Sobibor

I am currently reading a book called "Escape from Sobibor" by Richard Rashke.  I was doing some googling and came across it.  I read it today during my down time during popcorn harvest.  It is a really good read about World War II and the holocaust.  When I was a senior at Purdue I was involved in a Study Abroad program.  I spent the spring semester of 1996 in Godollo, Hungary, not far from Budapest.  It was one of the best trips of my life except for Hawaii with my wife.  For Spring break during my study abroad program we went to Poland for a couple days.  There we visited Auschwitz one morning.  I will never forget it.  We saw rooms of suitcases and eyeglasses.  I had a sick feeling in my stomach.  It was kind of a blur but we watched a movie saw the rooms of the Jews belongings, went to the execution wall.  We went to the gas chamber.  I was only 21 years old then and did not know a whole lot.  I wish I could go back with the knowledge I have now.  It is something I will never forget.  I did not know about the concentration camp of Sobibor and I am enjoying reading the book by Richard Rashke and learning new information about the holocaust and the World War II time.  It seems that Sobibor is as close to hell on earth as you will ever get.  It is sickening to read about it but educational to see what can happen when a government goes corrupt.  6 million people, mostly Jews, died like animals.  One part of the book tells about 2 German boys going into the ghetto in Poland and just shooting Jews at random.  In the book a liason for the Poland government who was in hiding in the west vomited when he was snuck into a concentration camp to see firsthand of what was happening was for real.  War is horrible and like hell on Earth(though the real hell, fiery brimstone, will be unmatched).  The Allied forces really did not do enough I believe since they new the concentration camps were happening.  The weird thing is that the world is still against the Jews.  They have their own country now called Israel however their allies are few and every nation wants them to give up pieces of their land.  What have we learned from history?  Not to much.  I believe when the leader of Iran says he wants to wipe off Israel from the map that someday they will try to do it.  May God continue to protect Israel.  I could not find my own personal pictures of Auschwitz however I have attached a few from the internet.  Today I am thinking the closest things to concentration camps would be in North Korea.  The people there live horribly.  We have a lot to be thankful for here.  May we be thankful, watchful, and alway be aware we could lose our freedoms anytime. 

Denver International Airport (DIA)

Last week my 2 sons and I had the pleasure of visiting my sister, her husband, and her 2 children. Also my mom and brother's family were there. It was a great time. The week went fast. I love the city of Denver. If you love the mountains you will love Denver. We saw Mount Evans, which is 14,000 feet elevation. It was 90 degrees in Denver and up at the top of Mount Evans it was 42 degrees and 19 degrees wind chill. Needless to say I froze in shorts. I was not prepared. The best thing we saw was Garden of the Gods. My mom suggested it and we all loved climbing the rocks. It was great to be with family. One thing for this trip is my 2 sons and I flew since my wife and 4 daughters stayed home. It was fun to fly and the boys loved it. We flew in on Tuesday, August 4th around 3pm on southwest out of Indianapolis. The flight was great. We landed and then took a underground train to get our luggage. The area where you get your luggage had an interesting painting of a person with a mask on holding a machine gun and wearing a gas mask. I thought that looked interesting. The next picture showed people of the world and the guy in the mask and carrying the machine gun dead. The word peace was on all the people. I have attached pictures. That piqued my interest so I asked my sister and brother in law about the airport. If you look on the internet there are several conspiracy theories regarding the Denver International Airport. One is that there are 4 underground buildings.  Originally 4 buildings were built and then something happened where they were told to bury them. Another is that the government operates out of the 4 underground building.  Supposedly last September a comet could have hit the Earth and Obama was in Denver to go to the airport and hide out if that happen. There is a horse my sister and brother in law were telling me at the airport outside where the horses eyes are red and when the builder was making it the head fell off and killed him. I googled it and that is true. Also the airport project took longer to build and went $1 billion dollars over budget. It was interesting.  I am not really a conspiracy theory type guy but I found the pictures in the airport interesting.  If you google DIA you will find lots of other wierd information.  I would definitely recommend Denver. It is beautiful.  As far as my attached pictures go, the last picture shown is a far away picture of the horse when you drive into the airport to be dropped off.  The first picture is what I saw when I went to get my luggage.  This picture is with my 2 sons standing by it.  The second picture is the end of the person with the machine gun and sword.  I will have to do more research on this.  Interesting......

The Middle East and Iran

In the fall of 1995 I was at Purdue University in West Lafayette. It was my senior year and I met in my class an Arab who I will call Abu(that is not his actual name). He was friendly towards me and we studied together. He grew up in the country of Kuwait however he was Lebanese origin and called himself a Palestinian. How he came to Purdue I will never understand. We became such good friends he came to my house on weekends at times. I will never forget one Sunday morning in the fall of 1995 I went to get the newspaper before church and right away I went right for the sports page like any other 21 year old would do. My friend though was shocked at the front page though stating that the Prime Minister of Israel had been assinated. I did not care 2 licks. Abut was upset I did not care. I really did not care though. My mom, brother, sister, Abu and I went to church that morning and I will never forget our minister who was our elder came up to Abu during lunch and sympathized with him regarding Rabin's death. He was trying to make peace with the Palestinians so Abu took this hard. From that day forward I started to look into and learn about Israel and Palestine and the conflict. The first time I visited Abu at his apartment he showed me a video of Palestinians being persecuted by Israelis. This was before he visited my house so again I did not care about what he was telling me. After the situation with Rabin I started to look into Middle East more. Abu had berated me for caring more about sports in the paper than about middle east news. There is more to this story but I have now learner much about Islam and the Middle East because of Abu. I am pro-Israel now that I have done my research and am opposite of Abu on beliefs on who is right regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Because of Abu, who I talked to for over an hour this week, I pulled my head out of the sports page to dig into the middle east conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. My findings and research have led me to support Israel. Abu does not like this but is happy for me to have an opinion on this. As Americans we need to wake up, pull ourbheads out of the sports page and look around at the world around us. I have had the chance to share the gospel with Abu and I still pray that he will become a follower of Jesus. According to the Bible Jesus is the only way to Heaven. Thank you Abu for challenging me. I asked Abu about Iran deal we recently made. Abu is a Sunni Muslim and the Muslims from Iran are Shiite so there is tension there. Abu did not like the deal and is dissapointed with the presidient. I am thankful that I now follow the middle east.

yellow corn

Here in Indiana I work for a farmer.  We have a rain gauge and one of the employees writes down the rain every day during the week.  They have records going back to 1988.  The biggest month was July 2003 where we got 15.0 inches of rain.  This past month though we had a new record.  It was 17.3 inches of rain for the month of June.  That kept us from spraying the corn for burr cucumber and morning glory.  My employer who is also family grows mostly popcorn.  He is a go getter and planted it in April so his corn looks pretty good however about 15% is drown out or yellowed.  I have a little field and did not finish planting it until around May 20th.  The first 10 acres was planted around May 8th and it looks okay after that though the corn is yellow about waist high and struggling.  I do not know what will happen.  Very frustruating however I do have crop insurance.  I put on my nitrogen, the corn is just not getting it.  I know in the book of Habakkuk I believe chapter 3 it talks about how we should praise God even if our crops fail.  So I need to be praiseful regardless.  See picture below of my employers field.

RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act)

Very dissappointed in our governor Mike Pence for caving in to anti-RFRA protestors after he signed the RFRA into law. He was blackmailed by companies who were swayed by the LGBT organization. Several companies threatened to leave Indiana if Mike Pence did not change the RFRA law. That is extortion to me. I personally called Angies list to complain to them threatening to not expand due to RFRA. Our governor caved and made the law more confusing. I am dissapointed with Indiana where I have lived all my life. I want my religious freedom protected. I should be able to refuse to do business with someone if I do not want to.