Hatchlings, Mission’s Conference, rain

The eggs that the Banty hens have been sitting on are now hatching. The first hatching happened in the little coop and Mama has left that chick to be mothered by the hens in that coop. So far there are two hens providing that mothering oversight. The eggs Mama collected from the hens a few days ago – they were trying to sit in too many in the cool weather – were placed in an incubator. Yesterday those eggs also began to hatch.
So far, we have two out of the shell and a third trying to escape the shell. Mama was concerned that the third chick had died in the hatching process, but when I shuffled the eggs, I saw movement from that hatchling. Whether or not it does succeed remains to be seen, but for the moment, we are hopeful. There are eleven more eggs in the incubator that could be hatching, but we will wait on those results before making a final count.

Additionally, I stopped the automatic egg turner in the incubator holding our six duck eggs. As with the chicken eggs, we will just have to wait and see how many of those will hatch. By the end of next week, all that are viable will have come out of their shells. Not that we need any more Banty chickens or ducks, it is just somewhat addictive to participate in the process of hatching the eggs. So much so that as soon as the larger incubator is available, I will fill it with Quail eggs to see if we can achieve any success hatching those eggs.

Our Mission’s Conference ended last night. So much good preaching and instruction. The theme was how the four Gospels and Acts 1:8 together present to us the full picture of the Great Commission. Each Gospel ends with an admonition, a commission to preach the Gospel, the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, each of those commissions represent a portion of the commission we have been given. Taken together as a whole, they represent the Sender, the Scope, the Strategy, the Subject and the Spirit required to participate in the Father’s mission to reach “all nations” with the Gospel. Each Gospel, because of the disparate individual focuses of those Gospels as the writers separately relate the life and ministry of Christ, provided a specific portion on the commission we have been given.

To make all the information digestible, we were given a study sheet that could be filled out to keep pace with the points being made as Dr Fielder preached. I was filling in the blanks as required on the study sheet and taking additional personal notes as well. It will take me some time to process all the nuggets of truth that were given sermon by sermon. The intent was to not only make us aware of our responsibility of presenting the Gospel to those we are able to reach right now, but to give us an operating principles for doing so. We are called on to participate with God by the power of the Holy Spirit to share what God has done in our lives because of the salvation He has given to us.

Mama and I have talked for some weeks that we need to start participating in Soul Winning with our church. We have lapsed in doing so because of the needs of the farm. At least, that has been my excuse. Saturday is the only day I have to dedicate to those needs and chores, so I have justified my avoidance of participating because I did not want to give up that time; generally speaking, half the day is gone by the time we get home from Soul Winning. But the reality is that there are more important things to do than working around our little farm, and I have found in my walk with God that He will repay that time in so many interesting and useful ways if we are willing to put Him first. So, we will once again join those going out on Saturday mornings to call on our bus kids and to share our testimony with those we are given opportunity to speak with.

I do not have many years left and in the timeline of my life, what occupies my attention on the farm is not as important to the Father as it is to me. C.T. Studd once famously said in a poem, “Only one life will soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.” One day in the not too distant future, Mama and I will give up the farm so neglecting God’s for a short term gain will possibly steal from me a long term gain. So, we are going to shift our focus to those things that are important to the Lord. We will see how that affects the outcomes here at the farm, but I know God is good and I would rather have His blessings on my life than any gains I can accomplish outside of those blessings.

Over the past couple days, we had a little over an inch of rain. What a blessing! The garden and all our trees got a much-needed long drink of water. The rain fell over the course of seven hours. Gently most of the time with only brief periods of heavier showers. Not only have we been in great need of that rain in general, but I have been waiting for the rain to soften the ground somewhat. I will be driving forty Tee posts into the ground to reinforce the fences in the barn lot and to date the ground has been far too hard. Now, I should be able to begin driving those posts along the fence as needed. I will not be able to do all forty in one weekend, but I hope to get half of them done. Grandpa has been chomping at the bit to get those posts set so we can fix the fence line in the barn lot.

What comes next in his mind, he has not shared with me yet, but it should be fun.