February is finally almost over. The shortest month, stretched into the longest winter ever since Laura Ingalls Wilder. Right?
Of course we all exaggerate and have short memories. Because family harmony is frequently ruined arguing about such things, I keep a notebook that has some of the big snowfalls of past winters in Harrisonburg, Va., in case anyone’s interested (from the Daily News Record, 2010). By these figures, this winter’s snowfall has been just a little below some of the years I’ve highlighted below showing some of the bigger snowfall accumulations for our area.
Area Snow by Winter season (and this is nuttin’ compared to states like New York recording upwards of 100 inches so far this year.)
1993-94 35.25 inches
1995-96 53 inches
2002-03 28.5 inches
2003-04 29.75 inches
2009-10 29 inches
2013-14 23.5 inches so far (From WSVA’s Weather Data, added together.)
And from another helpful chart comparing Harrisonburg’s average annual snowfall to Virginia’s and then to the U.S.:
Average Annual Snowfall, #57
|
Harrisonburg, VA |
25.12 inches |
|
Virginia |
14.85 inches |
|
U.S. |
23.27 inches |
And as my husband always warns, some of the biggest snowfalls in our area seem to come in March, frequently just in time for his birthday.
Now we’re getting to the yummy part, a fresh take on a quick bread: cheese muffins, and a great way to warm up an early March meal. I will confess I never would have made these if Valerie Weaver-Zercher, the managing editor for a new edition of Extending the Table Cookbook, had not been looking for friends and colleagues to try out recipes. I also tested this slightly more exotic recipe, Het Fang Shei Khaii for this new edition.
But a recipe for cheese muffins originally from El Salvador sounded easy peasy, and it was. Would they taste like Red Lobster’s beloved cheesy biscuits? The cookbook says that in El Salvador they call these little breads “quesadillas,” not to be confused with Mexican type quesadillas which are cheese-filled tortillas. “Both derive their name from the Spanish word for cheese—queso.” (From Extending the Table, 1991 edition, p. 57.)
Take any hot bread, add cheese, add butter (if you dare) or a jam and you’ve pretty much got something wonderful to sink your taste buds into. Without paying a Red Lobster price. Great to go along with a pot of homemade vegetable soup, chili, or for a brunchy breakfast.
And yes, the new revised cookbook with gorgeous food photography will soon be here—scheduled for release in May, 2014. See pictures from a photo shoot for the new edition, here. If you can’t wait, see or purchase the original cookbook here.
Cheese Muffins (El Salvador)
Cream:
½ c. margarine or butter, melted
¾ c. sugar
2 eggs
Combine:
2 c. flour
2 t. baking powder
Add to creamed mixture, alternatively with the flour mix:
1 c. milk or sour cream
Beat until smooth.
Stir in
1 ½ c. grated cheese (Mozzarella, cheddar, or combo)
Put paper baking cups into muffin pans and fill ¾ full of batter.
Sprinkle with sesame seeds.
Bake at 350 degrees for 15-18 minutes until golden, or toothpick comes out clean. Muffins freeze well. Makes 18.
–Submitted by Karen Canales and Dolores Braun, Saskatoon Saskatchewan; Angela Mendez and Edna Hohnstein, Edmonton, Alberta
Not sure they’d use cupcake papers like this in El Salvador… Anyone know?
Image courtesy of Gualberto107 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
The moon is great and big and bright as I sit momentarily, cross legged on the living room floor, peering out to the West where the moon lingers over an early morning sky. Suddenly aware that I have too few moments like this, I let its beam reconnect me with the God of the Universe. How many miles away, and our eyes can still see this light. Marvelous.
Let’s see, how that light gets there … ah yes, it is but a reflection of the sun’s light burning elsewhere in the universe. In line to cast a light so luminous from the moon that my husband called me on his way to work just the other day to make sure I didn’t miss the great ball of light edging down between the trees on the next farm. How did God plan all of that? Oh yeah, it just happened. Right.
No, I believe that somewhere in God’s creative goodness the Almighty had at least a master plan, a grand design. What fun. What a window into the mind and majesty of God! Imagine a being so magnificent to dream and scheme and connect all the dots. God may have used many years, may have used the process of evolution, may have figured it out as it progressed. But all that stuff didn’t just happen. Things—creation—the ways of nature—the wit and grace of mammals—couldn’t have just happened.
And God was lonely at one point in the process (tradition, the Bible, many creation stories say); so lonely that God made humans. The human body—the human mind—the interrelationships between people—procreation—all with the ability to connect powerfully with the spirit of this great God.
Hello, God. It’s been too long that I just sat here or somewhere and basked in that companionship, friendship, awe, love. You are still too often lonely, missing the connection and friendship of all these beings. Us. Me. Sorry.
I’ve been busy. You know that. But, that’s no excuse not to linger and absorb your great love.
Yes, I believe. How could I not?
See you around. I’ll try not let it go so long next time til I just sit and soak up the love and goodness you have for us if we but take it in. Not praying, not reading something, not even reading your good book. Just hanging out. Thanks for being there.
Your friend, Melodie
O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
The moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?
How do you get in touch with God? How does God get in touch with you? Where do you best reflect on God’s glory and goodness and friendship?
If given the choice, would you rather receive an object type gift for your birthday or Christmas—or an activity, gathering, adventure-type gift for the same?
Do you like, need, and collect things (useful or not) —or do you crave experiences?
If you are married, you are likely married to the opposite of you in this department. At least I am. Give my husband a new tool or even a new flannel shirt or jacket and he’s gonna be happy. I am just as happy with going to a concert, eating out, a trip, or adventure. Ultimately, both of us are quite happy with any kind of gift or remembrance.
Over a year ago when I first heard that virtuoso (that just means expert) violinist Itzhak Perlman was going to solo with the symphony where our daughter works, I knew I wanted to go. In fact I said “I’m going,” come you-know-what or high water. Well, as it turned out, it was the biggest snow in ten years for that city but we made it anyway. My daughters all chipped in to buy us some very nice tickets for my birthday present back in December for the concert, which took place Feb 15. (Yeah, I took a blog break this past week, with other travels and responsibilities playing, um, first fiddle.)
Hearing Perlman live in concert was truly as virtuoso and marvelous as I could have wanted, a bucket list event, for me. I believe I’ve heard of Perlman most of my life, who first appeared in the U.S. on the Ed Sullivan show in the late 50s as an 11 year old child, with his polio crutches. Not that I saw him then, we didn’t have TV. So that little subtext had escaped my notice all these years in just hearing conversation about him. In fact my daughter, who has twice helped to host him as a guest artist in two cities, never mentioned polio. To her credit. Why mention a little thing like motor issues with legs and feet when you can make a violin talk like Itzhak Perlman? The strains from his strings pierced my inner spirit in a spine-tingling way. You can read much more about Perlman at his website, including the fact that it was Perlman who played the haunting violin solos in the Academy Award winning Steven Spielberg movie, Schindler’s List. You may also remember seeing him play at President Obama’s first inauguration in bitterly cold weather.
The Charlotte Observer gave a beautiful review of the performance we saw (here) playing Felix Mendelssohn’s “Violin Concerto in E Minor” so I’ll not repeat that. What I personally loved though was watching the showmanship of Christopher Warren-Green, the orchestra’s usual conductor in absolute command during the first half of the concert when Perlman was not soloing, complete with gloriously wavy white hair blazing like Leonard Bernstein. And then, like an ambassador or vice-president standing aside in deference to a queen or a president, Warren-Green graciously turned aside from the limelight as he “allowed” Perlman to basically conduct the second half of the concert. Every now and then Perlman would glance up like a little boy at Warren-Green as if to say “Oh, yes, I’m supposed to be following a conductor here, oops.” But it was Perlman romancing his sweet little Stradivarius as Warren-Green and the symphony orchestra followed along. British born Warren-Green, if you’ve forgotten, is no stranger to royalty himself, having conducted an orchestra for the 2011 wedding of Prince William and Kate (now Duke and Duchess of Cambridge) at Westminster Abbey, and other royal events over the Big Pond.
It’s always fun to be in the presence of people you’ve heard of for a long time but never thought you’d hear/see in person. My daughter was too smart to let us go gaga over the stars so we toured backstage without seeing either Warren-Green or Perlman, but it was marvelous just the same. We didn’t want to be like groupies, heaven forbid.
And what a birthday-Valentine’s treat I will treasure a long time. Thanks, kids.
***
Do you like experiences or events over gifts? I’d love to hear your favorite adventure or experience given or received as a gift.
Incarnation—the idea that God became human and lived among us in the form and spirit of Jesus—what does that look like in 2014? That is what I agreed to write about for this syncroblog post with the MennoNerds blogger group.
What does it mean to live as if God is still living among us?
It may look like one thing for the women (two) who blog at MamaCongo living as expatriates in Congo, Africa. It may look like another thing with my friends living in Tembisa, South Africa, who I’ve gotten to know through our church’s partnership with St. Peters Uniting Presbyterian Church, some of whom I “see” frequently on Facebook. Local doesn’t feel like just Harrisonburg, Virginia anymore, with the World Wide Web.
Youth from St. Peters Presbyterian Church in South Africa came to spend three weeks with youth from Trinity in Harrisonburg, Va.
What I know of local mission though, doesn’t just come out of a vacuum. In my last post for this “missional” syncroblog series, I talked about my own family and church background and its powerful influence on “incarnating in the local context.”
The church we have been a part of since 1975 was organized and founded on the principles of Church of the Savior in Washington, D.C. which is nothing if it is not local mission. When I was a student at Eastern Mennonite University, one of our Freshmen required field trips included a stop at this exemplary congregation in the middle of the nation’s capital to see what we could learn. Founded by the late Gordon and Mary Cosby, the church taught that the organizing bedrock of the church and its small groups or covenanting communities (called house churches at my church) is mission: the more local and present tense, the better.
Why? Our church has four core values or areas of focus, which we name “marks of the church”: worship, nurture, fellowship and mission. Each house church is to actively practice each of these values, and include mission as one focus. In fact, we “issue a call” around a mission vision. Someone wants to deal with homelessness in the community. Fine, organize around that. Someone sees a need to connect with individuals and families dealing with AIDS in the early 80s when nobody knew much about it. Etc.
Emily Gilkeson, left, long time mainstay behind the Clothes Closet house church, always enjoyed
greeting and talking with the children and babies who came to the Clothes Closet.
Through the years house churches have been organized around calls to look at or minister with offenders/inmates, adult day care, youth in trouble, arts/drama outreach, needs of those with intellectual and physical disabilities, international students and families in our midst, refugees, poverty, housing, racial relations, hunger, health issues, loneliness, those with head injuries and permanent disability, environmental issues, a coffeehouse ministry, emergency housing, a mobile homeless shelter, and more. This in a congregation which has never had more 100-150 members, founded in 1963.
The quote on the banner, which we used at our church’s 50th anniversary last fall, says “That which is heard in the holy places, must be lived in the marketplaces.” The banner represented the long ministry of “The Marketplace Coffee House” in Harrisonburg.
The South Africa house church, eventually dubbed African Partnership has been one effort that bridges across continents. While you might wonder how that could be considered “local ministry,” it has been foundational in shaping an awareness that the church is never just local, but international and helps us keep in touch with the bigger fellowship and ministry of Christians around the globe. The fact that it was first called into being by the youth of the church helped too in stretching us to be involved.
Being a faithful follower of Jesus in 2014 goes right back to about the year 33 when Jesus asked his followers then, and us now, to “Go into all the world and make disciples.” Sometimes the world is next door or the next town. Sometimes it is 5,000 miles away. The heart of the gospel is living faith wherever we are and responding to the needs we see around us, just like Jesus did.
In the recent winter issue of Leader magazine (published by MennoMedia) most of the articles focus on families and church, but Dave Maurer, pastor of Bethel Mennonite Church, West Liberty, Ohio, talks also about “building relationships in the neighborhood. He points out that congregations need to remain intentional about the fact that church isn’t just about teaching the church’s own children and enjoying a clubby type of fellowship ourselves. The church is about reaching out. He references Jesus’ words in Luke 4: 14-30 where Jesus is in his hometown, reads from the scroll in the synagogue about Elijah ministering to the widow of Zarephath (different city/region) rather than the widows of Israel. “[Jesus was] suggesting that the people minister to those outside of their circle and the people trying to throw him off a cliff for saying it.”
Sometimes we’re that way too—not ready to listen to the words of Jesus about reaching out beyond our own flock.
Jesus left excellent operating instructions for how to go on without him. In Matthew 28 we read, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations …” And in Act 1:8 we get “Ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”
How does your church engage the surrounding community?
Is it as outward focused as it is inward? How do you balance?
This post is part of a MennoNerds Synchro-Blog on Missionary Spirituality for the month of February. MennoNerds is exploring “spirituality through an Anabaptist-Christian lens” and what it means concerning participation in the mission of God. Find other MennoNerds blogger posts on this theme here.
Michelle at age 2 with her home daycare provider, Linda.
My daughter, now mother of two-month-old James, started a mini-avalanche of emails among our family when she sent the following paragraph from a baby advice website:
“While a home daycare provider is likely to have lots of hands-on “mom” experience, if she isn’t also educated (ideally, with at least two years of college and a background in early childhood development), you might want to think twice. If she isn’t trained in child development, she might not be able to encourage your child appropriately.” (From babycenter.com)
Michelle typed in her opinion along with the paragraph: “Say wha? This is the most patently preposterous published thing I’ve read (like that alliteration?) on the subject of babies.”
Daughter Doreen responded: “Tell that to Aunt Barbara. Or Linda.”
Tanya, mother of four-month-old Sam wrote: “This is crazy.”
My husband had a one word response: “Ignoramuses,” referring to the writers, not my daughters.
***
Two of our daughters enjoying lazy summer days with friends at the babysitter’s house.
For about fourteen years, Linda, a wonderful neighbor who became a friend, was chief childcare provider for our daughters. I worked 3 days a week before they went to school, then gradually increased to 4 days a week, which I wrote more about earlier here.
The family setting also provided extra siblings, cousins and playmates for the kids. Linda was everything you might want in a loving caregiver for your child, but no, she didn’t have any college or a background in early childhood development, except what she learned from years of practice.
Linda was a laid back kind of mother and caregiver, attentive, a good listener, affectionate, creative, and just sat down and read to or played with the kids which is what I think they liked so much. She had her normal household work to accomplish too, which they helped with—doing laundry, cleaning up, baking, yardwork as they got older. A second mother. What more could you ask?
A trip to the laundromat when old enough to actually help.
She only asked off for several summers, particularly when, tragically, her only son died in a terrible motorcycle accident (who was indeed like an older brother to the girls). The grief we all felt was cutting; his death incomprehensible but real. We all needed time off.
So there were three periods of time when we needed to find alternate childcare arrangements. We opted each time for home caregivers, all of whom were also just fine, even exemplary women/mothers/sitters, save one. We did not last long with that situation; when word got back to Linda that that particular sitter was not working out, Linda said she was ready to take our daughters again.
I will not pick apart the babycenter.com comment; I do agree that one should always “think twice” about any childcare arrangement. Most of us spend much emotional energy not only thinking twice but endlessly second guessing our decisions on that front. Some of the most stressful times in my years of working and mothering were the times when I needed to find alternate and back up childcare arrangements, (grandmothers from church who filled in, or I just stayed home if I could if our sitter was sick).
But this little exchange with my kids reminded me I am so very grateful for a couple of things about their experiences:
- That my daughters are able to interpret and parse a website comment on the topic of the necessity of trained educators for child care, in light of their own experiences and memories growing up. Their Aunt Barbara who also took care of children in her home for many many years also influences their opinion.
- That we were blessed to have a neighbor who not only loved them almost as much as her own children, but who entered into their play and activities almost like a kid herself.
- That my daughters turned out as beautifully as they have (and I’m not talking looks, but they do ok there too) in spite of being so deprived of trained early childhood specialists.
I will let a small collection of photos from those years, all taken by our able sitter, Linda, speak for themselves. Don’t miss scrolling to the bottom photo.
Lunchtime at the sitter’s house.
As with siblings, older children love helping out with younger charges in home day care.
Remember these? I think we called them chord organs back then. This one still keeps her fingers on the piano.
Coveted bean bag at the sitter’s house.
Potty training sometimes goes better at the sitter’s house.
This post dedicated to Linda and all of the great home childcare providers out there.
***
I’d love to hear from you on any of these questions:
What do you think about the statement from babycenter.com?
How did or do you manage childcare arrangements, and how did or do you feel about it?
Have you been a home childcare provider? Do you have some words of advice for parents?
I remember my reaction to the word missional when I first heard it back in the early 2000’s. Missional, smishional. A new gadgety word. A new way of saying mission work or mission oriented, or something.
But as I learned more about it through my job at Mennonite Mission Network with in-depth training and exposure to the concept, I realized missional was how many of us grew up without calling it that: being involved in God’s work in the world right where we are at, beginning at home. The church’s primary activity is not just serving its members with programs (Sunday school, uplifting worship) but an understanding that the purpose of our gathered worshiping communities was and is for the purpose of helping us be about God’s work in the world.
You can see why when the Mennonerds bloggers group (that my blog links to, here) invited bloggers to contribute on the topic of being missional Christians, I quickly signed on to explore the family aspect. I’ll divide this into four brief areas: 1) what I experienced growing up with a missional father and mother (they just didn’t know it); 2) why I never became the Spanish missionary I thought I might; 3) how it worked out with our own children; 4) how I’m involved missionally today. Whew. That’s a least a four-part blog that I’ll likely say more about somewhere down the line, but you’re in luck that I’m pushed for time this week so I’ll keep it pithy. Maybe.
One more (long) has-to-be-said sentence: it is not just my own experiences that lead me to the title of this post, but the experience of hundreds of thousands of folks who believe a lived faith and putting faith into action through service is a great way to grow into an adult faith, such as the network of people connected to Faith Forward, some of whom I had the opportunity to interview on this topic: Brian McLaren, Joyce Mercer, Tony Campolo.
Dad as an active part of CROP’s Indiana Friendship Acres program.
My own family background. Dad was a farmer: by nature a doer. But he also had the servant theology down in his 8th grade-educated way, greatly amped by the real education he received as he spent four years in Civilian Public Service during World War II (which I wrote about here). So in his deacon work he took us visiting the “widows and orphans” including literally a widow with two sons with mental challenges, who lived in a woebegone shack not one mile from our church. On family vacations, Dad made sure we not only visited churches on Sundays (Mennonite if available, any denomination if not), but also Mennonite voluntary service units and mission work (Navajo Nation mention here). 
Family vacation out west where we visited various Mennonite churches and mission activity; here on the Navajo reservation.
I remember a trip to Hannibal, Missouri where we enjoyed after-Sunday-evening-service refreshments at the VS unit home and thinking wow, this would be fun to live with a bunch of cool young adults in a city setting with no mom or dad. Daddy preached “I sure hope one of my kids grows up to be a voluntary service worker” and I took the bait (spending a year in the program in a rural setting in Kentucky, mentioned recently here). 
My VS unit leader Judi Brenneman teaching a craft for local girl’s club on Troublesome Creek, Kentucky.
Without calling it missional, Dad innately understood that being a Christian meant reaching out to others, connecting with those of different races, cultures, and even faith, all because of our own love of God and commitment to Christ. Mom and Dad encouraged our youth group in its (then) slightly edgy and ground breaking connections to the migrants and poultry plant workers in our community who lived in barracks type housing (owned by Mennonites). At first our goal was to learn Spanish better. Along the way, we made friendships which led us to want to go to their home community in South Texas. My parents willingly signed on as chaperones for a three week youth mission trip to south Texas in 1969 for a cross cultural learning. (Long before every youth group did mission trips.)
My personal call. This all led to Eastern Mennonite University in 1971 with initial plans to major in Spanish and Bible with the thought of actually being a missionary in Spanish speaking countries. But through my years at EMU, including a year abroad in Spain where I did learn a lot of Spanish and also how difficult it was to try to share my faith with agnostic roommates (both U.S. and Spanish), I began to see and feel that with language and cultural barriers, perhaps the best way for me to be about God’s work in the world was just relating to people in my own culture and language and not necessarily seek to serve in another country.
Outside of “Iglesia Evangelica” with friends in Barcelona, Spain, one of only a handful (then) of Protestant churches in the city. Friend in navy blue dress, Cathy Bewley Martin, was instrumental in helping organize a Bible study with agnostic and atheist friends in our boarding house.
Conversations, lecturers, professors and friends through those college years opened my eyes and faith to a maturing sense of Christian call.
Apartment mates my senior year of college: Barbra Graber, left, and Sara Wenger Shenk, right. Great conversations around that table, as you can imagine!
So when I graduated, I deliberately decided to look for jobs in the U.S. rather than entering more years of volunteer or mission service in settings abroad—which had always sounded like the most exciting thing to do. While God calls some to new settings in other lands, some are called to the trailer court (where my husband and I first lived when we got married in 1976) and bowling alley (where we hung out some in those early married years). Our church attendance was sometimes sporadic during those years but there were plenty of opportunities right in our backyard of connecting with kids who needed love, a listening ear, understanding.
Stuart (corner) working with kids from the trailer park who thought it was a hoot to help paint our storage building. We went hiking with them and frequently just let them hang out around our stair steps.
It was only years later when learning about the concept of “missional” that I could call these relationships that. Because the Presbyterian congregation we attended was very mission-oriented, we faced some pretty keen challenges such as visiting a local low-security prison every week, including helping those getting out of prison—housing, transportation, jobs. It was fulfilling even though one learning curve was getting stuck with a small unpaid car loan for which we had co-signed.
The family we raised. Fast forward a couple years as we finally put down roots in that congregation and decided to join it—not unusual among young adults—when we were expecting our first child. As we approached the threshold of parenthood, we felt it was time—even though we came from different denominations (me Mennonite, him Lutheran) to go ahead and join Trinity Presbyterian, structured around house churches—small groups that were called and formed around specific missions. The emphasis was on local mission, and without calling it that, definitely missional, in that the priority was hands on involvement with people. (I’ll write more about “incarnating in the local context” in my next blog post on this topic, 2/17/2014.) But family faith building in my experience is in a local context, so it’s hard to separate that out here.)
Kids from Helping Hands house church listening intently to a story by master storyteller, Donna Barber.
When the kids were really small it was hard to be very involved in any house church but when they reached school age, one house church we participated in was called “Helping Hands” where we took on home maintenance projects for others, helping with Habitat for Humanity builds, doing local disaster relief. Our tongue-in-cheek motto for that group was “We try to do more good than harm.” More emphasis was on doing, rather than preaching or sharing faith in verbal ways, but that’s another aspect of missional that works especially well in the family setting.
Outdoor worship at Riven Rock park near Harrisonburg with house church.
Our children may have struggled to put words on why they liked hanging out with church friends in our house church setting, but—and I’m so thankful—I feel it helped each of them claim a faith without going through the immense struggle (rebellion) of many kids and youth who grow up feeling the church was only about rules and right answers and doing things certain ways and not about a lived faith struggling with doubts and questions and failure.
Missional today. None of this is to in any way brag. We, our church, our house churches, our family, are all human, imperfect, blazing failures in many ways. I won’t detail those imperfections and failures but I believe God is faithful anyway and keeps working God’s purposes out in all the mess.
Trinity Clothes Closet outreach.
My personal main involvement is with a Clothes Closet ministry which not only distributes and recycles an amazing amount of free clothing, it gives me opportunity to still use my Spanish at least once a month.
Daughter Tanya, right, helping with Clothes Closet check in, with Kevin Gallagher, left and the late Rev. William Ramkey, center.
Over the years, as we’ve experienced waves of new immigrants and refugees, I’ve also tried to learn a few words of Russian and Arabic, and currently some of the volunteers who help organize and bag the clothing are Iraqi Muslim women and children. A Muslim teen issued a call for others to help with the Clothes Closet ministry from the Trinity pulpit last fall during our annual recalling/re-covenanting season. Nice turnaround.
So the world has come to our backyard—and that is true in almost every community in North America, right, with all the attendant difficulties–but also the joys and learnings. Families especially are a great place to connect with all that messiness, all that world-in-our- backyardness.
The take away? Children who grow up seeing faith lived out in a variety of ways–and have opportunities from a young age to actively participate in mission or service activities–have a better chance (not guaranteed, ever) of growing up to embrace faith.
And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:6-9 Bible Gateway.
***
What do you think? How have mission and service activities impacted your life or the live of your family? Is looking at service this way self serving?
This post is part of a MennoNerds Synchro-Blog on Missionary Spirituality for the month of February. MennoNerds is exploring “spirituality through an Anabaptist-Christian lens” and what it means concerning participation in the mission of God. Find other MennoNerds blogger posts on this theme here.
And here’s one family that took missional a step further!
Do you remember the first time you ever ate lasagna? Likely not if you are under the age of 50. It is as common as spaghetti, macaroni and cheese. Pretty much.
I never tasted lasagna until I was 19, working for one year in the Mennonite Voluntary Service program near Hazard, Kentucky. We had a chief cook—the “unit hostess.” Judi Brenneman was only a couple years older than me but already she was a splended cook. She expanded my taste repertoire considerably from what I experienced growing up with an ordinary Mennonite mother cook who usually served meat, potatoes (or other starch), a vegetable, and sometimes salad. Not much in the way of casseroles or foods from other countries.
But when I suddenly found myself at a table with six adults with food prepared by someone who wasn’t my mother … well, I ate it.
And of course it was delicious and I learned to eat and like so many foods that year that I put on 15 pounds—the freshman 15, even though I wasn’t yet in college. I wrote about all this in my first book, On Troublesome Creek, a memoir of sorts.
Now lasagna is one of my go-to staples. I frequently offer a dish of lasagna when taking food to a family where someone’s had surgery or a new baby or just moved in. When my children were still home and I had to travel on business, I usually made sure the freezer was stocked with a pan of lasagna that they could just unthaw and bake. But that was the trick: the unthawing. You don’t unthaw a frozen pan of lasagna in a couple of hours: it usually takes all day. I also sometimes take a dish of it when I visit my kids—they never complain and now make it themselves.
Here is the recipe, straight from my book (metric equivalents included) Whatever Happened to Dinner. When I asked my children what favorites to put in this recipe book, the first email I got back said, “You have to put in your ricotta-less lasagna recipe.”
Lasagna
This recipe makes enough for one 9×13-inch pan and a second bread pan. (Original recipe from Judi’s Better Homes and Gardens cookbook; adapted.)
1 pound / 500 g ground beef
1–5 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon basil
1½ teaspoons salt
1 1-pound / 500 g can tomatoes, crushed or chopped
2 6-ounce / 120 g cans tomato paste
1 16-ounce / 500 g box lasagna noodles
2 eggs
3 cups / 750 ml cottage cheese
½ cup / 125 ml parmesan cheese, grated
2 tablespoons parsley flakes
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
1 pound / 500 g or more mozzarella, shredded
Brown meat slowly and spoon off excess fat. Add next 5 ingredients. Simmer uncovered 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, cook noodles in a large amount of boiling salted water until tender; drain and rinse. While sauce and noodles are cooking, beat the eggs, then mix the remaining ingredients together with the eggs, except for the mozzarella.
(Instead of ricotta: cottage cheese, egg, parmesan, salt, pepper, and parsley–
or in this case, I didn’t have parsley and added dry chopped chives for the green.)
Lay two layers of noodles in a greased 9×13-inch pan. Spread with half the cottage cheese mixture.
Add half the mozzarella and half the meat sauce.
Repeat, saving a little mozzarella to top the lasagna. (Note: if you are making the extra bread pan on the side, save or set aside enough ingredients to put the “extra” lasagna together, roughly a quarter of each item.)
Note: If you use a 9 x 13 inch pan, you get one dish of lasagna, and likely have about 5-6 noodles left over. I hate wasting them. So usually instead, I use extra mozzarella and make plenty of meat sauce and just spread the cottage cheese mixture out further to make at least two, maybe 3 pans of lasagna.
Bake immediately at 375°F / 190° C for 30 minutes. Or refrigerate or freeze before baking, in which case you’ll need at least 45 minutes to bake. Cover with foil for half the baking time to save the noodles from getting dried out. (If you freeze the lasagna, it will take about a day to thaw in the refrigerator.) Let baked lasagna stand 10 minutes before cutting.
What’s your favorite dish to share with others? Or something your kids request?
A frequent crossword puzzle clue is something like “The book before Nehemiah;” at least I saw that clue in the Washington Post this past Sunday. It popped out at me because I recently just finished reading that book (Ezra) and am now getting a kick out of the next book, Nehemiah.
Why? All of a sudden I’m noticing the kind of telling detail a writer loves and is supposed to include. I don’t remember ever reading some of those little details before, although this is probably my fourth or fifth read-through of the Bible. (Shame on me, I know that some people read the Bible through every year. I take my time.)
Nehemiah writes in first person, like I do here. What am I loving?
At the end of the first chapter, he tells us, “In those days, I was the emperor’s wine steward.” Hmm. An inside seat. Wouldn’t that make a great beginning for a novel? (Maybe there is one like that. Anyone?)
A little background: Nehemiah is basically about the return of Jewish exiles from Babylonia to Jerusalem and the surrounding area. Nehemiah is sent to oversee the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. In chapter 1 he tells us that things back then were pretty much like things are today, that those who survived the exile and went back home “were in great difficulty and that the foreigners who lived nearby looked down on them.” Nothing new under the sun.
Then right in the following chapter he takes us ringside where Emperor Artaxerxes is dining and Nehemiah notes that the empress is sitting at the emperor’s side. Why is that important? Is it important? Maybe, because there’s a slight chance the emperor would be in a good mood with his wife right there.
But the emperor, give him credit, notices that Nehemiah is downhearted (about all of the above. The long exile, the return of citizens who are discriminated against just for being from another place.)
Nehemiah tells us that Artaxerxes has never seen him look sad before (likely the job of a wine steward to keep things merry at a meal), and says, “Why are you looking so sad? You aren’t sick, so it must be that you’re unhappy.” Give old Artazerx a bronze star for noticing.
Even Nehemiah “is startled,” he confides, and jumps at the opportunity to bring up the fact that the “city where my ancestors are buried is in ruins.”
Long story short, the emperor sends Nehemiah and some troops to Jerusalem, where he passes “Dragon’s Fountain and Rubbish Gate,” such colorful fine points. These names tell us things about the city: a fountain with an imaginative name and a gate where garbage obviously collects. Sound like our cities?
As Nehemiah sets about rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem in orderly fashion and with excellent records of everyone who worked on the wall, the Levites doing this, the Priests doing that, I love this sidenote, chapter 3, verse 8: “… but the leading men of the town refused to do the manual labor assigned them by the supervisors.” Sound familiar? It does to my forever blue collar husband.
This is also noteworthy, at least Nehemiah thought it was, in parentheses in chapter 3 verse 12: “([Shallum’s] daughters helped with the work.) I would love to know more about those daughters. Not to brag, but sounds like my daughters who got roped into doing almost everything sons would have done.
And on with delightful details dabbed into verses here and there. Nehemiah is indeed a remarkable man and book and I haven’t finished it yet, so I’m looking forward to it.
It reminds me again how these old books and stories are new every time we take the time to read them again. Some of the Bible is very hard to read (like I wrote about Chronicles not long ago, here.) Some of it is very hard to understand. But I’m liking most of Nehemiah, I think. The old old story with people so very much like us helps us find harmonies in our spiritual journey.
***
I enjoyed my co-worker Valerie Weaver-Zercher’s confessions and plans along these lines regarding daily Bible reading at Mennobytes blog.
Last week I was celebrating the glory of a one-pan, almost-never-fail dessert, to use up an extra can of sweetened condensed milk before it went bad.
This dessert takes slightly more than one pan to prepare, but was motivated out of a similar impulse to use up some canned pumpkin before next Thanksgiving.
I had purchased a fresh can this year planning to make my annual pumpkin pie off of my grandmother’s simple and delicious recipe. But then, you may recall, my family was producing babies last fall (here) and (here) and our Thanksgiving plans were gloriously and not unexpectedly shoved on the back burner. We ended up throwing Thanksgiving dinner together with carry out from Safeway on the day 2nd grandchild was able to come home from the hospital.
At any rate, no Grandma Stauffer pumpkin pie and TWO cans of pumpkin on hand.
So, for my small group/house church worship and potluck in homes this past Sunday, I tried out a recipe I’d been wanting to duplicate after someone else made it, “Pumpkin Pie Dessert” adapted slightly from Good Books’ Mennonite Recipes from the Shenandoah Valley (1999).
It is rich and pumpkiny, and a nice twist on old favorites, kind of a dessert where you get your cake and pie too. Or is it you get your pie and eat your cake too. Whatever. And kind of fancy, if I do say so myself.
Pumpkin Pie Dessert
(Originally by Lillian Kiser, Harrisonburg, Va.)Makes 15-20 2 x 2 servings.
1 box yellow cake mix
½ cup butter, melted
1 egg, beaten
3 cups pumpkin
1 tsp ginger (or less as desired)
1 tsp cinnamon (or less)
1 ½ cups sugar
2 eggs beaten
¼ tsp. salt
2/3 cup milk
Topping
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ cup sugar
3 Table. butter, softened
½ cup chopped pecans
Whipped topping
- Measure out 1 cup dry cake mix and set aside.
- Combine remaining cake mix, ½ cup melted butter, and 1 egg. Press into greased 9 x 13 pan.
- Mix together pumpkin, ginger, cinnamon, 1 ½ cups sugar, 2 eggs, salt, and milk. Pour over crust mixture.
- Mix together reserved cake mix, 1 tsp. cinnamon, and ¼ cup sugar. Cut in 3 Tb. butter to form crumbs. Sprinkle over top. Also sprinkle with chopped pecans, if desired.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes, or until firm in center. Serve warm or cold. Top with whipped topping.
Have pumpkin? I’m betting you have most of the other ingredients in your cupboard/pantry. It will take the doldrums off these long weeks of cold, snow, ice, more cold.
Is winter almost over? What’s your favorite way to deal with winter blues?
***
For more Shenandoah Valley recipes see my book from a couple years ago, which you can purchase here.
Rarely has my professional work intersected so nicely with my personal history than in the forthcoming publication of a new book by Ervin Stutzman, Jacob’s Choice.
![9875[1]](https://findingharmonyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/987511.jpg)
The Jacob in this page turner of a book (to be published by MennoMedia/Herald Press, my employer) is my sixth-generation-back great grandfather and endured not only the violent death of his wife and two children, but was captured, along with two sons, by members of the tribe of Lenapi Native Americans.
One of the older sons who was not captured was John, my five times great grandfather. He was already married and living away from the farm where the raid happened.
Photo of Moses P. Miller, (long beard in back row, top left)
my great grandfather, and Jacob’s triple great grandson.
Thousands of Hostetler, Hochstetler, Hochstettler, and probably a dozen other spelling variations in North America (and thousands more relatives with other surnames like me) lay claim to that same heritage, that same story. Here is one website of these relatives who organize a huge reunion every five years. (Watch the fun graphic at the top of the home page which morphs into all the different ways Hostetler is spelled by all these relatives.)
The novel is set in the Northkill area of eastern Pennsylvania, a fictionalized version of events because so much is not known, especially of the interior thought life of these my ancestors.
Ervin has chosen to focus his look at this courageous peaceloving ancestor on Jacob’s decision to eventually seek reconciliation in the aftermath of the terrible tragedy that befell his family. Here’s a link to two free excerpts.
And it is just the first of three books in a planned trilogy called the “Return to Northkill” series, which Ervin is still working on.
Cousin Ervin (okay, its really shirttail, as momma always used to say about distant cousins, but still) has done much valuable research. He became something of a skilled historian and researcher in pulling together the fictionalized stories published earlier by Herald Press of his own mother and father in Emma and Tobias), so I greatly respect not only his work, but how he is able to get all this done on the side from his main job as Executive Director of Mennonite Church USA.
My aunt Elnora, one of Uriah’s many daughters, was something of a writer and she always encouraged me, in my early writing days, to write about grandpa, her father, and four times great grandson of Jacob. (I don’t think it is mine to write, but I did blog briefly about Grandpa Miller here.) So I’m glad for this work by other distant cousins covering a much earlier period of family history and lore.
The expanded edition of Jacob’s Choice includes maps, photographs, family tree charts, and other historical documents to help readers enter the story and era of the Hochstetler family. Both Jacob’s Choice (the novel only) and Expanded Edition (novel with all the other goodies) are on prepublication discount ($10.50 and $20.99, respectively) until the publication date of Feb. 8.
There’s another book coming out, by another cousin, and I’m anxious to read that too. It is called simply Northkill, by J. M. Hochstetler and Bob Hostetler. Amazon says it is due out March 1. It will be interesting to read and compare the two books and approaches!
If you are on Facebook and a relative you might enjoy hooking up with the “official” Facebook site for Hostetler/Hochstetler relatives, called Descendants of Jacob Hochstetler. The genealogical book of the same name was originally published by the same publisher in 1938 which was then called Mennonite Publishing House. There is a version of the genealogical book of the same name on Amazon, but I cannot vouch for its authenticity.
In the 70s when I was a student at Eastern Mennonite University, I first discovered the genealogy book in the Historical Library there and was so excited to find my father’s name written in it that I scribbled out all of the information pertaining to my lineage on notebook paper, (not being able to photocopy it). I still have those scribbles and I remember feeling such a powerful connection to my heritage.
Another genealogical organization called Palatines to America has much material related to German speaking immigrants and ancestors from the Palatine area of Europe–which, interestingly enough, where my Lutheran-born husband’s relatives on his mother’s side, Hottingers and Sonifranks, hail from.
And for anyone interested, my linkage to Jacob Hochstetler is below (and one photo0:
Moses P. Miller, my great grandfather near the middle with a long white beard; Uriah M. Miller right, my grandfather, short hair and plain white shirt (no coat); and Barbara Kauffman Miller, next to him, with long white dress.
- My father was Vernon U. Miller (1917-2006)
- My father’s father was Uriah M. Miller (1872-1964). Uriah and his wife Barbara lived in our home and I was privileged to have them as live-in grandparents for the first 12 years of my life.
- Uriah’s father was Moses P. Miller (1845-1927), my great grandfather.
- Joseph Miller was the father of Moses, my great great grandfather.
- Daniel Miller was the father of Joseph. (Triple great)
- Anna Hochstetler, who married Abraham Miller, was the mother of Daniel (Anna and Abe combo is where I add my Miller family name): four greats.
- John Hochstetler was the father of Anna. (Five greats).
- John’s father was Jacob, my great, great, great, great, great, great (that’s six greats) grandfather. Jacob and his family were Amish of course and the best I can tell (including a notation in Descendants of Jacob Hochstetler) is that all of these forebears were Amish right through the time of my great grandfather Moses, and then the family began attending Forks Mennonite because it was close by. So my grandfather was never Amish but my great grandfather was for awhile.
So, are you my cousin? Comment, like, or otherwise let me know!
Do check out Jacob’s Choice – a great read and powerful example of living your faith,
regardless of any personal historical or family connections.
Order before Feb. 8, 2014 for the discount.
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