Final notes from Sauk Centre

This morning we had a very novel experience- we walked to church!  First Lutheran is only a few streets over from our campground.  As we entered the church a man was playing "This is My Fathers World" on his cornet.  How appropriate for John and I, considering all we have seen in the past few weeks- further words of the song: " of rock and trees, of skies and seas, his hands the wonders wrought".

 The sermon's theme was on how the Spirit moves through every church, uniting us all as brothers and sisters in Christ. The church members of First Lutheran were friendly and welcoming, I could not help but have a feeling of unity with them during that one hour of worship. It also gave me a longing to be back home in St.Louis. In recent weeks two dear friends of ours from Beautiful Savior have passed and I wish I could be back there among our friends, who have been an important part of our past, to share with them the pain of that loss. Thankfully in our travels there are places like First Lutheran where we can still connect with other Christians and be spiritually refreshed. Also, in small towns we have found that we frequently run into the same people and soon feel like old friends. The lady giving communion this morning we met earlier this week working at a museum and another time serving concessions at the  the local theater.
On a lighter note- no pun intended- but I want to post here a picture of some musical instruments located in the park near our home. Another lady and I created some rather strange music together yesterday as the sun set over the lake. The instruments are a xylophone, drums and chimes.

One last item here, and it is a note about one of our stops on Friday. We traveled to the farmstead in Kensington where the famous runestone was unearthed by Olof Ohman in 1898. There is nothing so special about the spot where it was found, only a memorial stone stands there now. What I found more interesting was Ohman home where Karin and Olof raised their nine children.  As I walked around that home (it is in the process of renovation and not open yet for tours) I could not help but think of the sadness within those walls, which probably went on for many years. The  townspeople thought Ohman had perpetrated a hoax on them by chiseling some strange words on a stone. One son, born four years after the stone was found, committed suicide when he was a young man- and another daughter felt it necessary to leave home to escape the constant ridicule. Fortunately Olof Ohman was vindicated by the time of his death in 1935. As I indicated in a previous posting, researchers and scientists by the 1920s were finding enough evidence to prove that the stone was authentic. Below is a picture of Ohman's farm homestead. We are moving on tomorrow to another Minnesota location.