Kendra
I grew up as a “city dweller,” if you can classify Paxton, Ill., (current population 4,218) as a city. It was a great place to grow up. Our neighborhood was safe and filled with lots of kids and lots of fun. That time in my life was followed by college, marriage and relocation to various cities around the U.S.

John
Three days after we were pronounced “man and wife,” we headed to Texas, where I had been assigned for pilot training for the United States Air Force. After a year in Texas, it was on to California, then to Ohio, and next to North Dakota. All those jaunts across the U.S. were the only times I didn’t live in rural America. The final move was to our farm in Illinois. Even though I continued flying, this time with the United States Air Force Reserves, the base was within driving distance from our farm — from Home, Sweet Home.

Kendra
I’m thankful we live on our farm. Recently I made a short list of reasons why that location gets such a high rating from me. Here they are, in no particular order:

John
As a parent, I was thankful for the fact that, in general, the visitors to our home were “by invitation only.” And believe me, needing an “invitation” didn’t cut down much on the number of visitors we had.

Our home was kid-friendly, and as high school youth leaders for 15 years, it was actually a kid-magnet. Truthfully, it wasn’t just our home on the farm that attracted youth — complete with a trampoline, a hot tub and a virtual welcome sign; it was also Kendra, who has openly admitted she loves teenagers.

Kendra
It’s true! I said those exact words at a conference I was attending a few years ago. I was in a small group with five or six other women, all of us authors and speakers. When the sentence “I love teenagers” came from my lips, a friend sitting near me exclaimed, “That’s odd!” Her words were followed by another friend announcing, “If it’s odd, it might be God.”

Living on our farm opened up opportunities for me to see the beauty God created, experience a peaceful environment and open our home to kids — kids of all ages.

I’m thankful for the farm where we live, and in the words of Eddie Albert portraying the New York lawyer Oliver Wendell Douglas in the long-ago TV series “Green Acres” … Farm living is the life for me!

John and Kendra Smiley farm near East Lynn, Ill. Email [email protected], or visit kendrasmiley.com.