COVER LETTER
Dear Rural and Small Town Americans,
I am asking you to read this ACTION PLAN
FOR SMALL TOWN AMERICA. I am NOT trying to sell you anything, ask for money, or your
vote. We are the people of rural and small town America, and I am asking that
we come together and take action to save our little towns and farms, our way of
life, and all that we hold near and dear.
The foundation on which our little towns
and farms were built has been crumbling for decades. And having been weakened
from decades of decline, we now face a socialist enemy that is working hard to
finish off our culture like a damaged village gate, so they can bust it down
and rob us of our land. Meanwhile, the capitalist are in bed with whoever
controls the money. Our tradition is one of faith, but instead of trusting in God
to provide for us, we have chosen to trust those who seek power, money, and
control. And as a result; we are now in a landslide cultural collapse. Soon our
backs will be up against the wall, and it will be too late to save what we
love.
You may already volunteer in activities
for rural and small town America. You may be raising a family without a minute
to spare, doing all you can to ensure your children’s future. No matter your
case, we are all in the same do-or-die situation. The good news is; we need
only show our faith, and God will take care of the rest. I will be out walking with
my horse and wagon on gravel roads from farm-to-farm and town-to-town. Come and
join me if you can. Or make copies of this ACTION PLAN and give them to everyone you know.
Post the action-posters around your town. Use the talking points, or make new talking
points, and share them with all of us. Bring your community together, draft and
sign a compact for your community, and get going on a path to restore freedom
and vitality to rural and small town America.
Thank you, and may God bless you.
James Sheldon
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PRELUDE
(“The truth will set us free.”)
When our pioneer forefathers and mothers built our farms
and towns, they were following God. And thus, being Godly with their hands in
the care of things, they found fulfillment in His love of making things. They
built their new world to last.
But today, under the trees they planted, fruit
lies rotting while we eat from the hands of those who seek power, money, and
control. We can continue like we are, and lose our freedom. Or we can put
ourselves back in God’s hands, where His truth will set us free.
This plan is not for those who feel a need to
control others, for that is a path to socialism. Nor is this plan for those who
worship the dollar, for that has become the destination
of capitalism. This plan is for
Christians who hear the voice of God in their hearts, calling them to build a
better world by way of the path He gives them. This plan is for Christians who
see a new frontier where there are no more frontiers, and who want to enter
that frontier on a path of faith, and build on God’s truth. And this plan is
open to modification by such Christians.
MISSION STATEMENT
THE PURPOSE OF FAITH MARCH is to deliver a plan to help we of rural and small town
America take action to repair the foundation on which our peace, harmony, and
happiness depends. A plan to bring us back together as a people. To reestablish
our Christian values, not with hollow words but through actions that inspire
us, and unite us, and compel us to save our little towns and farms, and all
that we hold near and dear.
Small Town America: Rural Communities with Populations
to 1, 500.
Medium Town: 1,500 - 5,000. Large
Town: 5,000 - 10,000.
Small City: 10,000 - 50,000. Medium City: 50,000 - 150,000. Big City: 150,000 - 1,000.000.
Megalopolis: 1,000.000 plus.
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ACTION PLAN
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Step I: COME
TOGETHER AS A PEOPLE
Step
II: DRAFT
AND SIGN YOUR COMPACT
Step III: GATHER RESOURCES
Step
IV: BUILD YOUR
COMMUNITY
Step V: SUSTAIN YOUR COMMUNITY
Step
VI: PROTECT
YOUR COMMUNITY
Step
VII: ENSURE
THE FURURE
(STEP I)
In this section,
you will find material that will help you bring your community together; to
save what you love, for you and all of Rural and Small Town America.
1)
Get Started
2)
Posters
3)
Talking Points
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TO GET STARTED
(STEP I, COME TOGETHER)
A) GATHER:
a)
Find
believers who possess the determined-optimism of our pioneer forebears.
b)
Find
men and women willing to take risks with faith in God.
c)
Find
adventurers who left for the cities, and ask them to come home.
d)
Find
team-players able to put their differences aside for the sake of our people.
B)
ASK
TOUGH QUESTIONS NOW NOT LATER:
a)
Are
you ready to act? For example, will you work aggressively and creatively within
the law to run drug-pushers out of town? Will you form another team to revive
our wonderful story and get it out on the streets and into the hearts of our
lost children?
b)
Show
that you’re ready to act. Start by putting your names and numbers on the posters,
then pass them out, and post them in high traffic areas in your community. Have faith, and others will see that you’re working
for what they love, and they’ll step forward to join our cause!
C)
KINDLE
THE HUMBLE:
a)
Hold
a gathering in your town (in a neutral place). Give all who are willing to give
Jesus a chance; a chance to discuss this plan, tell their hopes, fears, and
expectations. Do not get hogtied in debate (the Bible tells us, men who talk
too much are fools). A fool will babble while there is work to be done, but
brave men and women act to protect and
nurture what they love. And our first act
is to come together in good faith!
b)
Meet
again, continue the discussion and begin the organizational process. Pray, cook,
eat, sing, and play games together.
c)
Continue
to gel as team, and then move on to Step II. Do not get stuck in Step I. Do not
gel just to become “temple jelly.” God
is waiting for you. So move on to Step
II.
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POSTERS
(Step I, Come Together)
Make copies of
these posters, share them with your friends, pass them out in
your community, and put them on poles and windows. Have faith, put your best foot
forward (and your name and number on the posters), and you
will find many people who
want to help save what we love!
6
Note: Posters below are fuzzy but you can get a clear view by
clicking on them.
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WINNING HEARTS
AND MINDS
(TALKING POINTS)(STEP I CONTINUED, COME TOGETHER)
FOR THE SAKE OF
WHAT WE LOVE
LET’S NOT ARGUE AMONG OURSELVES BUT RATHER,
LET’S TAKE THE ARGUMENT
AWAY FROM OUR ENEMIES!
We
are not at the mercy of the tide. We can come together as a people under God,
and stand for what we love. With God’s truth, we can win hearts and minds,
argument by argument. And we can start now.
EXAMPLES
1) CREATION vs EVOLUTION:
Our “hick” minds
are not narrow enough to think our existence a coincidence. So we don’t buy the
theory of “evolution” lock-stock-and-barrel. But we can see the seemingly slow
and methodic mechanism of nature as evidence to that which manifests itself in
craftsmanship, being a love of making things, which comes from God who [being
the Ultimate Craftsman] is forever about by means which men cannot comprehend
beyond the level of their own finite limitations. For example, scientists give
the universe a size and age, but in self-evident truth, the universe is
infinite (meaning it is unknowable, mysterious, and fantastic). Therefore the
origin of man is beyond the reach of science. And yet, the origin of the
species is within man’s reach, for in the care of The Ultimate Craftsman,
anyone who cares to reach out will grow in the labor of His love.
2)
RELIGION
vs SCIENCE:
Why don’t we question the roll of Science in our
society?
The answer can be traced back to a clause in our Constitution that has allowed
the establishment of science as a shadow
religion. A shadow religion does what religion does but without calling
itself religion. Science has become our national path, with great institutions
that “help” us know how to feel, think, and build “better” lives. With it, we
have built an infrastructure of destruction,
but we are also creative, and because I haven’t the wisdom to get myself beyond
the conundrum of knowing which choices are more of one than the other, I follow
the One who can. By walking on His path; I avoid sin-based decisions that
damage the gifts He has given; the beauty of nature, the miracle of life in newborn eyes, and my very
soul.
3) FAITH vs REASON:
The mind shines
brightest when acting as loyal servant to the heart, not just any heart, but a
heart that loves Jesus. Think about it? Why did Jesus tell us to love our
enemies? Not because it stands to reason, being some kind of fairness doctrine
that must be applied due to the fact that all people are good and bad. No, He
told us because; when we allow hate (or any sin) to dwell in our hearts, we
damage our souls! He told us because He holds our best interest at heart. He
loves us! Without condition! And in turn, we are to follow His example, and
love others without condition even as we stand firm for His truth. Without
this, even the “best and brightest minds” function as servants to sinful hearts
and find Reason to “justify” acts of greed, hate, and every manner of sin.
4) ON-THE-GROUND REALITY vs MEDIA PORTRAYAL & PROFIT:
I walked and
paddled 4,000 miles through America, from one small town to another, little
farms, and big cities, with no doors to lock or walls to sleep behind… it was
real as it gets. And when I got home, the first thing I did; I THREW MY TV OUT OF MY HOUSE! How, for example, would “the media” feel if I
were to go about visiting different worlds like walking from one orchard to
another, and I took rotten apples from the media-orchard, which I then took to
other orchards to show people what kind of world the media-orchard was? What
if, with my extraordinary skill, I made tons of money selling my apples and
gained extraordinary power with which I multiplied my business of selectively
picking apples to portray all kinds of things? What if I had sister companies
that sold apples designed for kids, which was highly profitable because it put
profit above kids? What if society became so conditioned to my apples, they
didn’t know how to pick their own fruit? What if drunk with power, I fooled
myself and the people to believe I had only their best interest at heart? And
what if, without God, I couldn’t stop from digging myself deeper and deeper
into a hole? What awful pit would I, soon or later, find myself in, along with
the poor souls who followed me there? An
awful pit is where tragedy is a high profit commodity (like when school children
get slaughtered), packaged and piped into every home with a digital drum roll. If you do not want to end up in a pit, put
your trust in the one true King who holds your best interest at heart. Roll up
your sleeves, pack your wagon, and come to where the old wagon paths can still
be found. We will travel them together,
through a time of truth, to a better world.
5)
UNI-CULTURALISM
vs MULTI-CULTUALISM:
Jesus
became the light of the world by being a man of His people, not by being a worldly man. This does
not mean we are against other peoples, we are not. We are a disappearing
people, and after dwindling for decades, we have reached a point where we will
fall apart if we do not come together. So yes, we have a duty, not only to come
together in our homes, churches, and communities, but in our hearts. How, for
example, would undocumented Mexican immigrants feel if undocumented people from
China began flooding into Mexico? How would they feel if their families and
friends back home in little towns and farms along with their culture and all
they held near and dear were fighting for survival while powerful socialist and
capitalist behaved like wolves around injured prey? And how would they feel if
the undocumented Chinese immigrants allied themselves with the “wolves” who
promised a share of the kill? And what if the wolves were masters at using the
media to demonize all who opposed them? And what if Mexican temple-dwellers (who
did not walk among their people like Jesus instructed his disciples) welcomed
the immigrants as brothers in Christ? Who outside of Jesus and His humble
Mexican brothers would know the agonizing truth about what was being lost?
6) TOLERANCE vs INTOLERANCE:
Hate blinds the multi-cultural extremists to the love and
loyalty that is the beauty of the cultural bond, without which small communities cannot keep the peace and
harmony essential to their happiness. Ignorance and bias makes the
multi-cultural radical seek the destruction of the bond. With eyes closed tight
in the name of "justice," multi-cultural fanatics would put Eskimos in with Aborigines (so to
speak) until the face of the world was made-over in an attempt to
achieve an ideological ideal, but they
would only succeed in breaking the bond that holds these communities
together. This bond is the same everywhere around the world, and all
people have a right to it.
7) CHURCH vs STATE:
When a vast
majority loves God, the “Separation of Church and State” works. Otherwise, the
State becomes “God,” or the Market becomes “God,” but in either case, there is
nothing to separate those who seek power and control from the lies they tell to
“justify” their greed and anger. Do not go along with them. Do not let them
hold you prisoner before the trailhead of salvation. The gift of freewill means
no one but you can separate you from His truth, which will set you free, and
with His truth in your heart, you will be separate from the State, and anything
else that seeks to separate you from God.
8)
CHRISTENDOM
vs ISLAM:
Jesus walked
from town to town preaching peace and love. Mohammad rode with a group of armed
horsemen who robbed, pillaged, and murdered. There is no question as to who set
the good example and who set the bad example. There is no question as to which is
good and which is evil. The question is, have we grown so freakishly lame as to
accept the PC LIE? Or will we
stand and speak truth to power like Jesus did!
9) TRUTH vs LIES:
The plain truth is this: If we put ourselves in the hands of those
who seek power, money, and control; we will lose our freedom. If we are too busy to make a stand, or we just
don’t want the trouble of taking it on our own shoulders, and therefore, we trust
our fate to those who seek power, money, and control; we should not be
surprised when an alliance of big government and big business establish the
first American work farm. Of course it would not be called a work farm, it
would be called something else, and it would be touted as a great day for
America (a great day for god hating socialist and money loving capitalist, and
a gigantic lie for the rest of us). And yet, we would accept it as a people who
didn’t stand when they should have, but instead accepted one lie after another
until there was no more truth left. Our
time to stand is now, today!
10) HUMBLE vs POWERFUL :
Below is a quote from the American
scholar, Will Durant:
“There
is no greater drama in human record than the sight of a few Christians, scorned
or oppressed by a succession of emperors, bearing all trials with fierce
tenacity, multiplying quietly, building order while their enemies generated
chaos, fighting the sword with the word, brutality with hope, and at last
defeating [Rome] the strongest state that history has known. Caesar and Christ
had met in the arena, and Christ had won.”
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_______________________________________________________________
DRAFT
YOUR COMPACT
(Step II)
In this section,
you will find an outline that will help you draft a compact for your community,
as part of small town America. Your compact is your mission statement with one
another, to save what you love!
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YOUR
COMMUNITY COMPACT
(Step II)
A)
KEEP
IT SIMPLE:
· When
drafting your compact, remember the example of our pioneer forbearers who began
only with what fit in a wagon. Later on, trains would bring “bigger and better”
things but the foundation of our culture was built by men and women who put
themselves in God’s hands, and thereby learnt the truths He held out for them
to find.
· Fit
your compact on one page, with type large enough to read, and straight forward
language that is easy to understand.
B)
SET
THE STAGE FOR FREEDOM:
a)
Morally:
·
Acknowledge
that our survival as a people hinges on coming together in Christ; our Teacher,
God’s faithful Son, who gave His life to save His people.
·
Identify
the Holy Bible as your master-blueprint, acknowledge sin as the cause of your
problems, and commit to freedom through hard work, discipline, and gratitude. Pledge
to usher God’s love into the hearts of our children with stories, song, and dance. Ask God for guidance and
courage to walk the path of truth regardless of your fate... trusting that He
knows best.
b)
Materially:
·
State
your intent to support community members who take on the hard work and risk of
small business ownership (support business that are locally owned and
operated).
·
Set
a long-term goal to gain independence from outside forces that do not hold your
beliefs or best interest at heart but control the supply of material resources
on which your community depends (build your water, food, shelter, and energy
self-reliance).
·
Pledge
to build in a way that follows God’s design for sustaining our lives and the
lives of our children and grandchildren. In other words, respect nature for
what it is; a life-sustaining gift from
God.
C)
DEEPEN
YOUR COMMITMENT:
·
Hold
a ceremony in which members sign the compact and post it in a public place.
Congratulate one another, and move on to Step III.
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_______________________________________________________________
GATHER
RESOURCES
(Step III)
This section will
help you gather resources to
build up your community, or build a new
community.
Four Resources
A formula to save
what we love:
1)
Spiritual
2)
Human
3)
Cultural
4)
Material
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(NOTE: In PDF file form {original form}, this page is a poster in the shape of a cross.)
GOD IS RESOURCE ONE
(GATHER RESCOURCES, STEP III)
OUR FIRST RESOURCE IS KEY TO THE SUCCESS OF EVERYTHING
ELSE BECAUSE WE ARE
EACH RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT IS IN OUR HEARTS AND ONLY WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT CAN WE HOPE TO BUILD A BETTER
WORLD.
“Through God alone am I a better man today
than I was yesterday.”
WITHOUT GOD
A Hollywood executive gets rich promoting a song with
lyrics that influence our youth to drugs, sex, and violence. His corporate
lawyer also makes it to the “high life” by justifying the song with eloquent
arguments for “freedom of expression.” A university scholar blames the
capitalist and spreads his hate for them to his students even while making no
effort to question the roll of the song
(in fact, he refers to his heroes as having achieved “rock star” status).
Average Joe accepts all of this because he is afraid, and decides it’s easier to
live a lie than stand for God’s truth.
WITH GOD
_______________________________________________________________
OUR
HUMAN RESOURCE
TEMPLATE
(GATHER
RESCOURCES, STEP III)
We each already
have our own personal human-resource-template made especially for us when our
Creator came to earth in human form so we could know Him, and go with Him on a
journey to live forever in His heavenly home.
Jesus gave His
disciples a job, and sent them forward with only the clothes on their backs and
the Holy Spirit in their hearts. He had prepared them with His teachings and
personal example. His marching orders kept them in the thick of life, as
opposed to getting lost in realms of concept like detached temple-dwellers. We
do not have to live up to John or Paul but the closer we follow to Jesus; the
more real we will be, the more honest we will be, the more God’s truth will set
us free, the closer to home we will be.
Can
[our] Jesus [template] lead us to health and happiness here on earth, in a
hands-on way?Yes, Jesus can save our little
towns and farms and all we hold near and dear - we need only have the faith to
follow Him out from in front of our TVs, out from in front of ourselves, and
out from under the influence of a godless world.
After coming together as a
people, and signing a compact; how can we gain independence from a socialist/capitalist system that is undermining us? How can we use [our] Jesus
[template] to win the hearts and minds of our young, give our towns and farms
new life, and hold on to all that we love?The answer is FAITH. We come up
with a plan, we put ourselves in God’s hands, and step by step, we go forward.
The Pilgrims received God’s Spirit, and
they boarded the Mayflower, and within a year, half were dead and the other
half had suffered terribly. But they were not fools, they understood their
dream to be an “impossible” one, and still they went forward, and such is the
power of faith that, nearly four-hundred years later; their dream still lives.
There was
something special in the hearts and minds of the pioneers who arrived at the
shore of the Columbia River, having already come thousands of miles through
mountain-ranges, deserts, and plains. The Columbia River made up the final leg
of the Oregon Trail. Trail weary men, women, and children, they loaded their
wagons and dreams on wooden rafts, then set out to run two-hundred miles of the
most dangerous water anywhere on earth. It was an incredibly perilous thing to
do, but then, it took such faith and courage to build the home of the brave and
land of the free.”
Our journey is here and now. Our template is Jesus.
_______________________________________________________________
CULTURAL
RESCOURCES
OUR CULTURE IS A
GIFT TO BUILD ON
(GATHER
RESCOURCES, STEP III)
After we come
together as a people, after we draft and sign our compacts; what should we do next as a people to stabilize our little towns
and farms, and all we hold near and dear? We
secure the story of those who built our foundation!
Our culture is rooted in those who
settled our land. They built the foundation. Our job is to maintain and protect
it. Let’s not speak of building atop our foundation as it crumbles away, but rather,
let’s take action to stop it from crumbling and restore it to what God intended
it to be; a strong foundation to build on:
· Honor and
celebrate our pilgrim and pioneer forefathers and mothers by putting their
wonderful story of faith back where it belongs; FRONT-AND-CENTER IN OUR CULTURE.
· Give all our
children the same priceless gift; the heroic story of their forefathers and
mothers who faced great danger and hardship for a better life, and with faith
in God, built something even greater than their ability to imagine.
· Bring God back
in our schools, and bring our own history back in our schools (we may need to
opt out of state-controlled-schools and start our own schools).
·
Establish
a ZERO
TOLERANCE POLICY for anyone who attacks our forefathers
and mothers. Our cultural well is deep and much good can be drawn from it, but
not if it has been poisoned by our enemy!
Note:
When our enemies accuse us of keeping a dangerous well, full of
social-white-lightening; let us tell them that all Christians must get on their
knees before God and confess to being sinners, not to be cured of being
sinners, but to be humbled and thus; opened to His truth. Then we should
suggest, with sincere kindness, that our enemies make a choice; stop trying to
control the world and instead do as we do so that they also may be saved; or
remain hypocrites… and lose their souls!
The above must be a first-order-of-business
if we are to secure our cultural resource for what it is; a wonderful gift to
build on (the above doesn’t mean we’re
against other peoples, we are not).
Once we have secured our cultural
resource, we can draw goodness from it, and it is free, a gift from God to us
all! Good for all our people, and perhaps, especially for our orphans, our sons
and daughters of widows, our motherless ones, and wayward children, that they
may yet share in our bond, share in our sense of togetherness, and find comfort
in belonging, and have appreciation, which makes for love and loyalty, which
makes for peace, harmony, and happiness (which by the way, makes for a better
world).
_______________________________________________________________
OTHER
CULTURAL RESOURCES
(LEARNING
FROM AMISH CULTURE)
(GATHER
RESCOUCES, STEP III)
Listed
below are examples from Amish culture that are worth our attention. We are not Amish, we have a tradition of
fighting for our freedom, and the Amish are free because of it, but we can
borrow from Amish culture in our effort to gain independence from big
government and big business. We can build our own free market that does not
brainwash people to value things that have no real value. We can be industrious
in ways that are good for us, instead of trusting those who have made us cogs
in their system of destruction. We can have our own system of governance that
is not detached from our reality, not obsessed with power and control, not
corrupt, and not bankrupt. The choice is ours. We can put our own definition on
freedom, or we can go along with flag burning and public nudity (we don’t call
that sort of behavior “freedom,” but sadly, we have trusted our children’s
education to a system that does). We can follow the godless to destruction, or
we can turn and follow the One who holds our best interest at heart:
Once, while working a horse in a round pen on an Amish farm, I noticed
a procession of six or seven Amish girls, dressed like pioneers, walking the
country lane. The oldest looked to be twelve, leading the way with direction,
but not at all severe. The youngest was about five, and brought up the rear. To
my surprise, they turned up the driveway of the farm where I worked. I didn’t
know what to think but figured it an Amish thing. I watched as they continued
without adult supervision, but each knowing their task, fetched a stocky
miniature horse, then a miniature covered wagon. They harnessed the horse,
hitched it to wagon, boarded one by one, and as they drove away, they smiled
and waved at me. Astonished, I went in the barn to ask my Amish friend what I
had seen. He said the girls had stopped that morning and left the horse to be
shod before continuing on foot to the one room schoolhouse up the lane. They
were not all sisters but children of the community. I’d seen a miniature school
[transportation] system operated by children, working together, without adult
supervision; independent, efficient, safe, clean, healthy, and yes of course,
happy!
Bailing Amish hay
began with a team of 4 horses, driven by a man in a chariot-like thing called a
fore-cart, to which hitched a
[old-fashion John Deere] hay bailer, to which hitched a large flatbed wagon. At
the back of this train, my Amish friend and I stacked bales that came up a
small conveyor from the bailer to the wagon. My friend’s dog, a Blue Healer,
also rode on the wagon with us. Up front, the horses were hitched four abreast.
They were Belgium draft horses, perfectly matched and so beautiful as to belong
in a parade. They pulled that train, no problem. Across a field, I saw a man
driving a team of 8 Percherons hitched abreast pulling a three piece disk -
what an awesome site! But what really
blew my mind was an Amish woman driving a loaded freight wagon to town. She was
not a big woman but just an average woman, driving a team of black Percherons.
She was dressed like a pioneer, standing alone on the flatbed, holding the
reins in one hand, with three small children gathered close around her skirt.
Yeah, my jaw dropped! But it was no big thing to the Amish. They were not
dependent but independent. They grew their own fuel (hay!). They raised their
own farm engines so to speak (their draft horses). They used wind and solar
power too. Their farms were pictures of freedom. Was God trying to tell me something? Yes! Of course He was! The
Amish work to be healthy and happy. They make their own cloths, furniture, even
vehicles (wagons). They do not place their wares or skills above God, but
rather, they humbly regard their skills and wares as blessings, handed down to
them from God, the Master Craftsman of all things. By sharing in His love of
making things, they occupy themselves with healthy personal industries and
maintain independence from a society sick with materialism.
In an Amish
hardware store that, at the time happened to be unattended because the storekeeper
was out in the fields; my Amish friend and I got some fencing material and left
an I.O.U. on the counter. Another Amish man also did this. I’ve never seen this
elsewhere in America, but it’s encouraging to know it really exists!
I’m not saying the Amish are better than other
people. I know from direct experience that, white, black, red, yellow, brown,
rich or poor, right or left… we are all wonderful, and we are all pathetic. I’m
just using the Amish as an example to show the goodness of a strong cultural
bond. On the other hand, I know that mixing cultures can be an equally positive
part of the human experience, as long as it’s voluntary and not a rush to
create a singular super-culture of
multi-culture that all must bow to. And therein lies a danger in America
today; there’s a new extremism that may soon do exactly that, and bring a time
of evil.
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MATERIAL
RESOURCES
(GATHER
RESCOUCES, Step III)
We don’t need
China to make our pots and pans - only a foolish people would allow foreigners
to come between their stomachs and the crops in the fields. A nation of fools brags
about their freedom while depending on foreigners for their shoes. As
must be expected, righting such a situation will require many pairs of good
shoes - and we can make those shoes! We can make pots and pans. We can
grind grain, bake bread, and do a whole lot more right here in rural and small
town America. We need only turn from those who got us into this mess, and turn
to the One who holds our best interest at heart.
Our potential is like a jigsaw puzzle and only God knows
where the pieces go, but it is our steps taken in faith that make the pieces
fall into place, and the final outcome is greater than our ability to imagine. Like
a puzzle with all its pieces, God has already laid out all the materials we need.
All we need is to have faith, make one small step in faith, followed by
another, and the pieces will fall into place on a path to freedom.
No
good will come from acquiring material resources before getting the faith part
right. We need only have faith, and God will provide all the materials we need.
But without faith; we confuse the difference between material needs and material
wants. Without spiritual fulfillment, we try to compensate through material
means like capital and political gain, and power over others. Such false needs
can never be met, and a cycle of sin-based-decisions leads men deeper and
deeper into trouble. It’s no coincidence that, when our streets become unsafe,
our streams become unclean. To get right with God is to get right with God, period,
spiritually, materially, and every which way. He will provide the materials we
need. That is what He did for me last summer in Faith March 2012. In the days,
weeks, and months leading up to my mission, I didn’t know how I was going to
manage when my mission was over. I wasn’t working for any religious
organization. I had poured everything into making my mission a reality, and
beyond that; I would have no job, no money, and no place to live when my
mission was over. I was worried, very worried. A friend found a place where I could live after my mission and that was
helpful, but still there was so much uncertainty, like having a means to feed
myself. That is how I began my mission, and in the course of my mission, here
is a list of material blessings I received without asking: 1) I got a great job
that would fund my continued mission work even while allowing me extra time to prepare
for the next phase of my mission! 2) I got an unexpected place to live rent free, on a beautiful country
hilltop, and the property owner insists on paying my utilities! 3). My neighbor
supplies me with hay for my horse and I have to argue with him in order to get
him to let me pay him more than $20.00 dollars for a $120.00 round bale! 4) My
neighbor in the other direction brings me horse supplies like wormer and other
products and will not allow me to pay anything! 5) I went in the phone store to
get my dumb-phone fixed and the kid behind the counter did some unofficial thing
to it; I didn’t ask him to, but he put a smart chip in it, and now I get
internet; e-mail, Facebook, YouTube, and all the rest free; it’s crazy! 6) I’ve been given more cloths than I can
list; good cloths, boots, and coats! 7) I’ve been given a ton of food! All from a frightful step of faith! (Note: The people in the story above are not the Amish I
spoke of earlier; they are my people, rural and small town Americans.)
Materially, some of us will have more than others. I’m okay
being materially poor. I am blessed to have kind neighbors who are rich,
meaning they have farms or ranches, not tropical islands. If we all have God;
we don’t need to worry about who has what so long as we all work hard and, as a community, we take care of one another.
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
BUILD
YOUR COMMUNITY
(Step IV)
You may know the
old saying, “The best way to make
God laugh is to announce your plans to Him.”
Having
faith is
infinitely better than having a plan. A step in His
direction,
followed by another, is the best plan you can have.
In this section are basics which require faith
to
build on God’s
solid ground.
1)
External
Services
2)
Freedom
Skills
3)
Our
Physical Health
4)
Agro-Freedom
5)
Build
a New Community
6)
Surviving
the State
7)
Nuts
and Bolts
_______________________________________________________________
BUILD YOUR COMMUNITY
EXTERNAL SERVICES
(STEP IV)
Freedom
to build safe streets and clean streams is not possible with big government and
big business because; in order to be big
and stay big; big government and
business need to make people dependent on their services in big ways - and this
is bad for freedom in a big way. Independence is not gained by following
those who seek power, money, and control. Independence, as proven by our
forefathers and mothers, is made by hardworking individuals bound together as a
people who trust in God. In this plan, when we build our communities, we look
to see how God makes things work, and by following His designs, we build our
freedom step by step. And while there is plenty to do, we don’t need to do it
all (the pilgrims didn’t swim the ocean, they hired a ship). So we will begin
by listing external services of value to us:
We
need help with transportation and communication:
·
The railroad stops in small town America for
grain and may pick up and deliver other products someday, but to ship and
receive most goods today; over-the-road transport will work for us.
·
The internet is virtually everywhere and as a
result; many small business people are able to have their business off the
beaten path; like in small town America where they can join a mission to build
safe streets and clean streams.
Some big business can be good for small
communities. For example; rural telephone companies often make upgrades to
existing structures in small towns and hire skilled technicians who come from
or become part of the community. (Warning: They may be government subsidized
and thus beholden to state ideology that is hostile to our culture.) (Note: Railroad
& Internet can be modified to run clean, both kinds of clean.)
We
need help from limited centralized government:
·
The government has become a giant, confused,
perplexed, clutching a club of power that no fool would expect it to
[willingly] surrender. Nonetheless, our first request should be that the giant give up its power - or change its
home’s name, so as not to besmirch the good name and example of our nation’s
founding father who, rather than be king, surrendered his sword.
Some big government
may not be all bad; the small town library program seems to be a good thing,
and certain agro-programs seem to be good (I don’t know enough to say). But I
know this; our government is too big, and power corrupts, and we should be
careful about becoming dependent on those who wield it.
As
a general rule; we should not allow big gov or big biz to do
what we can do for ourselves. For example; a food processing plant uses
undocumented workers and low-wage-earners for unskilled labor that is repetitive
and so stupid it requires company propaganda for artificial worker pride and
satisfaction. Meanwhile, a ghetto emerges, and in small towns with no police
force [to “manage” the beast], gang related activity goes unchecked, including
drug running, child prostitution, and vandalism with graffiti, broken glass and
trash in amounts that have to be seen to be believed. Real community pride
vanishes, replaced by unhappy existence. And before you know it; a new
generation grows up to know and expect nothing better.
I’ve seen the above example firsthand. I’ve
seen the good and the bad in varying degree. I’ve walked through a string of
small towns that filled me with joy and hope. I’ve walked through a string of
small towns in ruin, and seen the seemingly unstoppable advance of an invisible
enemy. The good is retreating, the bad advancing, and those who do not face
this truth and take action to save what they love will be carried away with the
tide, including those who “follow” God with words alone, for words alone are
insincere, an insult to God who ask only that we put one foot before the other
with faith. He will take care of the rest.
_______________________________________________________________
BUILD YOUR COMMUNITY
FREEDOM SKILLS
(STEP IV, CONTINUED)
How do we end our dependence on a system owned and run by
those who seek power, money, and control? How do we transition from reliance on
them, to reliance on God? We do it in steps. We start by learning freedom-skills (listed below) not to
earn a living at first, but in celebration of our heritage. Our second step is
to make industry of our celebration. We hold a town fair where we share what we
learn, give demonstrations, celebrate our efforts, and give thanks. Our fair
may start as an annual event, then biannual, then quarterly, then monthly. With
time we get better at what we do, we combine the best of the old with the best
of the new, the hand of God reveals itself more and more, our progress becomes
greater than we imagined, and each success leads to another
personal-industry-opportunity for another of us. For example, one person(s)
processes a food, which creates a need for containers to hold the product, so
another person(s) makes reusable containers. With faith and time, we become a
people who live on what God provides...we are free!
There will be those who say this cannot be done. They
will say so because they are afraid. But to hide their fear, how many laughed
and scoffed at our forefathers and mothers only to later follow them into a
settled frontier!
What is a “freedom-skill”? A freedom-skill allows us to live independent from outside forces that
do not share our beliefs or hold our best interest at heart. Freedom-skills
have no personal value in a world obsessed with power, money, and control. But
in small communities, freedom-skills not only build independence, they build
peace, harmony, and happiness through self-worth, sense of ownership,
belonging, and appreciation. Some of us know a freedom-skill, and some do not.
The Internet has many how-to-videos
for freedom-skills. The videos are free, and some are listed below:
We can, and therefore we should:
· Process our own food:
Grind
Grain Cure Meat Can Vegetables Pasteurize Milk
Bake Bread Dry Fish Dry Fruit Make Cheese
We can, and therefore we should:
· Make our own shoes, coats, blankets, etc:
Shoes
& Boots Pants & Shirts Sheets & Table Cloths
Hats &
Coats Under Ware & Socks Blankets
& Quilts
God gives us common sense to know that we will lose our freedom
if we chose to depend on those who seek power, money, and control. The choice
is ours. God stands ready to provide all we need. By following His lead; we can
build freedom and self-worth step by step, brick by brick, at the foundation
level in small town America. And as a result, our freedom and happiness will
not be a concept but a real and
tangible thing, from God’s hands to ours.
_______________________________________________________________
BUILD YOUR COMMUNITY
OUR PHYSICAL HEALTH
(STEP IV, CONTINUED)
It’s been 50 years since science promised us a new and
wondrous future full of flying cars and glass towers where machines take care
of everything, and our little towns have been in decline ever since, along with
our physical health, not to mention our freedom. The good news is: God is waiting for us to return to Him, and
will make us strong again.
We can, and therefore we should:
·
Get ourselves in good physical condition, so
we can do the difficult but worthwhile work of saving our little towns and
farms, along with our freedom and happiness.
I am not making a case against technology. I work for an
old-timer who grew up horse farming without running water, electricity, or gas.
I read his memoir and it helped me understand how hard the work was back in the
“good old days.” His mother worked so hard that one day she just collapsed, and
died that night. Technology can improve our lives, but that doesn’t change the
fact that we must go back in order to retrieve the baby that got tossed out
with the bathwater. And going back isn’t
as awful as some may think. For
example: God wasn’t about to let me preach a pioneer movement without
walking-the-walk at least a little. And so it was that, when I finished last
year’s horse and wagon journey and landed here; I had to do things not because
I chose to, but because my “happenstance-of-circumstance” was part of God’s
continuing plan for me. Every morning and night before and after work, whereas
I used to open a gate so livestock could get to their food, I had to pitch fork
hay. Whereas I’d had an electric stock-tank heater, I had to break ice by hand.
Whereas I’d had a spigot, I had to haul water by the bucket. (I did this work
in two feeding/drinking areas, about one-hundred yards apart on a five acre
plot.) Mucking a shed with a headlamp in the dark after a long day of welding
and grinding plus a commute of 65 miles to work and back, plus the fact that
I’m a senior citizen now left me wondering if I would live much longer. Sometimes
I had to sit and it felt like the earth was moving under me. During this period
of time, my mood was not good. But I
didn’t go to a doctor and get pills. Instead, I thanked God for my path and cut
way down on sugar, salt, fat, and caffeine (I was eating approx 3 candy bars a
day, often a Big Mac™ with fries, and always a cup of coffee, a bowl
of heavy salted popcorn, soda, and more.). Sometimes, God has to twist my arm
to get me going in the right direction and show appreciation for the life He
gave me. And I’m so glad He twisted my arm, I’m a new man! Truly, a huge
improvement physically and spiritually!
We can, and therefore we should:
·
Make our physical health effort a part of our
community celebration, make industry of our celebration, and by such means;
position ourselves to have a place and perhaps even become leaders in the new
and promising field of natural health, thus further strengthening our
communities, not coincidentally but as God makes things fall together for those
who show faith.
Here is an example of how the above might
work: There’s no grocery story in the small town 3 miles from my home, so I
shop at a grocer in the next closest small town. Now I do not work in the city,
but in order to cross a river on my way to work, I have to drive through a
medium sized city each day, and there’s a big box grocer located directly on my
route, and there is this real good local oatmeal bread that I love not to
mention it’s healthy, but it’s available only in a special section at the big
box grocer, so I get it there. But if someone in the small town that I live
beside started making real good homemade bread, and I discovered their bread in
one of our town fairs as mentioned earlier, then I would buy their bread. And
I’d buy jam also, if it was good. That’s how it starts! Additionally, and this
is very important: At the small town grocer, I leave my car unlocked, and the
kids who sack groceries know what car is mine, and they will load my car even
if I remain in the store speaking with friends. On the other hand, it would be
stupid to leave my car unlocked in the city!
Walking is good for us, walking leads us to
good things. Spring came and the days got easier, so I began preparing my horse
for this summer’s mission by walking her. I would have ridden her but she had a
hoof split I was nursing along, so it was by no wisdom of my own that the
walking benefitted me also. We usually walked a mile on and along the gravel.
Sometimes, we’d see a group of neighbor ladies out walking. Sometimes, folks
would come out and put their kids on my horse, and I’d lead them around, and
their bright smiles were something to see.
We can treat our bodies as gifts from God, or,
we can consume stuff that hurts our health, our children’s health, our
community’s health, and our spiritual well being. God holds our best interest
at heart; He makes water, milk, and fruit juice. Big business wants our money,
and sells us pop. God gives us commonsense to keep us healthy, big business
gives us commercials to sell us things - good or bad. (Note: I quit soda but found healthy drinks to take its place and
taste better. I quit candy but still enjoy homemade cookies on Sunday night. I
threw my TV out but still watch a movie now and then. Etc… We
don’t have to be extreme.)
_______________________________________________________________
BUILD YOUR COMMUNITY
AGRO-FREEDOM
(STEP IV, CONTINUED)
In
rural America, we got a whole lot of horses just standing around doing nothing.
In fact, I was talking to an old friend who horse farms and we were joking
about opening a horse rescue business that took live horses in through the
front, and sold fresh “hamburger” out the back. Seriously though, there are
countless opportunities for profitable small scale industry in rural and small
town America. Below are just two examples using generally unwanted things:
Horse manure breaks down to a good consistency for
spreading as fertilizer. It is granular but not so powdery as to blow away in
the wind during the spreading process. In the spring when the grass is coming
up, the patches around horse manure are very noticeably healthier than the
rest, but weeds don’t do well around it. Also in spring, there are a slew of
city-radio-commercials playing for lawn care and gardening. An enterprising
rural American could use all these things to his/her/their advantage to offer a
natural alternative fertilizer product. I know this would work because I’ve started
a business from scratch when many said I couldn’t, and I ran it very
successfully for 12 years before getting out for what I now do. The thing to do is search out one’s market,
and play on your strengths: 1) Your product is
natural, not a questionable mixture of chemicals. 2) You’ve done your
homework and enough experimenting to know what you’re talking about. 3) The
customer would be sending their hard-earned cash to where their food is grown,
not to Wall Street. Additionally, there are many other natural
farm-produced-ingredients that can be added to make a product line of horse
manure based fertilizers. To get started, no expensive college degree would be
necessary but only a few classes on accounting and business management. And
while taking classes; do hands-on work to increase your experience in the
field. Outside this, all that is needed
for success is commitment.
The ragweed that grows behind the barn and in the ditches
can be made into rope. There wouldn’t be any profit in making it into rope, at
least not the kind of profit that an industrial world has taught us to value.
But it would be a positive thing for the town fairs mentioned earlier; it could
inspire others as a valuable tool (rope) made from something that grows in the
ditch (weeds). And it doesn’t hurt to remember what the Bible says about the
last being first and the first being last, or that outside the Bible, God’s
writing is on the wall so to speak, meaning that He speaks to us all the time,
and He provides all we need to survive, and soon, very soon perhaps, rope
making knowledge and the like may be critically important to the survival of
our people.
We can, and therefore we should:
·
Petition and if necessary march for laws that
free us to sell food and other
agro-products directly, without going through big government regulators and big
business processors. And we should have liability protection under the law. (Why liability protection? Because a
consumer should be able to look at a product along with the person presenting
it and the immediate environment, and draw a commonsense conclusion as to
whether it’s good or bad – duh!) Some commonsense laws might be helpful here. For example, fly-by-night scoundrels could
be discouraged by requiring venders to be members of, or approved by, the
community in/from which they sell their products.
The issue of food safety has become a tool by which big government
and big business maintain their agro-oligarchy… a system far closer to tyranny
than freedom. And in it, we have been brainwashed to fear an army of deadly
germs, murdering marauders with the power of invisibility, lurking at every
turn, eagerly waiting for any opportunity to penetrate us, and make us die a
horrible death. And we have been trained to fight back with a rash of rules,
regulations, drugs, and chemical products designed to save us. And since the
fight began, our little farms and towns have been in decline, our health has
been in decline, and our freedom has been in decline. Our leaders tell us that
science has doubled our life expectancy from 40 to 80 in the past 150 years,
but what they don’t tell us is that anyone in that time period had the same
chance of living to 80 once they got past childhood (they omit the fact that
the lower number is an average caused by childhood disease). Science deserves
credit for curing childhood diseases, and cleanliness is next to godliness, but
when power and money get involved; freedom goes out the window. The good news
is; we can follow God’s designs by applying commonsense
with science (meaning to observe and determine nature’s interactive qualities),
and then apply those qualities for self-sustaining positive results. This wide
open field is a real opportunity for rural and small town America. We only have
to show faith; God will get us past oligarchies and other obstacles that stand
in the way of freedom.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
BUILD YOUR COMMUNITY
AGRO-FREEDOM
(STEP IV, CONTINUED)
I do my business from a mobile workshop on
site, but I may be able to open a stationary workshop in small town America and
conduct my business from there. If so, I’d like to use my skill as a metal
fabricator to build horse drawn farm equipment in my spare time, not for
profit, but just to do it like someone would go hunting or plant a garden in
their spare time. I recently used my Clydesdale horse to disk a small field, it
was more fun than I expected.
We can, and therefore we should:
·
Develop an agricultural method that we can
fall back on to help our people survive in the event of a catastrophic
infrastructure collapse. This would not be a method to straight away replace
what we have today, but a method to grow outside the current system because if
we continue following the godless who [are unfulfilled and thus] always want
more, more, more… we will end up with nothing.
·
Encourage our land owners and rural renters
to get horse drawn plows, learn to use them, and keep them in celebration of
our heritage, as a means by which to keep a small gate open to our past in an
age of big government and big industry, as a fun thing for families and
communities that want more than ATVs and video games, and as insurance against
the aforementioned infrastructural catastrophe.
·
Recognize the computer as one of man’s great
discoveries ranking up there with fire and the wheel, and use it as a tool to
benefit our people, to increase our skill-knowledge, with which to operate our
farms and ranches, make our wears, strengthen our towns, build our freedom,
health, and happiness.
·
Reevaluate the horse as a viable biological
engine that can work in conjunction with a large variety of long-lasting
mechanized equipment, can reproduce itself to make a new farm engine when the
old one wears out, can refuel on grass that grows along the road, can make
fertilizer to grow crops, can entertain children on Sunday, and in dire
situations can be eaten to buy time and save its masters from starvation.
Once while out of state, I overheard some ranchers in a
café talking about how a mechanical mule [that Japan made] was better than a
horse [that God made] because, on any given day, a horse might show up for work
with a bad attitude. They sounded a little fed up with their horses. But the
truth is that, if a horse has a bad attitude, it’s because its master has a bad
attitude. In order to get positive results from a horse, a man must better
himself (God’s love and wisdom are in His creation). I’m not saying that a
mechanical mule is a bad thing. To the contrary, I think they’re good
especially for older folks, but I would encourage younger and middle-aged men
to try a horse and cart, which can go anywhere a mechanical mule can and
beyond, and can refuel itself on grass while a rancher drives posts, or rests
in the shade and eats lunch. I know this works. I have stopped for lunch in the
shade, taken a thin white rope out of my cart along with a few ultra-light
fiberglass fence spears, and quickly and easily cordoned my horse off to graze
while I sat and ate lunch, then back to work for both of us.
My
father, grandfather, and great grandfather all dealt in farm equipment and
farmed a little on the side but our family legacy died when IH went belly up. I
moved to the city, built a business totally from scratch, and ran it
successfully for 17 years (including 5 years of apprenticeship under a master
craftsman at 60hrs per week, plus night and weekend junco courses for small
business management and accounting). I’m
one of those who left for the city but returned to my roots (12 yrs ago). Small business may be in my blood, but this
is not about reclaiming my family legacy. This is about WE THE PEOPLE OF RURAL AND SMALL TOWN AMERICA reclaiming our legacy because it’s a gift from God, and
without it, we won’t survive as a people.
We can, and therefore we should:
· Embrace who we are. We are the traditional
people of rural and small town America. Our heritage is faith-based,
agro-based, and work-based. We are farmers, ranchers, housewives, tradesmen,
shopkeepers, bankers, lawyers, pastors, etc. Rich and poor, fat and thin, tall
and short, together we pray God help us take what is good in our past and
present, and carry it into the future, for the sake of preserving what we love.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
BUILD YOUR COMMUNITY
BUILD A NEW
COMMUNITY
(STEP IV,
CONTINUED)
Building a community within your
community has its pros and cons. It would allow you to further your mission without
interference from people who are not of the same mind, but sooner or later, you
would have to work/deal with those who do not think like you. This could occur,
for example, if you became dominate players in your community and tried to run
the bad guys out of town (the drug pushers, child traffickers, etc.). You might
bring you community together, or you might cause a split even between Christians
which would hurt in a time when we need to come together as a people, but you
cannot let worry stop you. Chose a path and go forward with faith, God will
take care of the rest.
Building a community within your
community will allow you to make a “Need Sheet” and fill it with volunteers who
are committed to success. Your need sheet is a list of basic needs to be
divided among your members. For example, one or two members take on the task of
learning all about milling grain and set up a small mill, one or two members
take on the task of growing and canning vegetables, one or two take on the task
of producing energy, one or two take on the task of downloading information and
building an information library, etc. This process should not be done as a
group insurance policy (even though it is). Rather, this should be done with
the intent of fostering your mission until it catches on and becomes the accepted
way of your community.
In the event you build a community
within a community, and then decide that winning the larger community over is not
a wall God wants you to climb; your group could buy land and build a whole new
community. It’s a radical step, but no less pleasing to God than any other
group with faith enough to risks their livelihood. If you do this, do not
choose a religious-charismatic for your leader. Beware of those who have the
guru-syndrome. Elect a council of elders for your leaders (this would be my
choice). Or elect a levelheaded leader from among you, or recruit a retired CEO
and surround him with godly people.
When I had my
business in the city, most of my clients were wealthy CEOs, and of them, many
were excellent men, capable of providing the nuts and bolts leadership folks
need to have a shot at success, health, harmony, and happiness. The key is that
a retired CEO believes in the mission and be part of the community and not detached
in a distant tower of power. If you think this is impossible, it is not. Trust
me, I had to target these men in order to win them as clients. They’re around,
and might be available having turned to God in their latter years. I also knew
a former State Governor, an old fashioned Kansas Democrat (which I am not) but
nonetheless a very good man. I do not know our current Governor but I voted for
him and am grateful to have him at the helm of our State. But if we don’t give
him something to work with, then the only path he has to help us is through big
government and big business, socialist and capitalist realms of sinking sand.
There is only one realm of truth. We can trust our future to the sinking sands,
or we can take the path of faith, and build our future on God’s solid ground.
In the event you build a totally new community,
do not align your street or streets to run north, south, east, west. Build them
in accordance with the prevailing winds of your area, to create wind venturi,
and wind blocks. Build in accordance with the path of the sun in summer and
winter, to create shade and sun spots. Watershed is very critical. A mountain
of info is available on all this and, with faith and commonsense, will help you
achieve positive results.
_______________________________________________________________
BUILD YOUR
COMMUNITY
SURVIVING THE
STATE
(STEP IV, CONTINUED)
If the Pilgrims were to land in America
today, they would be caught in a fiasco fit for the Roman Coliseum. It is true,
and likewise, the harder you press for freedom in the present system, the more
resistance you will come up against. But
remember this, our forefathers and mothers overcame adversity because they had God
on their side.
The state will be an obstacle to anyone
who tries to implement this plan. To survive them, use peaceful resistance.
Create a special action team (comprised of volunteer senior citizens,
grandkids, and disabled folks who can afford to get thrown in the poky). Pool
this team from your town, surrounding towns, and countryside. Then, when the
government comes with bureaucratic codes to derail your mission, dispatch your
special action team to the county or state offices involved, where they can lay
down and refuse to leave as a means to make it impossible for the government
workers to do their job, making their lives as difficult as they have made
yours. Also, send a video unit with your team, post the videos on line, send
copies to the press, and your congressmen. Above all, trust God and press on!
When I had my
business in the city, I upgraded my facility a few times until at last I moved
into a brand new facility. Everything was new and beautiful, the
building, the parking lot, the lawn, and the bushes along the drive. In the
process of moving, I used half my employees to move equipment from old building
to new, and the other half to continue production work that kept our revenue
stream flowing. Then, right in the middle of our all-out-effort; I received a
call from a government bureaucrat telling me that I had to shut the entire
operation down because the bushes planted along the drive were not properly
spaced (they were like 3ft apart and code was 2½ft). The government bureaucrat
said he had come out with a tape measure, but I never saw him (the weasel must
have come in the night like some kind of socialist-lawn-Nazi). He said I could
not resume operation until the bushes were replanted - correctly. I went
ballistic and refused to shut down, and to this day those bushes haven’t moved
an inch. Years later, after hearing God’s call, I intentionally downsizing my
operation (I did it right for the sake of my employees). Eventually, it was
just me and my mobile work shop by which I funded my mission work. My mobile
work shop is made from an old-but-nicely-restored Christian church bus, bright
white with bold black insignias and stained glass windows. Originally, it had
been a school bus, and because of that; when I first went to use it and get a
license tag, the state (not the county but the state) told me that in order to
tag it, I had to take a test on how to deal with school children (there was a thick
book to study before the test). I told them the bus didn’t carry children. I
remained polite throughout, and told them the bus had only one seat, and the rest was a work shop, with work benches,
vices, grinders, welders, etc. The state said it didn’t matter, I still had to
take the test. They made me jump through hoops for two days on the phone from
one bureaucrat to another until finally this high up fellow got angry and
rudely told me it didn’t matter what I was using the bus for; the bus was
originally a school bus, and therefore I had to take the test! I thought to
myself, “What planet are these people
on?” To make a long story short, I got around them legally without spending
money or time. How? Not because they came around, they never did, but God reached
down and opened a door. Later on, while doing some porch sitting at a friend’s
house and relating my story to a group of folks, I heard a story about of a
group of country folks who got together to share/trade/sell food they had grown/raised/made.
The state came down on them hard, not only shutting them down, but destroyed their
goods and live chickens, not because they were unhealthy but because they were
not following the bureaucratic code of the state. The good news is; we can be
smart about this, and we can be prepared, and go forward with the courage of
our forefathers and mothers who proved that;
with faith, there is always a
way.
The effort to
build a self-sustaining community with safe streets and clean streams is as-good-a-reason-as-any
for tax and regulatory relief, but the government would attach conditions
developed by those who dwell in storehouses of knowledge far removed from the
truth, with perfect-world cultural-fantasies filling their heads, but without
thought to their own utter dependence on a system of destruction. They are
hypocrites! DO
NOT
listen to them. DO NOT make the
mistake of thinking you can cut your small town up like a pie with other
cultures and have a harmonious community. Trust me, I walked and paddled our
land for 4,000 miles. I’ve seen how God makes things work for our happiness,
and the way big government and big business makes things work to their own
advantage. We are not against other peoples, we are a disappearing people. And
as long as we trust our future to those who seek power, money, and control; we
will continue to disappear. But there is good news. We can be strong and free,
with peace, harmony, and happiness. We need only come together and follow
the One who holds our best interest at heart.
GOD IS WAITING
_______________________________________________________________
BUILD YOUR
COMMUNITY
NUTS AND BOLTS
(STEP IV,
CONTINUED)
A home can be warmed by the sun in ways
that are less complex then big science, big business, and big government would
have us believe. Recently, I did an experiment in which I devised an
ultra-simple system for heating my home in winter. Using black tarps that could
easily be taken up and down, I created heat sinks to catch the suns energy
above and below my living space. I did so without sacrificing windows or
aesthetics. In such a way, using the sun as an only source of afternoon heat,
and even though the temperature only reached 15 degrees outdoors, the
temperature indoors reached 59 degrees! It was only an experiment, but it
proved something I would like to try later.
Building doesn’t have to be anywhere
near as expensive as the big boys say. For example; a feller who lived on the
east coast brought some land in Kansas with a dream of opening a small dude
ranch. Among other things, he needed a horse shed which cost over $5,000.00 and
when it was delivered, it wasn’t much to look at considering the price. Last
fall I needed a horse shed, so I purchased what I call “seconds steel” (rejects
like the warped 2X4s that get tossed off the stack at the lumber yard). I then
used the slightly warped steel tubing to build the frame of my shed, and by
putting them together juxtaposed, I came out with a perfectly square 12 X 18 frame.
And unless a person knew, they could look right at its frame and not know it
was made with seconds steel. I then sided it with some used tin, some of which
was a little rough (I could have found better if I’d taken more time, but I had
a job to start for a customer). Anyway, the long and short of it is this, the
entire thing cost me $200. That is 25 sheds the same size as the fancy shed
mentioned above! I also build a horse shed using this same method except that,
after I erected it, I washed the used siding with dish pads and soap, painted
it with a spray gun; and it looked brand new! The point I’m making is this: We
can build good and strong without spending a fortune or sacrificing aesthetics.
Like most people, I need a dependable
car, but my mission has me on a very tight budget. So a few years back, I found
a totally NOT dependable 1983
Chevy Citation with a few good things going for it: Its 4 cylinder motor had excellent
compression, new suspension struts and exhaust system had been recently installed,
and its body had no rust or dents. I purchased it for $150. I then disconnected
its computer, replaced the fuel injector with a one-barrel Holly from a 1973
AMC Gremlin, replaced the computer-controlled-distributor with an HEI
distributor; and thus replaced a complicated nest of old wiring with just one
wire! I also totally rebuilt the brake system, and installed new tires. My
total investment was approx $1,400 and I have driven that car all over creation
and it is still running strong today. What I did was against government codes
even though I significantly increased its fuel millage, and by recycling a car,
I kept a lighter footprint than most. I did something similar to make a dependable
truck (Ford) with a total investment of $1,000. What I’m saying is this; we
don’t need to spend big money to save our little towns and farms. I am able to
do my mission in part because I use my freedom skills to stop following the
world and its idea of what I should do, and follow God on the path He set out
for me (my effort to get to where He wanted me to be included finding ways to
live without what the world had taught me to need). And by His love and wisdom,
my effort went towards the development of my soul. I am not saying my soul is
more developed than the next person. I’m
saying that; my soul has been enriched by God to a degree that I could never
have imagined!!!
Once while out of state, I saw a loaf of
bread in a grocer that caught my eye because of its label, which read; “Freedom
Bread.” So I bought it only to discover
it tasted like something I would expect to find on the sparsely stocked shelves
of the old Soviet Union - and I felt ripped off. We don’t need socialism or
capitalism to make good bread, good homes,
good towns, or a good nation. We need God. When we get saved, our life and work
becomes an expression of gratitude, and by God’s wisdom; when we feel
gratitude, we cannot help but feel joy, and finding joy in what we do leads to
the highest possible quality, quality in what we make, quality in what we do, quality
across the board - quality becomes cultural.
I wrote this ACTION PLAN FOR SMALL TOWN AMERICA with help
from a retired Navy SEAL that I met during my FAITH MARCH OF 2012.
I then handed this booklet out to folks during my FAITH MARCH OF 2013.
Click on page for clearer view
Below are links to my horse and wagon missions in small town and
rural America including journals with lots of photos and videos.
Also a link to my canoe and walking journey on the Lewis and Clark Trail.
My first horse and wagon mission
FAITH MARCH 2012
Click on link below for journal, photo, and video journey.
My horse Reba and dog Jill, driving for the top of the last hill, July 4.
Click on photo to watch exciting video of us driving to top of hill.
----------
My second horse and wagon mission
FAITH MARCH 2013
Click on link below for journal, photo, and video journey.
My horse Reba and I traveling in rural America.
My journey canoeing and walking the LEWIS AND CLARK TRAIL
as recorded in my book AMERICAN ERRAND is here
(with pictures, reviews, and more):
 |
INSIDE THE MOUTH OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER (click on photo to enlarge) |
My dog UB and I on the Lewis and Clark Trail.
A paperback copy of my book AMERICAN ERRAND
is available at Amazon (I receive no royalties. I priced it as low as is allowed.
My only mission is to inspire. (Paperback $8.77 E-book .99¢)
Click on image to read cover.
Click on image to read back cover.
AMERICAN ERRAND has five stars on Amazon
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐----------
My booklet,
AMERICA'S FAITH FRONTIER
is the final product of my travels.
You can can read it 100% free here:
https://americasfaithfrontier.blogspot.com/2023/12/thank-you-and-welcome-to-my-booklet.html
Click on image for clear view.
Click on image to read.
Also, a paperback copy of AMERICA'S FAITH FRONTIER is available at Amazon.
I receive no royalties. I priced it as low as is allowed.
(Paperback $3.83 E-book .99¢)
----------
TIMELINE AND DISCRIPTION
2004-2005: I canoed and walked the Lewis and Clark Trail. It took me two years, 4,000 miles. No cell phone, no motorized assistance., no pre-arrangements, no support crew other than the people I happened to meet along the way. They just kept coming like angles out of the blue. And I came away from the experience deeply moved. I spent the next 5 years (2006 -2011) writing and publishing a book about my journey (AMERICAN ERRAND, see link below). My book got excellent reviews from readers, but I canceled my plans to market it because I heard a voice in my heart calling me to take my message directly to the people. Writing had made me poor but I sold what remained of my belongings, bought a draft horse and wagon, and along with my dog, we set out traveling back roads through rural America. See paragraph directly below.
Faith March 2012: I put myself in God’s hands and made my first horse and wagon mission. This blog covers it in photos, journal entries, and videos. It wasn’t planed to last 40 days and nights but it just came out that way. From farm-to-town and town-to-town, I spoke with a great many people. I was greatly inspired, and so were they. Please read my, SEVEN FLYERS! They are important. Enjoy the journal, photos, and videos. Be inspired. Tell your friends. Thank you, and God bless!
Faith March 2013: I made my second horse and wagon mission. I hadn’t planned it to last 73 days and nights but it just came out that way. This time I handed out my, ACTION PLAN FOR SMALL TOWN AMERICA. I wrote it with help from a retired Navy SEAL who I met on my first Faith March. It was very well received. You can read it here: ACTION PLAN Also, enjoy the journal, photos, and videos. Be inspired. Tell your friends. The journal link is above (FAITH MARCH 2013). Thank you and God bless!
2014-2016: I wrote my booklet AMERICA’S FAITH FRONTIER based on the perspective God had given me over the course of my travels. I then spent the following three years (2017-2020) going out on weekends, towing my horse by trailer to different towns where we walked the streets, gave rides to countless children (always with parents present), spoke with many people, and handed out my booklet. It hasn’t been easy financially but I’ve paid for all my mission work out-of-pocket except for once when I ran out of money on the trail and my old hometown friends quickly raised $700 dollars to get me through. May God bless them! Outside that, I refused to take money. Out on the trail, strangers were feeding me, giving me places to camp, and just heaping kindness on me. May God bless them! Please read, AMERICA’S FAITH FRONTIER. It’s 100% free in my website. A quick and easy read that’s packed full of inspiration. People are reading it online around the world.
2020 to Present: I am pouring myself into a new book. A faith based fiction. A family in the wild, fighting the good fight. No politics, no crutches of violence or sex. Just a real good story. A trilogy, each book about 350 pages. I’m halfway through the third book and hope to have it completed in a year. I will then publish the trilogy and market it along with my book about my journey on the Lewis and Clark trail. Not looking to make any money. I'm far from rich but, I am very grateful because I have enough to not worry about making money and paying bills. And this allows me to purse my objective, to inspire folks!
Thank you, and may God bless you!
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