. At first glance, they seem a little sassy. His parents have been franking searching for Him, and Mary reprimands Him when they find Him.

But at only twelve years old, He’s already speaking to us.

It shouldn’t be so hard for anyone to find Jesus and the peace and salvation He offers. Many people search for happiness in all the wrong places. Instead, all we need to do is turn to God and His Word. The answers to our questions are right there in the Bible – our Father’s House.

Thank You, Jesus, for coming to this earth as an innocent Baby and showing us the way to our Heavenly Father and to salvation. Amen.

The Beach, Mombasa and the Trip Home

Back to my last trip to Kenya. Yes, I know it was over three months ago, but I just want to keep reliving it, especially with all the cloudy days of winter that we have left here in Wisconsin. 
I've shared a lot of pictures and stories from our four day stay at Diani Beach. 
 But how is it possible to not continue to imagine this beach with its blue water and that blue sky above and wish you were there. 
One of the big forms of transportation along the coast was the Tuk-tuk. These little motorbike cabs which motored up and down all the streets, with the nicest young men driving them. But after those four days, Friday morning it was time to head back to Nairobi. 

Unfortunately, the airport which we flew into on Monday closed for repairs two days later, forcing us to fly out of Mombasa. The airline loaded us into a coach bus at the airport and drove us the hour and a half to the Mombasa airport. Not a bad ride, but I anticipated what was coming. 
The city of Mombasa is mostly on an island, and though there are several bridges, I knew we'd have to take the ferry across the channel at one point. The picture below isn't from this trip, but is one which my daughter took when she boarded a pedestrian ferry in Mombasa in 2010. This is the kind of vessel you picture making news headlines when it sinks from being over loaded and over half of the passengers drown. 

I'm so thankful that our coach bus drove into a large vehicle ferry operated by the Likoni Ferry Service.  

And the crossing was so smooth, it didn't even feel like we were moving. 

Once back on land and in the city, I caught a few pictures out the bus's windows. 

Coz I'll take pictures of everything I can. 

Once we got to the airport, we unfortunately had a several hour wait for our plane to board. Time we would have rather spent on the beach. But there's always next time...
Okay, but I did find this blurb on Wikepedia: On April 29, 1994, the MV Mtongwe ferry bound for the mainland capsized just 40 meters from port, killing 272 of the 400 people on board.

Shredded

    But he was wounded for the wrong we did; he was crushed for the evil we did. The punishment, which made us well, was given to him, and we are healed because of his wounds. (Isaiah 53:5, New Century Version)
Every January, Hubby shreds a box full of our old financial statements. There probably is nothing in any of those papers which would compromise our finances, but sometimes I am still paranoid about that kind of stuff. I need to ask myself why there is still so much paper in this day and age of electronic records. But that's not today's story. 
I have all these papers, but I need more than to discard them in the trash or recycling. I'm compelled to shred them. 
Just like we should shred our sins. 
Which got me thinking. (And I hope I'm too graphic.) Maybe it wasn't enough for Jesus to die on that cross to take away our sins. Perhaps when the Roman soldiers were whipping Him and tearing His flesh, our sins were also being ripped and torn. 
Think about all the sins you commit every day. Ask for God's forgiveness, then rip those sins out of your life and start fresh. 
Lord, God, thank You for sending Your Son to suffer at the hands of the Romans and die on that cross so that we could be cleansed from our suffering. Amen.  

Dino the Wonder Dog

My handsome Dino
  He always liked the other animals. Here with Wesley. 
And baby Buddy  With Buddy nearly grown up With baby Bleu
With all the pups
And even with Lady, who didn't like many other dogs
He especially got along with the cats. Little Alice
Difficult Fred
Special Emma
And even visitor Brewster
His best four-legged friend, tho, was Ches What a handsome pair.

He even liked our bear
But his favorite activity was camping
And favorite thing to do while camping was playing fetch in Lake Superior


He went through three different campers with us even. Two pop-ups
And the travel trailer

Oh, sweet, sweet Dino He had always loved Christmas too. But this year? Not so much. Didn't even open any of his presents.
I guess that's when we knew it was time. 
I don't know why or when I started calling you the wonder dog.
But you will always be the Wonder Dog in our hearts. 

God loaned you to us from April 16, 2007 to January 4, 2023, and it was time God had you back. 

Do Not Be Still

 Do not keep silent, O God! Do not hold Your peace, And do not be still, O God! (Psalm 83:1, New King James Version)

Last Sunday, I introduced you to my Bible verse for this year. “Be Still and know that I am God.”

I thought today that I would follow up on that, cite other verses with the same message, that sort of thing. Instead, I stumbled on the passage above. It looks like, while God is telling us to be still, we are asking Him to not be still. We want His voice heard. We want Him to roar like a lion. We want Him to declare Himself to be God above all the heavens and earth.

Why do we want that? The last verse of Psalm 83 answers that question.

That they may know that You, whose name alone is the Lord, Are the Most High over all the earth. (Psalm 83:18, New King James Version)

The thing to remember, though, is that God has it under control. Yes, He listens to our prayers and our pleas. But He will be still when He chooses and roar like a lion when it’s the right time. He knows way more than we do. And as we wait for Him to act, we just need to be still and know He is God. 

Be Still and Know

 I’ve blogged about this Bible verse before. And it looks like I will keep right on (write on!) blogging about it.

Every year, I choose a word to help guide me through the next 365 days. Last year the word was “Faith,” and the Bible verse to go along with that was “Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1, New International Version).”

That’s pretty powerful. But 2022 was another brutal year. I did so much praying to God for so many people and so many situations, that my praying started turning into pleading and begging. If I have to plead and beg to have my prayers answered, is that really having faith in God?

The other night, as I lay in bed, once again praying, pleading, and begging, God's still Voice reached out to me. “Be still and know that I am God.”

“Yes, keep praying,” the Voice continued. “But once you have sent your prayer, let it go, because I have heard it, and I will take care of it. I will take care of you and your loved ones. Be still. Be calm. Be at peace.”

Okay, maybe He didn’t say all of that in so many words, but the sense of peace did flow over me. And, so, instead of a word for this year, it is this verse, because I know God

Sheets to the wind, or to the trash

 I’m sure this is going to be one of my more bizarre posts. I mean, look at that picture! So, it was the week before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even whatever this face was on my bed.  Ok, just kidding. Seriously. The week before Christmas, I washed the sheets and was putting them back on the bed when I noticed this grimace. I knew the sheets were getting thin, but I didn’t realize they were this worn until these rips started staring at me.  Good thing I had bought a set of sheets for Santa to give Hubby and me on Christmas morning. Except that my OCD would definitely not allow me to leave a fitted sheet in this condition on the bed.  I didn’t have time to wrap the new sheets, much less get them on the bed – “Surprise, Honey, looks like Santa got us sheets a week early and even put them on for us!” as we were crawling under the covers that night.  Looking at the calendar just now, I should have been really quick-thinking and wished him Happy Hanukkah!  Anyway, that’s how my week before Christmas began. Yes, it got better, and actually, the thing with the sheets was just that – a dumb thing that happens to us all. And it’s not like Hubby really thought Santa was bringing him any presents this year. Or was he? Hope you had a good holiday and that we all head into the New Year safe, healthy and prosperous. 

The Everlasting Light

           That night, some shepherds were in the fields nearby watching their sheep. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them. The glory of the Lord was shining around them, and they became very frightened. The angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I am bringing you good news that will be a great joy to all the people. Today your Savior was born in the town of David. He is Christ, the Lord. This is how you will know him: You will find a baby wrapped in pieces of cloth and lying in a feeding box.”

Then a very large group of angels from heaven joined the first angel, praising God and saying:

“Give glory to God in heaven, and on earth let there be peace among the people who please God.” (Luke 2:8-14, New Century Version)

Merry Christmas one and all.