Ron Kipfer

Ron Kipfer from Bluffton country was in Peoria today. We are always so glad to see him. He had a few stories that were true and funny. The first was of his grandson. He was just a little guy of maybe 4 years old when he ran into a table and got a cut near his eye. When grandpa Ron asked his daughter about it he was told this story. He ran into the table and was crying, I tried to comfort him and asked him if we should ask Jesus to come heal the owie and was told NO, I asked again, let's pray and ask Jesus to help with the pain and again was told no. By this time Ron's daughter was thinking what is the matter with my son, Why would he not want to pray so I finally asked him, "honey why don't you want us to ask Jesus to heal your owie?" "Mom" he replies, "Jesus lives in my heart, I don't want him to come out just to look at my little owie." Ahh the faith of a child!
The second story actually started when Ron said there was something he was convicted about. He stopped, then told the story of the girl that started coming to Bluffton Country. This girl had never been to any church and had lived a pretty rough life. She heard the minister talk about being convicted, she heard others in the congregation talk of being convicted and finally asked someone, "just what is it with this church? Why have they all gone to jail?"
We walked out of afternoon church and couldn't believe how hot it was outside. On the way home from church our car thermometer was reading 89 degrees.
We decided to pick up 5 pizzas from Sams club and take them to the lake at 5:00pm before the scheduled 6:00pm volley ball started up. The group that showed up was larger than last week. The wind was blowing pretty hard so Diane opened up her house for the meal. Mom very discretely slips a bill into my hand to help pay for the pizza, I look at the bill and see it is a HUNDRED! "mom, the pizza didn't even cost that much" she was told, but she said no she wanted to help. I finally asked her if she was aware of what she had given me then showed her the bill. She was SHOCKED, she thought she was giving me a twenty. The camera was left back at the house so no pictures but it really was a hundred dollar bill Spark gave her to help pay for gas for their drive home from Gulf Shores yesterday. The kids finished eating and headed over to the volley ball court while Mark and I drove over to the farm. The mares were let out and Sanna's leg hosed before we started on the real reason we were there. Lily's paddock needed a new round bale, the middle paddock needed one and Raven's paddock needed one. With Mark's help that went quickly. He worked on the lighting at the apartment while I headed over to the playground to watch the volley ball and visit with the many family members there. The games were entertaining to watch, the volleys went on for minutes at a time, the kids rarely let the ball hit the ground and the slams were awesome but the returns even more impressive. And we use to think we were good! The mares needed to be put away and Rebekah helped with that before tacking Larry up for the ride home. Sanna was stalled as there are strong storms predicted tonight.
After volley ball Rachel brought over a couple of guitars and the praise singing started. Mark and I needed to get Nancy back to Morton as it was already after 8:00pm but we hated to leave. The singing and the evening sky was just beautiful.
The storms have now started with the distant sound of thunder and the roar of the wind driven rain.