A Tribute to Farmers

On Wednesday evenings, I help with check-in for our church’s Awana program.  Kids from age 2 through twelve have a great time learning Bible lessons, memorizing verses, and playing games.   Levi loves Awana, and Victoria enjoys helping with the youngest class.  Awana staff had an assignment for this week’s theme, to write some kind of tribute to farmers.  Many children also wrote letters of thanks to farmers, or stories about farmers.  All submissions will be displayed at the church for awhile.  Since I had been writing about my early life on the farm in recent blogs, this assignment was not too tough.  Here’s the result:


A Tribute to Farmers

Up at dawn, work till dusk, eat supper, work some more,

Plow the fields, plant the crops, wait for rain to pour.

Cultivate, irrigate, get it done, don’t be late!

Rainy days, machine shed days, or maybe go to town;

Dreaded hail, hear us wail, lay our money down.

Harvest beets and beans and corn; sell cattle, buy some more.

If there’s any money left, we’ll all go to the store!

Snowy days, clear the lane, feed cattle stuck in snow.

Winter nights, newborn calves.  Through it all we know…

The cycle never ends.  God is in control. 

Farming is hard work, I know.  Until I was almost five years old, my dad was a farmer.  We lived on a farm in northeast Nebraska, near the town of Bloomfield.  Dad was a fairly traditional farmer.  He had one old tractor that was the “workhorse” for the farm.  He grew corn, milked a few cows, kept a couple of horses, and raised chickens and pigs.  He was more experimental than most farmers in the 1950’s, though, because he was one of the first to grow a new crop, milo.  Now, milo is one of the main crops grown in some parts of eastern Nebraska and several other states.  

These days, most farmers specialize.  Farmers in Scotts Bluff County raise cattle, growing corn or hay to use as cattle feed, or they grow one or two crops, such as sugar beets or dry, edible beans.  Farming is big business now.  Farmers need expensive, computerized machinery, with enclosed, air conditioned cabs and functional GPS systems, so their farms can produce a maximum amount of corn or sugar beets or beans.  We’ve been told that America’s farmers feed the world.   They do it even when the weather brings late frost, flooded fields, drought, or hail.  Because of the unpredictable weather, farmers can’t count on stable working conditions or even a steady income.   But farmers who trust in God can count on Him to provide everything they need, while they work hard to make sure that all of the people in our country, and many people throughout the world, have the food they need to survive.  

Thank you, God, for the farmers we know, and for the food they produce.  Protect them.  Give them the strength they need to do their jobs, and the wisdom they need to take good care of Earth’s natural resources.  Enable them to trust in you, even when the weather is not favorable for efficient farming, and bless them for their hard work on our behalf.