Full-Chicken Body Scan

Hello, reader! Sorry I've missed you the last couple of days, they have been long and busy. The last two nights have been straight to bed once I returned home. It has been cold and windy, which take a lot out of a person. Joy has done a great job of updating you on the last few days. As I reflect on them, I have learned a little bit about pastoral care in a rural areas. In many ways, it is not very different from ministry in other contexts. However, one must take into account the mindset of the congregants one serves and the local and regional context. We alsso have discussed the importance of intentional community in rural areas. We have noted that less "vital" churches (as Discovering Hope calls them) are programs of the community. In contrast, vital churches create programs for the community. Of course, "for" means that these programs are methods by which the church bears the good news to the community. However, those programs may take on a variety of different looks. St. Matthew, St. John, and Long Branch all sew quilts for Lutheran World Relief, which is one example of such a program. Long Branch has also been making strides to become more hospitable, as another example.

Now, to today's activities and, eventually, the event that named today's post.

Today was farm day. We started with an hour long drive to Palmyra to meet Pr. Brenda. She lead us to Praireland Dairy near Firth, Nebraska. There, we got to see how they milk cows. They are set up to milk 120 cows per hour. They milk each cow three times a day!

After the dairy farm, we went to the Smart Chicken Processing Plant. We doned hairnets, frocks, earplugs, and hard hats to see how a full, freshly plucked chicken becomes the various parts or gets tied up for oven roasting. The chickens come to the plant in Waverly from another plant outside of Tecumsah (where, Pr. Brenda was told, they do the "sacrficing"). They look very similar to a chicken one might put in their oven for a special dinner. People hang them by their feet onto two miles of chain. The chickens fly around the plant. Every chicken as the very tips of their wings cut off by machine. They are scanned, by computer, to maintain only perfect chickens for whole chickens, everything else is dropped at various times to be cut by people. From the control station, one can see a picture of each individual chicken. The computer images has lines pointing to flaws. Sometimes they are not obvious, such as skin imperfections, and sometimes they are, such a missing wings. Our guide told us that the missing wing probably was a wing that was broken in transport, which cannot be used. The scraps and "inedibles" are taken to be made into dog food. Smart Chicken is unique because it is "air chilled," a process that allows the birds to be frozen without using extra water.

Then, we went to the Feedlot. There, cows are "finished." That means they are fed a diet which we cause them to gain the most weight, going from 700 pounds to 1200 pounds in 150 (or so) days. They had lots of black angus cows. They host 1600 cows at a time. Each cow eats 40 pounds of feed a day (I think that's the right number).

We we able to enjoy old-fashioned ice cream sodas at an old-fashioned drug store in Springfield, near the feed lot.

We ended our evening by bowling. My best game? 86. I'm a terrible bowler. Zach bowled the best game - apparently a personal best - at 150. I also owned the worst game with 27. Told you I was terrible.

Tonight is our last night in Johnson. I hope to write tomorrow to tell you about our time in Lincoln, the capital of Nebraska. Until then, God's Blessings!