Miracle in a Hay Field: A Collection of Short Stories

By Roger Burke

Born in 1926, Pastor Roger Burke has lived through the Great Depression, World War II and numerous other joys and challenges. Miracle in a Hayfield weaves together a lifetime of experiences and meaningful bible passages on relevant topics like family and marriage, dealing with death and illness, and faith in times of adversity.

Most of these stories were written weekly from July 11, 2004 until May 28th 2006 from personal experience for the First Baptist Church bulletin, Polk, Nebraska. The purpose for the stories was a kind of entre for the message of that day.

Other stories were written while I endured the pain of a pinched sciatic nerve as I waited from January 1 until February 11, 2010 for spine surgery. It is my sincere desire and prayer that the Lord Jesus will be honored through the stories and that you will find them a delightful and challenging resource for your inspiration and perhaps even a good laugh.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 24, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450274371

Roger Burke

Born and raised in Minnesota, Roger Burke started out as a mechanic and a carpenter before transitioning into a lifelong career as a Baptist Minister. Since 1947, he has served seven churches in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Nebraska.

Book preview

Contents

Introduction

Special Recognition

1. THE RUN-A-WAY

2. ANXIETY

3. THE HOUSE ON THE FARM

4. GROWING UP POOR

5. FIRE

6. LAZY DICK

7. Community

8. PRESSURE POINT

9. JESUS – SANTA

10. BOILS

11. THE REALITY OF DEATH

12. THE BIKE ITCH

13. OUR NEIGHBORS

14. Paralyzed

15. SALT

16. SANITIZED

17. DAD

18. SOMETHING TO DO

19. THANKS

20. HARVEST TIME

21. TROUBLE ON THE FARM

22. THE STEAMER

23. BALANCED

24. A MAN

25. FRIENDS

26. HE MEANT ME

27. PHARISEES

28. THE WELL

29. INSTRUMENTS OF JOY

30. MIRACLE IN A HAYFIELD

31. GET ON THE PLANK

32. BAPTIZED

33. REPORT FOR DUTY

34. Blessed

35. WHERE THE POWER IS!

36. FORGIVEN

37. A FAIR SHARE

38. PERSPECTIVE

39. DARKNESS

40. MY MAN

41. OUT OF THE PIT

42. A ’36 NASH

43. ALL TOGETHER NOW!

44. SANFORIZED

45. IT’S OKAY!

46. GOING HOME

47. THE JOURNEY

48. TENACITY

49. HUMILIATION

50. THE BEST POLICY

51. CRISIS!

52. EASTER

53. DECISIONS

54. MY CHRISTMAS PRAYER

55. SOMETHING NEW

56. DECISIONS, DECISIONS

57. CANADA HO!

58. SEEING THE REALITY

59. ONE FOR THE SHOW

60. WHOM DO YOU LOVE?

61. PRAYER POWER

62. Antidote for Perplexity

63. SAVED

64. THE OTHER STAR

65. SET FREE

66. MEMORABLE WEDDINGS

67. MAKING TRACKS

68. THE TREES FELL

69. FIRE!

70. THE CHURCH

71. FORGIVE ME

72. THE ACCIDENT

73. THE MIRACLE LADY

74. SUFFERING

75. DUBIOUS EXPEDITIONS

76. THE ATHIEST AND FAITH

77. BONDAGE

78. HOPELESSNESS

79. PRAYING FOR DEATH

80. THE HOT SEAT

81. GOD PROVIDES

82. REVIVAL

83. AMAZING WATER

84. BONDING

85. THE PLAYERS

86. THE QUESTION

87. EYES TO SEE

88. FOLLOW ME!

89. THE GAME

90. WORDS!

91. THE LIGHTNING BUG

92. THE PEACH TREE

93. COME AND SEE

94. THE FAMILY

95. LOOK AROUND

96. AWESOME SOUND

97. LEGACY

98. THE STORY OF A HOUSE

99. ME, A SHEPHERD?

Introduction

Most of these stories were written weekly from July 11, 2004 until May 28th 2006 from personal experience for the First Baptist Church bulletin, Polk, Nebraska. The purpose for the stories was a kind of entrée for the message of that day.

Other stories were written while I endured the pain of a pinched sciatic nerve as I waited from January 1 until February 11, 2010 for spine surgery.

It is my sincere desire and prayer that the Lord Jesus will be honored through the stories and that you will find them a delightful and challenging resource for your inspiration and perhaps even a good laugh.

Read and enjoy!

Roger Burke

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The Partners (1+1=1)

Roger and Wilma Burke

Special Recognition

I offer my heart felt tribute to my parents, Verdy and Geneva Burke, and grandparents, Joseph and Gladys Gruver, and George and Ellen Burke, who provided the material I needed to meet the one who is the foundation of life itself.

I am grateful for Wilma, my loving and generous wife of 61 years, and the fruit of her womb: Marjorie, Doris, Timothy, Roxane, and Philip; plus the addition of 24 grandchildren and 29 (and adding) great grandchildren. I am especially grateful for the encouragement and help given by daughter Doris, the pictorial editor and grand daughter Brittany, & her husband Bobby, the editors in chief for this enterprise.

Finally, I salute my Savior, in the words of a Gospel song, How rich I am since Jesus came my way redeemed my soul and turned my night to day, how rich, how very rich I am.

Roger A Burke

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Mom and dad’s wedding party. October 25, 1925

(Evelyn Burke, Geneva Burke, Verdy Burke, Clifford Gruver)

1. THE RUN-A-WAY

My Dad and Mom were married on the 23rd of October 1925 and began as they called it back then, keeping house. Actually, they rented the Larson place about 2 miles west of Grandpa and Grandma Burke’s. They had a few cows and young stock, probably eight in total and Dad bought a perfectly matched team of dapple grey mares, named Polly and Katie (right off the prairie, unbroken and drugged).

The horses began acting a bit strange about the third day, throwing their heads, etc. That evening, Dad decided to hook them to the bobsled and visit his folks. Mom and the dog were sitting on the sled as they drove to the end of the drive way where Dad got off to open the gate. No one knows what or why, but the horses turned away from the gate and at full speed headed across a small meadow. Mom fell off the sled in 50 feet or so, the dog stayed on until the plank box flipped off the bunks.

The horses ran into a fence about 300 feet from the gate, one went down, and both were tangled in the wire. Dad cut all the wires but one and gave the cutter to Mom. He stood between the horses holding on to the bridles and said, Cut the last wire. When she snipped the wire the horses reared up and headed north with Dad suspended between them. He tried to climb on top of the neck yoke but it was bobbing up and down too crazily for him to make it. He tried to swing to the side, but the horses front legs batted him down. He knew they would straddle a stump or a tree and run the sled tongue through him. He thought, my only chance is to drop in the snow and hope I can go under the sled.

He dropped, but a pin through the bolster clipped his head. It was dark enough so that Mom couldn’t see him. She kept calling his name but he didn’t answer until she was nearly hysterical, finally he said, Go to the house and heat some water. Then she knew he was hurt, but could only imagine how much. The horses traveled about a hundred feet after Dad dropped before they stumbled and ran the sled tongue into the ground. Dad caught up with them and managed to get them loose from the sled and the neck yoke off of one before they took off into the night.

The next morning, when Dad opened the door of the house, the horses again headed away from him, out into the road, headed toward Grandpa’s. The nearest neighbor, Gus Brengelson, had a telephone and saw the horses running with the harnesses dragging and the neck yoke flopping. He called Grandpa and said, Verdy’s horses are coming your way, and they look like they’re running away. Grandpa headed them into a pasture where they were able to catch them.

No one was ever able to break Katie and she was finally sold to a Fox Farm for fox food. We kept Polly and bought a Bay mare, named Dolly. They were an excellent and stable team. Dolly got Sleeping sickness when she was 32 years of age and died. Polly now 28, fell apart when Dolly died. She roamed the fences hour after hour, day after day, nickering for her partner. Finally the end was so obvious that Dad gave in and called the Fox farm; Take her, but don’t let me know when He told them. We were milking one morning when we heard the shot. We didn’t say a word but I saw the tears running down Dad’s cheeks and if anyone had looked my cheeks were wet too.

Revelation 6:2 I looked, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to Him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.

2. ANXIETY

Our family was having a discussion about memory. I said, I remembered going with Mom to a garage sale at a Mrs. Keene’s home. Mom said, I don’t think so. You weren’t two years old (1928).

So to preserve my integrity I began describing in detail what I remembered. I remembered that the house was near the edge of town with a railroad track right next to it. I said, When we went inside it was a narrow room with an archway or big double doors with lots of stuff leaning against the walls. Mom stopped me and said, You remember it better than I do.

The depression hit us in 1929, Dad had just bought the farm and times were tough. Yet, in spite of my good memory I do not remember my parents ever making me feel anxious about our situation. I know they talked to each other about land payments and groceries, shoes, overalls, coats and feed for the chickens pigs and cows. But I never felt like we might lose our home or may not have anything to eat or wear.

I remember my Dad telling some of the neighbors when the worst of the depression was over (about 1938), how he and Mom had prayed and every time a payment was due, or an unexpected bill came, God faithfully supplied the need. I remember the tender loving way he praised God, giving the Lord full credit for the ability to clear the debt on the farm ahead of schedule.

Dad and Mom’s tender loving care gave us good memories, teaching us not to be anxious about the things we couldn’t control and to trust the Lord implicitly for everything else.

Philippians 4:6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

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The Larson Place – My first home

(Prunes, who was a friendly mut that was also part timber wolf, in the window box)

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Roger and Prunes on the family farm

(Purchased in 1928, brother Ken and sister Verly would be born here. Grandpa Burke’s farm is in the background)

3. THE HOUSE ON THE FARM

How do you get from point A to point B when there are no marked streets or avenues? That’s the way it was when I came into this world, August 1, 1926. The answer is by personal names and landmarks. I still remember some of those names, Luloffs, Burke’s, Berggren’s, Meyer’s, Knife Lake, Ann River, Alcohol Creek, etc.

I was born on the Larsen farm about nine miles north-west of Mora, Minnesota, next door to the Hornes. The house, 24’ X 26’, divided ½ living room, the other ½ divided between kitchen and bedroom. It was a shack by today’s standards, but it was my first home. It had a path to the little house and no indoor plumbing. I lived in that house again in 1948. It was still the same shack. The gravel pit was still in the front yard, the toilet facilities were still in the house of many names (back house, biffy, outhouse, privy, two holer). The field mice had their own private entrance through a hole in the kitchen floor.

We moved from the Larsen place in 1927 to the Berg place just across the road from Grandpa and Grandma Burke. The Berg house, similar to the Larson shack, was a temporary home for us as we waited to move to the farm Dad had purchased. Years later, 1936, give or take a few years, Dad purchased the Berg place. It was the house where Uncle Dick died. It would become a club house for my brother and I and some of our cousins. We pretty much ended its history.

Sometime in 1928 we moved to the farm where I would spend the next 17 years and where my brother Ken and sisters, Elaine and Verly would be born. The farm buildings included a bungalow style barn, a chicken house, a granary and a house. The house was a two story, hip roof structure about 24’ by 26’ with a screened in porch on the west end and an enclosed entry across two thirds of the south side. The main house was kitchen, dining room, and front room with an area about 8’ by 12’ for a hallway, and pantry and a stairway that led to the three bedrooms upstairs. The lower level was a log structure, covered with beaver board and siding when the upstairs and porches were added. The logs and beaver board made a perfect home for bed bugs. We finally had to fumigate (cyanide, I think), and that solved the problem. We still had the path instead of a bath and until I was nearly through High School, the running water was available if you ran to fetch it.

We added to the buildings a bigger chicken house, which we eventually moved and attached to the barn for a calf nursery and housing for the pigs. We also built a milk house/garage combo where we installed a 32 volt Delco generator for electricity. This is also where we positioned our DeLaval cream separator and coolers for the milk as well as our shop tools

My parents and my brother have all gone home to be with the Lord, but my sisters and I still remember nostalgically those days back home on the farm.

Joshua 24:15b But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

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The original barn and two-year-old Roger

(The barn was expanded to house about 35 head of stock)

4. GROWING UP POOR

The parsonage for my first Pastoral ministry was the house in which I was born. It gained its notoriety from the amenities it didn’t have: no indoor plumbing, no running water, no electricity, no basement and mice entering and exiting at their leisure.

We moved from that place in 1927 to another shack before finally purchasing a farm in 1928. Then in 1929 the banks crashed. Money was as scarce as the proverbial hens teeth. Poverty was real. My mother’s folks had homesteaded 80 acres on property owned by the Ann River Logging