As a dairy farmer, Kevin Jahnke knows all about early mornings, but Tuesdays are a special case.
When his alarm sounds at 12:30 a.m., Jahnke, 42, drives 10 miles to St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Fennimore.
For the next hour, he sits in a small chapel, sometimes praying, sometimes reading or sometimes just staring at a wall to clear his head.
At 2 a.m., another parishioner takes his place.
For more than 12 years now, this prayer chain has gone unbroken. Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, someone is always in the chapel.
The effort seems logistically daunting, especially for a relatively small congregation, yet church members say they are driven by a powerful spiritual component.