Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you. Philippians 3:17 (NIV)
For us to mature, we need models and mentors.
Many people make the mistake of thinking all they need to grow spiritually is God’s Word and prayer. But the truth is, we need people to help us grow.
Christlike character is built through relationships, not in isolation. There are many things God wants you to learn about life that you’ll never learn on your own. You’ll only learn them in community.
We always grow faster and stronger with living, breathing examples who can model for us what a purpose driven life looks like. We need more than explanations, we need examples.
Paul realized the power of a pattern when he advised, “Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you” (Philippians 3:17 NIV). To grow, we need to see principles in practice. We need to see what beliefs looks like when they are translated as behavior in everyday situations.
When Paul would travel to a city to start a church, he would begin by simply living among the people. He was a “living Bible,” echoing the life of Jesus, where “the word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14 NKJV).
After Paul left a city, he would write back, “Keep putting into practice all you learned from me and heard from me and saw me doing, and the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:9 NLT).
Who are your models for following Christ? Who are you watching and learning from?
Here’s a tougher question: Are you an example for anyone else? In elementary school, you probably enjoyed “Show and Tell.” As believers, we’re often better at “telling” than “showing.”
In today’s culture, the world desperately needs people who can show us how to love our spouse and make a marriage last, how to relate to our kids, how to do business with integrity, how to handle conflict in the way Jesus would. These are lessons we learn by watching others.
Not only do we need models to grow, we need mentors. Mentors are people who’ve followed Christ longer than we have and are able to share their life lessons. You’ve heard that it’s wise to learn from experience, but it is wiser to learn from the experiences of others. Life is too short to learn everything by experience! And some painful experiences can be avoided if you’re smart enough to learn from mentors in your church family.
Ask yourself this: “What’s been the greatest positive influence on my life?” Most likely it was not a sermon, seminar, or small group lesson. It was somebody who shaped your life through a personal relationship.
Can you see God’s wisdom in creating the church, a family full of mentors and models for our benefit?
That’s why being connected to a small group is so crucial to spiritual growth. It’s a regular opportunity to learn from each other.
Today, spend a few moments getting intentional about this. Write down the names of people in your church and small group that you’d like to learn from. Then identify what you’d specifically like to learn from them. Remember, they don’t have to be perfect to be a model or mentor.
To grow spiritually, you must also be willing to be a model or mentor to others. That may scare you but all it takes is being one step ahead.
People don’t expect you to be perfect – they already know you aren’t. What they want you to be is honest! So let them see your struggles, not just your successes. We usually grow as much from others’ weaknesses as we do from their strengths.
© 2008 Purpose Driven Life.
Rick Warren is the founding pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., one of America's largest and best-known churches. In addition, Rick is author of the New York Times bestseller The Purpose Driven Life and The Purpose Driven Church, which was named one of the 100 Christian books that changed the 20th Century. He is also founder of Pastors.com, a global Internet community for ministers.
The Boomer Blogger
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Consider the Decisions You Make!! Generations will be affected!! (Part I)
“Which of the following people would you say is the most admirable: Mother Teresa, Bill Gates or Norman Borlaug? And which do you think is the least admirable?
For most people, it’s an easy question. Mother Teresa, famous for ministering to the poor in Calcutta, has been beatified by the Vatican, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and ranked in an American poll as the most admired person of the 20th century.
Bill Gates, infamous for giving us the Microsoft dancing paper clip and the blue screen of death, has been decapitated in effigy in “I Hate Gates” Web sites and hit with a pie in the face.
As for Norman Borlaug . . who the heck is Norman Borlaug?”
Norman Ernest Borlaug (March 25, 1914- ) was born on a farm near Cresco, Iowa, to Henry and Clara Borlaug.
Borlaug enrolled in the University of Minnesota where he studied forestry. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1937. He returned to receive his master's degree in 1939 and his doctorate in 1942.
For twenty-seven years he collaborated with Mexican scientists on problems of wheat improvement; for the last ten or so of those years he also collaborated with scientists from other parts of the world, especially from India, Pakistan and nations in Africa, in adapting the new drought resistant wheat and other grains to arid lands and in gaining acceptance for their production.
Mexico presented a unique opportunity. Initially, his work had been concentrated in the central highlands where the problems with rust and poor soil were most prevalent. But he realized that he could speed up breeding by taking advantage of the country's two growing seasons. In the summer he would breed wheat in the central highlands as usual, then immediately take the seeds north to the Mexican state of Sonora. The difference in altitudes and temperatures would allow more crops to be grown each year.
One of the most significant developments that Dr. Borlaug brought about was the dwarfing of the wheat plants. Dwarf plants produce thick stems and do not lodge. The plants Borlaug worked with had tall, thin stalks. Taller wheat grasses better compete for sunlight, but tend to collapse under the weight of the extra grain—a trait called lodging—and from the rapid growth spurts induced by nitrogen fertilizer Borlaug used in the poor soil. To prevent this, he bred wheat to favor shorter, stronger stalks that could better support larger seed heads.
By 1963, 95% of Mexico's wheat crops used the semi-dwarf varieties developed by Borlaug. That year, the harvest was six times larger than in 1944, the year Borlaug arrived in Mexico. Mexico had become fully self-sufficient in wheat production, and a net exporter of wheat.
In Pakistan, wheat yields nearly doubled, from 4.6 million tons in 1965 to 7.3 million tons in 1970; Pakistan was self-sufficient in wheat production by 1968. Yields were over 21 million tons by 2000.
In India, yields increased from 12.3 million tons in 1965 to 20.1 million tons in 1970. By 1974, India was self-sufficient in the production of all cereals. By 2000, India was harvesting a record 76.4 million tons (2.81 billion bushels) of wheat. Since the 1960s, food production in both nations has increased faster than the rate of population growth.
He was involved scientific research in genetics, plant breeding, plant pathology, entomology, agronomy, soil science, and cereal technology. Within twenty years he was spectacularly successful in finding a high-yielding short-straw, disease-resistant wheat.
Wheat production in Mexico multiplied threefold in the time that he worked with the Mexican government; “dwarf” wheat imported in the mid-1960s was responsible for a 60 percent increase in harvests in Asia, Africa and the sub-continent Pakistan and India. He was credited with saving over 1 billion people from starvation. For that he was awarded the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize.
On September 27, 2006, the United States Senate by unanimous consent passed the Congressional Tribute to Dr. Norman E. Borlaug Act of 2006. The act authorizes that Borlaug be awarded America's highest civilian award, the Congressional Gold Medal. On December 6, 2006, the House of Representatives passed the measure by voice vote. President George Bush signed the bill into law on December 14, 2006, and it became Public Law Number 109–395.
According to the act, "Dr. Borlaug has saved more lives than any other person who has ever lived, and likely has saved more lives in the Islamic world than any other human being in history." The act authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to strike and sell duplicates of the medal in bronze. He was presented with the medal on July 17, 2007.
Such a high honor ……..but wait!!!! There is more!!!
THE BOOMER BLOGGER
For most people, it’s an easy question. Mother Teresa, famous for ministering to the poor in Calcutta, has been beatified by the Vatican, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and ranked in an American poll as the most admired person of the 20th century.
Bill Gates, infamous for giving us the Microsoft dancing paper clip and the blue screen of death, has been decapitated in effigy in “I Hate Gates” Web sites and hit with a pie in the face.
As for Norman Borlaug . . who the heck is Norman Borlaug?”
Norman Ernest Borlaug (March 25, 1914- ) was born on a farm near Cresco, Iowa, to Henry and Clara Borlaug.
Borlaug enrolled in the University of Minnesota where he studied forestry. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1937. He returned to receive his master's degree in 1939 and his doctorate in 1942.
For twenty-seven years he collaborated with Mexican scientists on problems of wheat improvement; for the last ten or so of those years he also collaborated with scientists from other parts of the world, especially from India, Pakistan and nations in Africa, in adapting the new drought resistant wheat and other grains to arid lands and in gaining acceptance for their production.
Mexico presented a unique opportunity. Initially, his work had been concentrated in the central highlands where the problems with rust and poor soil were most prevalent. But he realized that he could speed up breeding by taking advantage of the country's two growing seasons. In the summer he would breed wheat in the central highlands as usual, then immediately take the seeds north to the Mexican state of Sonora. The difference in altitudes and temperatures would allow more crops to be grown each year.
One of the most significant developments that Dr. Borlaug brought about was the dwarfing of the wheat plants. Dwarf plants produce thick stems and do not lodge. The plants Borlaug worked with had tall, thin stalks. Taller wheat grasses better compete for sunlight, but tend to collapse under the weight of the extra grain—a trait called lodging—and from the rapid growth spurts induced by nitrogen fertilizer Borlaug used in the poor soil. To prevent this, he bred wheat to favor shorter, stronger stalks that could better support larger seed heads.
By 1963, 95% of Mexico's wheat crops used the semi-dwarf varieties developed by Borlaug. That year, the harvest was six times larger than in 1944, the year Borlaug arrived in Mexico. Mexico had become fully self-sufficient in wheat production, and a net exporter of wheat.
In Pakistan, wheat yields nearly doubled, from 4.6 million tons in 1965 to 7.3 million tons in 1970; Pakistan was self-sufficient in wheat production by 1968. Yields were over 21 million tons by 2000.
In India, yields increased from 12.3 million tons in 1965 to 20.1 million tons in 1970. By 1974, India was self-sufficient in the production of all cereals. By 2000, India was harvesting a record 76.4 million tons (2.81 billion bushels) of wheat. Since the 1960s, food production in both nations has increased faster than the rate of population growth.
He was involved scientific research in genetics, plant breeding, plant pathology, entomology, agronomy, soil science, and cereal technology. Within twenty years he was spectacularly successful in finding a high-yielding short-straw, disease-resistant wheat.
Wheat production in Mexico multiplied threefold in the time that he worked with the Mexican government; “dwarf” wheat imported in the mid-1960s was responsible for a 60 percent increase in harvests in Asia, Africa and the sub-continent Pakistan and India. He was credited with saving over 1 billion people from starvation. For that he was awarded the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize.
On September 27, 2006, the United States Senate by unanimous consent passed the Congressional Tribute to Dr. Norman E. Borlaug Act of 2006. The act authorizes that Borlaug be awarded America's highest civilian award, the Congressional Gold Medal. On December 6, 2006, the House of Representatives passed the measure by voice vote. President George Bush signed the bill into law on December 14, 2006, and it became Public Law Number 109–395.
According to the act, "Dr. Borlaug has saved more lives than any other person who has ever lived, and likely has saved more lives in the Islamic world than any other human being in history." The act authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to strike and sell duplicates of the medal in bronze. He was presented with the medal on July 17, 2007.
Such a high honor ……..but wait!!!! There is more!!!
THE BOOMER BLOGGER
Consider the Decisions You Make!! Generations may be affected!! (Part II)
Henry A. Wallace inherited a passion for the modernization of agriculture, a talent for genetics, statistics and agricultural research and a conviction that farmers, who had not shared in the fabled prosperity of the 1920s, required federal support to achieve stable incomes.
Wallace was a shy young man, something of a loner, devoted to hybrid corn, econometric analysis of farm prices and the McNary - Haugen bill to raise farm income.
He was born on a farm in Iowa in 1888. He became a corn scientist who realized the commercial implications of cross-breeding and started Pioneer Hi-Bred International, the world's first commercial hybrid seed corn venture. He was also a prominent agricultural economist and a long-time editor of Wallace’s Farmer, a leading farm publication founded by his grandfather, "Uncle Henry," the first Henry Wallace.
Named as Secretary of Agriculture in 1933 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Wallace became a powerful spokesperson for sound conservation practices, believing they should be a central part of farm policy. The high cost of soil erosion, he often said, was of more importance than the low cost of production. Wallace favored certain practices which have been referred to as organic agriculture, and lately as alternative or sustainable agriculture.
Wallace also launched the Rural Electrification Administration, the Farm Security Administration, the first food stamp plan, and dozens of other programs designed to help American farmers. His goal was to establish a viable farm economy and, at the same time, conserve the nation's natural resources. Wallace was responsible for the creation in 1938 of the "ever-normal granary," which played a critical role in supplying food to Americans during World War II, and was one of his proudest achievements.
Wallace is considered the greatest secretary of agriculture. In 1933, a quarter of the American people still lived on farms and agricultural policy was a matter of high political and economic significance. Farmers had been devastated by the depression. His ambition was to restore the farmers' position in the national economy. He sought to give them the same opportunity to improve income by controlling output that business corporations already possessed.
In time he widened his concern beyond commercial farming to subsistence farming and rural poverty. For the urban poor, he provided food stamps and school lunches. He instituted programs for land-use planning, soil conservation and erosion control. And always he promoted research to combat plant and animal diseases, to locate drought-resistant crops and to develop hybrid seeds in order to increase productivity.
Today, as a result of the agricultural revolution that in so many respects Wallace pioneered, fewer than 2% of Americans are employed in farm occupations--and they produce more than their grandfathers produced 70 years ago.
He is said to be the greatest Secretary of Agriculture of all time!!
Maybe he should have gotten the Nobel Prize!!
But wait!! There is more!!!
The Boomer Blogger
Wallace was a shy young man, something of a loner, devoted to hybrid corn, econometric analysis of farm prices and the McNary - Haugen bill to raise farm income.
He was born on a farm in Iowa in 1888. He became a corn scientist who realized the commercial implications of cross-breeding and started Pioneer Hi-Bred International, the world's first commercial hybrid seed corn venture. He was also a prominent agricultural economist and a long-time editor of Wallace’s Farmer, a leading farm publication founded by his grandfather, "Uncle Henry," the first Henry Wallace.
Named as Secretary of Agriculture in 1933 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Wallace became a powerful spokesperson for sound conservation practices, believing they should be a central part of farm policy. The high cost of soil erosion, he often said, was of more importance than the low cost of production. Wallace favored certain practices which have been referred to as organic agriculture, and lately as alternative or sustainable agriculture.
Wallace also launched the Rural Electrification Administration, the Farm Security Administration, the first food stamp plan, and dozens of other programs designed to help American farmers. His goal was to establish a viable farm economy and, at the same time, conserve the nation's natural resources. Wallace was responsible for the creation in 1938 of the "ever-normal granary," which played a critical role in supplying food to Americans during World War II, and was one of his proudest achievements.
Wallace is considered the greatest secretary of agriculture. In 1933, a quarter of the American people still lived on farms and agricultural policy was a matter of high political and economic significance. Farmers had been devastated by the depression. His ambition was to restore the farmers' position in the national economy. He sought to give them the same opportunity to improve income by controlling output that business corporations already possessed.
In time he widened his concern beyond commercial farming to subsistence farming and rural poverty. For the urban poor, he provided food stamps and school lunches. He instituted programs for land-use planning, soil conservation and erosion control. And always he promoted research to combat plant and animal diseases, to locate drought-resistant crops and to develop hybrid seeds in order to increase productivity.
Today, as a result of the agricultural revolution that in so many respects Wallace pioneered, fewer than 2% of Americans are employed in farm occupations--and they produce more than their grandfathers produced 70 years ago.
He is said to be the greatest Secretary of Agriculture of all time!!
Maybe he should have gotten the Nobel Prize!!
But wait!! There is more!!!
The Boomer Blogger
Consider the Decisions You Make!! Generations may be affected!! Part III
It is rare to find a man of the caliber of George Washington Carver. A man who would decline an invitation to work for a salary of more than $100,000 a year (almost a million today) to continue his research on behalf of his countrymen.
Agricultural chemist, Carver discovered three hundred uses for peanuts and hundreds more uses for soybeans, pecans and sweet potatoes. Among the listed items that he suggested to southern farmers to help them economically were his recipes and improvements to/for: adhesives, axle grease, bleach, buttermilk, chili sauce, fuel briquettes, ink, instant coffee, linoleum, mayonnaise, meat tenderizer, metal polish, paper, plastic, pavement, shaving cream, shoe polish, synthetic rubber, talcum powder and wood stain. Three patents were issued to Carver.
He began his formal education at the age of twelve, which required him to leave the home of his adopted parents. Schools segregated by race at that time with no school available for black students near Carver's home. He moved to Newton County in southwest Missouri, where he worked as a farm hand and studied in a one-room schoolhouse. He went on to attend Minneapolis High School in Kansas. College entrance was a struggle, again because of racial barriers.
At the age of thirty, Carver gained acceptance to Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, where he was the first black student. Carver had to study piano and art and the college did not offer science classes. Intent on a science career, he later transferred to Iowa Agricultural College (now Iowa State University) in 1891, where he gained a Bachelor of Science degree in 1894 and a Master of Science degree in bacterial botany and agriculture in 1897. Carver became a member of the faculty of the Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanics (the first black faculty member for Iowa College), teaching classes about soil conservation and the industrial use of organic substances obtained from soybeans and peanuts for example.
In 1897, Booker T. Washington, founder of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute for Negroes, convinced Carver to come south and serve as the school's Director of Agriculture. Carver remained on the faculty until his death in 1943.
(Read the pamphlet - Help For Hard Times - written by Carver and forwarded by Booker T. Washington as an example of the educational material provided to farmers by Carver.)
At Tuskegee Carver developed his crop rotation method, which revolutionized southern agriculture. He educated the farmers to alternate the soil-depleting cotton crops with soil-enriching crops such as; peanuts, peas, soybeans, sweet potato, and pecans. America's economy was heavily dependent upon agriculture during this era making Carver's achievements very significant. Decades of growing only cotton and tobacco had depleted the soils of the southern area of the United States of America. The economy of the farming south had been devastated by years of civil war and the fact that the cotton and tobacco plantations could no longer (ab)use slave labor. Carver convinced the southern farmers to follow his suggestions and helped the region to recover.
Carver also worked at developing industrial applications from agricultural crops. During World War I, he found a way to replace the textile dyes formerly imported from Europe. He produced 500 different shades of dye and he was responsible for the invention in 1927 of a process for producing paints and stains from soybeans.
Carver did not patent or profit from most of his products. He freely gave his discoveries to mankind.
Most important was the fact that he changed the South from being a one-crop land of cotton, to being multi-crop farmlands, with farmers having hundreds of profitable uses for their new crops. "God gave them to me." he would say about his ideas, "How can I sell them to someone else?" In 1940, Carver donated his life savings to the establishment of the Carver Research Foundation at Tuskegee, for continuing research in agriculture.
George Washington Carver was bestowed an honorary doctorate from Simpson College in 1928. He was an honorary member of the Royal Society of Arts in London, England. In 1923, he received the Spingarn Medal given every year by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In 1939, he received the Roosevelt medal for restoring southern agriculture.
On July 14, 1943, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt honored Carver with a national monument dedicated to his accomplishments. The area of Carver's childhood near Diamond Grove, Missouri preserved as a park, this park was the first designated national monument to an African American in the United States.
"He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world." - Epitaph on the grave of George Washington Carver.
Maybe he should have gotten the Nobel Prize!!
But wait!! There is more!!!
The Boomer Blogger
Agricultural chemist, Carver discovered three hundred uses for peanuts and hundreds more uses for soybeans, pecans and sweet potatoes. Among the listed items that he suggested to southern farmers to help them economically were his recipes and improvements to/for: adhesives, axle grease, bleach, buttermilk, chili sauce, fuel briquettes, ink, instant coffee, linoleum, mayonnaise, meat tenderizer, metal polish, paper, plastic, pavement, shaving cream, shoe polish, synthetic rubber, talcum powder and wood stain. Three patents were issued to Carver.
He began his formal education at the age of twelve, which required him to leave the home of his adopted parents. Schools segregated by race at that time with no school available for black students near Carver's home. He moved to Newton County in southwest Missouri, where he worked as a farm hand and studied in a one-room schoolhouse. He went on to attend Minneapolis High School in Kansas. College entrance was a struggle, again because of racial barriers.
At the age of thirty, Carver gained acceptance to Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, where he was the first black student. Carver had to study piano and art and the college did not offer science classes. Intent on a science career, he later transferred to Iowa Agricultural College (now Iowa State University) in 1891, where he gained a Bachelor of Science degree in 1894 and a Master of Science degree in bacterial botany and agriculture in 1897. Carver became a member of the faculty of the Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanics (the first black faculty member for Iowa College), teaching classes about soil conservation and the industrial use of organic substances obtained from soybeans and peanuts for example.
In 1897, Booker T. Washington, founder of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute for Negroes, convinced Carver to come south and serve as the school's Director of Agriculture. Carver remained on the faculty until his death in 1943.
(Read the pamphlet - Help For Hard Times - written by Carver and forwarded by Booker T. Washington as an example of the educational material provided to farmers by Carver.)
At Tuskegee Carver developed his crop rotation method, which revolutionized southern agriculture. He educated the farmers to alternate the soil-depleting cotton crops with soil-enriching crops such as; peanuts, peas, soybeans, sweet potato, and pecans. America's economy was heavily dependent upon agriculture during this era making Carver's achievements very significant. Decades of growing only cotton and tobacco had depleted the soils of the southern area of the United States of America. The economy of the farming south had been devastated by years of civil war and the fact that the cotton and tobacco plantations could no longer (ab)use slave labor. Carver convinced the southern farmers to follow his suggestions and helped the region to recover.
Carver also worked at developing industrial applications from agricultural crops. During World War I, he found a way to replace the textile dyes formerly imported from Europe. He produced 500 different shades of dye and he was responsible for the invention in 1927 of a process for producing paints and stains from soybeans.
Carver did not patent or profit from most of his products. He freely gave his discoveries to mankind.
Most important was the fact that he changed the South from being a one-crop land of cotton, to being multi-crop farmlands, with farmers having hundreds of profitable uses for their new crops. "God gave them to me." he would say about his ideas, "How can I sell them to someone else?" In 1940, Carver donated his life savings to the establishment of the Carver Research Foundation at Tuskegee, for continuing research in agriculture.
George Washington Carver was bestowed an honorary doctorate from Simpson College in 1928. He was an honorary member of the Royal Society of Arts in London, England. In 1923, he received the Spingarn Medal given every year by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In 1939, he received the Roosevelt medal for restoring southern agriculture.
On July 14, 1943, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt honored Carver with a national monument dedicated to his accomplishments. The area of Carver's childhood near Diamond Grove, Missouri preserved as a park, this park was the first designated national monument to an African American in the United States.
"He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world." - Epitaph on the grave of George Washington Carver.
Maybe he should have gotten the Nobel Prize!!
But wait!! There is more!!!
The Boomer Blogger
Consider the Decisions You Make!! Generations may be affected!! Part IV
Moses Carver (1812–1910) was a German-American settler.
Moses Carver and his brother Richard mi¬grated to Diamond Grove, Missouri around 1838 from Ohio and Illinois. The Preemption Act of 1841 allowed farmers who lived on and improved 160 acres of land for six months to buy the land from the government at a low price. Moses Carver purchased a total of 240 acres in Marion Township, Newton County, Missouri.
As an early settler in the area, Carver selected a good site with an abundant water supply. He built a one-room log cabin with a window, a fireplace, and no floor. This is where he and his wife Susan initially lived, along with three nieces and nephews, whom they raised after Richard's death in 1839.
Though opposed to slavery on principle, Moses needed help as the farm prospered. In 1855, he purchased Mary Washington, a thirteen-year-old pregnant slave girl,from a neighbor. George Washington was born to Mary Washington. His father had died during her pregnancy in an agricultural accident.
In a state strongly divided by the tensions leading to the Civil War, the independent-minded and eccentric Moses Carver was in a difficult position, since he offended Confederates by being a Unionist, and Unionists by owning slaves.
Washington and his mother were taken from the farm by the feared Quantrill’s Raiders. These kidnappings were not unusual during the Civil War. When the Raiders got back to Kansas, the baby Washington was found to be too sick to be of any value to them.
A letter was sent to Moses Carver offering to trade the baby for a horse. Moses saddled up his best horse and headed for Kansas. When he got there, he took the baby, wrapped him in a blanket, put him inside of his coat and walked back to Missouri. George Washington was to remain sickly through-out his youth. The loss of his mother would remain with him throughout his life.
Moses and Susan Carver took the baby into their home and even gave him their name. George Washington became George Washington Carver. During that time, he was taught how to read by Mrs. Carver. He showed early promise in agriculture and developed a desire to further his education.
George left the farm when he was eleven to go to the black school in Neosho, Missouri. He returned to the Moses Carver farm on weekends, but never lived permanently with the Carvers again.
The Moses Carver farm became the George Washington Carver National Monument by an act of Congress in July 1943. The National Park Service maintains 210 acres of the original 240-acre farm.
Moses Carver should have received the Nobel Peace Prize!!!
The Boomer Blogger
Moses Carver and his brother Richard mi¬grated to Diamond Grove, Missouri around 1838 from Ohio and Illinois. The Preemption Act of 1841 allowed farmers who lived on and improved 160 acres of land for six months to buy the land from the government at a low price. Moses Carver purchased a total of 240 acres in Marion Township, Newton County, Missouri.
As an early settler in the area, Carver selected a good site with an abundant water supply. He built a one-room log cabin with a window, a fireplace, and no floor. This is where he and his wife Susan initially lived, along with three nieces and nephews, whom they raised after Richard's death in 1839.
Though opposed to slavery on principle, Moses needed help as the farm prospered. In 1855, he purchased Mary Washington, a thirteen-year-old pregnant slave girl,from a neighbor. George Washington was born to Mary Washington. His father had died during her pregnancy in an agricultural accident.
In a state strongly divided by the tensions leading to the Civil War, the independent-minded and eccentric Moses Carver was in a difficult position, since he offended Confederates by being a Unionist, and Unionists by owning slaves.
Washington and his mother were taken from the farm by the feared Quantrill’s Raiders. These kidnappings were not unusual during the Civil War. When the Raiders got back to Kansas, the baby Washington was found to be too sick to be of any value to them.
A letter was sent to Moses Carver offering to trade the baby for a horse. Moses saddled up his best horse and headed for Kansas. When he got there, he took the baby, wrapped him in a blanket, put him inside of his coat and walked back to Missouri. George Washington was to remain sickly through-out his youth. The loss of his mother would remain with him throughout his life.
Moses and Susan Carver took the baby into their home and even gave him their name. George Washington became George Washington Carver. During that time, he was taught how to read by Mrs. Carver. He showed early promise in agriculture and developed a desire to further his education.
George left the farm when he was eleven to go to the black school in Neosho, Missouri. He returned to the Moses Carver farm on weekends, but never lived permanently with the Carvers again.
The Moses Carver farm became the George Washington Carver National Monument by an act of Congress in July 1943. The National Park Service maintains 210 acres of the original 240-acre farm.
Moses Carver should have received the Nobel Peace Prize!!!
The Boomer Blogger
Consider the Decisions You Make!! Generations WILL be affected!! Part V
Norman Borlaug, Henry A. Wallace, George Washington Carver each have received enormous credit for saving millions, even billions, from starvation.
Moses and Susan Carver had no idea how many people would be impacted by their decision to save the baby Washington from certain death.
We do not realize the far reaching implications of the decisions we make on a daily basis. We are all inter-connected and are affected by our collective decisions. We should think of what the long term effect might be as we consider the decisions we are facing.
The Boomer Blogger
Moses and Susan Carver had no idea how many people would be impacted by their decision to save the baby Washington from certain death.
We do not realize the far reaching implications of the decisions we make on a daily basis. We are all inter-connected and are affected by our collective decisions. We should think of what the long term effect might be as we consider the decisions we are facing.
The Boomer Blogger
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