Two for One Department

This is not your typical Christmas photo. But it has a Christmas message. See the sunshine ready to break through? I took this dark photo at noon one day and named it "There is Always Hope."


And that's what Christmas is about: there is always Hope. His name is Jesus, the Light of the World.

And for a bonus: if you're suffering from extreme weather this winter, the theme also applies. Doesn't it? It's 0 degrees in Pancake Flats right now! I hope there is hope for warmth.


My First wife and I are going to Chicago this week (where it's warmer). We'll blog again when we get back.

Please accept our warmest wishes for the happiest of Christmases at your home. God bless, and thanks for visiting Pancake Flats this year.

Xtreme Christmas Department

Cliff Morrow inspired this post. He reported that his church had a delightful Christmas Cantata on a night when the thermometer said “Zero!” He also reported that they had plates and plates of Christmas Cookies afterward.

Not to be outdone, I thought I’d report on our church’s Xtreme Christmas held Sunday morning. We have a small church. About three to four hundred attend every Sunday, split up into two services. But for this Sunday, we all met in a Big City Convention Center. The past five years our church has held an Xtreme Christmas service.

During those services, several people are given help with personal needs. Like Christmas presents for the kids; like a couple of months of utilities or rent; like a semester’s tuition; like a half a truck-load of groceries; like Christmas presents for the parents, too. Oh, and we send box upon box of diapers, of frozen meat, of gift cards for gasoline and lattes. And on and on...


This year, we were aware of so many needy families in our community, that instead of wrapping gifts for weeks on end, we gave everyone gift cards to various stores and services. The smallest amount was $350 (lots of those); the highest amount was over $1,000. We were able to help over 140 families. One young lady received an Xtreme Check to help with hospital expenses for her preemie baby, who was born at 26 weeks! way back in September. This week she gets to go home! Yee-haw!

I don’t tell you this to toot our horn. I tell you this because the good folks in our little church gave big gifts to help less fortunate people have a nicer Christmas Season this year. Isn’t it interesting that when you want to help out, you always seems to have a little extra? Where does it come from? Jesus knows, I guess.

We all sang a bunch of carols—and were they ever vigorous! The preacher preached a little—got on TV, too.


Everybody was friendly; nobody was a stranger. One lady stepped out of her comfort zone—out of her grief—on the anniversary date of her daughter’s, and son-in-law’s and grandchild’s Xtremely Tragic deaths. Christmas time has not been pleasant for her the past several years, but she stepped up to the plate yesterday with an Xtreme Smile and welcomed everyone to our service. Just watching her was an Xtreme blessing for everyone. Jesus does things like that for you.

My First Wife and I hope your Christmas Season is Xtreme, too.

And by the way, when our church service started Sunday, the temperature was a balmy 60 degrees. When the service ended two hours later, it was a windy 32 degrees! By nightfall, 16 degrees and snowing! This morning it was 3 degrees! That's Xtreme!

Oh, and please visit My Hats Blog to meet one of the people who wore her hat to our church yesterday.

Jesus is the reason for the season.

Fantastic Weather Department

Today was a glorious August day here in The Heart of America. (And I may be the first person in the history of the English language to use “glorious,” “August,” and “day” in the same sentence.) This day may be our reward for the long cold winter we endured earlier. It was a beautiful day and I scooted out for my second longest walk of the year (seven miles). I crossed paths (get it?) with several walkers, joggers and bike riders who also were all aga-ga about this delightful summer gift.

I wanna share some pictures I took today on Tomahawk Creek, Kansas.

Two from my folder, “Benches.”

Should I put this in the Benches folder or in the Reflections folder?

Rest above the creek. Quiet, shady, peaceful, beautiful.

Two from my new folder, “Reflections.”

And two from my “Fences” folder.

I like this photo, but the fence is a little short.

The fence we love to hate.

It would be neat to live this day over again.

Weather News Department

It was a dark and stormy night. This part of Kansas saw more than 2-1/2 inches of rain between 7:00 and 10:30 last night. Then just after midnight this morning, about the same amount until 1:00 am. Lightning! Noise! Black clouds! Wind! It was a dark and stormy night!

And a fire that’s still burning in Kansas City, KS. About 7:00 Tuesday evening, a bolt of lightning set a gasoline storage tank on fire. No matter where you live, you may have seen a snippet of this event on your late night news channel. Here, The Big City TV stations hardly mentioned those political candidates because of the weather and this horrific fire. Apparently more than 2 millions gallons of unleaded gasoline were lost. The heat of the fire was so hot, that the sides of the storage tank melted!

No fire- or weather-related injuries were reported. Praise the Lord.

That long black cloud is not a long black cloud. It's smoke from the fire.

Photos are from MyFox TV, Channel 4, KCMO.