Bittersweet Farm

Red Jeep Journal
July 24, 2017

I’m deep in the mountains of eastern Kentucky, a region I have come to love. I’ve been traveling into these mountains every year for the last 39 years. I’ve come to love the people and the countryside here.

Sunday I preached at New Prospect Baptist. The church is pastored by my friend Dr. David Price. Sam Judd is his associate there. The church is out a road that is carved from a mountain and it rests on the bank of a tree-lined, meandering body of water called Laurel Creek.

There are bird songs here I have never heard before. It’s good for a fellow’s soul to quiet his heart and listen to bird songs and take long, winding drives in the mountains and go to church on the banks of a creek. You should try it some time.

I am encouraging pastors this week at a mountain pastors conference. I am speaking in the chapel you can see from this pic taken from the lodge where I am staying.

I’ll tell you an interesting story I mined out of the hills of Kentucky a little later this week.

Ken Pierpont
Oneida, Kentucky

Red Jeep Journal
July 22, 2017

Journal Dictation in Pennsylvania

The first-draft of this Red Jeep Journal entry was dictated while I sped down the highway in Pennsylvania.

I’m driving 710 miles today from New York through Pennsylvania, West Virginia and eastern Kentucky, along the old Hillbilly Highway and into Hazard and deeper into the mountain to Oneida today.

Right now I’m in the beautiful Allegheny Mountains in Pennsylvania. I just passed Happy Valley where Penn State plays football. It put a smile on my face on this mid-summer morning to think about cool autumn afternoons and Big 10 football. West of Happy Valley the highway cuts through fold upon fold of beautiful blue-green mountains. The mountains are all crowned with white mist this early morning.

It’s hard to describe how peaceful and compelling this landscape is. It deserves more time and attention then I have to give it today. I’m on a mission.

I just drove through a town called Shiloh and it reminded me of a ballad by Andrew Peterson so I looked it up on Spotify and now I’m listening to all the songs on Spotify named Shiloh. Some of them are Christian songs some of them are Civil War ballads.

I’m alone with my thoughts today and so my thoughts are about the last time I’ve visited Pennsylvania to preach. My friend Tom Harmon recommended me to a group of Brethren churches who brought me in for a united service as a preaching storyteller. I brought Holly, Heidi and Hannah with me to do children’s work, sing and keep me company. They put us up in a beautiful bed-and-breakfast called the McLean House run by fascinating literate Christian woman who made a delicious hazelnut-vanilla coffee and never let my cup get empty.

The bed-and-breakfast was beautifully decorated with antiques. The only thing out of place with a life-size cut-out of “Joe Pa” in the kitchen that would give you a start early in the morning when you came down tracing out the smell of coffee.

I get that familiar lump in my throat when I think back about that time with the girls. It ended up being a very happy memory for all of us and we look back upon it with fondness. It was a simple assignment but a cherished memory.

As always when I travel and preach I’m not sure what good I did but I do know that the seed was good and I planted it well and the rest belongs to God.

Tomorrow I preach to the good folk of New Prospect Baptist. Now I need to get to Oneida in time to prepare my soul with a thoughtful evening walk along the South Fork Kentucky River. I’ll take a picture of two for you to enjoy in my next Red Jeep Journal.

Arrived in Hazard

I’m in Kentucky now and today there was not a single stretch of 100 yards that was not a beautiful mountain scene. 710 miles of unbroken scenic beauty. 710 miles of unbroken worship.

I miss Lois when I’m in Kentucky especially. We talked on the phone a bit and remembered an evening together up on Natural Bridge at the restaurant overlooking the park. We ate Kentucky Brown and blackberry cobbler and coffee with ice cream for dessert. I vow to return with her one day, God helping me, and repeat the quiet evening together.

Ken Pierpont
Hazard, Kentucky

Red Jeep Journal
July 18, 2017

Preparation for preaching

The AuSable River facing west

The AuSable facing east

Miss Hope at Barakel

Lamoka Baptist Camp-Speaker’s Cottage

View of Lamoka Lake and the Camp for the porch of the Speaker’s Cottage

Last week our daughter Hope was with me when we passed the half-way point of the summer. She drove George the Red Jeep to and from Barakel. We left Barakel on Sunday afternoon after a rich week of ministry. We return to Barakel for Family Camp on Labor Day weekend.

South of the Zilwaulkee Bridge and just north of Birch Run on the way home we ran out of gas. We prayed and a wrecker pulled up immediately behind us and offered to return after servicing another motorist in distress. Within twenty minutes a black Jeep pulled up behind us and said; “Ken, what are you doing here? Do you need some help?”

We were over 100 miles from home and the driver of the black Jeep was our neighbor and friend Paul, who lives directly across the street from our home in Granville Cottage. The blessing of God on the ministry this summer, His provision and protection deepen our love for Him and our confidence in Him.

Camp in the Finger Lakes

Yesterday I spent most of the day on the road. By late afternoon I arrived at Lamoka Lake in the Finger Lakes region of New York. The Finger Lakes are long, narrow, deep, north-south lakes in New York state south of Lake Ontario. The camp is located in the peaceful country between the two western-most of the lakes.

The speaker’s cottage where I am staying this week has three rooms and a perfect porch and sits on a hill overlooking the camp and the lake. The chapel is on the highest point of the camp facing down the lake from north to south.

I arrived in the late afternoon and had time to meet some campers and staff over dinner. The first chapel is always a time when the campers are measuring the speaker a bit. They listened well and I had time for a nice walk along the lake at sunset and an hour on the cottage porch watching the campers mingle, smelling the wood fire, and watching the afterglow out on the lake before bed.

New Roads

I will leave here on Saturday and take roads I have never taken on a seven-hundred-mile drive through New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia into eastern Kentucky. Sunday I will preach at New Prospect Baptist Church in Manchester and during the week I will speak for the pastor’s meeting at Oneida Baptist Institute.

All I Have Needed Thy Hand Has Provided

It is so encouraging every night to pillow my head with thanksgiving for what the Lord has allowed me to do this summer and realize that He has met our every need through the kind generosity of others. For those of you in the Fellowship of the Red Jeep, who pray and give and follow our ministry Lois and I and the family are deeply grateful.

Even small gifts are a great help to us. When I stop on the road and fill the gas tank or get a cup of coffee or a bite of lunch I always imagine where the money came from and my heart is full of thanksgiving to God and to you. If you would like to share we would be very grateful. Follow this link to give tax deductible gifts to our ministry.

Red Jeep Journal
July 7, 2017

 

Sweet Corn, Watermelon, and Summer Camp

It’s the season of watermelon and sweet corn and summer camp all over America. Have you ever thought that all over Canada and the U.S. during the summer young people gather under the preaching of the Word morning and evening–thousands upon thousands of them. After a day of swimming and horseback riding, paint-ball and high-ropes, swimming and diving, “octaball” and ping-pong, hand-crafts and snacks, good food and friends, they quiet their hearts and sing and listen to preaching prepared to help them face this beautiful but broken world and know that God is for them and not against them. Pray every day for campers all over this grand and beautiful land.

What’s Next?

This weekend I am in the area preaching on the Lord’s Day. Next week Hope America and I will be at Camp Barakel. This will be my third of four engagements this year at that “blessed place.”

Here are a couple faith-strengthening stories;

How Can I Help You?

Last week at Barakel I was preparing to speak when a got a call from Lois. She was paying the bills and needed me to handle some details. We talked for a while about financial matters and concerns, then we both agreed about how remarkable God’s provision has been since we set aside a regular church paycheck.

A text came in just as I ended the call. It was from a friend who was inquiring about how he could be a help to us. He said he wanted to help us financially. Immediately a monthly amount sprang into my mind. It was a generous amount so I set the thought aside as wishful thinking.

“How can I help financially,” he texted.

“You can share a one-time gift or a regular monthly amount,” I said, not mentioning the generous amount that had come to mind.

The next text shocked and delighted me. He wrote; “I was thinking …..” and he texted the exact generous amount that had been on my mind. In a couple days that pledge showed up in our missionary account as a monthly promise!

Another couple visited the Barakel chapel. When I checked my account early this week I saw that they had also given a generous gift to our ministry. I wish I could tell you more of the stories of God’s provision already this summer. It is remarkable and faith-building.

You can join the “Fellowship of the Red Jeep” by visiting here to be a monthly helper or give a one-time gift.

Let me tell you another story that will strengthen your faith.

Are You Willing to Die?

I had another amazing “providence-of-God” moment yesterday.

Yesterday I was out in the yard stretching the July 4th Holiday toward the end of the week. I was enjoying the cool breeze under the shade of a good leafy shade tree. I called a friend who is going through a dark trial.

I said to him; “Tom, you haven’t heard me preach for a while, why don’t I give you a little minute-message right now?”

“I’d like that,” he said.

I explained to him how according to Revelation the saints overcome Satan because of three things; the blood of the Lamb, the word of their testimony, and they were willing to die.

I explained that when we are ready to die with the praise of Christ on our lips there is no trial so dark and deep that it can defeat us. A believer who is ready for the slaughter for the glory of God is already “more than a conquerer…” in Christ. You cannot defeat him one who is willing to die.

Over and over again I emphasized; “Tom, if we are willing to die, nothing can defeat us.”

Just then a van pulled up and the son of a friend got out of the car with a package for me. I excused myself from my phone call. He handed me a package. I stood in the shade of the tree and opened the box.

In the box were two books. On the top was a book with this exact title: “Willing to Die.”

The shade under the tree in front of Granville Cottage was sacred ground yesterday afternoon when that book arrived.

I called my friend back and we both rejoiced in the encouragement that God had given to us. Before midnight I had read both books and I went to bed with a powerful assurance that God was at work even in the darkest trials we face.

Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage

 

Here are some photos from Barakel I though you might enjoy:

Red Jeep Journal
June 27, 2017

A Stone for a Pillow

I’m spending the summer on the road rarely sleeping in my own wonderful bed, in my own wonderful house, next to my own wonderful Lois, next to an industrial-size roaring fan she loves that drowns out the sound of crickets on the night air.

I find myself in unusual places. I carry my Wiggy Bag—my mummy sleeping bag—with me just in case. You never really know what it will be like when I pillow my head at night. Often when I lie down at night I repeat a little phrase to myself and my heart is warmed at the thought of it. “The Son of Man had nowhere to lay his head.”

Often Jacob comes to mind and the night he had a vision of God coming and going from his life. He woke up transformed. He had a stone for a pillow that night and he was far from home, but God was there and promised always to be with him.

Am I spiritualizing to see Jacob’s pillow of stone as the dim foreshadowing of the One who would come who had nowhere to lay his head? This One whom millions would follow and for the sake of the story we travel far from home with great joy in our souls and sleep in strange beds so others will have the rest for their souls—the rest only comes from the One who had nowhere to lay His head?

Kyle and Ollie

Years ago at Camp Barakel I met Elizabeth Winzelers. She was a counselor. I called our oldest son and told him to come up to camp and meet her. Today they are married and have three adorable boys, Kyle, Oliver, and Leland. I return to Barakel to preach this week and Elizabeth will meet me in Lansing with Kyle and Oliver. They will spend the week with me at the camp where their parents met. How wonderful to look back over our lives and see the hand of our good God. He is good. Never doubt it. Even when bad things happen to you, never doubt the goodness of God.

Please Consider Helping

We are full-time speaking and writing and depend completely on the gifts of folk to the Red Jeep Journeys. You can make tax-deducible donations here. Thanks so much for helping.

Ken Pierpont
Lansing, Michigan