Mt. Pleasant News

By Rev. Mark R. Youngquist, Swedesburg Lutheran Church Do you remember hearing about the orphan trains? The Orphan Train movement ran from 1854 until 1929, carrying an estimated 150,000 children from New York City, at a time when poverty, and the city?s swelling immigrant population, resulted in overcrowding, disease, and death. The purpose of the orphan trains was to take orphans to farming families in the ...

By Karyn Spory, Mt. Pleasant News There are three things I was taught not to bring up in polite conversation ? religion, politics and money. But as I venture further into adulthood these topics seem to continually creep into casual conversation, and maybe that?s not such a bad thing.In recent months, several of my friends have begun looking for new career opportunities and with this as a focus in their lives, ...

By Ed Conwell, Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints My wife and I recently made a trip to New York City to attend a memorial service for a friend of ours. On a Friday afternoon, as we were preparing to return home, we went shopping at a large grocery store near our hotel. As we entered the store we were surprised to see the store filled with dozens of Orthodox Jewish families. We thought that unusual, but just ...

By Brooks Taylor, Mt. Pleasant News Before opting to go verbatim with Iowa?s new fireworks law, most governmental bodies said the first year was a trial run.Because the law was passed so late in the session, there was little time to study it before summer hit. And due to the fact that a new ordinance needs three readings for passage (unless a reading or two is waived), there was more than a little urgency in ...

By Andy Krutsinger, Mt. Pleasant News It?s not every day your local sports guy gets to do the weekly column but on this final day of June the stars have officially aligned.Now, I?m not going to talk about sports in this column. If you can read about sports stuff on the inside pages, then what do you need the sports page for?And I?m not going to talk about politics. If there is one thing people hate, it?s when ...

By Rev. Monte Knudsen, Faith Christian Outreach Church Proverbs 14:34: Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any nation (people).The word ?reproach? is rarely used in our vocabulary. It means disgrace or discredit ? to rebuke or censure. Sin does that to a nation, while righteousness will exalt it.In the United States of America, our founding fathers lived by this scripture.John Adams ...

By Curt Swarm Peggy Knudsen walks the talk. After having over 100 foster and six adopted children with her husband, Monte, who is pastor of Faith Christian Outreach Church (FCOC) in Mt. Pleasant, she is the ideal person to be Director of Cradle of Hope in Mt. Pleasant.Twenty years ago, after realizing how many abortions were being performed in the United States, Peggy said to her husband, ?We have to save ...

By Karyn Spory, Mt. Pleasant News Failure.For such a small word it sure does have some mighty implications.When I was younger, I wasn?t so much petrified of failing as I was of disappointing others. My parents, my grandparents and maybe even myself. I learned early on that if you don?t try, you don?t fail. You also don?t succeed. Or learn much of anything.But that?s what I did. I was very cognizant of what I ...

By Rev. Jim Hughes I Samuel 12:9: But the people soon forgot about the LORD their God, so he let them be conquered by Sisera, the general of Hazor?s army, and by the Philistines and the king of Moab.The children of God forgot about God. They ignored the Lord to the point where they no longer even thought about Him. They went about their merry way doing what they wanted to do as if God did not even exist. We ...

It is with both sadness and an excitement for the future that I must announce today is my last day at the Mt. Pleasant News.For almost three years now, I have been employed at the Mt. Pleasant News. Working as a reporter for this newspaper was my first full-time job after graduating from college, and I can tell you with the utmost sincerity that this has been a great place to get my feet wet in the professional ...

By Rev. Clint Decker, Great Awakening, Inc. Recently, I was troubled as I watched a TV news story on the opioid drug problem. What I learned did not leave me. I thought about all the people I have reached out to in the 24 years I have been a Minister. Faces crossed my mind of many who were drug users. My eyes began to see how wide spread the drug issue is.What I have learned is a major drug problem around the ...

By Brooks Taylor, Mt. Pleasant News I started noticing the signs in mid-April and during the time that has followed, the signs intensified rather than dissipated.Yes, 2016 was great if you are a Cubs? fan, and regardless of your baseball allegiance, the Cubs? World Series win was good for baseball if for nothing else, not having to be constantly reminded that it had been 108 years since the team?s last ...