I found this lovely country church on the road headed to see the Ragamuffin Band at a concert on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in October 1998... I have a penchant for driving on the back roads sometimes, so instead of taking the interstate to meet up with friends in DC to ride to the concert, I drove through the Shenandoah Valley on US Route 340. Well, I had just come up a hill and across a little bridge when I saw this white frame church, and it looked so much like the one that Rich Mullins had gone into to record the cheap-jambox demos he made of the songs on his final project, The Jesus Record... so I pulled over and blew half a roll of film on it, giddy with excitement at finding this little jewel in the woods!

"...where the sacred rivers meet
beneath the shadow of the Keeper of the Plains -
I feel the thunder in the sky
see the sky about to rain
and I hear the prairies calling out Your name"
On Thursday night, the day before the Legacy Fest 2000 officially began, many people gathered to sing and play songs from their hearts beneath the shadow of the Keeper...the sky did not thunder but we rejoiced anyway.

A Kansas windmill - Mennonite Heritage Museum, Goessel KS.

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