On the Hook, a Wyoming original

A familiar blue truck has been spotted across Wyoming. The “On the Hook Fish and Chips” truck randomly appears in parking lots across the state with a line of loyal customers ready at the window. Its menu is sparse: fish and chips—or, if you prefer, chips and fish. But the helpings are heaping, and the fish is first rate.

Landlocked Wyoming doesn’t have a navy. It’s over 700 miles to the nearest sea. So, how is it that blue trucks selling baskets of ocean cod can be seen from Kemmerer to Cody and Lusk to Lander? The story of On the Hook Fish and Chips is a fish tale worth hearing.

Meet Ocean Andrew, son of a deep-sea fisherman. This sophomore at the University of Wyoming had the ambition to live-out a dream, and he didn’t wait until graduation day. Buying an old FedEx truck, he had it rebuilt into a food truck and brought it to Laramie five years ago last Sunday.

For the next month he and his business partner, Hunter Andersen, obtained all the proper inspections and licenses while they tried out a bevy of recipes. The backbone of the business was Andrew’s ability to purchase all the fresh frozen Alaskan cod that he could handle. 

His father’s business is not just any deep-sea fishing vessel. They catch cod with hooks, not nets—hence the name. Once the fish is hauled aboard, it is cleaned, cut and flash frozen more quickly than the freshest mountain trout. Not only do hooks avoid the waste of scooping up unwanted sea-creatures. They also make for a fresher and tastier haul.

When the school year ended, they opened for business on a Tuesday night in downtown Laramie. “It was a disaster,” Andrew recalls. “Thirty people were gathered around the truck and we were furiously trying to fill orders. We had no idea how difficult it would be to juggle five different menu items.” Soon they cut it down to only one.

Do one thing; and do it well. That motto quickly grew a business that funded schooling for numerous University students working nights and weekends. Within a year, they began building a second truck. Now, five years later, the fleet is 16 trucks strong. They serve hundreds of thousands in 11 states across the west.

Who knew that a simple idea could become so immediately popular? And who knew that it would require a full-time employee just to keep up with the hundreds of town business licenses, health permits, and fire inspections.

Then came COVID. Statewide public health orders that were continued fortnight after fortnight were especially stifling for the food industry. Restaurants were closed and then severely restricted. Buffets were indefinitely shuttered. Thousands of mom-and-pop diners saw their patrons funneled to the drive-through windows of multinational fast-food corporations. 

Because curbside pickup was already part of On the Hook’s business model, they stayed afloat. But the injustice toward other small businesses did not go unnoticed. Within a month of the first shut-down orders, Andrew partnered with Susan Graham to organize a “Rally for the Choice to Work” in Cheyenne. 

Andrew said, “One thing I really hate about government is the tendency to protect large corporations with regulation that hurts small businesses.” Exactly one year after this rally at the state capitol, we can see exactly that in spades. Billionaire Jeff Bezos added $13 billion to his net worth during a single day of the lock down. During 12 months of COVID crisis, he added 156 percent ($155.3 billion) to his wealth. That same time span saw nearly 30 percent of small businesses closed.

That Andrew would take time off from running his business to advocate for other businesses less fortunate than his speaks volumes about his character. Community leaders asked him to run for Laramie’s open house seat. A political career had not been on his radar, but he answered the call of duty and was handily elected to House District 46 last November. 

Eight years ago, a young man came to the University of Wyoming to seek the Wyoming way of life. His vision and initiative created a uniquely Wyoming business that employs dozens, and has helped many of them fund an education at the University of Wyoming. Along the way he married a school teacher, and started a family in the shadow of the Snowy Range.

When you see a blue fish truck appear in your town, think about Ocean Andrew. He and his company epitomize the Wyoming way of life. Freedom is more than the ability to do whatever you want. It is about raising a family, serving people, and giving back to the community. It’s the sort of life that makes Wyoming’s future bright.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, April 26, 2021.

New DNA technology opens new possibilities for justice and healing

Both the Cowboy State Daily and KGAB reported last Monday, that the Laramie County Sheriff’s Department has partnered with Othram labs to reopen a 33-year-old murder investigation. Using the new technology of Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing©, they are working to solve the case of a “Baby John Doe” who was found in west Cheyenne in 1988. 

Rapid developments in DNA sequencing are opening cold cases all over the world. Just a year ago, a similar case was solved in Meriden, Connecticut. The newborn had been left under a tree two months before Baby John Doe was found in Cheyenne. 

When the DNA trail led police to his mother, she told them that “she’d been waiting 32 years for the day [when] police would be knocking on her door regarding this incident.” Her reaction revealed a simple truth: The solution that she found in a moment of panic neither resolved her problems, nor ended the matter. 

My heart breaks for the child who was killed. But it also aches for the decades of mental torture that his mother must have experienced. Thankfully, this mother’s path to healing was opened by the application of DNA sequencing. 

I pray for the mother and father of Cheyenne’s Baby John Doe. They, too, have an opportunity for healing that remains hindered so long as the truth remains hidden. 

The similarity of these two cases led me to perform a simple internet search to inquire how many others there might be. In less than a second, I found dozens of cold-cases from all over the nation where newborns were left to die anonymously. Undoubtedly, each of these cases will be solved as genetic databases become more and more complete.

Until now, these sad stories only reached the national news in those rare cases when parents were located by traditional forensic means. Today we are standing at the beginning of a tidal wave of mysteries solved by emerging DNA technologies. 

To get an idea of how large this wave might be, I consulted one Wyoming Ob-Gyn physician. I learned that he encounters patients on a monthly basis who have complications from self-procured medicinal abortions at home. Occasionally, there are signs of a live birth, but the patient denies having had a baby. That’s only one practitioner in one city. Multiply this by twelve months in a year, and nearly three dozen such doctors in Wyoming and the potential numbers are staggering. 

Each one of these women represents a case in which the State’s best efforts have failed. They did not receive information about the law and the many ways that Wyoming’s agencies, non-profits and safe-haven laws could have helped them avoid this crime and the guilt that followed it. 

Each newborn was a Wyoming citizen who was not afforded the protections promised in Wyoming’s Constitution. Each father either failed to care for his child or was never informed of the pregnancy and given the chance to step up.

Wyoming can do better. That starts with opening our eyes to the problem. For years politicians have been pretending that such things do not happen in our state. That is no longer tenable.

Wyoming just passed SF 34 Born alive infant-means of care into law. It’s time for the Board of Medicine to create policies that ensure its enforcement. SF 34 addresses failed abortions, but it does not cover babies like little John Doe. Currently, Wyoming has no procedures in place for doctors to report obvious signs of birth without a baby. The Board of Medicine must address this also. 

We are deluding ourselves if we believe that continued cover-ups help these mothers. Reluctance to investigate helps no one. Justice is not only beneficial for the victim. Justice is also beneficial for the perpetrator. 

An ancient king named, David, learned this lesson and wrote of it when he tried to cover up his crimes. “[W]hen I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long” (Psalm 32:3). His cure was found in confession: “I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin” (v. 5).

As DNA sequencing technology becomes ever more accurate, many more hidden crimes will be brought to the light. Rather than fearing this revelation of the truth, we should embrace it. 

It is painful to face our failings, but it also opens a powerful path to healing. Jesus died for the crimes of all. He rose from the grave to give new life to all. He placed his Church on earth to forgive the sins of all who are repentant. By God’s grace, the revelations of DNA technology will give countless people an opportunity to hear and receive this forgiveness.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, April 16, 2021.

Adoptions protect children; gestational contracts don’t.

Five years ago Connecting Hearts adoption agency asked me and my wife to evaluate a young married couple’s candidacy for adoption. We were happy to provide the reference. When asked, “Do you feel comfortable in recommending them as adoptive parents?” We replied, “Absolutely, with no hesitation whatsoever.”

It was not the first time that I had received a similar request. Wyoming adoption law requires that a court find the adoptive parents to be fit. In this process, adoptive parents regularly ask their pastor to be involved. Such requests come with a huge responsibility. 

Recommendations for adoption must not simply be rubber-stamped to accommodate the feelings of the couple. They require that we think about the child first. This helpless child depends on an honest process to protect and defend her from a placement that could do permanent harm.

Substance abuse, domestic violence and other factors may require a denial. That child will one day grow up and will ask, “why would you knowingly recommend that I be put into an abusive home?” Imagine stammering for answers if you were the one responsible. 

While home evaluations and parental fitness are required by law for almost all of Wyoming’s children, the letter I received five years ago was profoundly different. Since they are frozen embryos, they are not legally protected under Wyoming law. Their genetic parents and “intended parents” are protected by contract law, but the children themselves are not protected by adoption courts. 

Connecting Hearts, and the parents who seek their help, recognize the injustice of Wyoming’s laws and voluntarily go above and beyond the law in order to look out for the best interests of these children. People desiring to buy embryonic children without their best interest in mind are free to do so.

In fact, Wyoming does nothing to restrict the trafficking of children created by in vitro fertilization. There is, however, one speed bump: once these children are implanted in a mother’s womb, W.S. 14-2-906 recognizes and protects the parent-child relationship. Now, even that protection is about to go away.

Last Monday, HB 73 “Birth certificates-gestational agreements,” was signed into law. This changes W.S. 14-2-901 to exclude embryonic children from current legal protections if they are implanted under a “gestational agreement.” In that case, their mother is not recognized as their mother, and they remain the objects of a legal contract up to and after birth.

In 2008 Tim Pawlenty, then governor of Minnesota, vetoed a similar bill called the Surrogacy Gestational Bill. Pawlenty’s final paragraph addressed the children. “The bill also fails in any manner to recognize or protect the life and rights of the unborn child. The unborn child is treated throughout the bill as a chattel, the rights over which are set and enforced under the terms of a contract. Indeed, if a dispute arises under the contract or a breach occurs, the courts are prevented from applying the normal ‘best interests of the child’ standard for resolving the dispute.”

HB 73, which will go into effect on July 1, has all the same deficiencies of the legislation that Pawlenty vetoed over a decade ago. It also harms the surrogate women in various ways.

First, “This bill expressly permits the hiring of women to serve as surrogate mothers. Compensation is not limited in any manner to the payment of expenses related to the pregnancy.” Wyoming’s senate amendment, intended to prevent this harm, lacks an enforcement mechanism. 

Second, the bill was “written primarily to protect the interests of intended parents. It does not create strong protections for the surrogate mother.” 

Third, it “does not provide sufficient control to remain with the surrogate mother through the pregnancy.” Should she determine that continuation of the gestational agreement would harm the child or herself, she is powerless to withdraw consent. 

Fourth, “the bill fails to specifically grant the surrogate mother the right to refuse a request by the intended parents to terminate the pregnancy.” 

And fifth, “allows enforcement of contracts that allow the intended parents to restrict the surrogate mother's activities.”

It was disappointing to watch Wyoming’s legislature debate the bill. Much stress was placed on the good intentions of the bill. But floor speeches made clear that few legislators even considered the objections that Pawlenty outlined. Intentions are one thing. But the actual language of the bill permits many harmful, unintended consequences.

Every child born under its “gestational agreements” will be separated from his or her mother on the day of its birth. Every surrogate mother will be stripped of any parental rights to advocate for the best interests of the child—or for herself. And nobody involved in the process will ever have to meet even the minimum standards of Wyoming’s adoption law.

Let’s hope that next year’s legislature makes some sorely needed corrections.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, April 9, 2021.

Be of good cheer, it’s Good Friday!

Now, more than ever, Christian citizens are worried and distressed. As the world grows increasingly decadent, it becomes ever more hostile and decreasingly tolerant of Christianity.

This is not new, but it is on the rise. Decades ago, the darkness entered pop music; then, onto the silver screen. Next it invaded the airwaves. Worse, it has entered our classrooms and actively seeks to uproot and supplant the ethics that Christian parents are working to impart to their children. Today it practically permeates all public and political life.

It is not only that many people are corrupt. That has always been true, no matter how it was formerly covered up. What has changed is that the corruption, graft, dishonesty and vice are no longer covered up. Scandals that formerly would have ended the careers of politicians, athletes and entertainers are now excused, defended, and even praised. This, in turn, has degraded our culture and emboldened attacks upon Christians for withholding their approval.

In response, a new religion has risen that retains the name of Christianity but denies its most fundamental doctrines. This “Progressive Christianity” began by denying miracles like Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves and fishes and the resurrection of the dead. It gained the approval of the world by approving the decadence of the sexual revolution. It culminates in the denial that Jesus is God.

This new “Christianity” seeks cultural hegemony by marginalizing the ancient faith and punishing its adherents with economic, social and even criminal sanctions. It has become the approved religion of the powerful. And it leverages this power to slander and defame anyone who maintains “the faith once delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).

So, what are we to think of all this? Should Christians simply give in and give up? Shall we roll with the flow and consider this “Brave, New World” as a necessary correction that can be adopted without altering the substance of Christianity? Should we adopt the underhanded tactics of our culture and use them to fight fire with fire? Or should we retreat, give up hope, and consider ourselves abandoned by God? God forbid! None of these alternatives flows out of the cross of Christ.

Rather, the crucifixion of Jesus teaches us a deeper and more lasting lesson than any of these. On Good Friday, Jesus was manhandled and reviled. He was beaten, spit upon, and falsely accused. He was called ungodly precisely for being God. He was accused of opposing the government even while He plainly confessed that Pontius Pilate received his authority from God Himself. Even though Pilate knew him to be innocent of the charges, he subjected him to the cruelest torture of the Roman world. Even though Pilate washed his hands of Jesus’ blood, he nevertheless handed him over to be crucified.

Where were the right men doing the right things? His disciples fled. Peter denied him. Those who were left to determine His fate were godless and cynical men who couldn’t care any less about doing the right thing. 

But God was not absent from this. In fact, quite the opposite was true. God was right in the middle of all of this injustice, corruption and vice. Not as though approving it, but rather, accomplishing His good and gracious will through it.

The very people who are most scornful of God and His ways became His own unwitting instruments to accomplish His good work. This does not exculpate them from their guilt in crucifying their own Creator. Jesus said, “the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed” (Luke 22:22)! Nevertheless, the greatest goodness that God has bestowed on the world was not done through good men doing good things, but through the enemies of God doing evil things. 

That is why we call that dark Friday, “Good Friday.” That is why we still look upon the cross with awe and wonder and hope. There God once showed that evil events and open rebellion against God do not and cannot thwart His good will. Nor does God abandon the field in the face of evil and rebellion. Rather, God stands with His people, even — and especially — where the world has become thoroughly corrupt and godless.

The cross of Jesus reminds us that God creates good, even and especially in the midst of evil. Christians should not be worried or distressed for themselves as the world spirals into evil and rebellion. For God has not abandoned the field. He is still most powerfully at work where He seems most weak and defeated. His death is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, April 2, 2021.