The banker

After looking over the cemetery plots, we drove into town to see the banker.

The banker happens to be Al's brother.

I was surprised to see this painting on the wall.

I painted this picture of the farm back before we had children and gave it to the folks as a gift.  Sid asked if he could have it after they passed away.  Since he lives on the farm now, I was happy to let him have it.

Sid pointed out that 3 of the 5 buildings in the picture aren't there any more.  The roundtop burned down, the barn fell into disrepair and I don't know about the shed.  The chicken coop and the house are still there.

 See the vault?  Back in the late 70s or 80s, Allen's mother used to work at the bank.  One day a robber came into the bank and locked up the workers in that vault.

Another year, some jokers tried to tunnel their way through into the bank from the building next door. They were caught before they could finish.

The restaurant in town closed shop so we went to Strohl's gas station for pizza.  The rest of the family joined us.

It happened to be Jared's 20th birthday!  In Japan, age 20 is when you are considered an adult.

 We had to drag Main of course.

We stopped to see Prairie Sunset Home.

We hadn't seen it since it was remodeled.  It was so pretty!!

 Our sister-in-law works there.

We saw that many of the couples who were friends of our parents are now residents.  These were people who were younger than we are now back in the day when we lived in town!

We took a different road home, going through Amish country.

We've had lots of rain.

 No real need for irrigation this summer.

 Prairie pots?  What an appropriate name for pots on the prairies of Kansas.

Inscriptions

We decided to make a trip to Pretty Prairie.

An "exciting" trip to decide on which plots to pick for our "final resting place".
Well, at least for our "earth suits", our earthly bodies.  Before we receive NEW, awesome, bodies!
(2 Corinthians 5, from the Bible)

Stopping for construction, we noticed the vehicle in front of us had a bumper sticker from one of our church plants!

As we drove, it began to rain.  A LOT!

When we were teens, there was a row of trees to the east of this road (picture below).  All gone now.
A change because of a tornado that tore them to shreds!

There have been several tornados that have begun in this area.  The Hesston tornado began here.

The Arkansas river.  Here we call it the Ar- KANSAS river.  In Arkansas, they say Ar-kan-saw.  Hey, people, there is an S at the end?

 When we got to the church cemetery, it began to downpour so we sat in the truck for awhile and looked at the map that the sexton, or the cemetery keeper gave us.  We were going to decide between 2 different lots.

 One cattywompus from his parents and the other fairly close to my parents.
And really both were in the same vicinity.   Just yards apart.

The picture below is where I'm standing on the plot by his his parents and grandparents.
The one we ended up choosing.
Wierd to know our bodies will probably lie below where we are standing.

Can you imagine that day when Christ returns and the dead in Christ arise??!!

1 Thess. 4:16  "For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God.  First, the Christians who have died will rise from their graves.  Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.  Then we will be with the Lord forever."!!!!!!!

What a day that will be!!!

Did you know that on the day that Jesus rose from the dead, many others also came out of their graves?   Extra-biblical texts say as many as 12,000 people!

Matthew 27:52,53

The graves opened, and many of God’s people who had died were raised from the dead.  They came out of the graves after Jesus was raised from the dead and went into the holy city, where they appeared to many people.

* * * *

We began to go around and look at the various verses that people chose as inscriptions or epitaphs on their stones.

I love that one!  From Psalm 16, my favorite passage.  I might want that one too.

               Someone once wrote that they wanted written
                       "I am ALIVE, thank you!  Just relocated.  Change of address!"

Erma Bombeck said she wanted "Big deal!  I'm used to dust!"

 This was Al's cousin who was killed in a plane crash

 A couple were in German since that was the original language spoken when they came to America.  This person would have been 14 years old when he immigrated.

This man would have been born in America as they immigrated here in 1874.
But they didn't begin speaking English for awhile.

 We chose Numbers 6:24-26 for my parents' as my Dad regularly gave the father's blessing.

So many good ones!  Ones I have thought about are:

 "With Christ, which is far better!" Philippians 1:23
                          or "The Lord will fulfill His purpose for me."  Psalm 138:8

You can pretty much put whatever you want as you will see below.  It was one we saw in a cemetery several years ago on a Kansas trip with our friends, the Deweys.  It belonged to Abe Lincoln's sister's brother-in-law: