Fatal Harvest (34 page)

Jill smiled at him.

Matt rubbed a knuckle under his damp cheek. “Well, I’m glad you won’t be with Penny anymore, Dad. She bugs me.”

“I never knew that,” Cole said. “There are a lot of things I didn’t know. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t really paying attention. But I do see that Penny isn’t right for me. It’s like I’m seeing through different eyes.” Cole leaned his head back as the pilot climbed into the cockpit and began checking the instrument panel. How little he had understood his son. “If you’ll start telling me what you’re thinking, Matt, I promise I’ll do a better job of listening. You’ve already taught me to listen more closely to God. I want to do His will—just like you did when you brought the USB key to Mr. Karume.”

“Hello?” Karume mumbled from the blanket on which he lay. “Did someone call me?”

As the rotor blades began to turn, Cole knelt down and took Karume’s wrist to check his pulse. “We were saying that Matt intended well when he brought you the key, even though Vince Grant destroyed it.”

“Ah yes.” He grunted in pain. “Destroyed…but not lost.”

“What did you say?” Jill asked, speaking over the growing roar of the helicopter’s engine. “The Agrimax data was stored on the USB key.”

“But the satellite link—the wireless modem. All files from the laptop transfer automatically to my office in Khartoum.”

Jill gasped. “Oh, Matt!”

“Miss Pruitt!” He threw his arms around her. “The data is intact! It went to Khartoum! Billy—we did it!”

“Dude!” Billy shouted as the chopper lifted into the night sky. “This is too cool! We gotta celebrate. When we get home, let’s go to Dairy Queen and get, like, a Blizzard, or maybe fifteen, and—”

“And a drink of water,” Josiah called up from his spot on the floor. “With ice.”

“As much ice as you want,” Cole said. “Just hang in there, okay?”

“Yes,” he muttered. “Okay. Everything is okay.”

“Yeah.” Matt draped his arm over his father’s shoulder. “Everything is okay.”

Jill slipped her hand into Cole’s. “God is good,” she said.

He smiled. “God is very good.”

Several years ago while riding on a shuttle bus, I met the man who was the inspiration for this book. William Heffernan, Ph.D., teaches in the Department of Rural Sociology at the University of Missouri in Columbia. But he is more missionary than professor. His blue eyes lit with a flame, and his words were zealous as he talked to me about the world’s hungry people and the need to feed them. Later, on the MU campus, Dr. Heffernan outlined for me the dire implications of consolidation in the global food system. His passion for the American farmer and his work with the Food Circles Networking Project stirred my heart as I thought of Christ’s many parables and teachings centered on agriculture. While any errors in this book are my own, I wish to thank Dr. Heffernan for teaching me so much about the food systems and for sharing with me his own ideas about how to save the small farmer while also helping to feed the hungry.

Others who assisted me with information about world hunger and relief programs include Harold Cummins, Kristie McGonegal, and Sharon Buchanan-McClure. Geoffrey Palmer, my then seventeen-year-old son, explained computer technology to me. He and the other boys who once filled our basement with laughter, snores and the constant aroma of pizza provided the inspiration for Matt and Billy. These won
derful young men include Ian Campbell, Charlie Thompson, Mark Resner, Mark Johnson, Evan Lowery, and Nathan Jentsch.

With this book more than any other, I’ve realized the vital importance of those who helped me shape it into the final story you hold in your hands. Karen Solem believed in the project from the onset, and her enthusiasm brought it into existence. My husband, Tim Palmer, is my strength and encouragement. Without his listening ear and the countless hours he spent reading and redlining this manuscript, it would not exist. I am so grateful to God for putting these and so many other important influences into my life. Thank you all.

Dear friend,

One summer, I was walking from our cabin to the lake when I spotted a retired friend of mine watering his yard. In one hand, he held a dinner plate. I greeted him and asked why he was carrying around a plate. He told me he had just picked it up from an elderly neighbor who lives alone. “My wife always cooks a little extra every day,” he said, “and I take a meal over to him in the evening. It’s just as easy to cook for three as it is for two, you know.”

This may seem like an insignificant deed, but in this way, my friend and his wife are obeying Christ’s teaching in Matthew 25:31-45.
The Life Application Study Bible
tells us that “God will separate his obedient followers from pretenders and unbelievers. The real evidence of our belief is the way we act.” My friends’ act of obedience doesn’t require wealth, great skill, or high intelligence. But in their own way, they are feeding the hungry—and Christ, as well. As He said, “I assure you, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to Me!”

What have you done to obey Christ’s teaching? Have you made a meal for a sick friend? Did you volunteer for a Meals on Wheels program? Did you send a donation to a trustworthy hunger-relief organization? Or did you, like the charac
ters in my book, try something extraordinarily risky and bold in your efforts to feed the hungry?

Thank you for being a part of Christ’s body and for joining me in the important task of feeding those who hunger.

Blessings!

Catherine Palmer