The Pastor’s Piece, Pastor Kevin Cernek – FCFI Chaplain

Village Voices

March 16, 2025

When I was a kid, there weren’t a lot of avenues to riches for me. My brothers and sister and I worked for our dad on the farm, but our pay was more like an allowance than a paycheck. On our farm, dad broke us in on the Ford Jubilee with a two bottom plow, and we worked our way up from there. We were pretty good at working and playing together though.

One job we had was walking the neighbors fields behind a flat bed wagon picking up rocks. That paid 50 cents an hour. On a good day, in-between chores, we could take in three or four bucks each. On our birthday every year, we were guaranteed four dollars – three from grandpa and grandma and one from our aunt. The trouble was, when scanning the Sears, Montgomery Ward, or JC Penney catalogs, most of the items that caught my eye were at least $4.99 each. That was over six months wages for one toy.

So, we decided to set up a sweetcorn stand. During the summer, after the second crop, we took one of our hayracks and made a rickety wooden frame with whatever used lumber we could salvage from around the farm. We attached a canvas to protect us and the corn from the sun. It was a three-sided shelter. Every morning, we’d guesstimate how much corn we would sell that day and we’d hit the corn patch, filling the wheelbarrow a few times and then transfer it to the wagon. Sometimes, we’d have to refresh the supply part way through the day. We set up at the end of the driveway, where the road came to a T. Traffic came from three directions. Late afternoon when people were coming home from work was our busiest time. We sold our sweetcorn for ten cents a dozen. The money went into a coffee can and at the end of each day we totaled it up and stashed it in my brother’s top dresser drawer. I remember sitting out there for hours on end.

Every summer, we’d take a family vacation. It was always a short vacation – usually about a maximum of four days. Dad was a dairy farmer so it was difficult to get away for long, plus he didn’t want the help to wreck everything while he was gone. One uncle loaned us his pop-up camper. Another uncle oversaw the operation in our absence. We weren’t fussy about where we went on vacation as long as the campground had a swimming pool. We mostly went to Brown County State Park in Indiana. Mom would pack her cast iron skillet, which was one of those round flat ones with about a half inch sideboard and a handle on either side. We’d get a fire going in the morning, then mom would make bacon and eggs and toast on the skillet. We’d eat and then go swimming until lunchtime. For lunch we had sandwiches. Then we’d sit around for 30 minutes after we ate, then go swimming again until suppertime. For supper, we’d have burgers from the grill and then it was back in the pool until bedtime. That was our routine each day, along with one or two stops at the camp convenience store where we’d buy pop and candy with the money we’d saved.

Which brings me back to the sweetcorn. At the end of the season we’d divvy up the money we made and divide it equally among all the siblings. That came to between five and six dollars a piece. Doing the math, that means that we sold 450 dozen sweetcorn over the course of the season. The reward was five bucks – well worth it I might add. At the camp store, the cheapest bottle of pop was RC Cola at 10 cents for a 16 ounce bottle, (with a one cent return deposit). Between the candy bars, potato chips, and pop we weren’t the hungriest when it came to supper, but you couldn’t beat those burgers off a campfire grill. We usually went to bed with a bellyache.

One time a thunderstorm blew in in the middle of the night. It was fierce. The rain beat down relentlessly and the wind rocked us back and forth scaring us all half to death. If we rubbed the canvas top, the water would seep through and soak us. We couldn’t get up and go to the basement or even another room. So we all laid there in the night, terrified. The lightning flashes gave us glimpses of the inside of the pop-up and the crushing thunder that followed has left an indelible memory stamped in my brain. I thought we were going to get caught up in a whirlwind tornado and land in the next county, or all die as we fell one by one out of the camper as it swirled its way across the sky in the black of the night.

Well, that didn’t happen and I’m here today to proclaim the faithfulness of God in that situation, and in every situation of life. God is always near. Sometimes He rescues us from ensuing calamity, other times He takes us through it. Either way, we can trust Him always because He never fails.

“Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us,” (Psalms 62:6).

(Kevin Cernek is Lead Pastor of Martintown Community Church in Martintown, Wisconsin).