Short stories with spiritual principles from the life experiences of Pastor Mark
July 28, 2016
I was not a happy camper! It was a cold winter’s night in northern Minnesota; I was 15 years old and at the mercy of others regarding transportation. The dilemma was we lived 5 miles from the nearest form of civilization, the old rough-edged community of Winton.
July 21, 2016
It was part of my job as an inspector; I was enduring another Minnesota construction certification course. Being held in another county, it was another not so fun week away from home.
July 14, 2016
I normally love fishing, but at this point I never cared to fish again. Besides horrendous motion sickness, time was in slow motion. I now had 3 hours, 45 minutes and 10 seconds left before docking! I was miserable!
July 6, 2016
Yes, my brother and I made it home after extensively exploring (we were lost) the wilderness area north of our lake home. We were cold, wet, hungry and tired. But it was nothing compared to the Christmas Eve that was to follow two years later.
June 29, 2016
My brother claimed he knew where we were going, so he thought. We had been wandering through the woods for quite some time. Here we were, deer hunting in a remote area with not a soul within miles. He was 23 years old and I was 17.
June 7, 2016
It was one of those beautiful white winter days. I was working near my boyhood stomping grounds, when by chance I ran into a high school buddy. He had been away and I had not seen him for years. During that time I had become a Christian, while he had continued on the destructive path I had once been on.
June 1, 2016
For many of us October is our favorite time of the year; the cloudless colorful days, the cool clear nights and of course good hunting and fishing. For us northern Minnesotans, we especially enjoyed these days and nights, for they did not come that often. But personally, another reason I enjoyed this time of year was because I was able to work alone and tour the county inspecting bridges. That was after a summer of supervising teenagers.
May 9, 2016
This Minnesota Fall day was cold, heavily overcast with a constant drizzle. As we were working in a remote area, we thought we were alone. While we were cutting the survey line through the woods, we heard a faint gunshot followed by what sounded like a voice yelling. The three of us debated as to what it was; it happened again. Two of us decided we needed to check it out. We got back to the truck and headed south. We found a car parked in the middle of the single lane dirt road with the driver’s door wide open. The story came together.
May 2, 2016
Fall in Northern Minnesota was the time of the year I enjoyed most. Cool days, grouse hunting, dead mosquitoes; the yellows, reds, and purples of the leaves turning color; and, of course, Vikings football with the hope of another successful season! I loved being outdoors that time of year, whether hunting or working. Ah… could life get any better? (I was fairly ignorant of Colorado at the time.)
Well it so happened that my job with the U.S. Forest Service sent me and my crew on a low class dead end road. The three of us were surveying a new timber sale access road into a remote area. It was a swampy, wet area with heavy underbrush.
While we had been spending our days surveying, a young man from the Twin Cities had been preparing to grouse hunt in this same area. He had gathered all the right gear, but he lacked one thing; his belief and understanding of the outdoors were misguided.
April 14, 2016
It surely wasn’t planned. With my skills, I was sure it would be amusing. And it happened right in front of the swampies! (Definition of Swampy: 1. Any tourist visiting northern Minnesota. 2. Greenhorn, novice, or illiterate pertaining to our way of life. 3. Anyone lacking a Scandinavian accent.)
April 11, 2016
Ah… these jobs didn’t come often; relaxing by the lakeside at a public picnic grounds directing the building of a new pavilion and play area. Another unique feature; I was training an out of state civil engineering student. He had come to Minnesota hoping to gain engineering skills and also to satisfy his appetite for fishing. Yet, something greater was to happen of which he was unaware.