“Be assured, if you walk with Him and look to Him, and expect help from Him, He will never fail you.” – George Mueller
I am grateful for SurvivalBlog and this community. There is a great wealth of knowledge and inspiration that comes from this project.
In the last ten years I have experienced and pursued the development of a survival-focused lifestyle. I do not “do it right.” I have weakness at many points and I do not live in an ideal situation. Regardless I take active steps to improve my survival ability and to improve the resilience of my community. As I work to improve, I have found that taking active steps to improve my community is the most important role I can fit in to help us all increase our survivability.
When we review news and social media there are often stories about the dire straits the country is seen as entering. From both the conservative and liberal perspective there are earth shattering changes on the horizon and our world will “end soon.” I don’t discount these predictions, but I challenge the readers of this blog to ask themselves, so what?
If the world is rendered less suitable for human habitation and the sea levels rise, there will be change we need to adapt to. If we continue to see the prolonged venture into the depths of sin that is (to me and many others) so obvious, should we wring our hands and hide? Did Noah hide from God’s direction? Or did he move towards the goal God set out for him?
My perspective is that the things that we see going on are signs, signs that we need to pay direct attention to. Then we need to focus on the fundamental aspect of what will make a difference in our day-to-day life and move in the direction of positive progress.
A direct action I am taking and I recommend to be taken by members of this community is to join a church. Find a church that has Biblical teachings. I promise that the church will not be a perfect place, none of us attain the perfection of God. Instead, look for people who are making earnest movement towards good.
In the last several years I moved to a rural plains state. I had compiled a 25-row spreadsheet of different states. Affordability, access to sports I enjoy participating in, historical voting patterns, fertility rate, poverty rate, USDA zone, and so on were all on that spreadsheet.
I prayed and considered what I was looking for. I looked for both a high poverty and high fertility rate as I believe the people are more robust than those living in comfort and luxury. In my life, I have spent substantial time in large coastal “elite” cities. There I found that I was not connected to a meaningful community, that the transience allowed me not to fix character defects that reduced my suitability to be a good member of the community. The crime rates were insane, and I was paying far too much in taxes, ostensibly in exchange for services that offered no benefit to me.
I left and was transient for several years. I spent time in numerous “popular” states. The crime and corruption in those states as well as the culture was not a fit for me. Proximity to major metropolitan areas was the central challenge I found in considering any of these states. I believe that major metropolitan areas are not the place to be now as the quality of life we are used to enjoying has decreased and we face a potential cataclysmic change to the world as we know it.
When I moved to a rural town, I looked at real estate prices, distance to work (I travel extensively), and the make-up of the community. I chose a rural farm town in a prairie state with a small population. I did not know anyone there. I am middle-aged, strong, I work in a mechanical trade, and am college-educated. I am single. I have intense hobbies and work. I’m typically on the road 220+ days a year for work and pursue church, service work, hunting, and skiing in the time that I have off.
The community I joined has a couple of bars. I am sober and do not drink or enjoy the gossip, lasciviousness, and inanity of the bars. Instead, the day I closed on my house I met a retired farmer who invited me to join him at his church. I took him up on the offer and regularly attended church service. I was working three hours away, six days a week and would go home to do laundry, get moved in, and go to church. At times I would be gone for months at a time, but the farmer would look out for my house. My friends at church joked with me that they thought I worked for the government and that I was in some foreign nation waterboarding enemies of the state. As I spent more time at home, I created more relationships and networked and now have many people who look out for my house. Also, after seeing me work, they don’t think I work for the government. They realize I am a worker.
My life has not gone perfectly. I find many retreat owner profiles read like a who’s who of successful business people. I wish I could afford a Great Redoubt hideaway twenty minutes from the ski area and retire full-time. Instead, I found my prairie location. I’ve had a divorce and a bankruptcy. I’m also an alcoholic and have been sober for almost a decade, but I don’t yet have the great material wealth some in this community have. What I do have is charisma, logical thinking, mechanical ability, experience, the Holy Spirit, and the willingness to lead others.
Church attendance was and is a very important hallmark to a better and changed life. I took suggestions from members of the church and helped where I could. Throwing hay with one of my retired farmer buddies is a great hobby and builds strength. Tithing has completely changed my perspective on life. I feel that I have ownership of the church and am an active part of the community. I hold myself in higher regard and several changes I have been working on for years have occurred. I believe it was due to a conscious and direct effort to tithe and to be an active member of my community. Getting baptized. I help with and lead some construction projects at the church. I’ve helped lead cross-country trips to visit the Ark Experience and Creation Museums. I even cook and bake for church, which does get some raised eyebrows from the ladies since I am a large strong bald man with a handlebar mustache who regularly rides a motorcycle. And I make a great apricot and mulberry crumble — all from my own land.
The community I live in has had many transplants from all over the United States. A recently arrived neighbor family that I got acquainted with has a 15-year-old son who does not have much leadership in his life. Last summer I was talking to the young man and asked him what he is doing for the summer. He laughed and said that he was playing video games. I asked him if he was serious. He said that he was and that he recently bought six new video games. And that it would be “awesome.”
This is a sad state for youth to be in. There are so many good things to be involved in. Sitting on one’s rear end making pixels move is an unacceptable situation. So many negative things can come from a sedentary life. Risk of depression, obesity, and so on. I had seen him wearing a hat with a marijuana leaf on it. Clearly, there are opportunities to share some Good Orderly Direction.
I asked the young man if he knew how to weld, and if he would be interested in learning. He said that he was and that he had no experience. That summer, when I was home, we started working with the stick welder to get him up to speed on working in industrial arts. I’m sure he played more video games than would be advised, and probably was using drugs at times, but he also got access to see and learn how to weld, how to cut metal, basic carpentry, and other useful skills. He also joined me at church. He started to attend the adult Bible study on Sunday nights and is becoming a great man! He learned about righteousness and can compare and contrast the people he is around who are lost and those who are following God’s path. I cannot make his choices for him. I pray that God leads him in the right direction and that he chooses wisely.
If you do not like the direction of the world, then you are not alone.
(To be concluded tomorrow, in Part 2.)