Random Thoughts on Iowa

It was marvelous to be back in Iowa last Friday/Saturday. I landed in Omaha and drove the familiar 90 miles to Sioux City, north on I 29. Just north of Council Bluffs, along the interstate, there is a small white farm house. It was there in the early 70's that our family car broke down. I vividly recall my dad sending my brother and me off to that house to ask for some water for the overheated Buick. Dad had no luck getting the car moving again, so soon we watched as he hitch-hiked to the town nearby to find help. After what seemed an eternity, he returned sitting in a tow truck, smiling broadly between two guys he had retrieved from the local bar. My memory goes blank after that. Suffice it to say, we got home eventually.

I enjoy flying into Omaha and have done so many times, lately for Orphan Grain Train events, or family funerals (always bitter-sweet). I well recall flying into that airport after Kathy and I lived in Australia for a year where I studied at Luther Seminary. Mom and Dad had moved to Omaha around 1981 when Dad was promoted by a family owned steel warehouse and fabricating company. He had worked for the daughter company in Sioux City during the late 70's. I welded my way through a few summers there, and learned well what it is to work in a manufacturing plant. It was priceless experience for all of life, especially for pastoring working people.

The Missouri runs between two bluffs, one on the Iowa side, the other on the Nebraska side. It's some of the most fertile farm land in the world, thousands of years of deposits from the river snaking this way and now that between the bluffs. The corn looks good, not as good as last year though, and hopefully the standing water from recent storms won't last long enough to do irretrievable damage.

The towns pass one by one to the north, and the order is forever etched in my mind. Missouri Valley, Mondamin, Little Sioux, Blencoe, Onawa, Sloan, Salix (my French Canadian relatives settled here), Whiting, St. Bluff, Sioux City. On the West just south of Sioux City is the rest stop behind which we used to shoot clay pigeons - challenged our fathers to a contest and beat 'em badly after a summer of practice. Just a mile to the northwest is the plant where I had my first hourly job (aside from walking beans - i.e. pulling/cutting weeds out of soybeans; and also de-tasseling seed corn). Trucks would come daily from the packing plants in Worthington and Sioux City, filled with large plastic lined baskets (four ft. square) filled with hog lungs (yes, lungs), ready to be ground, boxed and frozen, then loaded on trucks bound for dog food factories. Another great lesson in work, humility and life.

Just a couple of miles north and the bluffs jut out right to the edge of the Missouri. A tall obelisk marks the spot were Sgt. Charles Floyd's remains are buried, the only member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition to lose his life on the journey. I used to ride my bicycle to that very spot as a child, and survey the world to the north (South Dakota) and west (Nebraska). It was just north of this point that they began encountering more and more hostile Sioux tribes. The Ponca and Yankton were downright unfriendly. Knowing what was coming, and being in their shoes, I would have been too. Hard to believe that all along the river from Omaha to Sioux City were buffalo, elk, deer, and even grizzly bear! It must have teemed like the Serengeti with animal life.

I was baptized at Bethel Lutheran in Lawton, ten miles east of Sioux City on highway 20. The Harrison farm, long since a century farm, is a few miles distant. Grandma (Wulf) Harrison grabbed a lapsed Methodist by the heart and made a Lutheran of him. She'd been a member at the LCMS church in Hinton. Her parents (Karl and Wilhelmina) had come from Schleswig-Holstein the year before she was born in 1901. Soon after my grandparents were married, in the 20's, grand-dad became a founding member of Bethel. The old church is gone now, replaced by a splendid modern sanctuary twenty-five years ago. I'll never forget that old wooden church, especially the long staircase and how it creaked as folks climbed to the sanctuary for church. The farmers would grab their mail from the church boxes, and gather out front on the sidewalk to talk. We'd run off and eventually meet up at aunt Loraine's for coffee, then be at Grandma's for lunch, leftovers for supper. The day would end with the guys playing cribbage. I never played I just listed while playing with "pick up sticks," "tiddly-winks" or toy tractors - "15-2; 15-4; and a pair's 6". Have no idea what it means to this day.

The old farmhouse kitchen floor was covered with old style linoleum. But far and away my most vivid early memory is of my grandmother carrying corncobs in her apron and pouring them into a bin next to the old "cook stove." How she baked such marvelous pies and cakes on that old cob stove was a mystery to all who came after her.

I must have been 8 or 10 when we transferred our membership to Redeemer Lutheran in Sioux City, a church quite a bit closer to the tiny house were we lived on the east side. I remember the very first time I had an inkling that I might like to be a pastor. I must have been a 7th or 8th grader and decided I'd help out with VBS. The young associate pastor (who would become my brother in law in 5 or 6 years), showed some kindness to me. He invited me into his office daily for a snack. I thought he had a pretty cool job. I was reminded of this recently when I saw Dale Meyer's video encouraging pastors to "have a glass of milk" with a young prospect for the seminary! In my case it was Kool-Aide and cookies.

A few years later our congregation called a "vicar." His name was (is) Alan Boeck. He was then studying at the Ft. Wayne Sem., and had come from Schleswig, Iowa. He played a guitar and sang and one day he asked if I'd like to come to the youth group meetings. I told him I played the banjo and he asked me to bring it. Out of this unfolded several years of activity in Iowa West youth endeavors, including especially Camp Okoboji in the Iowa "Great Lakes." I was coming to a more vivid realization of the truth of Christ, even as I headed down this or that path (FCA) which lead me away from my church. But I always came back. My pastor, Paul Mueller was a big part of that. He always received my questions with kindness and answered them with clarity. Vicar Boeck pulled me back. Ironically, the part of the Small Catechism which I memorized better than any other was, "I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength, believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him..." As I associated with evangelical friends, even as I rejoiced at their faith in Christ, this great truth of the bible (grace alone) kept me from falling out of the Lutheran Church.

One Sunday a friend's child was baptized. I believe Kathy and I had just been married (1981). That Sunday an older friend who had had a similar experience, had returned to Redeemer for the occasion. He was studying at the Ft. Wayne seminary. He (+ Rick Suggit +) had brought something as a gift for me. It was a Tappert edition of the Book of Concord. I'll never forget his words. "Matt, I know right now you have no idea what this is. I didn't either. Aside from the Bible, this is the most amazing book you're ever going to read." It was a hook. Soon Kathy and I went to Ft. Wayne for a visit. That must have been 1983, during a terrible blizzard. I recall sitting in on a class by a youthful looking prof by the name of "Wenthe," studying the Old Testament. I was hooked.

After we finished our degrees at Seward, and a year as missionaries in North West Ontario for LAMP, Kathy and I headed to Ft. Wayne in the fall of 1985. The adventure has never ceased. In many ways I miss Western Iowa more than ever, but the trek out of Iowa has been the most gratifying, challenging and blessed journey.

Matt Harrison