August Rain, Climate Change, and George Carlin | by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on August 15, 2017:

This creek is usually 6″ wide and half that deep.

“I think we’ve been abducted and mistakenly returned somewhere other than Texas.” I’ve heard David make that statement several times recently. It’s a valid observation. August is usually very hot and very dry in the Lone Star State, but so far we’ve had between 8-10” at our house and a week with highs in the 80s – and it’s only the 13^th!

I hesitated to broach this subject, because it usually leads to discussions about climate change. The last time I engaged in that kind of conversation, it didn’t end well. Shortly after the last election, a friend who was unhappy with the results reached out to me in an attempt to understand “the other side.” She asked questions and asked for honest answers, but when I responded, she was shocked. Knowing someone disagrees with you apparently evokes completely different emotions than seeing it written down in black and white. Let’s just say she now thinks the Venus/Mars difference between men and women is more manageable than our differing beliefs.

The Brendles go to the dogs | by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on June 27, 2017:

The world of training and showing dogs is a subculture that most of us never experience except maybe to watch the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show once a year. My introduction to the culture came when we moved to Florida in 2005 and I met Sue and Sophie. Sophie is a beautiful, pure-bred Miniature Schnauzer, and Sue was a fellow caregiver who had decided that dog training would be fun and might also relieve some of her stress. Sophie was better suited to racing around an obstacle course then to posing and strutting around a show ring, so Sue decided to pursue Dog Agility.

Sophie will soon be twelve years old, and she recently retired with seven MACH titles. According to the American Kennel Club, a dog becomes a Master Agility Champion when she earns “750 championship points and 20 double qualifying scores obtained from the Master Standard Agility class and the Master Jumpers With Weaves class.” I understood very little of what that meant until this weekend when David and I attended our first dog show in West Monroe Louisiana.

Appreciating the Pastor| by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on October 18, 2016:

Pastor Appreciation Day was the second Sunday in this month, and we honored Pastor Jason with cards, notes, and hugs. We didn’t have a big celebration, but I hope we let him know throughout the year how much we appreciate him.

David and I first met Pastor Jason in early 2011 when we moved to Emory and began our search for a church home. We visited several local churches, and while all of them were wonderful places to worship, we were drawn to Believers’ Baptist and returned there several times. One Sunday morning, Jason and his wife Stacy invited us to join them for lunch after church, and we realized how gracious and friendly they were and how deeply committed to his family he is.

Why do they volunteer? by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on September 27, 2016:

If you drove north on Highway 19 last week, you probably noticed some unusual commotion going on around Believers’ Baptist Church. Actually, the activity started several weeks ago when ground was broken and a foundation was prepared for a new building dedicated to our youth and children’s ministries. Last Monday, however, the work began in earnest when a crew from Volunteer Christian Builders arrived.

Pee Wee Football – It’s not just a game! by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on September 13, 2016:

Sunday was 1^st Down and a Season to Go at my church this week. Pastor Jason is one of the coaches of the 5^th and 6^th Grade Rains County Wildcat Pee Wee Football Team, and he invited his players, coaches, and their families to come to Believers’ Baptist for a Continental breakfast before joining us in the morning worship service. In honor of the day, the boys wore their team jerseys, and everyone else who had a t-shirt from a favorite sports team wore it.

There was a festive air in the church along with lots of smiles as twenty plus young men filed in and took their places on the front rows of the section where our youth usually sit. Lots of proud parents and siblings filled seats around the sanctuary, and the ushers brought in extra chairs to accommodate the overflow crowd. The morning proceeded much as I had expected, but what I didn’t expected was to be totally impressed by the way the team members conducted themselves and by the obvious connection between the team and the coaching staff.

Book Review: Song in the Night: One Family’s Journey From Darkness To Dawn by Pamela Thorson

Blurb: As a young Christian, Kevin Thorson was a normal, healthy 19-year-old. Music was his life, and he planned to play his guitar and use his talents for God. Abruptly, all seemed to end July 11, 1997.

His mother recalls the words from that dreaded phone call: Pam, you need to sit down… Kevin has been in an accident… paralyzed… ventilator… hospital… She could only comprehend the bits in between those horrifying words. Kevin was lying paralyzed on a ventilator in a foreign country with a broken neck.

Pam Thorson recounts the true story of her family’s nightmare as they struggled to live out their faith in the face of impossible odds. Song of the Night traces the journey of her family to find peace in the midst of so much darkness.

Review: “Mom, I’ve been thinking. I don’t want to do something easy for God. I want to do something hard for Him. I have asked Him to send me to a hard place.”

Shortly after sharing this aspiration with his mother, Kevin Thorson finds himself in a place where life is not just hard but it is impossible to move from the neck down or even to breathe without help. A Song in the Night: One Family’s Journey from Darkness to Dawn is the story of the hard place where Kevin and his loved ones have lived since that day in July when he failed to complete a back flip successfully. It is the heart cry of a mother who will do literally anything to hang on to the fragile life of her son.

Song is also the story of a remarkable family who is willing to restructure not only their home but also their lives to care for a loved one in need. Siblings fight, not for the attention they feel they are missing, but rather for the privilege of learning new skills and using those skills to help their brother. Husband and wife seem to neglect their marriage only to grow closer to each other. Through all the tribulation, the entire family grows closer to God.

In telling her story, Pamela Thorson writes about the faith, the hope, and the love; but she also writes about the doubt, the fear, the exhaustion, the anger, and the despair. Song in the Night is both heartbreaking and uplifting as the reader witnesses a group of people who refuse to give up as they move from darkness to dawn, from tragedy to miracle.

Available at Amazon.com 

Author: Pam was born at the Millington Naval Base outside of Memphis, Tennessee, the first child of a Wisconsin navy seaman and a Southern belle. Her early life was marked by many moves around the country as her father pursued a career in broadcasting. After traveling throughout the deep South and the Pacific Northwest, the family finally settled on the Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) reservation in Idaho. Pam met her wonderful husband during college, set her roots down deep along the banks of the Clearwater River, and happily began a home and family.

Pam and Aaron educated all five of their children at home. They began homeschooling in 1982 and graduated their youngest daughter in 2006. Pam and Aaron have been married forty-one years. They have five grown children, two sets of precious in-laws, and two beautiful granddaughters.

Pam has long loved to write. She began writing for the local college newspaper and homeschooling group. Later she authored many devotionals for her church and an article for Evangel. In 2008 she wrote Song in the Night, the true account of her son’s injury in Canada, their fight to keep the doctors from pulling the plug, and the subsequent journey back home. Her second book is due for release by Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas in early 2014.

In 2000, Pam became certified as a nurses’ aide to care for their injured son. She and her family have operated a certified family home licensed by the state of Idaho since 2000. In 2011, she completed the practical nurse program at Walla Walla Community College and earned her license as an LPN.

Her conversion to the Lord Jesus Christ in 1975 set her on a journey with her Savior spanning nearly four decades. Her love for and devotion to life has come from this association with her Creator. Pam adores her husband, her family, and friends. She enjoys her beautiful little log home, good coffee, the sound of the river at night, and just about any kind of Christian music.

Visit Pam here:

Website

Twitter 

Facebook

Pinterest 

Also read previous posts about Pam and her work:

Interview Part 1

Interview Part 2

Review of Out from the Shadows

Blessings,

Linda

Kitty condo, poke salad, and blackberries | by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on May 3, 2016:

The last couple of weeks have been a time of counting blessings at the Brendle house. Nothing really big, but like dynamite, blessings often come in small packages. I’d like to tell you about three of ours.

The first was poke salad. Until we moved to Emory, all I knew about poke salad was that it was the subject of an Elvis song from the late sixties. Then, two years ago, someone brought some poke salad to the Senior Center. David and I checked it out and realized we had lots of it growing around our back yard. I had heard a lot of stories about the dangers of the green, so I did some on-line research and harvested some. Both of us enjoyed it, and neither of us suffered any ill effects, so I added it to my list of menu items.