Denise's Blueberry Patch

We've got ice!

This morning we woke up and saw a tiny icicle hanging outside a window. My first thought was a panicked, “Oh no, my pumpkins!!” I have been babying five pumpkins ever since July, and recently lost one to a mysterious shriveling disease, but the others are growing marvelously. Folks, Lord willing we’re gonna have pumpkin for Thanksgiving! Up until last week, I was not looking forward to winter. I’m SO not ready to dig out the woolens, fleece, down and rubber. The lack of sunshine for months on end is truly very difficult.  I remember a news story in Boston in the early ‘90’s on the Finnish people, and how most people walk down the street avoiding eye contact, generally quiet or silent; the tango was wildly popular, probably still is. While there are other influences, winter weather and lack of sun are, without a doubt, major contributors to stoicism. The Finnish philosophy of overcoming is called ‘sisu,’ having the strength to just do what it takes to rise above adversity. Whatever it takes, that's what you do. We always called it stoic toughness or hardiness in Minnesota. Trudging through a dark/cold/wet/snowy night quickly without looking at others, drinking your troubles away, or trying to beat the tiredness by doing the Finnish tango or polka, going to the solarium, these are things people do to simply get through the winter.  Things aren't not much different in Estonia, just south of Finland. But this year, my dread of winter has eased, and my spirit is stronger. It's been nothing short of painful to grow spiritually; but the growing pains were worth the improvement in outlook and attitude! I surprised myself with my positive 'tude the other day, when my dread was replaced by a desire to put some of the wonder back in winter. I thank the Lord for his patience and mercy towards me, and find his grace to be one of the sweetest things I experience in this life. One of our family verses is II Peter 3:18, ”But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” We quote it before our evening meal, just as my family did growing up. How important it is to let God’s grace strengthen me, and not rely on my own will or strength to pull me through adversity. Scripture is really, truly alive. Its power to transform my mind has been amazing to me, even after all these years of being a Christian. Here are my Top Ten ways I’m putting the wonder back in winter:

1. Stay in the Word and in prayer.
2. Not blog about how hard winter is!
3. Choose a new color to love. I’m back to loving orange after a long hiatus loving green. The world needs more orange. My house is getting more orange candles as soon as I find them.
4. Don’t be afraid of the electric bill this year and keep the lights on and candles burning.
5. Find ways to catch the light without the tackiness; sparkly spray on a silk floral arrangement maybe?
6. Find some soft, fuzzy or textured fabrics to make pillows and throws to put the fun in rooms. If anyone sees something that looks as dramatic as an anemone, PLEASE TELL ME.
7. Get started on Christmas cards in October.
8. We froze enough apple pie filling for 20 pies, and canned enough applesauce to last for months. I hope living with the invasion of the wine (aka ‘fruit’) fly for weeks while we preserved apples is worth it!
9. Step up the learning. I’ve chosen one piano solo and a flute solo, and have my eye on a painting workshop. Olivia is learning a couple of Christmas songs. Matt still is trying to decide.
10. Spend more time with other women and children, sharing and loving each other.

  What are some of your strategies for winter?

Sprinkle salt on your words in case you have to eat them

This morning I had an accident. I poured coffee into a cup I was holding upside down. Have you ever had a moment like that? Or many? I used to be really hard on myself and say, “What a stupid thing to do!” or “I’m such an idiot!”  Today, I sighed, cleaned up the mess, and thought, ‘what a lump of clay I am,’ which is closer to the truth, and said a quick prayer concerning that weakness. Maybe you don’t have the experience of age dulling your capacity for thought or action. Maybe you got rear-ended at an intersection and thought someone else was the idiot. I am not always gentle with the character of others, either. Keeping that in mind, I want to share some thoughts about a crossroads of learning I’ve come to. Spilling coffee was a little, little thing, but we can be, do, or say wrong multiple times daily. Our response is of ultimate importance to God.

James 4 talks about three enemies to truth: our own self is #1, then the world and the devil. My husband just preached on this so it’s fresh in my mind, and another preacher in church recently stressed the importance of words.  In my personal devotions, I have been reflecting for many days (okay, weeks) on I Thessalonians 4:6a,  “That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter.” One of the ways we defraud (oppress) each other or our selves is when we speak words that negatively describe character. We call people or actions ‘stupid,’ or ourselves as ‘dumb.’ Perhaps you’ve called someone a jerk, or maybe you told yourself you are an idiot. I would submit that these negative labels we attribute to others and ourselves are slander. And slander, according to God, is oppression.

1.                           To describe someone in a negative way is to speak against God’s creation (James 3:9). If we know and fear God, we won’t do this, regardless of how badly or thoughtlessly they behave.

2.                           Words are never neutral. At worst, they are evil (Titus 3:2), slanderous (Psalm 101:5), grievous (Proverbs 15:1), etc. and at best, they give life. I read on someone’s bathroom wall recently, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue:” (Proverbs 18:21).  I was not only thrilled to see scripture prominently displayed in a believer’s home, but it spoke to my heart. Suffice it to say, there’s a bunch of stuff we shouldn’t say. Ever. And what we should say should give life. Wow.

3.                           Slander oppresses because it gives one of our enemies ammunition to blind us to truth. I have used words to slander others. They may not sound as slanderous as ‘stupid,’ or ‘idiot,’ but still defraud a person’s reputation: difficult; hard to please; chip on the shoulder; out of control.  Slander influences how others will behave or think towards a person. I am certainly not being like Christ, God is not in control of me, and will not accept any of my worship with that kind of malice in my heart.

To illustrate this I’ll share an example of how I have been oppressed by words. When I was in my twenties I had a job as a store clerk. I was a closer. My responsibility was to close up shop, and count the money. My boss wanted me to count it all, including the nickels. This took time! I wanted to be home already. So many times I would just skip the nickels and dimes. Thankfully she didn’t care about the pennies. Maybe I accidentally left a light on, or didn't lock the cash register, or something else.  I worked two jobs in my twenties while also going to school. Three jobs when I wasn’t in school. I hardly ever slept! So the details would, on occasion, be too much for me.

My boss would arrive at the store in the morning, find my error, and unleash an earful for me. She left messages on my machine for me to wake up to, and then would address the error again in person. She loved the word 'stupid,' and used it liberally to describe my actions or me. It absolutely killed my spirit to be told I was stupid. It oppressed me. I wondered if I was stupid. Some people believe what you tell them, especially if they trust you! Ultimately, after a year of being subjected to this, I realized it just wasn’t the truth. It’s a terrible word to use on anyone. It isn’t life giving. I would wilt under the weight of it’s meaning. I got up my courage and confronted her, and we resolved it. She began calling my mistakes for what they were, and I was able to see what my weaknesses were and how I could rectify them. She became a better manager, and I a better employee.

I wish we could all call these negative words what they are, slander. If we have to use the words stupid or idiot, it’s much safer to use it when talking about an object, like the stupid toilet is plugged again, or that dumb refrigerator! I have an aunt who lovingly talks about her pigs and chickens as ‘dumb.’ She laughs while describing them: “Wouldn’tcha know it, that dumb chicken is still laying eggs?”

Children are probably the easiest to slander. We love to talk about kids. There’s so much to say! The good, the bad, the ugly, we share it all, don’t we? But are my words about other children, including those about my own daughter, slanderous, or life giving, regardless of behavior? I have been using this word 'silly' to describe some of Olivia’s behavior. But after having taken this journey through scripture concerning slander, I don’t want to ever use that word again, for fear she should ever believe it. We also call words labels, a much prettier word than what it actually is, slander.  Children have a hard time recovering from the reputations we influence, if ever. It’s hard not to bring bad behavior to everyone’s attention. I’m a new mom, and am learning this. I should have learned it when I was young, when our junior high class was slandered. We were told we were bad. So we started living up to that reputation. That’s what kids do. They process those words used against them, and believe them. I love how one friend constantly refers to her youngest daughter as ‘my sweet one.’

Jesus said to never call someone a fool (Matthew 5:22). Study the entomology of words like stupid, idiot, silly and dumb, and they all have their roots akin to fool.  Paul, when writing his letter to the church at Galatia, called the Galatians “foolish.” The Greek word meant ‘deceived.’ He was telling them to wake up! You have received the spirit in faith, but have forgotten it!

Conversely, kind words give life. It’s wonderful when someone emails or sends a card at just the right time. It’ll say, “Hey, I just prayed for you.” I don’t feel alone in the world anymore. My non-believer friends send their kindness in alternative channels: “Did you receive the energy I sent in last week’s atmospheric shift?” or, “I’m thinking peaceful thoughts and sending them to you.” There’s no instructions on how to read those thoughts, though, so I’m pretty sure I’ve not untapped the full benefit of those communications. I would like to reply in kind, “Can you elaborate?” “Just how nice of a thought was it?” 

Life giving words are soothing, encouraging, and building. I truly don’t want to oppress others by slandering their reputation. No evil about another person is to ever, ever fall from my lips. “To speak evil of no man…” (Titus 3:2). I wish I had committed that verse to memory when I was little. I don’t blame people for being slanderous. We all have the same enemies, and we all need to know God better.

So this weekend, when you do something that misses the mark, or someone else does, put a muzzle on your mouth. Think about yourself or that person as a creation of God and who he wants you or them to be. Your human nature is sinful and weak, it’s our closest Enemy and will take any evil you say or think and use it against truth. But God loves you! You might not hear anyone else say they love you today. God’s love is more than enough! His cup of oil overflows; bathe yourself in the love that put his only begotten Son on the cross for you. Put all evil words out of your mouth for the day. Literally, think no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil!

This topic is a great springboard for more study. I invite you to compose your own posts on similar areas and link to them here. Me, I’m going to give myself a second chance and make another pot of coffee…

Photography and artwork by Olivia

Ever consider how you are looked at by children? Olivia gave me a taste of her eye view with photography this week. When I got around to freeing up the camera's memory, I had a hearty laugh at some of the shots she took. I guess I never thought about the fact that in her world, she sees a lot of double chins, kooky grins, nostrils, and in general, tower-like figures of authoritative silliness. We all love to hear a little kid giggle or laugh, because it's one of the most authentically joyful sounds ever.  This crew has no problem tickling Olivia's funny bone.

Dad's expression is borderline looniness. To a three year old? Pure funny.

This photo makes Olivia giggle the most.  In some odd way the expression below reminds me of a rooster. Totally.

 

My double chin, fly away hair and oily t-zone, looking down at her with the smile of delight I think I'm giving her hundreds of times a day. No wonder she wants me to take her more seriously. Since I'm poking fun at everyone else, I have to include one of me. Why not the nostril shot?!

The one-eyed Holly monster, peering out from behind her hair, ready to swoop little children under her cape.

Now see, I never would have thought of posing with a leaf of lettuce. Olivia says it's a "bitiful" flower. She means beautiful, as I'm nearly 99% sure "pitiful" isn't in her vocabulary yet. Either way, she's happy someone understands her appreciation for leafy things.

 

Sometimes she just has to stretch her neck and close her eyes while looking up, and take a break from all the silliness.

Olivia has a more serious side to her, when she endeavors to paint. She paints for a good hour some days, absorbed in everything painting is.

 

I sometimes let her paint with my acrylics, even. Under supervision.

When she has filled up whatever surface I've given her to paint, she starts on the body art. Furniture is forbidden, else I'm sure she would have repainted the entire house by now.

Her creative journey started at two, when I let her paint the fireplace bricks with a real paintbrush and water, and the bathroom mirror with daddy's shaving cream. Then she moved on to applying things to her tummy, face, and arms. I will not torture everyone here with my mommy-walk-down-memory-lane, but suffice it to say, if it is sticky, it's going to become body art. Wet toilet paper, tape, yogurt, stickers, mascara, markers, you name it, it's all fair game.

Okay, so maybe I will share another one.

SO, as far as Olivia understands, photography is for capturing life with the push of a button, and we can relive it whenever we want by pulling it up on the computer monitor. Painting is something else entirely, it's an entire process.

Well, so much for those thoughts right now. Gotta run~!

A change in priorities - and a recipe for turnips

Quotes

"Tension is the sign of an exhausting inner struggle." -Peter Finch to Audrey Hepburn in A Nun's Story

"See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil." Ephesians 5:15-16

One of the most important lessons I will learn on the field is how to prioritize. I’m learning as I go. No one sat me down to say, “This is what a mom/wife/missionary’s priorities are” before I got here. I barely had time to pack, much less seek advice from anyone. But as my husband so kindly pointed out recently, 1.) what you spend your time doing is where your priorities are, and 2.) your priorities will not be the same as anyone else’s.  We will be held accountable for how we spend our own time, not for how someone else spends their time. If I can see my stressed out emotion as an indicator that something is not right inside, if I can remember Paul's advice to the believers at Ephesus to be aware of everything around me, the choice before me is to invest my time more wisely, and to rearrange my priorities if I have to.

“My” time? So there is still such a phrase, after kids and marriage, and in ministry? We bought a hundred dollars worth of groceries last week and when I unpacked it all it sure didn’t look like much. I thought, “How am I going to make this last two weeks?” I felt stressed and tense. The joy slipped away. Probably with some desperation in my voice I asked Matt to take Olivia for a couple hours so I could inventory my cupboards and do a two-week menu plan. He must have heard the train collision coming, bless him, because he meekly suggested we could probably make it last if I didn’t work so hard at making every meal so special. Awwwwww. What he actually was saying? Get your priorities in order. He was right. Every meal is a big production. I am the mad scientist in the kitchen, dirtying as many dishes as I can, dragging out all the spices and herbs from way in the back of the cupboards, and in general making a big fat mess that my sorry self has to then clean for an hour while Olivia runs around without my supervision, shredding toilet paper in every room. And I haven’t even started designing tablescapes yet! There’s nothing wrong with presenting superb meals, EXCEPT when it starts to stress you out, when you feel the drudgery of kitchen work, and the joy is gone. Then you have some priorities out of whack. He made a good point, and suggested that I could simplify mealtimes by choosing less ingredients and simpler menus. I really do need to leave the White House dinners to the First Lady.  So I took his advice to heart. I was going to make simpler meals and spend less time on them. After four years of immersing myself in cooking, I hoped I was up to the challenge. We accidentally bought a yellow turnip, also known as rutabaga, thinking it was a beet. Root vegetables have never been a favorite of mine, but they are both economical and satisfying, so I was happy to experiment with something that I otherwise would never have bought by choice. In looking for recipes, there was little to tempt me. Root vegetables are historically staples of famine and wartime, and most who lived through such a time of food deprivation would rather forget such things. I read they don’t even grow them in Germany anymore. I’m sure the French do something fabulous with them. Scandinavians make a “root mash” with it by adding potatoes and carrots, cream and butter, which I may try someday, but I felt it needed more dressing up, a revival of sorts. The turnip was, essentially, debuting for the first time on our dinner table, and I wanted to be able to bring it back for a few encores. Enough of those $100 shopping bills already! The night before, I put a cup of high-protein wheat berries to soak ($1 a kilogram).  I simmered them with the peeled and cut turnip for 45 minutes, then sampled a spoonful of the pair and tried to imagine what flavor would complement them. Time invested so far: five minutes, including surfing the internet for recipes. The berries were chewy, bland, and the turnip on the slightly bitter side and not quite mushy; the only thing they had going for them was that the colors blended well and were nutritious. What would marry them together? A little sweetness and crunch sounded good, so in a large saucepan I sautéed onions, fresh garlic and ginger in olive oil, added the turnips and wheat berries and sizzled them up a bit, adding three teaspoons of maple syrup and a sprinkle of sea salt. That took ten minutes total: think-think, chop-chop, strain, sizzle-sizzle and it ended up to be an Asian-style dish that we truly enjoyed. We also felt GREAT after eating it. None of the tiredness you get from eating some meals. This one packed a surprising energy boost. If you try it, think of an herb to use and let me know how it turns out.

 

It was tremendously liberating to serve up such a simple, delicious yet nutritious meal. When it’s also economical and quick, then you know you’ve hit a home run. So not only did I revive a humble turnip in my kitchen, my heart was revived by the joy that comes from having right priorities. It really wasn’t my purpose to create spectacular meals, if it meant missing out on time with Olivia or Matt, or letting other things go untended. I just got into a habit because as a newlywed I wanted to do a good job in the kitchen. I immersed myself in it and learned much. But now with a bigger family and home it's time to scale back. God wants me to walk with joy, to influence my family with my joy, rather than take the stress of calamity out on them. How soon I forgot that God needs me to make these daily, sometimes hourly, choices about priorities. Now, when I forever think about checking my priorities, I'll think of turnips. They are always good in the ground, did you know? They store in the ground right through the winter. So do priorities. They are always there, waiting to be dug up!

Vacation Part One

Even though we aren’t going anywhere, it's time for a vacation. The upsides of a stay-at-home vacation? Incredibly low-cost, and you explore everything you’ve been putting off doing in your own locality. I lived In Boston for 15 years and never did the Freedom Trail because it was always there to do.  Woulda-shoulda-coulda! The down side?  You can forget you are on vacation and go back to work. That’s why I’m calling it Vacation Part One, because we started out great on Monday, but when Thursday came, we had to pause our R&R to distribute a load of dirt that was delivered. Hopefully we’ll pick up where we left off tomorrow. So while Matt is toiling in the sun, shoveling dirt, and Olivia is napping soundly on the couch, I’m going to pop a few pictures up here highlighting where we went this week.

Monday: auto mechanic. The car was making a very suspicious noise, like the muffler was going to fall off. You can’t have a stay-at-home vacation w/o wheels! Well, you can, but it would have seriously altered our plans. So on Monday whilst the car was being fixed, I taught Olivia how to take photos with Daddy’s mobile phone (yes, this is a photo by a 3-year old!), and Matt met another surfer next door to the mechanic's shop. Not a kite surfer, mind you, which are in abundance here, but a soulful long boarder like my husband.  His t-shirt even said "Indonesian Rip Curl," he had a California tan, and follows the harbor's boat schedule so as to catch the best waves, just like they do on Lake Michigan and Texas. This Estonian man knows of one other long-boarder, a Finnish man. So maybe someday my hubby will have someone to compete for waves here. Right now, though, he's got the ones in Vääna all to himself. When the wind blows from the SW. Which isn't all that often.

Tuesday: beach. I cannot stress how much Olivia LOVES the beach. She runs and runs and runs and runs and runs. The sound of her laughter is a wonderful thing to me. The one sure thing to make her peel into a run and giggles is to yell “I’m gonna getchya!”

She paused for but a moment to shine for the camera.

Ah the forest! The Baltic Sea is quite different from what you’d think the seashore would be like. It’s fresh water, not salt water, so the wind, while it can be quite loud against the water, isn’t as jolting to mulitple senses as the salt water on an Atlantic coast. Facing the winds from the Baltic Sea is more about not hearing anything else, and not so much tasting the salt on your lips from the spray carried by the Atlantic winds. So in that sense it's refreshing, to be deaf to all but the wind. But when you turn around and walk towards the forest, the air is absolutely energizing with a pine freshness that I can’t even describe. Yet. Someday I will describe it. You know, in that novel I’ve been planning to write since I was 10.

A beautiful sunset to make the day complete, and ice cream cones on the way home. Olivia slept more soundly than ever that first night.

Wednesday: the Botanic Garden. In our brainstorming for things to do each day, this was the one thing we both agreed wholeheartedly on.  We have discovered, during the course of our short marriage, a mutual interest in plants. I like what I can eat and smell, Matt likes what gives form. The Garden here in Tallinn has thousands of species of plants, so you know something is always in bloom, something is always dying, something is just beginning to grow. A long trail winds through stone gardens, peony gardens, astibles, lilies, alpine gardens, etc., and the rose garden, a modest collection of roses that can't help but make you appreciate the more refined beauties of God's creation. Their bulb collection even includes a sweet little onion and garlic bed. The best part is that the outdoor exhibits are free of charge.

 Part Two: next week!

 

Summertime continues...

Estonian summer is incredible! Cool temps, lots of sun, green green grass in our yard, the forest and sandy beach nearby, and lovely rains and rainbows. Every day I thank the Lord for the wonderful gift of good weather in this part of the world, when stateside friends are paying AC bills for keeping cool in the sweltering heat. I'm not sure AC units are even sold here. I decided to post photos from a random pool of activity, rather than the usual essay.

Yesterday Olivia and I joined other moms for a walk in the Open Air Museum, a retrospective of old Estonian village life. I was thrilled to finally see it.  

Olivia and this little guy were on a serious mission! Both have recently "gotten their legs" and are sturdily running with everything they've got, in pursuit of a horse and buggy that passed by. I loved the fact that Olivia met her match in this endeavor. She left me in the dust many times.

After two hours of exploring and trying to keep up with the others, she and her playmate RoseLynn shared a ride back to the car in the wagon.

Earlier in the week, I discovered Olivia in a pail of rainwater that I had been meaning to dump out. Her lips were purple from the cold. Oops!

Matt finally got to painting the front walkway this week, and I'm loving it (honey I know you do too). Wood weathers easily in one season here, so despite the fact our house is a little under two years old, the wood had turned as gray as that on the rustic buildings at the Open Air Museum. We've been so focused on the back yard that the front entrance has been looking quite Beverly Hillbilly.

We're walking Imbi in our old neighborhood. She always starts out thinking she can't do it. And believe me, I almost think it's not a good idea myself. My mom warned me that stroke victims have impaired judgment that gets them into trouble; they think they can do things they can't. But then we get going, and it turns out to be a lovely time, and her emotions  improve with the workout and fresh air. Bath time is a different story, ha! It's my workout while she gets to sit and relax. On this last walk, the lady who bought our flat saw us and delivered a letter for me, from the US Social Security Administration. Oops! Gotta submit that address change.

It takes Imbi about 45 minutes to walk 500 steps, so am very thankful for the play areas nearby.

A garden venture of mine that appears to be going smoothly...pumpkin,
watermelon and potatoes. No oops...yet.

Back in the house, I discovered Olivia doing something I had not expected for a few years. At least.

The most wonderful times are at the beach. Matt and I noticed last week that there's nothing more immediately soothing and relaxing than taking a walk on the shore. All our hard work of the day is forgotten in the sound of the wind, the feel of sand in between our toes, and the always astonishing sight of blue skies and sea. 

All that's missing from this otherwise idyllic picture? A wave my hubby could surf on. :D

Red beans and rice

I begin with a quote from Edward Phelps, a Vermont lawyer who served as the second controller of the US Treasury, and one of the founders of the American Bar Association: “The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.” It sums up my recent record of strike outs in everyday living. I set the bar so high for myself to be a good wife and mom, friend and daughter, and as a result, I could write a list into next month of all my goofs and failures. Sometimes just opening my mouth is a mistake.  So yeah, the road has been a little bumpy lately.

Regardless of what appears to be gold turning to dust,  a little perspective shows me that failure is actually a great teacher. I just don't step back to see it all the time. A good cry about a failed relationship clears your eyes enough to see that you are not a failure. The cake that turns out like a clay brick will bring you that much closer to knowing how to work with eggs and flour. Keep trying! People flunk the bar all the time, or the first pass at parallel parking, but they become good lawyers and drivers. Our judgment can fail us, but we still learn from the situation. Failure is not a reason to stop trying! It's a great teacher. Failure upon failure just proves someone is trying, that they are moving towards something, instead of the reverse, resisting opportunity. We actually do become better at stuff when we fail. It should feel GOOD to fail! So look around, do you know anyone who seems to be failing at lots of things? Or do you see people being successful at being very stationary?  I catch myself "railing the failing," in regards to my own efforts. When I worked in the corporate environment, I saved my railing for the leadership if I perceived their efforts as failure Hindsight? They were trying, and I could have praised their efforts. Instead, we save our respect and praise for the expert or executive or leader who isn't failing at anything, but not having a lot of impact either.

I failed to make a decent grocery list last week, so my frig was nearly empty this morning. It's stressful to think you have to be a success at mealtime. But today I didn't rail on myself for being neglectful, and instead focused on enthusiastically discovering what I could do with what I had. Kind of like that cooking show where the chefs are given three or four random items and compete to make the best gourmet meal. I always keep a bag of beans and some rice on hand for those just-in-case-there's-nothing-left times, as they keep for months.  I haven't been able to cook beans and rice to save my life, and so stopped trying. They always turned out blah, or too crunchy or too soft, or too much like chili. Never just right. But tonight...ahhh!! Two thumbs up from my husband. They were yummy! 

The only reason I chose cumin is that I have loads of it, and the cinnamon was a freak accident because I forgot about the cinnamon stick that got steeped in the teapot yesterday. I grabbed the teapot to pour more water over the beans before cooking them, and almost had a fit when I saw brown water coming out. But it totally worked. Who knew?! And did I say...healthy??

Ingredients:

bag of red beans
cube of chicken stock
cup or two of cinnamon tea (steep a cinnamon stick in a pot of water)
2T cumin, toasted
2T olive oil
2 medium yellow onions, chopped
teaspoon gray sea salt
2T green chili peppers and 2 cloves garlic, ground into a paste
black pepper to taste
white or light brown rice

Very nearly what I did:

Cover red beans with water and soak for six hours. Add chicken stock. Bring to boil, turn heat to low and simmer for two hours. In separate pot, toast cumin in bottom of pot for 2 minutes on medium-high heat. Add olive oil, garlic and onions and sauté for another 2 minutes. Add cinnamon tea, chili peppers and sea salt, and black pepper. Add red beans with the water they cooked in and simmer for another 30 minutes. Serve over white rice.

A guide for coordinating colors

Just a few photos this week of Olivia and flowers, my two increasingly favorite subjects; Olivia because she's my daughter, of course, but flowers because on so many levels the study of them has helped me. I'll get to that.

Olivia has the same tendency as I, to not want her photo taken...acting goofy, hiding, rolling her eyes...supporting my Aunt Judy's observation from last week's post that it must be hereditary. This was such a gorgeous wall, and she just would not work with the brief I'd given her (that's model-speak from my days as a makeup artist).

Instead she tested my already non-existent photography skills by walking back and forth.

Meanwhile, Matt was sharing thoughts from the Bible with Heigo and Märt, about the power behind the very words of God, as He "spoke" all created things into being.

Normally I'd sit and listen, even though they are speaking in Estonian, but Olivia had just spent 90 minutes sitting in a car and was not about to sit back down again. So I discreetly focused in on a more pliant subject, the carpet of grass I was sitting on.

A camera works like a magnifying glass. I haven't looked at grass up close since I was a child.  It teems with life, scent, color and movement. The God who spoke the sun and stars into existence also spoke the blade of grass and wee little flowers into being.

I have a difficult time coordinating colors in home decorating. Always have. Before marriage I saved myself the trouble and went minimalist and black or white wherever possible. But I LOVE color so much. I've never had a favorite color. When pressed I might say blue, or green. For me it's like asking a parent who their favorite child is. You just can't do that!

What I realized yesterday, after studying the few I saw, is that God has paired colors quite EXQUISITELY in every flower. I've been holding off on finishing Olivia's bedroom, i.e., because I have no clue what to pair with the lavender curtains and paint in her room. Some people just have a knack for home decorating. Me? I'm constantly rearranging furniture and changing out accent pieces and curtains, never quite sure if something 'works.' I've got some learning to do about structure, also. Yes, these are things I do care about! But here, I start to see how cream and green would be absolutely lovely against lavender.

I don't think I have the words to describe the joy I felt at this discovery; it was a real 'learning moment' for me.  I fell in love with the orange in a nearby begonia. I've always loved loved loved orange, but it's a bold color to try to decorate with. I remember once proclaiming to a friend, "Just go Orange!" as a metaphor for taking a risk. But looking at it up close, I see how brown and yellow just work so beautifully with it. And of course, the green backdrop. Green seems to go with everything.

There's a bit of orange in between the fuchsia and yellow petal of this violet. I never would have dreamed of putting those three colors together. Not in a zillion years. But God did. This helps me in planning the garden, also. It's been nothing short of exasperating to try to figure out where to put what colors where in our yard. I do feel a responsibility to utilize the actual land we've been given, and to not just plant grass. I've been reading blogs about agrarian lifestyles, herb gardening, and signed up for an global community gardening initiative just to keep learning how I can live more responsibly. We are never too old to learn. I know I want a big pink peony bush, but have no clue what to pair with it. Clearly, yellow or orange lilies would work well, or a low flowering hedge.

This tiny soft pink bud is paired with white and tan, and light lime. It's very subtle, doesn't have the impact orange does. So for color schemes that need to be scaled back to reflect something more demure, this would be a possibility.

The French are famous for their knowledge of companion planting. They call it associations des plantes, or infusion planting. The principle is simple, and based on necessity more than beauty: certain plants literally stimulate or enhance the growth of other plants because of the hormones they produce, or pests they deter, or bugs they attract for pollination, or a number of other factors. So when God spoke each plant into existence, he had a plan for how they could be paired, and gave us brains so that we'd be smart enough to discover it. Amazing! I know I want to plant winter savory as an edible hedge, now I need to "discover" what plants will complement it.

So back to the less-pliant subject of Olivia. I asked Matt to try taking a picture of her, but he didn't have any more success.  But that's just as well. I needed to go find more flowers to study with her!

 

A walk in our neighborhood

We haven't been much for exploring everything Estonia has to offer, like the castles and historic landmarks. We didn't even go to the Estonian Song Festival last weekend. No regrets, though, I downloaded Boston's July 4rth celebration instead and we watched that later in the week. Ahhhh! Memories! I still get a rush when I hear the Boston Pops end the concert with the 1812 Overture. And the fireworks....well, no one does it like Boston! Simply amazing. My mom was awesome enough to send me Dunkin Donuts coffee last week so I REALLY was feeling my east coast roots. Who says we shouldn't put down roots where we live? It works perfectly well to just pull 'em up and take 'em with you.

We are so content to just explore our neighborhood, the forest, or the local beach. We always return so refreshed, no matter how far we go. Last week we went walking, carrying a basket with chicken salad, red beans, and a jar of rhubarb compote for the neighbor who gave us all that crazy huge rhubarb. They actually call what I made "moos," because I only added sugar and cooked it on the stove top. Now, if I had added water, it would be compote. I've asked everyone here just to make sure. I still call it compote, though, as the English word doesn't seem to care if water is added.

On our way to Vera's house Matt got a rare shot of me. I don't know why, but I detest getting my photo taken! I'm not even looking at the camera. What's happening to me? Maybe Estonia is rubbing off on me. It's pretty typical for people to not be all crazy about getting their photo taken. You can get seriously yelled at. I was trying to get a photo of the McDonald's here once and a cashier nearly jumped over the counter. She may have grown little red horns for all the steam coming out of the top of her head. She was mad, wagging her finger at me like a fed up teacher. She did frighten me! Or maybe I don't like to be photogged cuz I haven't had a decent haircut in a year and I'm getting gray and squishy. Yeah, that's it.

Okay, now here's something you don't see every day, a couple of tin cans hung at the bottom of a chain link fence. It's a noise maker, for what kind of animal I'm not sure, but my guess is that the owner doesn't have the money to just repair that part of the fence. The neighborhood anti-mole solution is generally a beer can atop a stick. "We have moles, oh great! Now we HAVE to buy a case of Saku (local Estonian brew)!" Olivia could fit under there, so it's not likely an anti-theft device. Now see, this is something I could pull up a stool and sit in front of for a long time, trying to figure out the process of thought that led to it. But that's just me. I'm the girl who has never been bored a day in her life. Unlike some teenagers I know (cough, ahem).

And here's Vera. She didn't want me to take her picture later, so I'm glad I got this one before I thought to ask. She's quite a grand lady, and her rhubarb is insane. The rhubarb is that HUMONGOUS bush behind her, in front of the greenhouse. It's got to be the largest bush I've ever seen in my entire life. We grew up with rhubarb in Minnesota, Grandma Benson made many strawberry-rhubarb pies, but I always thought it was a low-growing kind of plant! This is definitely a contender for the Guiness Book of World Records, don't you think? I can't wait to see how her pumpkins turn out. She's got them on top of a composted pile about four feet high.

Vera's garden is a bit like what I imagine the Secret Garden to be like. Now that I'm mentally cataloging her collection, I realize the bulk of her plants begin with "P." Poppies, peppermint, pansies and peonies.  I can only aspire to be as talented with my thumbs. She gave me a huge container of poppy seeds, maybe a pound of them, and told how, in the Soviet times, people stole poppies and made opium from them. She then clarified those aren't the kind she has. I'm not sure what to do with a whole pound of them, but I'll google around and find something. She grows two varieties of strawberries, one tart and one sweet. We've really enjoyed being able to walk outside into our own strawberry patch every day and grab a whole bowl full for dessert in the evenings. Quite the luxury. I could get used to this country living!

Olivia had herself a little fun with a bucket of water in Vera's yard. That's what happens when you turn your back on children and pets. They head for the nearest puddle. All she needs is a bottle of shampoo and a rubber ducky.

Okay, so we went to Vera's house to RETURN the favor of the rhubarb. Not to get more stuff. But that's not how she works. She made Matt come back with the car and they filled the whole back with amazing, beautiful things. I don't even know the names of everything. Buried in this pile are four good-sized peppermint plants. My ULTIMATE favorite....peppermint! Can you believe it? God just loves me so much. And He knows we don't have money to buy stuff at the nursery for our yard, which is desperate for some prettying up. I mean, I've been experimenting with rooting rose and juniper bushes in potatoes to save money. There are about 20 pots lined up outside with all my clippings! That's another post though. Matt and I spent almost 1 1/2 hours in the rain getting all of Vera's plantings into the ground. We gave a bucket of pansies to our Russian neighbors, as their yard is about as rugged as ours. And I put the peppermint where the wife can share it with me. It feels great to be able to give. I guess Vera already knows that! I've half a mind to start a neighborhood co-op. All we're missing is the neighborhood tomato supplier. I've really gotten into tomatoes this summer. Did I spell that right? I always forget the rule when you add an 's.'  First Dan Quayle, then George Bush, now me. I'm pretty sure it was Candace Bergen who was the public scoffer over Dan Quayle's mistake, but I don't remember who was for Bush. It was a terrible thing to make a mockery of Quayle. Well, since the US is increasingly non-English speaking, he'll have the last laugh. Language is a tough one, I certainly can appreciate all the nuances and issues now that I've been the one who's had to get along in a foreign country. Hope it makes me more understanding and compassionate.

Vera's garden was just one highlight from the past week. We've been crazy busy otherwise, and it's hard to choose what to share. Especially late at night. It's past midnight right now. So it's not clever. It's not that interesting even. But it IS pretty, wouldn't you agree? Green green grass, pansies and peonies, the oddity of people, sunshiny days, a lovely little girl, a country gravel road, people sharing, eating of the fruit of the land, can life get any better??

Being a witness

We often are asked how we evangelize, so I'm posting a few pics of what we did on Sunday, mostly for the benefit of my nieces and nephews. It's quite complicated....NOT! We get in our car with a bunch of gospel tracts, pray, and distribute. Sharing the good news of Jesus is one of the ways we worship. I'm glad someone handed me a tract when I was in public school, because my whole family got miraculously saved! The boy who handed it to me didn't even say anything, but I'm pretty sure he singled me out; and not because I was pretty. I had rabbit teeth, crooked hair and was terribly shy.  

So for example, on Sunday we drove to a neighboring village with Estonian gospel tracts, "God's Simple Plan of Salvation." This type of tract distribution rather feels like being in a mafia for God, you have a hit man, someone driving the getaway car, and a lookout. Matt was the hit man.

I was the driver of the getaway car. Olivia was our lookout for puppies and bees. She kept napping, though.

If Matt sees someone in the yard, he'll get their attention because he doesn't like just leaving literature without being able to talk to them. The best hit men make sure their target has been hit, right?

The responses vary; sneers or jeers are quite common from young people. Older folks might engage you in polite conversation or just ignore you. If God is drawing someone to Him, and you are helping to make His Word known to them, that's evangelism as I understand it (Luke 24:48 "And ye are witnesses of these things"). I don't mean to make light of the job with the Mafia metaphor, but we are soldiers in the army in every sense. The job is to carry out the boss's orders. Once in a VERY great while someone will hand you a bouquet of peonies, which is the coolest thing EVER. 

A neighbor who Matt has shared Jesus Christ with before gave us CRAZY huge rhubarb. I haven't cooked with rhubarb in decades! It's a gift to have such generous neighbors. Another neighbor gave us radishes yesterday. But that's not the reward for being a witness for Jesus. That reward is in heaven, and we won't see it until we get there ourselves. 

Evangelizing is taxing. It is putting yourself out there on the front line of battle. We are doing it as a family more and more, with even Olivia joining in and handing tracts out. Who could say no to her? So by the time we get home it's time to just be silly, relax and have fun with each other.

First week of summer

It's the first official week of summer. I've made a mental note that all remaining tulips have lost their petals (or sepals, as the tulip aficionado would insist), and that I need to plant flowers that bloom in July. Not sure when I'll do that, but it's in "the plan." If you have a suggestion, let me know! Some of my bulbs are already drying out in my kitchen under a towel, the rest I'll retrieve later this summer after the leaves yellow and the bulbs have gotten as much energy from the sun as possible. The earlier batch were mysteriously dug up one day, by who I am not quite sure still. We came home to find them all in a pile at the end of our driveway. They were neatly placed, with soil over them for protection, so I figured it wasn't malicious. Turns out the fence workers needed to dig a hole exactly where they were. It would have been nice if they had asked, but all Estonians seem to have an expert knowledge of gardening, so I defer to their judgment. Maybe at another time in my life it would have angered me, but I took it in stride, evidence of the mysterious power of God's grace in my life right now!

We took the opportunity of harvesting our first strawberry and turned it into a moment of learning for Olivia. We let her discover, pick and eat it. She was fairly exuberant at the whole experience, for she loves strawberries to begin with. We enjoyed watching her connect all the mental dots. Still working on teaching her about food's journey once it is swallowed. That should be fun!

On Wednesday, the sun was "out" in our part of the world for nearly 22 hours. Estonia celebrated with a two-day holiday marked by backyard fire pits that burned long into the night and neighborhood fireworks. Matt didn't take the holiday, he took advantage of the fact that our neighbor was home and borrowed his concrete mixer for a job he's been waiting to start: the backyard bbq. He worked while the sun shone, literally. I stayed up until 3 am, baking a cake and making tea to help the boys out, but couldn't last beyond that. I woke up at 9 the next morning with Olivia to the sound of gravel thumping around in the concrete mixer. Turns out he had worked straight through the night.  It was THE night to do it, I guess, because his noisy endeavor went completely unnoticed by the neighbors, who were out all night partying. Those five logs are what he poured concrete for. They will support a grass roof. He bought all five logs (ash) from a local for twenty dollars. The rocks and bricks came with the property, so all he's had to pay for thus far is four bags of cement and those logs. My hubby sure knows how to stretch a dollar!

Another way I discovered my husband's thrift is in the clever way he used scrap metal for the base of our deck. Yesterday I took my coffee outside and drank it while Matt worked, so that we could spend a few minutes together. So I'm sitting there, looking at his construction, and trying to figure out what those shiny metal things were holding the deck base together. I was pretty sure he hadn't gone to the hardware store in a long time to spend money. :O) Turns out he used left over scrap metal used for installing dry wall on tracks in our house two years ago. I had to give him lots of praise for that idea.

This photo was taken just last night, at about 10:30 pm, after Olivia and I scoured the yard for flowers she could pick. Flowering weeds are the only things blooming right now, but bless her little soul, she doesn't care. A little color is all she's after. 

 

Olivia's 3rd Birthday Week

This week has been all about Olivia. As we approached her third birthday, I tried to be more engaged with her, in imaginary play, conversation and attention. Being present is a phrase that also describes how to be with children. Every mother I've ever talked to admits this is a continual challenge. It's too easy to look past your child and see all the other things that need to be done, or that you just want to do. So even though a child is with you all day, you may not really see them. Kind of like the way I used to look at lilacs before taking this photo. When I zoomed in, I was surprised to see a center of blue, not violet! From a distance, lilacs look purple. In focusing more closely on Olivia this past week, I discovered a few things about her I hadn't seen yet. It was absolutely the most fun and joyful week I've had as a mother to date.

Sunday was a long day for her: two hours driving and sitting in church, an hour-long hospital visit, and then over another hour traveling to a convalescent home. She never once fussed or got cranky. I am so blessed!  It was more crowded than usual at the last stop (Heigo's convalescent home) so we were fine with occupying elsewhere while Daddy visited. Two other male patients had been moved into Heigo's room, and we had brought two men with us.

The entire village was enveloped in the aroma of lilacs. The aroma is literally intoxicating. It was so overpowering it's indescribable! The French countryside is very floral and green in the same way, and causes me to often wonder if building great cities is really not the way we were intended to live. God put Adam and Eve in a lush garden, which I can only imagine was an incredibly serene and edifying place to be. We know today how aromatherapy is used in medical healing. Anways, Olivia and I inhaled as much of the lilac aroma as we could without getting dizzy, looked for bugs, ran after butterflies and pretended lilac bushes were "houses."

Rain and clouds were coming on Wednesday, so we made sure to spend time outside on Monday and Tuesday, studying ladybugs and blowing pollinated dandelion "puffs." I got a good laugh when the puffs flew back in her mouth!

 

Wednesday a play date, and Thursday - a little birthday party for her. What a fantastic time! She slept in, waking to the sound of friends Luke, Mark, Melanie, Matthew and Miss Holly arriving with their moms. My idea of birthday cake is what my sister Debra always requested when we were kids: watermelon. Simple, refreshing, guilt-free and no sugar-induced behavioral mishaps. Somewhere she did get the idea cake appears at a birthday, though, because after everyone left she kept asking, "Where's the cake?"

She received wonderful gifts. The surprise of the day, however, came in the form of a package from Uncle Bob and Aunt Twyla in Minnesota...a Disney princess dress! Of course her fashion-savvy cousin Taylor included matching shoes. I actually got teary-eyed. We've established how Olivia loves pretty dresses. Miss Penny found a purple princess dress at a local thrift store last week, and Olivia even slept in it. She then gave her a pink castle "tent," for her birthday, to go with the dress. Olivia did not stop smiling the entire day.  With the tea set Grandma gave her for Christmas, she can now entertain in style. I, however, have been reminded of a few weddings where, as a bridesmaid, I helped a bride lift many a bustle just to go poddy.

Olivia said goodbye to her guests, walking as gracefully as one could expect a 3-year old princess to walk. I thank the Lord for my girl, and the joy she ropes me into having! We are expecting a houseguest to arrive this afternoon, and he'll be bearing a gift for Olivia I'm sure, so I must finish preparing for yet another little party in her honor. Then on Saturday we'll have a party over Skype so she can open more presents from Grandma Vokoun. I had to hide the box in the sauna because she kept finding it. When my dad died I was sad for Olivia, because grandparents were such a big part of my own life. I thought she'd be missing out on something very special to never have a grandpa. But God has given my daughter the people she needs. We pray all the time that she'll accept the Lord as her Savior early in life.  I believe God when He says He'll never leave or forsake His own, so of course I can't wait for the day when Olivia chooses to become a princess of the King!

Winter is forgotten

Spring is finally here, with summer fast on its heels. I bought a pumpkin plant two weeks ago and in my excitement put it in the ground … mid-May … but the nights were too cold. Sadly, it withered up and it's one leaf fell off. I'm leaving it for dead, but if it springs back to life will report on it here. Pumpkins are, I’ve since learned, quite fussy about being replanted.  Had quite a patch going last year after starting them in the house, then we left for a month and upon our return the local wildlife snacked on them. On the other hand, tulip bulbs I brought from the states two years ago and planted are coming up all over for the first time, some in places I forgot I put them. I assumed they had gotten moldy or all dried up, and was so bummed. So I decided to just forget about them and move on to mastering other plants like ... pumpkins ... strawberries ... and indoor African violets. Suffice it to say my gardening forays have been less than successful in nearly every category. There are onions among the strawberries this year...an anomaly one can only assume is the result of my forgetting to take all the onions out last year.  So when these tulips started blooming all around the property can you just imagine my shock? My joy? So it's good to forget a thing - the beauty of it then takes you by surprise later and you enjoy it that much more. The next time I purpose to forget something, I'm going to try to remember that. It’s beauty like this that makes me forget and put behind me the never-ending darkness of Estonian winter:

Flowers are incredibly pleasing to look at, but I love looking at my man just as much! He planted grass seed a few days ago and has been doing a great job tending it. I appreciate everything he is and does. He is such a hard worker. I’m incredibly fortunate to be married to him! He has made me forget the long and often lonely twenty years of being single.

Then of course there's our darling daughter, about to turn three and pretty much game to do anything we do, as long as it's "upside" or going to the "tore" or "Penny house," her three favorite places in the world right now. She helped her dad shovel dirt for hours this day, then followed me as I pulled weeds. Every day with her is a gift, and I have completely forgotten how excruciating it was to bring her into this world or how long I waited to be a mom.

Our friend "Ellali" was kind enough to push her on her swing last week. It just thrills my heart when other people's children are nice to her. I want to raise Olivia to be kind to everyone. I never realized a parent derived encouragement from the way other kids behave towards their own - but now I know. These kinds of moments are really beautiful for me as a mom, and I forget about the bad things someone said or did to me in the presence of that type of kindness. Someone who shows kindness to Olivia is being kind to me, whether or not they realize it. I hope I have the grace and wisdom to know how to teach Olivia this.  That verse in Proverbs (31:26) comes to mind, "She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness." I guess the challenge for me - here - is to forget how to be unkind. Is that even possible?

Thus begins our spring - forgetting what's past and moving on. That is, essentially, why spring is my ultimate favorite season. I am not looking forward to the long summer of weeding, but at that moment when I don't want to pull another weed for as long as I live, autumn will arrive to make me forget all about the sweaty, buggy chore it is to tend a yard and garden!

Believe me when I say...

It is a challenge for me to keep house. My husband captured a moment last week on his mobile phone camera: the end of my big re-org project. I had removed all the pots, pans, dishes, serving bowls, and pantry items to make room for additional kitchen cabinetry. That was the easy part…taking stuff out. Putting it back took me two days.

Housekeeping has been this mountain I’ve been climbing ever since Olivia was born; hopefully soon I'll reach the peak - a moment I imagine involves discovering my own personal rhythm and taking great joy in doing it from then on. Kind of like going downhill. Still on the steep side of the climb right now, and am sorta missing those 9-5 days when I only had a cubicle to clean. Then, my idea of a chore was to spritz my computer monitor and blow a can of air at my keyboard. Cooking basically meant going on a coffee and donut run for my office mates (Dunkin's in Boston, Starbucks in Los Angeles). I was salaried for cleaning up data and Powerpoints, not evaluated on how sparkly my windows (or daughter and husband) are. I’m not a complete stranger to housekeeping, but if you’d met me five years ago and seen my apartment, you’d have seen a minimalist space with little to keep clean. Just the sand I'd track in from walking barefoot on the beach. :)

I’d all but given up on being a mom and wife. Now, I’m living the life I always wanted, and guess whose life that was? It wasn't the one on the beach, it was my grandmothers!  She was married late in life like me, had a girl like me, and lived in the country like me. God is good. He doesn’t forget the desires of our hearts, those things we know we want from a very early age. In this way, He has proven one of His promises to me, Psalm 37:4 "Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart."

I love thinking about how and why I’m here now. Another verse tells me that God delights in His Son  (2 Corinthians 4:6).  I think it’s quite remarkable that even though I was always in church for my entire adult life, I didn’t look at His Son Jesus the way He wanted. When I did, though, within months my life turned completely around. I’m thankful He placed people in my life to help me get a right view of His Son, Jesus Christ. He is everything! Once I started becoming really interested and amazed by the person of Christ, who He is, what He is all about, etc., God started changing my life.

Yet my experiences aren’t enough to convince others to believe in Jesus. Rather, they are for my own faith. My mom, Matt and I looked at John 7:17 this week on Skype and had a great conversation about how God proves Himself to us; “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.”  He was talking to the Galilean Jews, who were having a hard time believing the doctrine Jesus was teaching.  Jesus was saying that if they/we did what God wanted, they would have their evidence, internally and personally (of the living God whose word of promise never fails). God the Father and the Holy Spirit would give them certainty. They thought maybe Jesus was a deceiver. It’s like when I tell people sugar is toxic, or the ability of certain technologies in the right hands of a homeopath to cure illness. Most won't just take my word for it. They want a dissertation published by the New England Journal of Medicine, or an endorsement by the entire western medical community in favor of a treatment. It’s so much WORK to try to be the convincer.  My family’s treatment and subsequent healing of disease or ailments with Dr. Kaubisch’s EDS and homeopathic remedies hasn’t convinced anyone, for example. But when someone does have an open mind and heart, and really listens, and then acts upon what they’ve heard, it’s so wonderful, I can’t even describe. It’s like sharing a big secret together; there’s relief that someone else knows, joy to know they are helped, and an instant bond. They can now share with you in the success of their healing, or better health, or more energy, or whatever. It encourages me to keep up with it myself. Is there anything you've tried to convince someone of, or teach? It's hard, isn't it? In the spiritual realm, God’s Holy Spirit is the Convincer. He does all that work. When we let Him, that is.

My mother shared with us her experience of God’s comfort in her time of grief – a very real joy that only God can possibly give someone during loss. She was aware of when and where she was being comforted. I can be glad for her; but I cannot base my belief on her experience.  It’s an act of faith to just believe in something. After a while who wants to talk about it anymore, if no one will believe? Talk about discouraging. No wonder preachers leave the ministry, and missionaries the field. I wonder if it's because they think they are supposed to do the work of the Convincer, instead of being convinced themselves.

Okay, so this week I’m going to share a recipe for a general surface antiseptic cleanser that I’m using everywhere. Question IS…will you believe me when I tell you it’s the best?? Cleaning is SO SO SO much more enjoyable using something that I’m not afraid to inhale or get on my skin, or rinse down the sink. I’m calling it my “Minty Spray.”

• 16 oz or 700 ml. distilled or purified water
• 3 big squirts of clear dish soap
• 20 drops Peppermint essential oil

I'm also using Peppermint Vinegar water (mostly vinegar with enough peppermint oil to cut the odor and a little bit of water) to keep lime build up down in my shower. It really works. Even spritzed it in my hair after shampooing and heard my hair literally squeak. No kidding!!! Thinking of making a separate bottle with apple cider vinegar instead, for hair. The white vinegar is a wee strong. 

My dear mother's testimony

My mom is one of the most important people in my life, my role model for what a Christian woman should be: loving, quiet, hard-working, kind, and deeply devoted to walking with the Lord daily. I look forward to “seeing” her on Skype every Saturday; my own transition to the foreign field has been greatly smoothed by staying connected in such a personal way with her. Recently she was asked to give her testimony for a group of women in her church, and although she is terrified of speaking in public, she wrote out what she would say, practiced and prayed for weeks ahead. Despite our closeness, and living “through” her conversion to Christ as a child, there are things that, when I read it, gave me a new appreciation for the Lord's amazing mercy. With her permission, I want to share it with you, and hope you are encouraged in your own walk with the Lord. Those who know me know how blessed and stable my life has been as an adult. Well, NEWS FLASH: that is only because of God, and what he did with my mom. Your life may be similar because of someone who walked in faith before you; I don’t want to lose sight of the impact the gospel has had on my family, and know I need to strive more to share the healing power of salvation. Thank you, Mom, for being willing to share this with me and others.

Her Testimony

A young missionary to the Mormons, Daniel Long, once remarked to us that God had saved him from a life of theft and drugs.  He went on to say that he had been saved when he was five years old!  What a precious gift to be saved from the consequences of sin and to realize it.  Although I can’t say that about my life, I can say that God has brought restoration and healing.  Looking back upon my life has reminded me of how very good and gracious He has been to me. At the age of 30 I claimed God’s promise given in Hebrews 7: 25, “wherefore He is also able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.”

My childhood was happy and secure; I grew up on a farm in central Minnesota with a brother and a foster brother.  My parents had me baptized as an infant in a Lutheran church; as children my brothers and I would walk to a neighboring home and ride with them to Sunday school at a Christian & Missionary Alliance church.  When I was 11, my parents joined a Swedish Covenant Church where I was confirmed.  I continued to be involved at the Alliance church and enjoyed youth activities, Bible camp, exposure to missionaries and the benefit of having a Pastor’s daughter as my best friend.  Because of this background I had a love for God and a desire to serve Him, even going on to Bible College after high school.  Regretfully, however, there had never been a time in my life when I had seen myself as a sinner in need of a personal Savior; consequently, I drifted away from church and spiritual influences.  After a year of college and two years in nursing school I quit and married my high school sweetheart.  We had four children within six years.  Thankfully, I was able to complete my schooling during that time.   My husband was good to the children and me when he was sober, but he was a binge drinker as were many in his family.  I resorted to drinking, thinking it would give me a place in his life.   We attempted to be good parents and attended church occasionally but the drinking escalated until my husband would become violent.  During one of these episodes I took our children and left home, hoping a temporary separation would provide safety and perhaps jolt my husband into making a change.  After several days, we returned to our hobby farm to get some belongings and found my husband dead in his car.  Up to this time I had blamed him for our difficulties; I had even gone to Al Anon for “his” problem, not admitting sin and pride in my own life.  Now I had no one to blame but myself.  Not only was I laden with the responsibility of my family, I was overwhelmed by the guilt of sin in my life. On top of that, I allowed myself to feel guilt for my husband’s death.  I felt that if I had reacted differently it might have not happened.  I became more and more dependent upon alcohol and had friends who were supportive of that life style. Social drinking enslaved me with my first drink.  Although I continued to work hard and may have appeared carefree, I was suffering inner distress. This guilt and distress was, in retrospect, a consequence of sin.

God, however, rich in mercy, had other plans and He began to reveal them ever so gently.  A classmate of my oldest daughter, who was seven at the time, gave her a children’s tract that explained the way of salvation.  My daughter read it several times to make sure she understood it correctly, then after asking my permission, prayed and asked God to forgive her sins and be her Savior.  Her classmate then invited her to the Pioneer Girls Club where a leader took interest in her and asked me if they could take her to church. This dear lady and her husband would pick up my daughter every Sunday morning; this only intensified my guilt as I realized that I should be the one taking my family to church.  To add to my discomfort, a Christian nurse whom I worked with sensed my turmoil and began to pray for me.  Although my parents were not in the habit of outwardly expressing their faith, I believe that my mother was praying as well. 

A battle was raging within my life and I considered finding relief in the occult.  This came to my mind because I had innocently dabbled in witchcraft for “fun” as a teenager during church youth activities with an ouija board; in my nursing college years, a palm reader would provide “entertainment” which led to séances with friends in our dorm just for fun. I might interject that this “fun” resulted in a stay at a psych hospital for one of our friends. Another consequence of sin!  Nevertheless, with this in mind, I contacted an old acquaintance that I thought might still be in touch with the palm reader.  Thankfully, she knew the One who could rescue me.  She told me of my need of Christ in my life and within a few days brought me a Bible. She referred me to a good Bible-believing church after which I attended every service and soaked up God’s Word. After attending for several weeks, during which I made a desperate attempt to change my life, I came to the realization that I was helpless and could not change myself.  I called the pastor; he quoted Scripture over the telephone, which assured me that if I would confess my sin and receive Christ’s forgiveness through the sacrifice of His blood that He indeed would deliver me.  When I got off the phone I followed my Pastor’s instruction to first pour every drop of liquor in the house down the drain, after which I knelt by my bed with my new Bible and called upon the name of the Lord to save me. Then I could truly say like Hezekiah in Isaiah 38:17, “Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.”  Verse 19 goes on to say “The living, the living, he shall praise thee as I do this day…”

Most Christians know 2 Corinthians 5:17 by heart : “Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature, old things are passed away, behold all things are become new.”  At the time of my salvation, most of the old things in my life were corrupt and needed to pass away.  Some old things such as the drinking were done away with the night I trusted Christ.  Other things, which were not as visible, were changed more gradually as God brought conviction.  My old life was aimless.  God gave me purpose as I read His Word, prayed, obeyed Him in believer’s baptism, church membership and attendance.  In my natural state I yelled at my children to get them to behave.  Now I learned to exercise discipline with love.  It took many weeks before I could replace smoking with a dependence upon God.  My old friends turned against me but God provided genuine life long friends with a bond that cannot be broken.  My pastor’s wife was a God-sent mentor.  She kept me busy doing things at church and with her family, going out on visitation, working together, all of which replaced my sense of despair with the joy of serving Jesus.  My addictions had included tranquilizers, initially prescribed for back spasms.  They affected me the same as alcohol yet without the obvious outward appearance.  When I realized I needed to give them up, God gave me His peace that passes all understanding.  In my old life I was always in financial straits.  Now, as I tithed and gave offerings to church, God enabled me to pay off my debts and provide Christian education for my children.  It didn’t take long before I made a bonfire of much of my old music; I wanted no reminders of its influence! They were replaced by “spiritual songs and melodies” that reflected my heart of rejoicing.  My old life of bondage to sin was replaced by a new liberty in Christ: 

My Desire – Lillian Plankenhorn (1904-1988)
My desire, to be like Jesus,
My desire, to be like Him.
His Spirit fill me,His love o’erwhelm me;
In deed and word to be like Him.

About a year after I accepted Christ, Dr. Cedarholm (MBBC) came to our church with a musical group.  My pastor and family were in a time of transition, and subsequent to their concern for our Christian growth, talked to him about the possibility of my involvement in a ministry at the college. He offered me the opportunity to work in the nurse’s office on campus; I served there for three years, volunteering at Camp Joy (Whitewater, WI) as camp nurse those summers.  The Christian influence was invaluable to my children and me.  Then, after being a widow for 10 years, God provided a spiritually minded husband and exemplary Dad for my children in Earl Vokoun.  We served God together at Calvary Baptist Church (Watertown, WI), then Bethel Baptist Church in Sellersville (PA). We moved to Wadena, Minnesota to care for my father; after his death it was such a joy to return to Watertown five years ago and to see my husband renew acquaintances as well as enjoy the worship & fellowship at Calvary the last two years of his life.  He struggled with some health issues, experiencing frustration because of his decline, but his home going was sudden Mother's Day morning two years ago, as we were getting ready to go to church.  It reminded me of what it will be like when the trumpet sounds and God calls us home as well.   How grateful I am for the support of my family and church family who have upheld me with prayer and kindness. The grief of losing a husband after 24 years of marriage has been intense and painful, but God has born me up on eagles’ wings.  He truly has renewed my strength from day to day and has prevented me from becoming faint.

Isaiah 40:31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

What a joy it has been over the years to also see my children come to know Christ and desire to serve Him.  They have realized what our lives may have been had we not found the Lord.  I’m thankful for the tender hearts of my grandchildren as well and that several out of 11 have accepted Christ as Savior.  Praise God for transforming my wasted life into one that He can use. To God be the glory! 

Revelation 4:10-11 The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

Spring cleaning jobs

Man alive were we all busy these past two weeks! The busy-ness largely had to do with cleaning. It started with my ears. Long before I met Matt my ears needed to be cleaned out. Always have had a problem with them, and scuba diving every weekend for a year in California didn’t help. So when we married I thought, “I won’t be working full-time so there will be PLENTY of time to tend to my ears.” Fast-forward four years, still not done. Who wants to sleep with oil in their ears, and then squeegee them out the next day? The last time I candled my ears I nearly set my hair on fire. Finally got my motivation while in the doctor’s office getting evaluated for health insurance last Tuesday. She said my right ear was nearly closed shut with wax, and that it probably was affecting my hearing. Yikes! Was I ever embarrassed. So that was a priority on my list this week. After one go at it, my hearing is definitely improved.

The other priority was dusting everything. We’d been kicking up dust with nightly fires in the fireplace, vacuuming, sorting paperwork for taxes and moving furniture around. But the problem hasn’t been motivation; it’s been finding a cleanser that makes the job pleasant to do, and one I can use in every room for every surface. We have a whole lotta house to clean now! Enter my new friend Pam, who lent me the perfect book without knowing my dilemma. God sure knows what we need and when. I love His timing. The book is Clean House, Clean Planet by Karen Logan, and it’s full of non-toxic recipes for every dirty job you’ll ever have to do around the house. My favorite by far is peppermint vinegar water. It disinfects and cleans super, and I love it’s aroma. The basic recipe is a half-teaspoon of essential oil in a gallon of white distilled Heinz vinegar, as Heinz makes it from corn. You don't want the vinegar made from petroleum.

It's funny, but vinegar is my new best friend. The things it can do are amazing. We have the really strong 30% stuff here, so a little goes a long way, and needs to be diluted for regular cleaning or food recipes. I ruined so many coleslaws and bbq beef recipes before figuring out the strength thing, and because of my ineptness stopped using vinegar altogether until reading this book. It removes that brown yellow stain on tile from hard water, makes the laundry much whiter, sorts out the burned on stuff in pots and pans (What, me? Burn things? Oh yeah!), and I’m thinking it’s the secret ingredient in all those “spray and leave it on” type of shower tile cleaners in the States that I see everyone using now. I always thought it was odd they never put their ingredients on the bottles, but would be very surprised if it wasn’t vinegar.

Matt’s on his own cleaning mission outside, dealing with the soppy mess our yard is with all the snowmelt. We have an ongoing border issue with one of our neighbors, and his daughter got a little upset when we started spreading a pile of dirt over the flooded area, which technically is their property but they haven’t moved the fence yet. Her dad is a truck driver and was away this week. This pile of dirt is theirs; they moved it onto a corner of our property last summer to get it out of the way. Our property is still very much unlandscaped, like the face of the moon (!) so we didn’t mind. But he and Matt had agreed that it could be used for this soppy area in between our properties, since it will be his anyways someday, when he gets around to moving the fence. We are on a slope, and until we order more earth, we get a lot of run off from everyone. We’re kind of trying to live with it until we can afford a truck of dirt. Matt bought a water pump last year and that has really helped to redirect some of the water. Eventually we’ll have to dig trenches for French drains or something. Anyways, the daughter came running out and basically said her father was not to be listened to, that he was a silly man, and that she wanted the dirt for her own use. If we are still here in twenty years it’s likely she’ll be our neighbor still, after her parents die. So you just have to bite your tongue and find a way to make it work. But now we know a little bit of the family dynamics going on over there. So now what do we do, make the fence happen, or the dirt? If the city hadn’t gone and rezoned everything and found the mistake in the property lines, we’d not be having this issue. Fences make good neighbors, isn’t that the saying? It’s really not such a bother. God has given us plenty here to take care of, and we are thankful for every shovel full of dirt and rock we have for this time we are here on earth. What I’m really looking forward to are those streets of gold, which I imagine never need polishing, and gorgeous gardens that never need weeding!!! Hallelujah! What can our Lord be doing for so many thousands of years up there? Isn’t He done already? I get impatient, a little bit, waiting for the day I’ll get to go to heaven. Our neighbor can have all the dirt she wants, but it would be awesome if she would want a bit o' property up in heaven like we have, too!

We were caught...smiling

Sunday morning, a neighbor was walking along the dirt road we live on. It was icy cold, and we were heading into town for church, so we stopped and offered her a ride. She gladly accepted. We had never met before, but said she sees us often. She asked, “Why are you always smiling? It’s strange!” We were again reminded, ironically at the dawn of spring, that while smiling is not necessarily ‘frowned upon,’ you apparently should have a reason or occasion to do so. My first response was to think of Proverbs 15:13 “A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.”

We’ve heard a few theories as to why people in this part of the world think smiling is strange. In Russian culture, it is considered arrogant, or it could also mean someone is insane. Estonians are not as united about what they think: some have said they cannot trust someone who smiles, which seems to be a Soviet influence; some say life is too hard, and yet others think there is an appropriate time and place to smile, such as at a party. A local book published by Tartu University Press, A Russian course for foreign students, describes the Russian attitude towards smiling:

• It is common not to smile at unknown people because it would be understood in a wrong way.
• The smile is not an attribute of polite communication. It is not necessary in order to make an impression or win favor.
• The smile is out of place at work, where a person must be serious.
• You should have a reason to smile, such as solving a most important problem, or it being a red-letter day.

In contrast, westerners consider a smile to be evidence of being at peace with who you are in relation to the world. Americans think smilers are upbeat, likable and approachable; conversely, Americans think frowners are surly, unlikable people.  At a very early age we are taught to “turn that frown upside down!”  In any event, our more immediate neighbors seem to smile a lot, so it’s not reasonable to make a sweeping statement about eastern European or Scandinavian attitudes concerning smiling, but I am fairly certain that tooth-whitening gels aren’t flying off the pharmacy shelves here.

Proverbs 28:14 “Happy is the man that feareth alway: but he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief.”

So what’s the deal? Why do I smile? The Holy Spirit has been showing me in a variety of ways this week the relationship between the heart and external expression. I truly hope my smile would be genuine, and if it isn’t, that I would be alarmed enough to get my heart back to a clean and pure state. Smiling as a result of deep joy only comes when you are right with God, when you fear Him. The fear that the Bible talks about requires an attitude of humility, not high-mindedness; to fear God is to hate pride, arrogancy, the evil way, and the froward (contrary and obstinate) mouth (Proverbs 8:13).

The good news is that I can lead my heart to a place of joy by doing what’s right. At a ladies Bible study yesterday we shared how we respond to stress or conflict. Any response to temptation that does not come from a place of faith is sin. I tend to withdraw into myself; hiding under the bed covers brings me great pleasure! Other people may buy things they don’t need, lose themselves in a book, slam things or give someone a piece of their mind, or sleep too much, or over-eat . Whatever the response, it’s natural for the carnal man to indulge his pride, and assume a defensive position; but  God hates pride.

This morning I read Genesis 3:8, where Adam and Eve went and "hid" upon hearing the Lord’s voice walking in the garden. They had just sinned and were ashamed. I saw the parallel for today: in times of temptation when my response is sinful, I want to hide, or indulge my own desires: let everyone get along without my help! My arrogance causes further division, and alienates me from those that love me. I'm not growing in grace. Christian living depends on Christian learning: we know doctrine, we are secure about a future in heaven, but are we also “knowing” these truths every day? Romans 6:6, 9 both begin with “knowing” the fundamentals of our faith in a present continuous kind of way.

Psalm 73:25-26 “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.”

Years ago, MIT did a study where they asked a control group to come in and smile at themselves in a mirror for 20 minutes every day for two weeks. They documented elevated levels of organic feel-good chemicals in the blood serum as a direct result of the time spent smiling into the mirror. In other words, if you look at yourself with a smile long enough, you will physically start to feel more positive. Your brain responds in turn with more positive thoughts. It goes in line with the Biblical teaching that we are to lead our hearts, not be controlled by them. Once we become Christians, God gives us many ways to practice morally right behavior that generates joy in the heart, whether it be to give thanks, show mercy, humble ourselves, serve others, spread peace, or love others, or (the most important) to feed on God’s word, the Bible.

My world needs more joy, doesn’t yours? A friend of mine sent me a text message yesterday from work: “Today is a shiny day!” It was a quirky Estonian way of saying ‘enjoy the sun’s warmth and light.’ My idea of a shiny day is that no matter what’s in the sky, my heart sees heaven, and Jesus at the right hand of the Father. If I look at that every day for twenty minutes, you can be sure my smile will reflect genuine and deep happiness.

Down but not out!

Last January I ramped up my goals and decided to post on my blog once a week. For those of you who come by every Monday or Tuesday to check in, you know I’ve failed miserably in the past few months. I’ve not been gazing at my naval, though, at least not the entire time.

For starters, I picked up a part-time job ghost writing. A public speaker/business consultant tried me out for a transcription project, and after a few of those had me try my hand at writing white papers. It has been a lot of fun to take a speech, deconstruct it, and put it back into a readable article. I’ve done three so far, and there are more in the pipeline. It's temporary. Please pray with me that it will turn into a steady stream of income for us, or that it will lead to other opportunities. I know everyone everywhere is feeling the global economic pinch, which for many is more like a wet dishrag being wrung out.

But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, that I may declare all thy works. Psalm 73:28

In our case, we had to take a fresh look at what’s possible and what God would have us to do with our time and talents. I don’t know any other missionary wives who work (for money), and my hope is that I won’t have to do this forever, but God knows best. We are a unique family and in a unique position, so trust the Lord to direct us in the way He would have us go. As much as I enjoy writing, and getting paid for it, it takes time away from family. I wish the economy would miraculously recover, that property, mutual funds and USD value would go through the roof, that we could sell our apartment and breath a little more freely.

Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. Philippians 4:11

I get it, Lord, I really do. If it weren’t for the recession, I would never have experienced the zillion things it has forced us to go through, and learn from. So we’re all grateful here for everything God is doing and will continue to do. It puts us on the same playing field as many of the people we minister to, and therefore we are much more able to empathize and see what people really need. We are truly content! Just trying to stay out of debt, that's all. One of the things the Lord may have me do here is to help another woman start a business. It's just a thought right now, but I'm praying for the right lady to come along if that's what God would have me to do.

For the last two weeks, Olivia and I have taken turns being sick. Fever and congestion are the extent of it, although one night a caffeine-withdrawal migraine kept me up, and two nights ago an ear ache that felt worse than giving birth. We are so seldom really sick, that in the beginning I had to really stop and think about what to do. I don't have pharmaceuticals in the house at all! We pulled out all my essential oils, made pots of lemon tea, kept the humidifier running, stocked up on fruit and canceled play dates. About 20 years ago a mother of three told me that the BRAT diet is great for sick kiddies: bananas, raisins, applesauce and toast.

Olivia is really into pretty dresses. She caught sight of two summery ones in her closet last week, so we pulled them out and she has been wearing them every day, all day long. She would sleep in them if I didn’t put my foot down. Our church in California sent us some totally girly girl dresses a couple of years ago, and at the time I truly thought we’d never take them off the hangers. We live in a cold climate, where the warmest summer day is usually in the ’70’s. But right now I’m looking at a foot of snow out our window, and she’s twirling around in the dress she wore for her birthday party in June. It might be too early to say, but my guess is that she has discovered her femininity. It has been a welcome turn of events from her other preference: zero clothing. She practices walking gracefully and curtsying day long, nurturing her stuffed animals and dolls, having tea parties, hugging me, and putting things in her hair. She is not getting it from me, the tripping, toe-stubbing clutz of the family who wears too much black and her hair in a bun.  My feet went out from under me on Sunday while I was cleaning snow off the car, and my long black coat and skirt and boots could not hide the fact I had been rolling around in it. Fortunately the snow made for a soft landing, and all that was hurt was my pride. It was a great way to start the Lord’s Day, as I could NOT stop laughing.

So that’s all the news that’s fit to print for this week. If you find any spare fru-fru fabric in your closet that you aren’t using, forward it to us here in Estonia, there’s a little missionary girl that will put it to good use!

Virtuous Woman Wordle

This is what I call a good use of technology! I love it. I don't know about you, but I have to keep God's words in front of me at all times. I'm trying to find ways, in fact, during these long winter months, to "write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates," (Dueteronomy 6:9). A friend of mine and I have talked about the idea of having a "Scripture Art" party, where we get together and create simple but attractive wall-hangings of Scripture for our homes. I do love reading the Bible in the traditional manner, just by opening the book up, turning it's pages, feeling it's weight on my lap, praying and meditating. It's a book like no other. But once in a while a visual presentation of concepts expands my understanding, in the same way an illustration during a sermon does. This wordle of Proverbs 31 does that for me, and the bonus (for me) is that it is in my two fav colors, blue and green. Hope it's an encouragement to you like it was to me.

This small graphic is a link to the wordle.net gallery page.

 

Team Graziano (Family as Team)

My post this week is a rather high-level reflection on the social network of missionaries on a foreign field, and what my experience so far has taught me. It is by no means thoroughly researched; it is just one perspective in what I’m sure is a widely diverse body of thought and experience.

I used to be quite engaged with a stateside TV series called Survivor, where a bunch of strangers are stuck with each other in primitive living conditions for 39 days, and one by one people are voted out until there are only three left. A jury of former members then votes on which of those three wins the million dollars. The most common reason someone is voted out of the tribe is pride, and many admit it post-expulsion: the member gets overconfident, and thinks more of his or her value than what is good for the group, or than what everyone else perceives their value to be. Essentially, pride prevents the person from hearing or seeing the truth. I think of the Survivor experience often, especially when I start getting the feeling that my actions or thoughts are influenced by a bloated sense of who I am relative to everyone else.

The reason I bring this up is that for some time now I’ve had difficulty navigating the full scope of relationships with other missionaries on the field, and own up to my pride not letting me see and hear things differently. These are people who are of like faith and similar goals, loosely networked on the foreign field for practical reasons. I came to the field with a different background of experience, as I have spent most of my last 20 years in a cubicle and on teams in the workplace. It’s been quite the learning curve! I don’t have team meetings, cross-functional projects, inspirational company lunches or learning conferences, yearly evaluations, employee sensitivity or skills trainings, or any of the other organizational accoutrements of corporate life that develop relationships and skills in order to improve the bottom line and general health of the organization. All those skills I learned in my 20+ years in the workplace aren’t exactly relevant or useful. Missionaries are, in every sense of the word, independent, each has his/her own vision, and comes from a unique church culture that shapes the "how" and "why" and "with whom" they work. No one comes to the field expecting to work with someone else, and if they are in a partnership, it’s not for the long haul. So relationships are built on the shared culture of being American, sharing holiday meals, play dates for the kids, and passing along information. It has felt very superficial, when I come from a background of looking at everyone in terms of how synergy can be created, and where transparency is valued. And if I learned anything from my secondary degree, it's that values have to be shared for relationships to be effective. The boundary lines and values of others have not been clear to me, and I’ve only recently stumbled upon the fact that each missionary family is it’s own organization, in essence, and it is important to have a world view that positions yourself inside a family looking out. Not the other way around.

For example, one of the hardest things (for me) on the mission field is to not look at what other workers are doing. How is so-and-so is using strategy? How they are evangelizing, or reaping “souls” in the harvest? In the workplace, progress is largely dependent on relationships and implementing best practices. This could also be true for the typical American church community, or the humanitarian organization. For example, it’s standard to network in order to keep your career moving, and in most organizations, it is also a good practice to continually evaluate what others are doing, and compile lists and lists of Best Practices to apply where appropriate, in an effort to improve results.  Naturally, I’ve looked to apply the same operating principles as a wife, mom, and missionary, but with disappointing results! Transparency by a foreigner stands a good chance of being misinterpreted. Networking just isn’t a practical use of one’s time if no one else is doing it. Best Practices? Haven’t you read the Bible??

It’s been as exhausting as it ever was in the workplace, and for the record, this fourth year has been the hardest for me. I’ve dealt largely with feelings of failure on a weekly if not daily basis. In retrospect, I have been reaping what I’ve been sowing. Instead of looking to the Bible and trusting His wisdom on how to build and understand the church and it's purpose, I’ve relied on my own wisdom culled from 20+ years in the workplace. As a result, the comparisons I make between my work and someone else’s causes a great loss of confidence, because they are false comparisons. My experience and learning do count for something, but they aren’t the sole means to an end.  At the end of the day, what God is pleased with is a humble contrite spirit, and children who love each other and Him. Knowledge and application of Scripture is key. A missionary family who can’t co-exist with others is not functioning rightly, and is a serious blot on the foreign landscape. But take a family that is godly through and through, who loves all the brethren, and my observation is that they are successful “as an organization” on the foreign field.  They have what it takes to make an impact in people’s lives.

I praise the Lord for a husband who never ceases to use Scripture to help me through every valley. I hope he never stops quoting it. I have a godly mother and sister who are also quite good at throwing appropriate Scripture my way when I need to hear it. It is the one thing that pierces right though to my heart, through all the oppression that can envelope me, and with each passing year I do see how much stronger I grow because of the use of Scripture to encourage and help me. My guidebook should be the Bible, not the ever-growing body of wisdom, friendship, or experiences of others. My first priority should be to love and obey God, and to follow Christ’s example in all things, not to worry about what others are doing or thinking. I read Proverbs 3 last week. It’s wonderful. It actually says our lives will be full of good health, peace, direction, favor and understanding if we live a life of obedience and faith in accordance with the Scriptures, and if we lift up the name of Jesus. I aspire to that. I have also read Psalm 73 every day for nearly two weeks – I just can’t get enough of it! All of God’s glory is wrapped up in His Son, who is in Heaven, at the right hand of the Father, and so what really pleases God the Father is when we also become enraptured with Jesus His Son. That truth brings me such joy, such wonderful peace. I am so happy to know I’m going to heaven after this life. It is the only truth I’ve ever known that stirs hope in me, and it makes me want to paint “Heaven” on every wall in every room, so that I’m reminded of that hope wherever I look. When I shared recently with my husband my feelings of inadequacy, he brought my attention to Ephesians 1:6 “To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.”  So maybe my batting average is dismal right now when it comes to accomplishing great things, but it encourages me that God still accepts me, that nothing I ever do or don’t do will change that simple truth. If you are wondering, I’m slowly building relationships, just in a different way now. I’m looking out for what’s good for my husband and daughter, keeping an eye and ear out for what works for us or not as a family, not for just me. It is helping my confidence to grow, perhaps because, for the first time, I’m treating my family as my true team, as if "we are crew, not members," (to quote the mission of a former employer, Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound).

Experiment: energy bar recipe

We have been trying new ways of eating lately, beginning with making our own sauerkraut, and experimenting with energy bar recipes. Sauerkraut is easy enough, cut up a head of cabbage, toss in some sea salt, compress and cover indefinitely. Energy bars are another matter. While there are a zillion recipes out there for granola-like bars, I really wanted to find a “raw” food recipe, one that we didn’t have to bake but that stayed together. A seed bar, if you will, but not sticky with honey.  We’ve been sugar free for some time now, and have even eliminated honey from our diets, feeling that we get all the sugar we need for the entire day from one piece of fruit or raw carrot sticks. We’re not against honey, in fact Estonians are really into their honey products, but once your body gets used to processing sugar from raw foods like carrots and apples, honey starts to taste uber-sweet. Also, it’s really really, really expensive.

It goes without saying, I think, that the biggest reason we need to change how we eat is to combat the effects of having a toddler at our age. We are physically and mentally taxed in ways that are so much easier to handle in your 20’s. Two years of interrupted sleep has not kept us younger. So we’re hoping that by eating smarter we’ll come out about the same as our empty-nester counterparts after all! 

I tried about three recipes before falling in love with one. It was so good; in fact, I thought something was wrong, because it tasted better than cookie dough! Matt thought so too. Olivia was literally shoveling handfuls into her mouth today, while I hadn’t even mixed in all the oil. What I really wanted was the recipe for the Logia Bible Bar, made by House of David. They are yummy, and make you feel so great. Their recipe is based on the passage of Scripture in Deuteronomy containing the seven foods God said were good (in reviewing the scripture for this blog post I was struck with the emphasis God placed on the number 7 throughout the entire book):

"For the LORD thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey;" {of oil...: Heb. of olive tree of oil} Deuteronomy 8:7-8 

So that was where I started, also being influenced by articles written by men about what they particularly liked in their bars, seeds and nuts. You need a food processor (I have a VitaMix) and can certainly take great liberty with substitutions. The idea is to just grind up a decent combination of nuts, seeds and sweetness with a grain. They preserve well in the fridge, wrapped in wax paper and/or saran wrap. Once grinding the grains you choose, toast them just for caution’s sake. You can choose wheat berries, oats, whatever grain you like.  But I like barley. I use an even cup for all but the oils, and my measurements for the oils are total guesses, so be warned, you’ll have to experiment until you get a dense mixture that will pack down well with some weight. The nut butters help with that the best. It’s totally opposite from the granola bar concept, and packed with a zillion more nutrients. A little goes a long way in nourishing your body, not to mention the energy you feel is an enduring one, not the hi-fi buzz of caffeine or sugar that leaves you tired.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Barley, ground into a flour and toasted (odrakruubid in eesti keelt)
• ½ cup Olive oil – or coconut or grapeseed oil
• ½ cup Almond butter – peanut or cashew butter are also options
• 1 cup Coconut flakes (optional, I like the visual effect of white flakes)
• handful of Sea salt
• 2 T Maple syrup (optional) and/or honey or agave or whatever you like for sweetness
• 1 t Molasses (optional)
• 1 cup raisins and/or dates
• 1 cup dried apricots
• 1 cup Sunflower seeds
• ½ cup flax seeds
• 1 cup sesame seeds
• 1 t Vanilla or almond extract (optional, and not the cheap watery ones; the extracted oil in alcohol. If you are using Extra Virgin Olive Oil you’ll want something to overpower its flavor.)

Basically, grind all the dry ingredients into a meal. Mix the oils and flavorings separately. In a large bowl, work the oil mixture into the meal with your fingers. Pack it all into a flat pan and cut into pieces, or onto a piece of wax paper, or roll into balls. Refrigerate for a few hours. It keeps well in a fridge. Just reach in and grab some when you need energy.

Your imagination is really the limit. Roll them in a topping, dip them in chocolate, or crumble in yogurt, or add and delete ingredients per your taste, like legumes or sprouted grains that have been dried, or one of those puffed cereals. The whole point (besides slowing down the aging process!) is to start integrating seeds, nuts and good oils as snack foods, and to learn to use whole grains in more creative ways.

Cold weather fun

Snow is incredible. We are LOVING the way it turns such gloomy gray skies and brown landscapes into a fantastically white wonderland. It's actually difficult to take a good photograph because snow reflects light so brightly, and messes up the aperture. These photos don't nearly represent the awesome majesty of snow in nature, but just know that it literally felt as though we were driving into a picture postcard all week.

It’s been a cold, cold few weeks. So what better way to end a cold front than to go ice diving, right? Matt might have even gone surfing, but the winds were making the waves too mushy for his taste. It had nothing to do with the chunks of ice floating on the shore. Really! So on Friday we packed up for an outing to watch our friend Mike make his debut as an ice diver at Manniku Pond. You can't see it in this photo, but there is an ice fishermen on the perimeter of the pond. I was sitting in the car with Olivia when I saw Matt make the long trek towards him. Of course I knew what he was going to do! So I started praying. Matt witnessed to him, and was able to leave a gospel tract. He was an atheist, but  unlike most atheists, actually let Matt talk about God for a while.

Meanwhile, back in the middle of the pond, the teams are gearing up. A part of me wanted to test the waters myself, because I own a dry suit, but motherhood has turned me into a wimp. I don’t think anyone could pay me enough money to dive in water covered by a foot of ice that someone had to chainsaw through. Anacapa Island in California was quite cold enough for me, thank you. Even Gloucester, Massachusetts was manageable. 

 

On our way home, we stopped at a nearby lookout. We live about 20 kilometers outside of Tallinn, in a little settlement close to the forests and sea, and adore living in relative tranquility. But as near to the woods and wild as we are, we spend very little time exploring it. There is, however, a wild tree at the lookout that I’ve grown quite fond of.  This fledgling sits on the edge of the cliff, exposed to the elements and wind. While all the rest of the trees sit back away from the shore, this one is defying the odds and flourishing. I guess I just like what it represents.

A graduation day, so to speak

Psalms 52:4 "Thou lovest all devouring words, O thou deceitful tongue."

James 3:5 "Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!"

Matt and I will celebrate four years of marriage in just a few weeks. Four years isn’t a long time, unless of course you are a freshman in college, then it's an eternity. The difference is that we don’t send children off to college with preparatory showers and ceremonies. We wait until graduation day to mark the student’s achievement.

Our first four have been a whirlwind, esp. for two 40-somethings like us. Recap: we met briefly in November, and had a series of coffee and ice cream dates for two weeks before the proposal the day after Christmas. I knew Matt was our missionary to Estonia, but I publicly admit I had no idea where it was, and had to look on a map before our first date. We married six weeks later, and I had two months to quit my job and pack for life overseas. I miscarried in July, but then got pregnant again in September, and Olivia arrived the following June. I had no idea how to “be” a preacher’s wife, and despite years of caring for other people’s children, very little understanding of the magnitude of motherhood. I had some idea of what a missionary does; every Christian is, in essence, a missionary. I just had no idea what it would be like to be called one. I was, as they say, utterly and blissfully blinded by love.

So what was my major these four undergrad years in the Institution of Marriage?  Which exams have given me gray hairs? That would have to be, unequivocally, my studies in Holding My Tongue 101, 102, 103, and 104. Twenty years ago, I achieved a BS in Speech. I learned to use my tongue. Ironically, it turns out I overpaid for that degree.

I often recall the advice given on the eve of our wedding. My dad, who has since been promoted to glory, simply observed, “Matt is sensitive.” I hadn’t yet come to that conclusion, and marveled at his perception from knowing Matt for just a few days before the wedding. But this knowledge prevented me from blurting many things out in the early days. I've always been more of the observant type, the kind of girl who enters a room full of people and would prefer just being quiet, in order to fully observe how others interact. So why I missed this is anyone's guess, unless we just go back to the Love is Blind principle.

As if to further emphasize the power of the tongue in marriage, Mrs. Allen, the assistant pastor's wife at our church, delivered the devotional at my shower, urging me to use my powers of observation and let them inform my words and actions. That advice has served me well. If I merely step back, and study Matt for a few minutes, it does help me to frame my words and actions for greater impact, and often causes me to just wait until later. And for those who know Matt, he is not an easy person to read.  He would have made an excellent poker player from what I know of the game. Aside from that, I’ve swallowed more words than I’ve spoken.

After getting settled in Estonia, we met a lovely veteran missionary couple, Clarke and Carolyn, through one of my relatives. Carolyn shared a story from her early days as a preacher’s wife, and it had a huge impact on informing my subsequent behavior regarding “helping” my husband in ministry. It was so of the Lord for me to hear; my husband as yet was unaware that my undergrad major was Speech, and that I was planning on sharing my wealth of experience and knowledge about public speaking with him! Carolyn shared how, when they were in their 20’s and just starting out in a new pastorate, they were invited to the home of a couple whose husband was retiring from the pulpit after decades of service. The wife took Carolyn aside and told her boldly (I’m paraphrasing I’m sure), “Whenever my husband preaches, I take note of everything he does wrong. I share all these pointers with him afterward. How else is he going to know where to improve?”

Now, while this sounds just terrible, and the advice went completely unheeded, it is quite a skill to be able to give constructive advice, or to even gauge when it’s appropriate to do so. Nothing is worse than seeing my beloved’s crestfallen face after a criticism, and nothing better than seeing the shine in his eyes after an encouraging word. I don’t think there’s a harder job in the entire world, than to be a preacher. I’ve harshly judged more than one hapless preacher in my lifetime, without really stepping away to get an objective perspective. What a terrible, terrible thing to do.

According to scripture, the tongue is compared to a fire; it takes just a very little flame to set a mountain of dry wood on fire (Californians certainly can relate to that). It is like a boa constrictor in its ability to spew words that swallow men whole, or like a lion that can render it’s prey in pieces. I seldom think of the impact of my words in these ways. But that is, essentially, the power of the tongue. As I write this, I am amazed I would ever, ever consider letting criticism fall from my lips. But I do. It only takes stubbing my toe when I have a headache to start the turn of events that will cause my tongue to set “that world of iniquity” on fire later in the day.  Furious words provoke the “lowest passions,” and the deceit is when they are spoken in the “pretext of justice” according to the Treasury of David.

You will be happy to know that I’ve enrolled in my first graduate-level course, Speech Seasoned with Salt 101, and the theme verse is Colossians 4:6, “Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.” By God’s grace I’ll pass with flying colors!

 

 

 

 

A quiet end to the year

One word describes our Christmas and New Years: quiet. Not so quiet that I have had time to blog, but just quiet enough. We never did make up our minds about whether or not to get a tree, so Christmas Eve found me digging out the garland to make a festive mantle over the fireplace instead. What’s even nicer is not having a tree to take down! Russians celebrate Christmas January 7th, so technically we could still go grab a tree. We did venture out to the puppet theatre in Tallinn, hoping to enjoy some Olivia-aged holiday festivities, as I’ve been hearing about the theatre ever since arriving four years ago. The opening number with glow-in-the-dark circles bouncing around the stage was great. Olivia  clapped her hands, laughed and squealed. But in the second act the disco lights came on and “Everybody Dance Now!” screamed over the loudspeakers. Our jaws dropped open and remained that way as puppets and dancers dressed as nutcrackers, drums and elves and other Christmassy icons danced, no, gyrated their way through the next 45 minutes, mostly to songs about sex, drugs and rock and roll. Kind of the opposite of what we were expecting, ‘ya know?! There was even a song in there about drinking tequila sung by a Mexican troupe of puppets. The theatre was packed with school children, and of course the older boys at the back thought the content was funny. Olivia was confused, as nothing was cute or lovely or pretty anymore. It was absolutely nuts, although an eye-opener. It will be a long time before we go back, if ever. Oh well. Obviously that’s the world in which we live. I’ll leave the preaching to my husband. 

We had two Estonian friends over for New Year’s Eve, and I cooked Thanksgiving-style meal complete with the best apple pie I think I’ve ever made.  It was truly, truly scrumptious. Think I'm getting the hang of lard again, and apples from the Mediterranean! We listened to President Henrik Ilves' ten-minute address at 11:50 pm, then counted down (in Estonian) with the rest of the country to midnight. Our neighborhood skies were noisy and bright with firecrackers for all of ten minutes, we yelled “Head Uut Aastat!” to our neighbors over the chain link fence, then it went black and silent and everyone went to bed! We woke up late the next morning, drove into the woods and along the sea before taking our guests home, and have been cozily hunkered down ever since, really enjoying some quality family time. 

The New Year is going to bring about many more changes for us, I’m sure. It’s one of those oxymoronic things to say, isn’t it, to wish for change?  Change is inevitable; we are challenged in one way or another to better ourselves, every day. No situation or person is truly static. Matt and I have been tossing about this idea of "thriving" vs. "surviving" in the New Year, and how we can work at being better "thrivers." In a culture and climate such as we are in, survival is very much the largest concern, whether or not people realize it, and it can rub off on the foreigner in that culture, and be as oppressive. The enemy walks about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour; but...praise the Lord...greater is He that is in us, than he that is in the world. People (generally) work hard, take great pride in their  stoicism, and don't expose emotions. I'm speaking in general terms. Matt gets frequent texts from a deaf acquaintance a few hours away in Tartu, who, by all accounts, has a tumultuous life just trying to stay off the streets. Struggle makes us much more transparent. Once you get to the place where you are just surviving, though, as we see in some of our closer Estonian acquaintances, that blanket of oppression is very difficult to penetrate. Maybe some day I'll have the eloquence to explain this with greater clarity. It's not exactly like the jungles of Africa here, but there are similarities in how closed people are to the things of God, how willfully ignorant they are, and willing to be oppressed by the sensual. All the kindness in the world doesn't replace the power of scripture; kindness and loving acts do not, in my experience here in Estonia, penetrate someone's oppressed heart and mind. We are lights in a world of darkness, but only if we can proclaim the gospel truth with our lips. Lifestyle evangelism does not work. These people we had over...we've known them for over four years as family. Yet they still refuse to fear God. They want to receive gifts and kindness from us, of course, and we give them no reason to disbelieve. We are starting to whittle down our communications to the nub, so to speak. To deliver scripture at every opportunity. And to deliver it simply. Jerry Seinfeld has been quoted as saying he spends an hour revising eight words into six. Making the scripture, the preaching of the cross, as simple as possible. It's so wonderful to trust in the Word of God to change people!

God is always giving us more chances, more grace, more mercy to weather life. He never changes, from year to year. I’m so thankful for God’s never ending attention and heart for me, and for His people. God help us to serve and worship Him as we ought!

On Depression

One of the hardest things to endure this season (#4 for me) has been the lack of sun. There is a continual cover of low-lying cloud that filters the daylight – a mere six hours – and makes the whole world seem a million shades of gray. The nights are black as ink. Occasionally a wind will blow in from the Baltic Sea, move the clouds aside, and the glow created by the moon's light on the snow is quite beautiful.  But then the snow melts and turns into muck within days of falling, and you long for blue skies and sunshine. We burn vanilla or strawberry scented candles, eat mandarin oranges by the bag (they spoil fast), light the fireplace, drink lots of water, occasionally go to the solarium (tanning salon) for the UV exposure and take other measures to fight the inevitable depression. That would include being just silly with Olivia. Christians? Depressed?? I never would have thought it possible. It’s something I read about, even heard a few other missionaries here battled. I thought, incorrectly, that they weren’t spiritual enough, or keeping busy enough, or exercising. But it has hit home this year. Lack of motivation, feelings of failure, loss of appetite, it’s something different every week. The best cure is to have a really good cry, and more time of fellowship with God. But when your kid or husband or friend needs you, and activity pulls you this way and that, when deadlines loom and housework mounts, that time with God gets pushed farther and farther into the day, until you collapse into bed, and it’s too late. You’ve managed to do nearly everything in your own strength, not God’s. So you are worn out. Headaches or muscle pains or congestion begins to gnaw at whatever strength or positive spirit you have left. You just want so terribly much to sit in the sun! But it never comes. It's always behind those...clouds. Someone jumps off a tower, and you actually understand the downward spiral his life took.

My Bible devotion this morning brought me to a very beloved passage of Scripture, Psalm 90. I sung a wonderful arrangement of it twenty years ago, on tour with Maranatha’s Madrigal and Handbell choir:

Psalm 90:1-3 (a prayer of Moses) “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.”

It is by far one of the most beautiful scriptures I’ve ever read, including the descriptions of God’s awesome wrath. I’d always assumed God brought or allowed big, catastrophic events in the natural world in order that people would turn to him for help. Although this is Moses' way of contritely admitting the mortality and suffering of man, the Hebrew words for “destruction” and “return” used in this passage have a broader context, in that they are both figurative and literal; ‘destruction’ refers to being turned to powder or being contrite - we literally turn to dust after death, or our spirit becomes contrite when it is crushed; ‘return’ is to turn away, or retreat, not necessarily to the point of origin, but to a place of either breaking down or building up. In my experience, humility is a companion to retreat. It’s not only in natural disasters that people turn away from self-possession, and retreat to rebuild their lives with a greater fear of God, or but also such times God withholds His hand of blessing (such as we feel when in poor health, infertility, or loneliness), or when we are in bondage to a stronghold (such as anger, alcoholism, etc.). Moses, in this prayer, laments to God about man's mortality and suffering, and because he humbles himself God takes pity on him. It's that place of humility I have to 'get' to time and time again. 

Yesterday we went to visit Heigo, who still is unable to walk or use his left arm since his stroke. He is more reliant on God than ever before, and a joy to be with. Olivia looks forward to seeing “Bambi” out his window, a wooden carving that sits in the front entrance of the convalescent home. Bambi was wearing a festive string of red lights this time, which really delighted her! She chatted the whole visit, and seems to have overcome her fear of the strange smells and sounds, even waving goodbye to the scary woman across the hall from Heigo whose discontented hollers never stop. Heigo, having been made completely helpless and contrite, has retreated back to his Bible (one of my dad's...who never imagined, I'm sure, that one of his bibles would end up on a man's bedside table in a little home in a little town on the other side of the world!), and found joy in trusting God. He is not interested in reading other publications, as the wonder and mystery of truth sheds light in his heart. Those who struggle with blindness, arthritis, or kidney failure, have been turned to “powder,” so to speak. They continue in defeat, or turn away and build their faith by seeking God’s word and praying. Suffering is used by God to make us know our true state. While living in this part of the world seems unbearable some days, I know God is using it to change me. It brings me to my knees! I get up after my time with God with enough joy and reassurance to get me through to the next place he would have me to be. Praise the Lord!

Unplugging...again...

Despite being on the other side of the world, away from family and friends, in most ways that truly matter we are very connected. I’ve got a persona for three messaging platforms: Yahoo, MSN, and AOL, and 7 email addresses, last count (here’s news you can use: avoiding spam by getting a new email doesn’t work). We are virtually in sync with friends and former co-workers on Facebook, Plaxo Pulse, and LinkedIn. Skype, a technology born right here in Estonia, and used by most businesses, enables us to video chat or call overseas every week. Just imagine: a world without landline phones, where they only sit in museum exhibits, and our grandchildren think it’s comical to hold a conch-like object to our ear to hear, without the ability to see and text simultaneously. One would think, at the advanced age of 40-something, that I would feel the generational gap, because it is not easy learning new technologies and deciding how to integrate them into family life, much less keep up with the lightning-speed pace of new inventions. My late father at 70 years had tremors learning how to work the mouse and visually decipher a monitorful of blinking images. And yet there is so much we don’t know, and don’t do. I don’t Twitter or Torrent, for example, nor do I text on my mobile much. I limit my time on Facebook, which is actually my favorite application for keeping in touch with people, to about five minutes a day. My “Facebook Five”, I call it, for general health. We don’t podcast or gcast, although it sounds like fun. We took my computer in for repair this week, and the Russian techs behind the desk, after taking a peek at the insides, told us there’s no reason it should still be working.

Even with all we don’t do, I still feel the extreme need to disconnect every so often. Make paper flowers. Start a scrapbook. Practice the piano solo I memorized thirty years ago. Make a vintage recipe of something. Weed the garden or hang outdoors. When I finally unplug, I actually feel more connected to my grandmother, who died nearly twenty years ago, than I do with the here and now. She had a love for plastic and silk flowers, which I’ve finally started to develop a (gulp) liking for. She collected and wrote poems, recorded dreams on scraps of paper, and penned her autobiography in an appointment book from 1974; I blog. I get how prudent, if totally unhip, it is to wear an apron, and I even harbor a secret desire to wear a roomy housecoat from Benjamin Franklin with colorful flowers splashed all over it, big costume jewelry, and to freshen up with rose water and a couple hits of a powder puff. 

This week, I have an excuse to unplug. I’m making forty name badges for a missionary friend, who is hosting a Christmas ladies tea at her church. She thought she was giving me an easy and low-cost project, after I moaned about having no money or time. I did limit myself to buying only six sheets of specialty paper, and miraculously found 15 meters of elastic string for $5, but the roll of handmade paper from Germany busted my $10 budget. As the photo demonstrates, they are well on their way to being finished. Deciding on a design is nearly 50% of the work, and it is still unclear what they will look like come next week.  What I want to do is create a paper flower for each badge, an idea suggested by my friend Anne, to give a corsage-like effect; trouble is, the most suitable pattern I found online is 40 steps, at Quazen.com. At this rate, I’ll be unplugged for the rest of the week!

While I occupy my time, Olivia is making sure her good friends Kanga, Roo, and an as-yet-unnamed plastic doll don't miss out on the adventures of Alice in Wonderland.

 

Grace to Serve

Foreign missions is not only about being there for the nationals; it’s about being there for others who serve on the field too! Yesterday we said goodbye to the last two of our house guests, Micah (23) and Hannah (18), MK’s from neighboring Russia. They had to stay an extra week waiting for their visas; while they were here, we got dumped on royally with tons of snow, the likes of which I’ve not seen since I was a little girl, in the 1970’s in Minnesota. It began on Matt's birthday, November 21st, and is still coming down as I write this, November 25th. Rain is predicted in two days. Crazy!

Since we recently returned from a month-long stay in the US, and ourselves had to depend upon the hospitality of others, I had a laundry list of hosting to-do’s and  “what-not-to-do”’s fresh in my memory, little creature comforts that make a stay in someone else’s home, well, comfortable. So when, upon our return, we were asked to host a missionary family, I stepped into the role of hostess with my whole heart, taking my cue from Matt’s email reply to the family's father, who requested we take care of his wife and children for a few weeks. My  husband, bless him, had simply replied, “We look forward to serving you.” Serve? Was that the right choice of word, honey? You mean they won’t be making the meals or cleaning the house? I may have gulped; but I appreciated Matt’s leadership, and knew it to be the appropriate and godly response.

What an opportunity to practice such things as love for the brethren (I John 3:14), a Christ like servant’s heart (Acts 20:19), and hospitality (Romans 12:13, Timothy 3:2, Titus 1:8, I Peter 4:9)! It’s been on my mind and heart these past many months to increase in my love for people, and I don’t know about you, but once I set out to do something requiring supernatural assistance, God takes me up on the offer right away. So a family of four is coming to stay?! Sure! I’ll just put my finger on the pause button of my life, no problem! 

Scripture is clear about how we are to serve. All the applicable verses don't indicate there are any gray areas, "special circumstances" where we can wiggle out of serving, maybe to people I don’t agree with, perhaps, or to people who take advantage of me, or who aren’t grateful. My guidebook, the Bible, God’s loving book of letters to me, clearly says those that are His are to love hospitality, be given to it, to love to serve regardless, and to do so for the Lord, not for the praise of man. I go on to read that we are to love our spiritual family so much we would be willing to die for them (I John 3:16). Wow. Okay, Lord, it doesn’t sound like such a sacrifice to cook and clean for a few weeks, in that context. We cleaned, went food shopping, and moved furniture around in anticipation of the additional family members.

Well, about 2 weeks in, during which I planned and prepared food for six people twice a day, and kept up with the cleaning and laundry and toddler care, I was getting physically, and mentally, worn out. The inability to pay greater attention to our personal affairs and ministry responsibilities started to bother me. Any distant dream I ever entertained of running my own B&B in retirement faded completely, and if anyone EVER expresses to me it is their dream, I will promptly list a zillion reasons why I highly discourage it. There is absolutely nothing romantic or exciting about being a maid and cook night and day! That purposeful frame of mind to serve others, which I started out so joyfully engaged in, was turning me into a ....servant, a maid! A chief cook and bottle washer is still...cook and bottle washer.

It sounds really good, both in the spiritual and physical realm, to say you are practicing servant leadership. But the reality is that it is grunge work. No one would have looked at me, laboring in the kitchen, and thought, “Poor girl, doing all this work.” It would more likely be "What's she working so hard for?" Jesus washed the feet of his apostles, and onlookers thought it was a little crazy. Just last month, my sisters and sister in law, and my mother, all played host to my family, and even though I was appreciative, I never gave their labors on my behalf a second thought.

While in my own kitchen, laboring away, my attitude began to spiral downwards as I let my weary feelings dictate my thoughts. Of course my pride would not allow me to say, “Get in the kitchen and make your own meals!” or “Do your own dishes!” Hosts don’t do that.  I prayed for grace to continue to serve. I needed God’s enabling grace!

His Amazing Grace. It’s what saves us in the first place, when we first believe. It has nothing to do with me, or anything I have or haven't done. He did it all, past tense, on the cross. He continues to give grace, present tense, for the journey. It was apparent to me that I had gotten off-track in my serving. I had started doing it in my own strength, and for myself. I mean, who doesn’t want to be thanked after a splendid meal of pork roast, home baked bread, roasted paprika potatoes and ginger carrot salad, and for dessert, chewy gooey brownies? But that attitude is so totally out of whack with what gracious hospitality is, in God's eyes. A servant serves, not for personal gain or praise, but for the pure joy of serving.

Well, my expectations got straightened out. I serve God Almighty, high on his throne in heaven and in my heart. He will have a few things to say to me on Judgment Day about that meal, and a zillion other meals, and it won’t be good for me if my heart wasn’t pure. I got back behind the kitchen sink upon my return, confident in the joy that I was serving my God, not man. I was no longer waiting for praise or thanks, or an equal exchange of labor, and that was a relief. God was watching my heart, and that is what I needed to keep pure before him.  He wanted me to care for this family, and I was not to question that reason, nor give him trouble for filling my house, his house, with guests. 

It all has a happy ending. We thoroughly enjoyed observing the relationships of a more established missionary family, and we made eternal friends.  I learned some new “quickie” recipes, as my problem is that I cannot just ‘throw’ a meal together. I have to do it old-school, meaning my meatballs simmer for hours in a fresh garlic tomato sauce, and my bread is from scratch. It's okay to serve Cheerios for dinner, if that's all you have, or are capable of serving. We were left with a generous gift to cover expenses, can look back without shame at anything we said or did, and will certainly reflect on this time in our lives as very special. There were a few hours Sunday evening when the snow was falling thickly and the roads were so hazardous that I doubted our guests would be able to leave, but the Lord mercifully decided to reunite them with their parents in time for Thanksgiving. It truly was a privilege to serve this precious family for the short time we were able to, and I am grateful to them for putting up with me as I grew in grace!

By the way, it's c-c-c-c-cold here! 

An Afternoon Adventure

After lunch on Friday we got the phone call that the letters of invitation from Moscow for two of our houseguests had arrived. Matt had ordered a load of gravel for the driveway and couldn’t leave. Kathy, the mother of the children who’s visa applications still hadn’t been submitted after a whole week of staying with us, would have to drive. She had never driven in Tallinn, and I had never been behind the wheel in Tallinn. It was a tense few minutes as we scurried to grab our pocketbooks, get our shoes and jackets on, and bark out last-minute instructions for Hannah, the teenaged daughter who would stay behind with Olivia. In my last minute panic looking for the car’s documents, I tracked mud from outside back into the house, up the stairs and onto our bedroom’s white carpet.

The morning had been spent trying to research where a visa could be processed in 3 days, as the standard is 10 days. A travel agent in Latvia wanted $700, which basically means it’s illegal and she has a contact at the Russian embassy that will do it for a price. The travel agent in England said he could only do UK resident applications in 3 days. The other option was to send them to Washington, DC for 1-day service. Or, they could just stay in Tallinn for another 10 days and pay the $300. Kathy opted for the DHL office and overnight service to Washington. I had my doubts. Rushing around to beat time never has been a profitable endeavor in my experience. And it was Friday afternoon, mind you. One of Murphy’s laws came to mind: If something can go wrong, it will. For one, I had a carpet to clean when I got back.

As she drove I navigated to the best of my memory, not having the forethought to bring a map, and she tried to stay calm with the traffic buzzing past and in front of us. Our plan was to pick up the invitations that had been overnighted from Moscow to our friend’s apartment, and drive to the DHL office in the city center. We took the long way around to our friend’s house, opting to stay on one road that circumvents Tallinn, rather than navigate through it.

Upon arriving at our friend’s, the head of the house (hint: man) was keenly interested in why I didn’t choose the more direct, simple route of going through the city. It was easier for me, I said, to stay on one road, but he didn’t buy it. He knew of a much better route. It went this way and that-a-way, and was much shorter. Men are in a constant state of competition. They need to do things better and faster. They will compete against their own self, and try to beat their own personal record. That’s just the way God made them. He pulled out the map to show me my error. Yes, my way was longer. His way was shorter. There is a Russian saying, though, that the shortest way is the way the driver knows.  I should have said that. But I didn’t, because I only just thought of it.

So I asked for directions to DHL. But my friend first gave me directions to my house from his house, still compelling me to take his way! He eventually got to finding the DHL address for me, but by that time it was getting rather cloudy in my head. I have always been a visual learner. If someone said, go north at the stop sign, like they say in Minnesota, my mind paints the picture of the sun setting on my left, and right-sided shadows on the trees or signpost. It is not easy for me to compute directional instructions involving a succession of turns and stops, because I am busy painting a masterpiece of colors and objects in my head. Tallinn, especially on this day, was gray and gloomy. We were hunkered down in a musty Audi with windows coated in fog and smog residue. Everything was coming up gray in the painting in my head.

There is a trick to starting our 10+-year-old Audi, a mysterious ritual involving the thumb, steering wheel, clutch and foot, and waving the keys at an unseen eye located in the consul, in the vicinity between the right knee and calve. More specifically, you have to press the left corner of the horn on the wheel with your left thumb, hold the clutch in with your foot (if the car is in gear), and then with your right hand wave the keys in front of the invisible beam down near your right knee. Then you let go of the horn and turn the ignition. First Kathy tried to do the unlocking ritual, then I did, to no avail. By the time I called upstairs to have our friend’s husband come down to help, I was on the verge of hysteria with laughter. When we were finally buckled up and the car was running, the directions had gone completely out of my head. I had to admit to Kathy, “ I have no idea where we are going.”

Tallinn is not a large metropolis, though, and we got to our destination, DHL, on a wing and a prayer. After a 45-minute wait spent filling out papers, letting other people in line go, finding out it was the girl-behind-the-counter’s first day on the job, that she did speak Russian but not English, and finally getting the price for all the shipping and paperwork, it was decided to NOT send the paperwork and passports to the US. The $500+ price tag was just not worth the extra days saved. It was around 5:00 PM, giving us an hour to get to the travel agent who was handling the other visas. I sat in the car for the next hour while Kathy took care of her paperwork, wishing I had brought something to do or read, but using the time to pray and people watch.

We stopped for gas on the way home, with minor incidental mistakes of pulling in on the wrong side of the pump and someone stealing our place while we were turning around, dropping the gas cover and having to get on our hands and knees to get it out from under the car where it had rolled. Then we ordered 15 cheeseburgers at McDonald’s drive-through to bring home to the boys, and the teenaged clerk was more than a little baffled, repeating the number 15 in English, Russian and Estonian, confirming with flashing five fingers three times, which resulted in another clerk helping him. They were giggling uncontrollably, who knows what they found funny about the situation, two middle-aged American women ordering 15 cheeseburgers, unless they thought we were going to eat them, which is what we thought they thought, and then we started laughing. That would be funny!

Rugelach and a bit about Noah

Our house is full of guests for a couple of weeks, so my job is to stay in the kitchen and feed the troops. If I’m not planning the next meal, I’m cleaning up after the last one. It’s been a workout! Olivia loves the extra company, although two are teens and have been trying hard to keep up with their homework. If their noses aren’t in a book, they are catching up with friends and family on Facebook and Skype, as they live in Moscow and are still on dial-up. Olivia isn’t easily deterred, however, and I often need to pluck her out of their midst. Today I had to blockade the kitchen with her in it, and keep her occupied with counting my seed collection, sticking toothpicks into Cheerios, and blowing bubbles with dish soap just to give the kids a break.

So, it was a no-brainer to keep going with the baking and complete this week’s TWD challenge: rugelach. After all the breads and cookies I’ve been putting out lately, these twisted little treats were awesome. I am even going to share the recipe, since NPR has it posted on their site here from an interview with Dorie Greenspan back in 2006 (HINT: these would be great for the upcoming holiday season). They are easy, and delicious!

My experience with rugelach is limited: when I worked as a nanny in Boston in the early 1990’s, I’d walk to a little Jewish bakery in the neighborhood with my young charge Abe in tow, and buy both of us a bagful of cinnamon-raisin rugelach. It never occurred to me to make it, as Jewish foods were as mysterious to me as learning Hebrew; never mind the fact I was more focused on learning Italian cooking at the time. But today, I wondered just what the history of rugelach was. Two hours after googling the initial word, I was still reading into the wee hours of the morning, absorbed in the fascinating history of this one line of Jewish'ness'.

The pastry appears to be credited to the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern and Central Europe. The Ashkenazim are essentially German Jews, and comprise nearly 80% of the world’s Jewish population. 6 of the 7 million Jews in the US are considered Ashkenazim, even though the definition may be a loose one. It’s not completely clear if the word Ashkenaz in Hebrew tradition and literature means the Jews in Germany or --and this is where it gets cool-- the descendants of Noah in Armenia. Read Genesis 10:1-3, and you will notice Ashkenaz was the great-grandson of Noah, grandson of Japheth, and son of Gomer; their descendants settled in Armenia. I’m nearly certain they weren’t twisting pastry back then, and they most certainly didn’t have cream cheese, but somewhere in that lineage emerged a star baker, possibly after a contingent moved to the Rhine in Germany, close to the world's pastry capital of France. It’s not hard to imagine, when among Japheth’s descendents are Albert Einstein, Golda Meir, George Gershwin and Isaac Asimov, not to mention a majority of Nobel peace prize winners; the average IQ of an Ashkenazi is 113 (reference: wiki). Soooooo.....I'm thinking a wild thought: is rugelach really a disguise for brain food??

Dorie Greenspan's Rugelach

For the Dough
4 ounces cold cream cheese, cut into 4 pieces
1 stick (8 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

For the Glaze
1 large egg
1 teaspoon cold water
2 tablespoons sugar, preferably decorating (coarse) sugar

For the Filling
2/3 cup raspberry jam, apricot jam or marmalade
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup chopped nuts (I prefer pecans, but you can use walnuts or almonds)
1/4 cup plump, moist dried currants
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped, or 2/3 cup store-bought mini chocolate chips

TO MAKE THE DOUGH: Let the cream cheese and butter rest on the counter for 10 minutes - you want them to be slightly softened but still cool. Put the flour and salt in a food processor, scatter over the chunks of cream cheese and butter and pulse the machine 6 to 10 times. Then process, scraping down the sides of the bowl often, just until the dough forms large curds - don't work it so long that it forms a ball on the blade. Turn the dough out, gather it into a ball and divide it in half. Shape each half into a disk, wrap the disks in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or up to 1 day. (Wrapped airtight, the dough can be frozen for up to 2 months.)

TO MAKE THE FILLING: Heat the jam in a saucepan over low heat, or do this in a microwave, until it liquefies. Mix the sugar and cinnamon together. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats. (Silicone baking mats are great for rugelach.)

TO SHAPE THE COOKIES: Pull one packet of dough from the refrigerator. If it is too firm to roll easily, either leave it on the counter for about 10 minutes or give it a few bashes with your rolling pin. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough into an 11- to 12-inch circle. Spoon (or brush) a thin gloss of jam over the dough, and sprinkle over half of the cinnamon sugar. Scatter over half of the nuts, half of the currants and half of the chopped chocolate. Cover the filling with a piece of wax paper and gently press the filling into the dough, then remove the paper and save it for the next batch. Using a pizza wheel or a sharp knife, cut the dough into 16 wedges, or triangles. (The easiest way to do this is to cut the dough into quarters, then to cut each quarter into 4 triangles.) Starting at the base of each triangle, roll the dough up so that each cookie becomes a little crescent. Arrange the roll-ups on one baking sheet, making sure the points are tucked under the cookies, and refrigerate. Repeat with the second packet of dough, and refrigerate the cookies for at least 30 minutes before baking. (The cookies can be covered and refrigerated overnight or frozen for up to 2 months; don't defrost before baking, just add a couple of minutes to the baking time.) Makes 32 cookies

GETTING READY TO BAKE: Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

TO GLAZE: Stir the egg and water together, and brush a bit of this glaze over each rugelach. Sprinkle the cookies with the sugar. Bake the cookies for 20 to 25 minutes, rotating the sheets from top to bottom and front to back at the midway point, until they are puffed and golden. Transfer the cookies to racks to cool to just warm or to room temperature.

SERVING: Tea is traditional, but we drink coffee with rugelach. These are pretty and, even with their jam-and-fruit filling, not overly sweet, and they are even good with sparkling wine. STORING: The cookies can be kept covered at room temperature for up to 3 days or wrapped airtight and frozen for up to 2 months.

Chocolate was made for rainy days

It’s been a rainy week. While we watch the water table rise, and try to stay clear of the mud here in Estonia, it’s SNOWING in Spain (think blizzard, North Dakota, January, and you’ll get the picture), and expected to worsen in the next 24 hours. Although I'm sure it's a difficult time for Spaniards not used to such an early snowstorm, we saw a hilarious news report of a team of cows (with cowbells) on the loose, on a highway, in the storm. I did pray to the Lord about all the rain, but he seems intent on sending us a whole lot more. Should we be collecting rainwater, I wonder? In the meantime, inclement weather is always a great time to bake something chocolaty.

Someone once told me that baking is an exercise in precision, like carpentry or brain surgery; cooking, on the other hand, lends itself to experimentation and creativity. Since that time long ago, I have adhered to baking recipes very strictly, whereas my attitude towards entrees and side dishes has been more like a seasoning and combo free-for-all. Case in point: my Thanksgiving pumpkin cheesecake hasn’t been altered in ten years, and the card on which I hand-wrote it is affectionately fingerprinted with vanilla and pumpkin. Conversely, I rarely make meat or vegetables the same way twice, using whatever is handy or sounds adventurous. There’s something very satisfying about throwing a loose handful of sea salt into a pot or pan instead of measuring a tablespoon. The up side is that there’s little pressure, and the element of surprise (Note: I draw the line occasionally, as I did this morning when Matt asked if I would put jalapenos in the oatmeal). On the other hand, I’m finding my powers of recall diminishing with age, which makes it difficult to repeat an especially yummy experience. 

As a result of joining this ‘club’, which is really more like a weekly open-book test of kitchen prowess, my approach to baking is dramatically changing. As long as there is a good foundation for a baked item, which includes the chosen method of mixing and a decent balance of chemical constituents (rising agent, moisture and fat agents, a grain or protein of some sort, etc.), there is actually a lot of room for creativity and experimentation.

Take this week’s challenge: Dorie’s Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes. I had no flour, but a lot of wheat flakes. Hence, they went into the VitaMix to be “floured” with the cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and sea salt. Along with a few other economy-based alterations (1 egg instead of 2, milk and vinegar instead of buttermilk, and half the sugar), what resulted was an incredibly moist muffin that reminded me of the chocolate bran muffins I used to buy with my morning coffee from a bakery in Arlington, Massachusetts. Surprise! Not only were they delicious, they jogged wonderful memories of a time very precious to me: New England autumns, Victorian neighborhoods, first-time home ownership, good job and great friendships. Food does that, if it’s memorable. These little critters didn't rise much, probably the gluten:soda:powder ratio was off, but they were cute, and in a spirited show of adventure I sprinkled Rapunzel Koco chips (coconut slivers) on top instead of making the chocolate icing called for in the recipe. Très Yum!

TWD: Pumpkin Muffins and .... Life Savers?

Just in time for Thanksgiving season, Pumpkin Muffins was this week’s TWD challenge. Being reasonably over jet lag, I was relieved to return to weekly baking with something simple. Dorie’s recipe is either a replica or similar facsimile of Sarabeth Levine’s (of Sarabeth restaurants in NYC) pumpkin muffin recipe: spicy, full of walnuts and raisins, and topped with sunflower seeds. The recipe did not disappoint us, either, even when I halved the sugar. Because my husband and I do not like to “taste” the sugar in desserts or breads, I usually don’t use any more than a ¼ cup for any recipe. A dozen muffins certainly do not need more than that, especially when raisins are added.

With a successful batch of muffins at our disposal, this week has otherwise begun with a flurry of activity as we try to pick up where we left off in September. Olivia and I began our morning preschool lessons, which today consisted of me drawing a lot of stick figures and animals while she identifies body parts, learning the alphabet, and marching around to music. Matt has been making appointments and setting up meetings, and continues to get the yard in order. I created a household To Do list as long as my arm and am beginning piano lessons, but got distracted early in the day on the Not-on-my-list-To-Do item of digging in my kitchen cupboards for something, getting exasperated after breaking an olive oil bottle, and dismantling all six pantry shelves to re-organize. Everything was piled onto the kitchen table, sorted, combined where possible, put in Tupperware where advisable, the shelves wiped down and now the world is much better.  It was a very productive day, and I was looking forward intensely to 2:00, when Olivia goes down for a nap. One of the pantry items she had pulled out herself was a bag of Life Savers. I let her hold a couple of pieces in their wrappers, but refused to open them. Not before her nap, no way! Matt came in for lunch. She went to her daddy. It is unbelievable how she knows to do this at two! Daddy opened them, of course. I walked in and found them both giggling and happily sucking away at the lifesavers. Of course I wasn’t happy anymore. My afternoon hour of quiet and peace was now put on hold until after the sugar wore off; there's always the possibility it wouldn’t even happen! 

I thought about whether or not to make Matt feel badly about coming in and disrupting my plan. I held my tongue for a really long time. They were so cute together. Olivia was chatting up a storm and being affectionate, which Matt adores. I wish I could say I was a good wife and just let it be, but unfortunately my depravity eventually gave way, and I had to at least hint at what he had done. I mean, who gives sugar to a toddler right before a nap? What actually came out of my mouth was “I don’t know how I’m going to be able to keep up with Olivia this afternoon unless you go get me a Diet Coke.” Our conversation ensued as follows:

He replied, “Why don’t you have a lifesaver?”

Me: “The sugar will give me a headache.”

Him: “Why don’t you make a pot of coffee?”

Me: “Because I can’t drink anymore without milk.”

Him: “But I got you milk yesterday.”

Me: ”No, you didn’t.”

Him: “Yes, I did.”

Me: “No, you got me two bags of keefir, instead.”

Him: “I did? Well, I must have forgot.”

Now, if I had been keeping score, which I never do (yeah right!), the score would be Denise 2, Matt 0.  I had asked for milk, because I wanted to drink lattes all week. But the Holy Spirit wouldn’t let me go down that road. I left the room and went into the kitchen. I didn’t need a Diet Coke, I reasoned with myself. That would be just selfish, to make my husband drive to the store to get it for me. He would do it, if I wanted him to. He's either that sweet or I'm that selfish. I spied the bag of Life Savers on the counter. Oh well, maybe he’s right, I thought, and popped a cherry-flavored one into my mouth. Not bad. Within minutes, I was as sugar-happy as the two of them, and three hours later, Olivia finally went down for a nap.

How I Voted

Our ballots are in the mail! It’s certainly not as much fun as going to the polls, but wow, what a privilege to be able to vote while overseas. During my first election here in Estonia, I watched in wonderment as the parliamentary members cast their votes, members who the locals either feared or trusted, but either way, had to accept the outcome. As a result, I have come to better understand and appreciate the U.S. Constitution and even the phrase ‘certain unalienable rights’ while living abroad. 

Oh how I appreciate the sacrifice that made those documents, our freedoms, and monuments to Christian beliefs possible! Someone recently wrote to me about the political climate in the US. She sounded discouraged, angry, and worn out. It’s no wonder, if she’s reading the papers and watching TV. She’s voting for Obama because she thinks he’s a good guy, and because she admires his devoutness. She wishes she lived in Europe like I do, away from all the nonsense. I understood her frustration, but I wanted to tell her “NO! You do NOT want to live anywhere but America! And don’t watch so much TV! Don’t believe the lies!”

I don’t know where I’m going with this; I hope it’s not too depressing.

Yes, Europe has a culturally rich history that is preserved in crumbling castles, quirky folk music, and wonderful traditions like (gasp!) lighting real candles on real pine trees at Christmas. But that beauty inside a culture only goes so far. Look beyond what the external eye can see, or what you hear at an event, or even what people are saying. What’s the saying, “talk is cheap”? Get a vision for what a whole people group is really all about. Consider its history as relative to where they are at both spiritually and physically. It’s really not fair to only see physical manifestations of the effects of government or religion on a people. Just where are they at spiritually? Ephesians and Romans talk a lot about spiritual wickedness, especially in high places such as governments and authorities, and about being careful to not let the darkness in the world dampen our love and enthusiasm for the things of God. Just how discerning am I when it comes to identifying wickedness in high places?

Estonia is definitely a country that has abandoned God, and that makes it very different from America. Christianity is what makes America really special from nearly all other world powers, I can tell you that much. When we were in the south and midwest last month, for instance, we were struck with the full-on freedom Americans have to put up a billboards along the roadside proclaiming spiritual principles; one memorable one in Minnesota was "God is Pro Life." Until you have lived out-of-country, in a place where God is just not a factor, you don't know how precious, how awesome that kind of freedom is!

I recall when I first stepped foot on Estonian soil. I was excited and joyful about seeing my first Estonian, and looking them in the eye. But what happened was the opposite. No one looked me in the eye. And definitely no Hawaiian leis! How out of place that display of warmth would be here. I physically felt the presence of blackness; it was a heavy blanket of bondage like I’d never thought really existed except in stories about the deep dark jungles of Africa at the turn of century. But that was my only internal reference point, in fact, for mentally understanding what was happening to me. It was a little more than frightening initially, and it jolted me out of my honeymoon haze, but by the time our luggage had been unloaded onto the platform I was graced with the even more powerful presence of God’s love. 

Since that first day, I have grown to love living here. I don’t pay any attention to the darkness that exists…for I have learned to NEVER give place to the satanic forces that rule here. I don’t allow the mention of the enemy’s name in my house, even, which probably has bothered a few preachers we’ve had as guests, but, well, it is my home to keep. We live with constant joy and peace, and love to marvel at God’s goodness in our lives. 

I’ll close by sharing one dimension of how spiritual darkness manifests itself here. Take a look at the WHO’s Suicide Table here- while Estonia is not in the top ten, it’s neighbor Lithuania is third in line after China and India. What is really telling is that of the top 10, 7 countries are European. Out of the top 20 – 12 are in Europe!

It may take a historian to lay it out for us properly, but one way of understanding how this can happen to an entire continent is to consider what a people group considers sacred. Suicide is evidence of people not considering the very heartbeat of life as sacred, first with abortion. Then take God out of the picture altogether, and insert stars (even human celebrity 'stars'!), trees and rocks. I don’t know about you, but the last time I prayed to a rock I don’t think it heard me. Hugging a tree didn’t seem to help either, although it didn't lash out at me or anything. The last time I looked at the stars and tried to make a decision based on their position there was still a lot of guesswork and uncertainty and a zillion angles to consider. God makes life worth living, he gives breath to every living being, and I will worship Him and Him only. He makes life simple when we would make it complex. He gives rest when the world would make us weary! He hears and answers prayer. He is mighty! There are many little ‘g’ gods, but only one supreme big ‘G’ God, and He is King.

Anyways, that's my whole round-a-bout way of saying I voted for the candidate who will most likely fight for preserving the sanctity of life in American culture.

TWD: Caramel Peanut-Topped Brownie Cake

Ummm, I don’t think this is quite what Mrs. Greenspan had in mind when she wrote the recipe for  Caramel Peanut-Topped Brownie Cake; and if there weren’t the Rules for this baking club that require bakers post twice a month I probably would have waited until all our coughing, sneezing, and jet lag were over with, because I destroyed this recipe, and deserve to be thrown out of the club, or at least suspended, until I can unpack and finish the laundry, which will definitely take a few more weeks. I even had a hard time remembering what my blog was called, since I haven’t bookmarked it on my recently swept hard drive. I can just hear my mom say "Isn't that just something.." a very satisfying upper-midwestern type of expression, I even started saying it myself before we left. But the trouble really began with the cryptic shopping list I gave my husband this morning; I should have specified heavy cream, instead of coffee cream, and I should have asked for peanuts instead of using the giant bag of walnuts given to us by departing American friends. It was as if I wanted the disaster to occur. Some times a person just wants to make do with what one has; other times, one just invites catastrophe. I have walked that fine line of resourcefulness and recklessness all my life. The cake wasn’t difficult, I am getting the hang of Dorie's "combine until just wet" method of cake baking, although I may have forgotten it was in the oven until I smelled a faint burnt odor while upstairs. This I call the reckless abandonment of the Timer. And it’s definitely not hard to carmelize sugar and water under normal circumstances either, but the heat of the oven during the baking of the cake made me so sleepy I may have cut a few corners making the topping by stirring in the butter and, (forgive me, I know I’ll regret this when we actually try to eat it) SOUR cream and condensed milk (I’m cringing just writing it…WHAT was I thinking??) a little sooner than I should have. So, instead of a caramely, peanutty topping we have more of a grainy slush oozing over bitter walnuts, with a decent chocolate cake underneath. That’s what I get for not using heavy cream like I was supposed to, not waiting for the caramelizing of the sugar, not getting my rest, joining this baking club…oh…. right, this is for publication.

On another baking-related note: I finally fell asleep last night about 6 am (still on CST) and remembered I left a zip-locked bag of chocolate chunker cookie dough in my mom’s freezer… so mom if you read this, that’s what those black things are in there. Just bake ‘em for 20 minutes when you need a treat.

I promise to post pictures and a recap of our stateside trip VERY SOON! Regardless of whether or not I finish the laundry.

Chocolate Whopper Malted Drops

We've been travelling for the past 10 days...Tallinn to Stockholm to Chicago, hopped in a car and drove to KY, TN, OH, IN and MI. Now I've landed in Wisconsin for a few weeks to stay with my mom while my husband continues on to California. Whew! A little road weary, you ask? Yes, but having done this twice now I'm not a stranger to the feeling. I didn't think I'd get to this week's TWD challenge...but miracle of miracles, and a trip to Pick 'n Save (where I gawked at the mile-long aisle of boxed cereals, wondering exactly how the elderly and handicapped fare in these football fields of food?) for the definitively American ingredients of chocolate chips and malted milk powder, and this morning I was in business. This week's  baking challenge: Chocolate Whopper Malted Drops, from the Dorie Greenspan book, Baking from my Home to Yours. These are everything the name suggests: chocolatey, malty, and rather chewy. 

My mom even had parchment paper, luxury baking at its best! I carefully cut two pieces to fit the cookie sheets, and was so thankful to know there would be two less items to clean in the aftermath.  But then I had trouble locating my mom's mixer, and had to settle upon what I did find, a hand-beater likely used in the early 1900's;  so the extra elbow grease was necessary after all.

Another helpful item is a digital camera, which actually proves we baked the week's assigned recipe, but it went to CA with my husband, so I had to use the webcam on Mom's computer. It was really hard to take a picture of JUST the cookie. So there I am too.

 

Now, for the yummy details. This is a totally malty-tasting chocolate cookie. Between the last photo and the next, I ate four of them, just to make sure they were truly yummy, and while I don't have a sugar headache, I can honestly say two is probably the limit anyone should eat in one sitting, especially if you tested the batter. There was an awful lot of chocolate, and it may be why my head is buzzing ever so slightly. My eyes are starting to pop out of my head in the next photo. That's not normal, that's the caffeine, because I drank a cup of "good strong coffee," also recommended by Dorie in the small print. But then I probably would have had coffee without her suggestion, since I drink it with nearly everything except pizza.

It is unlikely I would have found all the ingredients in Estonia, like Whoppers, malted milk powder, and bittersweet chocolate chips. And the Blue Bonnet "Better than Butter" in my mom's frig was too tempting to not use. Better than butter? Really? I had to see for myself. So technically the only ingredient I cheated on was substituting the Blue Bonnet for the butter. But I carefully baked them 6 minutes before turning them for the other six minutes, and WOW, a cookie to really enjoy. Esthetically, they have kind of a glossy finish to them, unusual in my cookieage experience. Now, was that because of the Blue Bonnet??

[Ingredients: flour, malted milk powder, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, milk, Whoppers, bittersweet chocolate chunks.]

The beauty of numbers

We are busy preparing for our month stateside, cleaning, unplugging, defrosting, etc., so this week’s blog post will be on the light side, both on the literary and caloric scales. My TWD baking challenge, a fancy layered torte something with chocolate and cherries, is on hold. Only so many hours in the day. Not to mention I am still absorbed in thoughts about and praying for the Wilkerson family and our church as they/we come to grips with the loss of Tyler.

So, what I would like to share is what came in my Inbox this morning. I’ve probably gotten it at all my email addresses over the years (last count I have 7), but it never fails to lift my spirits and inspire me.  I am not a romantic. Mountain tops, rivers, and sunsets are fine for other people…but me…well, turn me loose in an Excel spreadsheet or show me the underside beauty of CSS code and I get chills. The beauty of mathematics always refreshes my spirit, more than the natural elements and beauty of creation itself, (with the exception of the seahorse and rose). That’s the geek in me, though. Data, and the endless ways we manipulate it to make sense, shows – in a tiny, tiny way of course – the intellect of God in a way that I respond to, quite deeply. So even if you've read this as many times as I have, do your soul a little favor for a few moments today and reflect about how big God's mind is, and how small our own is.  

 

"The Beauty of Mathematics"

1 x 8 + 1 = 9 
12 x 8 + 2 = 98 
123 x 8 + 3 = 987 
1234 x 8 + 4 = 9876 
12345 x 8 + 5 = 98765 
123456 x 8 + 6 = 987654 
1234567 x 8 + 7 = 9876543 
12345678 x 8 + 8 = 98765432 
123456789 x 8 + 9 = 987654321 

1 x 9 + 2 = 11 
12 x 9 + 3 = 111 
123 x 9 + 4 = 1111 
1234 x 9 + 5 = 11111 
12345 x 9 + 6 = 111111 
123456 x 9 + 7 = 1111111 
1234567 x 9 + 8 = 11111111 
12345678 x 9 + 9 = 111111111 
123456789 x 9 +10= 1111111111 

9 x 9 + 7 = 88 
98 x 9 + 6 = 888 
987 x 9 + 5 = 8888 
9876 x 9 + 4 = 88888 
98765 x 9 + 3 = 888888 
987654 x 9 + 2 = 8888888 
9876543 x 9 + 1 = 88888888 
98765432 x 9 + 0 = 888888888 

More Symmetry: 

1 x 1 = 1 
11 x 11 = 121 
111 x 111 = 12321 
1111 x 1111 = 1234321 
11111 x 11111 = 123454321 
111111 x 111111 = 1234565 4321 
1111111 x 1111111 = 1234567654321 
11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321 
111111111 x 111111111 = 12345678987654321 

Next: “101% from a strictly mathematical viewpoint:

What equals 100%? What does it mean to give more than 100? What equals 100% in life?

If: 

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 

is represented as: 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26,

then: 

H-A-R-D-W-O-R-K =

8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%,

K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E =
11+14+15+23+ 12+5+4+7+5 = 96%,

A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E =
1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100% 

BUT,

L-O-V-E-O-F-G-O-D =

12+15+22+5+15+ 6+7+15+4 = 101% 

”Therefore, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that: While Hard Work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, It's the Love of God that will put you over the top!”

Granola Grabbers

This week’s baking challenge over at Tuesdays with Dorie was Granola Grabbers, perfectly timed to start the new school year. I am going to have to really start disciplining myself to not sample the results so much, or by this time next year I’ll be as big as my house. A few of my fellow bakers didn’t like this cookie, and dared to substitute the raisins for other items such as chocolate chips or m&ms, or even worse, peanut butter! Horrors! What made this cookie perfect is the salted peanut and raisin combination…a sweet/salty combo with a hint of coconut. I won't share the recipe, wherein are critical actions which if, performed in correct sequence, turn an average mass of cookie dough into a yummy and good-any-time-of-day snack, but....the general list of items that went into this gem of a cookie, which lifted our spirits just the right amount during this time of sadness, included salted peanuts, almonds, raisins, unsweetened coconut, muesli, butter, demera sugar, eggs and ground wheat berries (in lieu of wheat germ and flour). Baked for exactly 12 minutes, when cooled had a soft inside and medium crunchy outside. I can’t wait to offer some to my one Estonian fan on Friday, Arnold, who thinks I’m the best cook/baker in the whole of Estonia, with the exception of his own mom. He greatly exaggerates. If I was in California this week, I’d certainly be bringing a plate of these over to the Wilkerson family.

Consider the End

This weekend we received word that our 17 year-old friend and pastor’s son, Tyler Wilkerson, was killed in a car accident near San Jose, CA. As many times as I’ve experienced loss of a loved one in my life, it never gets any easier.  Neither my husband nor I were able to speak for a long time. We both had the physical sensation of being weak in the knees. Dumb struck is the nearest descriptor for how we felt through Saturday and Sunday. Then comes the longing to be with the church family. After the family, the body of Christ, the New Testament church, is God’s plan for us here on earth; it is where we are protected, nourished, and bonded with others of like faith.  I’m so thankful we have a church family, a pastor who has invested his life in shepherding others, and a pastor's wife who is committed to rearing godly children. There have been so many times in the three short years of my marriage and motherhood that I’ve hung on to the thought that “If Linda can do it, I can!” Most of the pain I feel is for her. Tyler was her oldest, her baby. His “appointed time” came a lot sooner than anyone could have ever imagined.

Earlier in the week, Matt read out of I Corinthians how when one member in the body of Christ suffers, the whole body suffers. It was as if the Holy Spirit was preparing us for what was to come. The Lord was preparing other people as well for Tyler’s Home Going; some have shared how certain scriptures concerning loss, grief, etc. were imprinted upon their hearts in the days preceding Friday. When the believer allows God’s Holy Spirit to control the heart and mind, he has nothing to fear, nothing to doubt. Tyler’s death, because it was such a tremendous shock, has reminded me to “consider my end.”  “O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!” (De 32.29). It was with this great heaviness yet certainty we shared the good news of God’s mercy yesterday with more Estonian people. When this soul leaves the earth, it will be either reunited with the Creator in eternity – and the unchanging reward of his love, or it will meet an unending eternity in misery. Tiiu, pictured below, didn't know where her soul would go when her appointed time came. With thoughts of Tyler present with the Lord in the forefront of our minds, both Matt and I shared with her how she could know.

 

Tyler will be remembered well, and although we are tempted to think he or his family were robbed, it is not how God would have us think. Our loss is heaven's reward. We look forward to the day when we will see him, and others who have gone before us. Tyler is in the presence of our King. He worships Him as I write this. He’s at rest. He’s happy. He’s Home!!! 

P.S.

For more information about Tyler's funeral and a loving tribute to his life, please visit www.fbclb.org.

Two other blogs that remark about this in greater detail are Ludka Life and Vision Baptist.

Blueberry Heaven

Note to self: when making blueberry ANYTHING, wear an apron!

For the first time ever, I’m wondering what my problem with aprons is. I have three hanging on a hook in clear view and within easy reach in my kitchen, but they’ve rarely been used. Perhaps the memory of my matronly grandmother covered in flour and hard at work all day in the kitchen is exactly the opposite of how I see myself, and maybe I do feel a bit like the hired help or like a member of a painting crew, but, as I learned this week, they serve a very important purpose. I absolutely ruined my favorite lime green LL Bean T shirt making Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream (this week's TWD challenge by Dolores of Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity ), by absentmindedly leaning into the ice cream canister, which had nice big drips of blueberry all down the side. I didn’t notice the one that got away on the floor, either, and tracked little blue blobs onto my favorite woven red rug.

In spite of this and other minor setbacks, this recipe put us in Blueberry Heaven. I thought there was nothing better than fresh blueberries topped with heavy cream, but this concoction left me even more smitten. Blueberries, sugar, lemon, heavy cream, sour cream, and vanilla…it was the blueberriest bowl-lickingest ice cream ever.  My husband hasn’t admitted it yet, but he is glad I joined this baking club. “What’s for dessert?” was hardly spoken in our marriage prior to last week, but he’s asked every night this week. The other minor glitch happened when I discovered the ice cream maker didn't work. Our toddler must have figured out how to turn the temperature control on the deep freeze, because the ice cream canister wasn’t quite frozen solid enough to do the job. I had to go old school in the end, and stir every hour ‘til frozen. David Lebovitz’s devotion to ice cream was a big help. By the way, he has a caramel ice cream recipe on his site that is to die for…

Ruining my T definitely put me into a mood for more sugar, and down the slippery slope I went, getting more careless as the evening wore on. BTW, people here in Estonia call white sugar “White Death.” The language and the way they speak is very literal; this metaphor is not a joke. They mean literal death. I probably should have removed myself from the kitchen after soaking my T in bleach, because I was thinking, “Why even use measuring cups? Why not just handfuls and pinches and dollops, like Grandma used to do?” I never could get a firm recipe out of either grandmother, both of whom had difficulty finding the words to describe how a mass was supposed to "feel" or "look" to a person married to a strict system of cups, tablespoons, and ounces.

Since ice cream is always nicer with a side dish, I found a strawberry rhubarb crisp recipe in the Greenspan book, and proceeded to loosely base a fruit crisp on it. After baking with Irma for so many years, and poring over her detailed instructions, I often look at a recipe and ask, “What’s the point?” With this recipe, after calculating all my substitutions and converting to the metric system, the point seemed to be to use 4 cups of fruits for the filling, and in the end what I created is not even a distant relation to Dorie’s original recipe. I had one stalk of rhubarb from the Russian family next door (who said to just cut it up and sprinkle sugar on it…. yikes!), 1 cup leftover frozen blueberries (which Dorie says not to use unless they are frozen or fresh, and mine had been thawing for hours so were soggy), 1 cup dried sour cherries from our trip to Door County last year, so the expiry date was soon approaching, and of course a bunch of apples.

But in the end it all came together, and we ate it so fast neither my husband nor I really even tasted it.

For the crisp crust/topping I ground up a few handfuls of wheat berries, put about 125 grams of butter in a pan and melted it with a bunch of demera sugar. I added oats, more demera sugar, cinnamon, and creamed it all together, patting a layer in the bottom of the pan and sprinkling it on top of the filling. Fortunately for me my husband doesn’t mind the ground wheat berry flour, even though it’s rough in texture and can be dense, not light or crispy or refined like…well, like refined white flour. He will even preface first bites with “Will this be a clogger?” which is surfer-speak for “bowel-clogging tortilla wraps” made with white flour, a staple of the California coast surfer. When I can respond in the negative, we are both the happier.

Move over Irma

I have joined the blogroll/gang/baking club over at Tuesdays With Dorie, and I feel like it’s my first day at kindergarten. I’ve started calling it, “TWD-dom”, which has a Winnie-the-Pooh-like ring to it. Will I follow directions? Will I have all the right spoons and pans and ingredients? Will I have fun? At day’s end, will I like the teacher and the book?? For the next year or so, I will be baking my way through Dorie Greenspan's cookbook, and posting about it.

Buying Dorie’s Baking From My Home to Yours was a big step for me. For the past twenty years Irma of Joy of Cooking has been my Bible in the Kitchen. I can hardly believe I’ve cooked every Thanksgiving Dinner straight out of it. And then there’s my VitaMix. We’ve gone to the dietary dark side…sugar free and whole food. So what would possess me to buy a book containing glutinous, sugary recipes? Well, a little more than two months ago, I came across a TWD blogger who posted incredible details about The Most Extraordinary French Lemon Tart – which I had to help myself to, figuratively and literally. I made it three times in a row, and it was so incredibly delish, I bought the book on the strength of that one recipe.

 

So now that this week’s recipe, black-and-white banana loaf, is safely cooling on the counter, or at least what’s left of it, my kitchen is tidy, and I have a slight sugar headache, I am happy to report that while it’s not exquisite like the lemony tart, my family has not tasted anything else quite like it before. The only omission I had to make from the recipe was the rum, non-existent in this Christian home. I managed to hide two bananas behind my cookbooks until I needed them today, like a lot of things I've had to hide from my 26 month old girl, and the only glitch that gave me pause for thought was when all the butter twirled right up into the beaters, and I thought, "Now what?" It's been a long time since I used beaters, but I figured it out eventually. We loved the combination of lemon, banana, chocolate and nutmeg; none overpowered the other, and even strangely tasted of orange. I should have used my stainless steel loaf pan instead of the rubbery one, so that the loaf would have a firmer, leaner shape, not the crumbly-crusty mess it made as I turned it out to cool. My reading of “Marbling Made Easy” on page 229 was also little too cursory, and even though it was tempting to use 2 entire bananas (who uses 1 ½???), I stuck to the recipe’s strange fraction and was glad I did. This is a dense sweet cake that will go well with coffee or tea any time of day, and it looks right at home on my beat-up chopping board. You couldn't say that for the lemon tart, as extraordinary as it is.

Signs of intelligence

My daughter, at 26 months, has demonstrated that she may, someday, surpass me in intelligence.  Case in point: I’ve been shuffling those scrunchy-bath-scrubby-thingies around in the bathroom for two years now, unsuccessfully trying to keep them handy yet out of the way. They’ve been slung over shampoo bottles, the showerhead, stuck into drawers, set on the side of the tub where they just fall over, and I even bought plastic suction hooks for them at one time, but those mysteriously disappeared. On many occasions, when my patience wore thin, they’ve just narrowly escaped the trash bin. So when I was cleaning out the tub after Olivia’s bubble bath one evening, imagine my surprise to see she’d found a much better, more brilliant solution: the rubber duckies.

I  was  grateful for her help.  She just happened upon the solution by accident, I consoled myself. I could have thought of it myself...couldn't have I?

I  moved her out of the crib and into a twin-sized bed, and it's been an adjustment, even though we began adjusting months ago by napping on the bed. Many a night I hear the soft clunk of her body as it hits the carpet, and the whimper that turns quickly into a howl. Recently I popped in on her before she awoke, to discover her work-around: turning 90 degrees clockwise.  I am proud of her, although I know it isn't a long-term solution.

Olivia is now into imaginative play. I’ve been waiting and waiting for this stage! She crawls into boxes like her Aunt Twyla used to, conducts long conversations between stuffed animals, talks to herself in the mirror, wraps our socks around her neck and my underwear around her head. I don't do any of those things anymore, signs that I am still, for a little while longer, smarter.

Americana décor for the kitchen

It’s official; I now have a quasi-Americana-themed kitchen. The inspiration to take this direction came upon me in an unlikely place: France. We traveled to the outskirts of Paris last year to visit a church, and the French pastor’s American wife had Americana everywhere in their home, in every available inch on the wall and on most surfaces. There was no way to miss the fact she loved America! It was startling; my expectation was that her décor would be very French. But after the initial shock wore off, I settled into this wonderful sense of relief, akin to the emotion one feels when they come upon an oasis during a long road trip. I was surrounded by cultural icons that I was totally familiar with: apples and apple pies, stars and stripes, old fashioned buckets and washboards, and it made me so very, very happy inside! Even watching her five children eat cold cereal for dinner while chatting happily in French brought back memories of when my siblings and I would sit around the kitchen table, putting away box after box of Rice Krispies, Cheerios, and Raisin Bran. Those were the days when cereal didn't cost $4 a box. Siiiiighhhhh.

That got me to thinking how nice it would be if we had maybe just a few reminders of our American roots strewn throughout our home in Estonia as well. So, on our last trip to the states, I picked up a patriotic border and hot plate from Menards, of all places, two decorator fabrics from Joanne’s, and a framed picture we saw in a bookstore.  The wall clock, a cheap imitation NYC Grand Central Station clock we found at our local Jysk, no doubt as a result of the trade agreement between China and Estonia, fits well, as does the canvas of Miss Liberty above the water purifier. We chose a dark red for the kitchen walls, initially aiming for a southwest look and feel, but only got as far as the wonderfully rustic-looking Italian tile. There’s still a definite nod towards the southwest, as I kept a cacti, palm, and woven throw rug in the corner. But it all comes together just fine, and last week I finally tackled the last project, a valance for the window.

I’m not that craft-oriented, so the valance was a feat in and of itself. The fabric is very busy, so it had to be used conservatively, and I felt a shape that made it look as if it really were how a flag would hang or drape would be most appropriate. For the valance board, I used bric-a-brac and had a lot of fun with the hot glue gun. The board itself was a damaged piece of corner molding, salvaged with hot glue and covered in fabric before nailed to the wall. The knobs are actually plastic thread spools cut in half and covered with fabric. I found 4 large wooden buttons and covered them with contrasting fabric, and hot glued them to one end of each spool half. At the other end I hot-glued upholstery tacks, and simply stuck the finished valance hook into the board that I had prepared. The only extra expense was 5 meters of interfacing, which I bought for $4/meter. The pattern I just drew out on newspaper! Hey, if these Estonian girls can sew up a brand new dress without a pattern, I can surely handle a valance. Okay, it wasn't that easy, and there could have been a deeper curve to the scallop, but for my first try, it does the job.

So now we can look at our beloved stars and stripes again, and I can move on to the next project, our living room. Hopefully it won't take me an entire year. My inspiration - this time - comes from a home in Lancaster, CA!  I'm already scouring the online fabric stores for the perfect combination of Labrador-dog brown and soft "touch me" texture for the drapes...

Weeds as an analogy to relocating

This week, I sent my husband on a mission: to buy a laxative tea, one of the protocols listed for the Master Cleanse (MC), assuming it would be an easy task to find a commercial product in the supermarket: senna leaf or licorice root maybe. The MC produces extraordinary results, but if you get stuck during the cleanse without a powerful way to assist the body’s elimination process, it's just another hurdle that makes you want to quit. Case in point: this will be my third attempt in as many weeks to start and stick with it. When all you drink is the MC lemonade (lemons,  cayenne, maple syrup) and sea-salt-water for two weeks, the taste of a cup of tea can make a huge difference. I am so convinced of the MC’s ability to restore the body back to optimum health that I am not giving up until I reach my goal. One online forum even claims it's a cure for HIV. Personally, it’s the solution to my now daily quest of getting and maintaining energy.

Hubby arrived home with bags of lemons and limes, and a curious package of twigs, or what looked like tree bark, instead of my tea. I was more than a little dubious, but the Estonian storeowner had insisted it was what he wanted. We boiled it up, and found it quite pleasant!  After three years of living here, I keep thinking I’ve gotten accustomed to all the little idiosyncrasies of Estonian culture. But then these little moments happen that stop me in my tracks. What am I supposed to do with tree bark?  Where are those little bags I can just drop into my teacup?  You mean I could have just hacked at a shrub in the country? Is this the 18^th or 21^st century? So much about Estonian life mirrors western society; it almost feels like I am in America some days, but then there are these opportunities to experience something that is still being done the same way it was hundreds of years ago. It's very cool.

Examples of this cultural dichotomy: our neighbor brought home a Siberian husky pup and named it Cindy for American super model Cindy Crawford, but babies are still being named Kalev, after the Viking-era hero. Tallinn boasts plenty of new construction with quirky modern design elements, but in the countryside families still construct dwellings out of clay and thatch, and grow grass on roofs. Estonian computer wizards invented Skype and banking is virtually paperless, yet the only way to cool a room is to open a window, but there are no screens so flies and buggies freely fly in and out. Boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios are in the cereal aisle at the supermarket, but at the center outdoor market a butcher will chop half a cow and hand a hunk of meat over with her bare hands, and exchange money without washing in between.  Women can be seen wearing floor-length dresses, or belly button baring Billabong tees.  My friend Rita will pay $25 for a tube of elite mascara, yet go pick leaves of a low-growing weed in her city neighborhood and dry them for homemade tea. The man in the photo has just spent 15 minutes banging the dust out of his rug on a metal fixture common to nearly every urban neighborhood. When I first heard that "whack, whack, whack" sound, I ran to the window to see what it could be. Now the sound has become part of the background noise, so to speak. It's a mix of both medieval and modern, although definitely more modern than medieval.

So here’s the skinny on the twigs: species, frangula alnus Mill., a glossy buckthorn native to Europe, in particular Finland and Germany, but it grows all over the US now. Henrietta’s Herbal database confirms it’s use as a laxative, but the USDA plant database considers it a noxious, invasive weed, and unpalatable for human consumption. It is also prohibited from growing in many states.  Imagine my surprise! I felt quite good after a couple days on it!

Weeds. I'd like park right here for the rest of this post. We have such a terrifying number of weeds popping up everywhere on our property, (my husband just offered the tongue-twister "We Weed Weeds" for his contribution to this post) that at one point, while implementing some of the landscaping plan, I thought to myself, what was God’s original plan for weeds? Just to try our patience? According to one source, the category of weeds was created so that we could separate non-native plants from native plants. A non-native plant that came from the mountains of China, for instance, is beautiful and exotic in its natural and original environment, but in the soft grassy turf of a typical North American yard it’s noxious and invasive. Essentially, weeds are just out of their element, trying hard to establish their roots in foreign soil! Kind of like our family in Estonia, or any immigrant that comes to a new country. I observe the beauty of generations of established people and customs, but for the foreigner it takes a lot of energy and drive to learn a new culture and adjust, and is downright time consuming to inch your way into these generational circles of friends and family. It does sort of feel like I'm a weed; we stick out, people don't quite know how to treat us or deal with us. Of course it's not always like that, but many times it is.

Biblically, Christians are 'sojourners' in this world, and the example of Jesus is that he had 'no place to put his head,' which helps us to know how deeply to attach ourselves to things of this world - not very. But to bear fruit, roots grow "downward, and bear fruit upward," and the Christian life is all about bearing fruit in our daily lives. So the foreign country isn’t home, but the spiritual impact we leave must have roots. Experience tells me that success in any endeavor requires you put your heart into it. I hope when the day comes that we have to leave, it will feel like I’m leaving a piece of my heart behind. I hope I grow in my love for the people and land, even if it isn't reciprocated. Easy? No. Profitable and rewarding? Yes! 

So about those literal weeds….it would take a lifetime to learn the purpose for all plants in God’s kingdom, but I can start with those on our property: the dandelion, whose leaves we all know are a source of edible potassium; the corn cockle, which historically was used to cure dropsy and jaundice; crabgrass, whose seeds can be toasted and ground into flour (or fermented for beer production); and copious…I mean COPIOUS amounts of giant ragweed, used in herbal medicine as a mouthwash, for fevers, and nervous disorders, although its pollen can be the cause for many a person’s hay fever. Who knew? We have the beginnings of an apothecary right in our yard!

Not my words

I am at a loss for words. I even feel like deleting my blog, that’s how bad off I am. I’m way past my self-imposed blogging deadline, and the well from which all my words usually come from is empty. Yesterday was an unusually long day; we conducted three worship services, had a time of visitation at a convalescent home, stopped in at a strawberry festival, and picked up groceries on the way home. Then I had an hour-long video chat with my Mom, which was more like me just rambling at that point; a friend also Skyped me to chat about decorating ideas for a wedding, and the best I could come up with was...drum roll, please...a balloon wreath. The one at my own wedding was so crazy big that it’s the only decoration I remember.

Today, for reasons noted above and more, the Bible is so unbelievably comforting to me. We had a great weekend, but it was draining, and I woke up today with the evilest of thoughts: is it really worth all the effort? But the words of God never fail me, because just as quickly as that thought came to mind, it was obliterated by Galatians 6:9 “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not,” which I had just read yesterday. Reading Scripture and understanding it is very much like hurry up and wait…you have to read it first, and sometimes wait for the life moment to arrive that will reveal it’s meaning.

On Sunday, before we left the house, this Scripture came to mind: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Colossians 3:16). I do not always understand what a portion of Scripture means precisely, so I memorize it, meditate on it for days on end, sometimes years, and pray, until I get it, and it has a personal application. I memorized this verse many years ago, but it wasn't until yesterday that the Holy Spirit brought it to mind, to prepare me for a learning moment.

My husband and I don’t do music well. It’s been a bone of contention for me, actually. I was trained in piano and flute, and grew up singing in choir. He has no ability to read music, and never learned to carry a tune. But he loves to sing, and I can’t stop him. We since have claimed Psalm 98:4 “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord,” as a workaround.

We have really simple worship meetings. Matt plays a few chords on the guitar, I can sing within a limited range, and no one else that attends our meetings has ever displayed evidence of musical ability, so our song time is mostly about the words. Matt preaches a little bit, and we pray. That’s it. No harmony, no added instruments, none of the accoutrements of contemporary music. Very often I’ve had the impression people don’t like the way we worship, I think because of the influence of entertainment upon music and churches. If you heard my husband and I sing, you might even throw rotten tomatoes. We are that bad, to the musically trained ear. Estonians appreciate music, and like me, their pride may cause them to require music of a certain caliber in the church setting. Now, the good thing about "us" is that we will never be accused of drawing people to ourselves, like scores of our more charismatic and eloquent counterparts. If people choose to meet with us to hear a little preaching and to worship it's because they sincerely want to search the Scriptures. But in an age where the entertainment value rates so highly on people’s scorecards, visitors mistakenly think they need to have their ears tickled when they come to church. Take away the drums, choirs, keyboards, microphones, harmony, the sliding vocals and raised hands and then make sure your song is teaching sound doctrine, and what do you have? Sounds like Scripture to me.

Paul makes this distinction to the Colossian congregation because of the influence Greek singing was having upon the Jewish traditions of singing psalms. Psalms were for edification, not for enjoyment. Greek singing was probably very beautiful, but it was about immoral things. Grecian musical values/traditions were creeping into congregational singing, and Paul needed to say something about it. He may have even meant that harmony itself may be unwise to engage in for certain doctrinal teachings, because the mere beauty of perfect harmony weakens the impact of words. Ever wonder at the disharmony, or the somber key of Jewish songs? Wherever the law was in those early OT days, God was present; so today, wherever his word is being spoken, he is present.

I was looking at my husband yesterday while we sang Psalm 118:24 for a roomful of women at the convalescent home, and when I saw the earnest look on his face, the absolute determined look of a man who knew he was singing the very words of God, and teaching with those words, despite our utter lack of harmony, I was humbled. Not one of those women seemed to mind that I could barely reach the A note, or that Matt’s fingers stumbled over chords. It was one of those moments I will treasure forever, a learning moment, one where I finally put aside my prideful thinking about how music should sound, and put my whole being into supporting what my husband was doing, singing with joy, to the Lord, not to other people. It was so cool, in a tragically off key way!

With every week that passes on the foreign field I grow in my walk with God, and am grateful for the path he has put me on in my journey. I can’t believe I stumbled through life this far with so little understanding of His ways. But I did, and still do! The knowledge I have of God’s presence in my life is like a weighted anchor in water…it’s there. I know beyond all understanding that He is with me through it all, that He never leaves my side. Even then, it can be difficult to find the words to express how beautiful my life is with God at work in it. Most people don’t let you get past the mere mention of the name God, Jehovah. But that’s natural. That’s our world, and the world system. So when I am at a loss for words of my own, this treasure trove of memorized scripture on the tables of my heart provides continued refreshment for my spirit, which then enables me to change my thinking, and to continue to do well.  I drink from the well and am refreshed. I'm not going to delete my blog, after all, but maybe I should choose a different day to post...!!

Photos from our weekend: Strawberry Festival and trip to convalescent home

Mommy Blogging

Did you know that Mommy Bloggers compose the fastest-growing blogging “demographic” in the US? It’s not hard to understand why, given the phenomena of infertility, and that many women wait until their 30’s or even 40’s to start families. Starting a family is such a life-changing event, and blogging is so accessible, that it’s a natural marriage. The personal reasons for blogging about one’s children are fairly obvious, but I’ve recently felt the need to seek out why it’s important for me. I’m not technically a Mommy Blogger, as my writing tends to veer off into other arenas such as food, the missionary work we do, and other topics as they touch our lives. But, for the most part, I enjoy blogging about my daughter more than anything else. I guess I belong to some microdemographic in this online eco-system, as yet unidentified.

Mommy Bloggers are more than a demographic group to be exploited by corporate or political entities, they are evangelists for family values (P.S.: Evangelist is now an official job title in the corporate job market...at companies like LinkedIn. Who knew?). I enjoy reading mommy blogs because, well, I am not above a little encouragement. It is no small feat to enjoy mommyness while running a home and keeping a husband in good health and happiness, so yes, I eat it up, even if (gasp!) their writing is not equal to their mothering. The joy of mothering is what I personally need to see and hear more of. In neighboring Russia, for example, more abortions are recorded than births these days, according to this article at Radio Free Europe. 

Our current country of residence, Estonia, is child-friendly, but two “birth” parent families are rare, marriage is not a popular choice of the culture, and abortions are also widely common. Having babies is subsidized, as the country is so small, and reproducing human capital is the only way to preserve the culture and economy without opening the borders too generously. It's an oxymoron, isn't it, when a government seeks to increase citizen population through childbirth, but the culture doesn't honor marriage, and the citizen pool itself wants to abort babies? Welcome to the moral dilemmas of the post-modern, post-Christian society. While many of Estonia’s older traditions teach me how to live more healthfully, even better, there are truths westerners and Bible believers can teach Estonians, although honestly it’s hard to gauge where to begin sometimes. One of the biggest challenges I face as a missionary wife is that I’m a stay-at-home mom, a rarity in this part of the world. I’m sure they are out there, but not in the circles we work in. We’re not alone. We received a newsletter from a missionary couple in Africa, in a place where most children’s moms die before their tenth birthday. Think how odd it must be for those African children to see a traditional family with kids still living with both parents well into early adulthood. Think of the sensitivity the foreign family must have in ministering in that environment.

This week, I’ve been meditating on Titus 2, as I continue to search the Scriptures for advice on how to be a better wife, mom and missionary. Even though I aspire to write and talk about other meaningful things, like literature and art and music, and sometimes even avoid talking about my joy in being a wife here in Estonia, in an effort to be culturally sensitive, at the end of the day nothing is more compelling than my relationship with my daughter, and the ways my husband loves me.  In Titus 2:4-5 I am given complete freedom to be sober {wise, aware}, to love my husband, and to love my children. I should never feel that there is anything more important, after my love for God, which is the first and greatest commandment. Anyone who argues that there are other things that should be more or equally important to me at any point in my current and hopefully future life while rearing a child and being a wife is (likely, and maybe unintentionally) selling me a sizable piece of swampland ("You mean you didn't go home for your dad's funeral?" "You ARE planning on using that MBA, aren't you?" "Haven't you learned the Estonian language yet?")

The list goes on to include attributes as “discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, and obedient,” but I particularly got stuck on #1, “sober”, and am considering all the ways I can be wise and aware. I haven’t yet graduated to wifely perfection in all those other areas. In fact, if I understand this Scripture passage correctly, it means that women need to be knowledgeable of everything that can impede their well being, and the well being of their families. We are to all think about what we are doing, plan what we will do, to know what is going on around us, and to seek the truth in everything. This has both complex and beautiful implications, and I could spend the rest of my life pursuing just that one attribute, of seeking the truth, of protecting my home, my child, my husband. In fact, it may be the reason it’s first, because to try to love your family, to even try to be good without knowledge or truth, is unproductive, unhealthy in the long run, even deadly.

So I’ve determined that if my blogging doesn’t contribute to my becoming better at any of the aforementioned, then I have no business doing it. That being said, it is profitable for me to share and reflect about the goodness of the Lord in my life, so no more guilt about posting shamelessly joyful entries or gratuitous photo collages about the beautiful girl we’ve been blessed with, or the handsome husband I am so honored to be married to, or the myriad of ways we discover to make our home a happier, healthier one! I blog because I need to. I need to publicly celebrate and share the joy of being a mom, wife, and missionary.

And now, for some of those photos of gratuitous family fun...Olivia finding the last unbarred place for stickers (her face), painting with shaving cream (at $7 a can it's as expensive as paint), imaginative play with our new friends Piglet, Tigger and Pooh (although I see Pooh is camera shy), getting into the tub before I was ready for her to, my husband working on his tool shed, and Olivia learning to keep rhythm with Dad.

Thanks for reading, and for letting me share...

 

Things I Miss

Last month marked my third year in Estonia. For the most part, my adaptation to a foreign culture has been smooth and without wrinkle, which I largely attribute to the fact that I have such a loving husband, Skype to keep me closely connected to family, God’s timing in giving us a daughter so quickly, and many friends that lift us up in prayer and send packages of fun things to open.  Today it is raining cats and dogs, or, as an Estonian would say, forks and knives (“Sajab kahvlid ja noad”). And when the rain drops down hard and straight like it is at this moment, it is a remarkably literal metaphor. Just to paint the picture, it’s one of those we-better-stay-indoors kind of days, not to mention it's a national holiday and most everyone else is doing the same thing. Olivia’s drawing on herself, Matt and our houseguest, Ron, are working on their debate skills as they sit at the table organizing and stamping literature, the fire is crackling in the fireplace, and I’ve half a notion to break out the Christmas carols CD.  We just ate a loaf of ciabatta bread for lunch, a clear departure from the hearty whole berry bread I usually bake, and will just eat leftovers from a birthday party we hosted yesterday, so I’m free from kitchen work the rest of the day. I checked in at another woman’s blog, an American-in-Estonia like myself, to see what she’d been writing lately, as she’s got a running list of cultural differences she’s encountered since moving here. Nothing new lately, but I had fun reading her earlier entries. It got me to thinking. What do I miss about being in America? That’s a hard one for me, because my method of adaptation has been to not think about what I left behind, to just look forward. But in the long run, the mental exercise is helpful in keeping perspective, and tracking progress. It may also give you an idea of the types of ways in which life is different for us, other than the obvious language barrier. So here’s my own alphabet list of things I miss about America. Not a top twenty, just some things we bantered about this morning.

A – Macintosh apples from New England. Crisp, flavorful, juicy, and pretty. Estonian apples are adequate, and often very tasty, but are forlorn looking and lumpy.

B – Bagels, bagels, bagels!!!! Hard to imagine, but it's true. You cannot find a bagel here. There's a whopping big picture of a bagel on the menu at the department store cafe downtown, but they told me that no one bought them so they don't sell them anymore. There is life after bagels, spread the word.

C – Cheap gas and coin-operated parking meters. Gas is over $6 a gallon, and parking is paid for by cell phone or by walking to a machine that gives you a parking “permission” slip to put on your dashboard. Clever and economical ways for the state to collect money, but not nearly as satisfying as popping in a coin and hearing the meter tick. Another 'c' word I must add to the list is caramel. It's not a bad thing it's not here, but it is my favorite American treat. I could probably figure out a way to make it, like everything else...

D – Drive through coffee shops. It is so much easier to stay caffeinated in America. Dollar stores. What a fantastic way to shop, when everything is the same price.

E – Early riser breakfasts. Only one restaurant in Tallinn serves breakfast that we know of. And it's not McDonalds.

F – Flame jobs. It occurred to me a few weeks ago that I’ve never seen a flame paint job on a bike, car, or (thank goodness) spandex pants here. Lots of Billabong and O'Neill, though.

G – Groceries being bagged for me. Here, you pay extra for bags, and you have to bag yourself. I am just now starting to remember to bring bags from home. Some people just put everything into the cart without bags, and transfer items to their cars. Seeing as how they then have to transfer everything again into the house somehow, it seems it would be worth the 15 cents to just buy a bag. 

H – Hispanics. I could have picked any ethnic group, but this is the people group that has held the greatest share of public notice in any city I've ever lived in. So after a (sigh) lifetime of being surrounded by diversity initiatives it is eerie to go all day in a foreign city without seeing a single person of color. Sometimes I think I see someone, but then it turns out it is just an extreme case of tanning.

I – Ice cubes in drinks and Ice cream shops.  I want to sit and enjoy my scoop, not pick it up at a kiosk anymore. Even if it is such a very tiny little scoop...

J – Names like Jim, Joe, and John. Common names for men here are Tarmo, Tanel, and Erki.

K – Korean restaurants. There is one Korean man who has a shop, but the menu is what I call very "Eestified," meaning most dishes have been adapted to suit local taste buds. He had no idea how sea kelp is used in Korean cuisine, for instance.

L – Lobster! Oysters on the half shell! All things sea food! Pass the melted butter please!

M – Mexican restaurants. No substitutions.

N – Napkins. Not one Estonian has ever used a napkin at my dinner table. So I guess I just miss the etiquette of doing so.

O – Oranges. Haven’t had a good one yet. Fruit generally that comes from the southern EU states just isn't as good as what America gets from Florida and California. There is just no comparison. Even the African fruits can be immature. So we are getting fruit into the country, it's just not the greatest. So we stick with bananas and apples.

P – Prime Rib. Steak generally is served in thin fillets, and it's all lean. I've heard that the cattle just aren't fed the same in this part of the world, so it's of no use to even request the cut of meat you want, because it will only be a pale imitation of the real McCoy.

Q – Quick things: quick wash, quick dry, quick copy, quick photo, quick hair cuts, you get the picture…

R – Root beer, the classic American soda.

S – Street signage at intersections. If you want to see the name of a street, you have to look for a corner building that may or may not have the street name on it. Driving directions usually needs to include plenty of references to landmarks.

T – Thai food, particularly pad thai and coconut cream soups.

U – Urban sprawl. Never thought I’d long for asphalt and shopping malls, but there you have it.

V – Vanilla extract. Vanilla sugar is in plentiful supply, though.

W – Window Screens, to keep bugs out, and weddings, to keep married folks in. Excuse the pun. It's just that no one seems to get married here, and sometimes I'm just in a mood for a wedding!

X – Just the letter, X. It’s not completely non-existent in the Estonian language, but you hardly ever see it. Olivia is so cute when she says it, too. If an English word with X in it is adapted, the phonetic spelling is used, which is “eks” (i.e. expert = ekspert).

Y – Yellow road signs. Signage here is blue. Just can’t flip the switch in my head that computes “yellow=hazard”.

Z – ZipLoc brand zip locks. Nothing else seems to really compare.

Grass does grow from seed after all

We have grass! It’s only a small section of the property, but so exciting for us, and no doubt our neighbors are glad to see some progress. The wind here in Estonia has been terrific; when the wind knocks the dirt around dusting is impossible to keep up with, even out here in the country. For nearly a week we worried that the birds were eating all the seed or that we hadn't sown it correctly, but lo and behold, it's a growin'.

I sure won't miss the dirt (nose is quite cute tho), and am looking forward to feeling soft green carpet underfoot. So, while Matt’s outside with renewed zest this morning, tackling yet more of the mountain of landscaping to be done, I am inside, beginning my own mountain of interior projects (by writing about them, naturally).

 

Meet Isaac the Snail. One pressing task was to create a terrarium for Isaac, who came to us all the way from the wall of Jerusalem, by way of Lithuania. He came in a Tupperware container, and little instruction other than to feed him cabbage and carrots. He didn’t seem to be eating either, so I worried. If Isaac dies on my watch it would be terrible, as someone who cares for him entrusted him to our care. Correction, my care, chief bottle washer and cook. He seemed listless (sounds crazy I know), and his shell was peeling. I gave him some watermelon, and it seemed to revive him enough to explore his new surroundings and climb into the eggshell. Whew! Tragedy averted. Did you know you can actually hear snails munching? 

Let's talk African Violets. I've had maybe a dozen in the past three years, gifts from Estonians, and have managed to kill them all. So it was time to get serious about how to care for them this week, as I was given yet another. I repotted the new gift, and pruned two lone survivors. Again, if they die on my watch, it would reflect very badly on me; from what I have learned about the plant, it signifies faithfulness and loyalty when given as a gift. I had already caused most of the leaves of one of them to spot horribly by watering it incorrectly, and knew it was going to eventually die as a result. They just can't stand one drop of water on their leaves! I pruned it all the way down to the nubby new growth and now it is visibly healthier. Another domestic crisis averted!

And finally, interior decorating. Up until last week I thought the décor of our house was adequate, with the exception of the odds and ends of finish carpentry that are undone, and maybe the need to hang a few more wall items. This week it’s in need of an complete overhaul. See, we went to a BBQ, see…and there’s just nothing like a dinner party at a finely decorated home to make you return to your own humble abode and take a fresh look at what you’ve done (or, in my case, haven’t done).  The hostess (American) gave us a tour of her home, and my eyes had a feast taking in the wonderful variety of fabric, color and texture that each room presented. Some people just have a knack, I guess. I have to do a lot of staring at spaces and poring through books before the right look comes together. And even then there's no guarantee. So, I’ve now got projects lined up from now ‘til December, or until that trumpet sounds and the Lord comes to take us home, as I’ve had Saturday and some of Sunday to stare for hours at each room in my house. There’s quite a bit more staring to do, actually. I’m making a mental note to sit and do more of that in the coming weeks.

To that end, I collected a basket full of pinecones when we went to Vääna beach last week (SW wind=waves=Matt surfing), and toasted them up for what I hope will be a décor item of international note, and possibly Estonian export: a pinecone valance. Just try to Dogpile or Google it, you won't find one. We need to go into the forest for bag loads more, but once I have a small mountain of them and my house is filled with the warm scent of pine as they roast in the oven, I will attempt to hot glue them onto half moon discs of tree stumps for an outdoor living kind of window dressing. You may ask, as my husband did, “won’t that look weird?” Well, in my head it looks amazing. See, I have 16 windows in our new home that I have yet to “frame” or “dress” or whatever you want to call it, and I am determined to not spend any more money.  My closets are packed with fabric and clothes and stuff that could serve a better purpose, and there’s a ton of stuff in the outdoor environment that is free for the taking. Except for the sand at the beach.

P.S. Matt is somewhere out there in the waves, on his board. There were plenty of kiteboarders out this day, but he still may very well be the ONLY long board surfer in the whole of Estonia. We've yet to see anyone else at least.

Olivia's Birthday Party

Olivia had her 2nd Birthday Party last week. It is likely she will never remember most of it, but I am still reeling from all the work, er...fun. I am feeling every one of my 42 years and then some. It’s incredible how much there is to be done to pull off even the simplest of gatherings; last year our friends made the cake and we were invited to their house. Now that’s my kind of party!

Bottom line, I’m still a Mommy in the Making. The basics were covered: cake, pizza, and one general activity. My Big Idea this year (emphasis big, not bright) was to make a piñata, with only a fuzzy idea of how to do it. It’s not like they can be found in the crafts aisle at the local supermarket. It is quite possible the only human of even remotely Spanish decent in the whole of Estonia is the Chilean cook at the Argentine restaurant in Tallinn. So, like a great many other things we do here, we do it from scratch, and sigh wistfully at how easy it “used to be” to just go pick up a bag of marshmallows or Twinkies or pint of Ben and Jerry’s. All those great (and sugary sweeeet) American products I grew up with and never thought to inquire how they were made, I’m inquiring now!

The Piñata: We started working on the piñata a week earlier than the party, and rather than recount the step-by-step process, my top 5 recommendations based on close encounters with disaster are as follows:

Rule #1 – Don’t use wallpaper glue. It takes nearly 24 hours for one layer to dry. Flour and water do just fine.
Rule #2 – Don’t pop the balloon after the first layer of papier-mâché. It will implode.
Rule #3 – Don’t dry the form in the oven. It will explode.
Rule #4 – Don’t apply more than 2 layers of papier-mâché. It will take a machete to do the job of busting it. Our guests joked I must have used plaster and rebar.
Rule #5 – Let your guests guess what the shape is, and say “Yes, THAT’S it!”

The Menu: We served sun tea, pizza with chorizo sausage slices, hamburger and a wheat berry crust, and homemade chocolate ice cream. The cake was a yellow Lady cake (Joy of Cooking) with butter cream frosting, and I made my own marshmallows for decor. I was supposed to cut the cake into two layers but I forgot, so it was a little dense. I was too busy watching the candy thermometer and hot gluing jewels on the construction paper crown which, in the end, we forgot to put on her head during the gift-opening ceremony. It wasn’t until the middle of the night, that the thought woke me “I was supposed to layer the cake!” Ah well.  It was still very tasty, although could be mistaken for a pound cake.

Popcorn balls were made with leftover marshmallow, in the event my husband couldn’t make it to the store for candy (he worked so hard getting the floorboards attached on the deck) for the piñata, but he saved the day and I was able to serve the pink popcorn in a trifle bowl. I even made ice cubes, which, if I haven’t told you before, are a little more popular than piñatas here. On one occasion, when we got a lot more for our USD and ate out often, we requested ice for our water, and the waiter came back with a small spoon in one hand and a bowl of ice in the other. He delicately lifted out one cube at a time, rationing them so that we each got two in our glasses. They melted by the time the food came, so it was like “What’s the point?” and I haven’t ordered ice on the side since.

Final Thoughts: Truth be told, I wasn’t going to have a party. A friend wouldn’t hear of it, however, warning me that if I didn’t, my daughter would grow up and ask me where the pictures from her first few birthdays were, and be all bummed out that there were none. This prospect was rather alarming, but still I was doing it for the photo album, and to stay out of the Bad Mommy Hall of Shame, not because I wanted to. But then God graced me with the fun vibe, and somewhere along the line I started having a great time trolling the internet for how to make marshmallows and piñatas, turning food items pink and purple, painting, hot gluing, cutting, mixing, shaping, sifting, stirring, rolling, soaking, and tasting, maybe not so much fun with all the dusting, mopping, and cleaning, and it was absolutely fantastic to be able to collapse into bed at night exhausted from so much productivity. Olivia gave me some memorable moments as she practiced blowing out candles and holding balloons, although I forgot all about teaching her how to rip open a present. We definitely got some great photos, made great by the fact that it was, truly, so much fun. And, Lord willing, when the day comes and she is 17 and says “Mom, where’s the photo of my 2^nd birthday party?” we’ll be able to say, with confidence, “It’s here somewhere…”

 

Eggs and Beets

Olivia loves hard-boiled eggs. My sister’s boy never ate another egg after learning they turned into cute little baby chicks, so we are just grateful she eats them like she does. In an effort to get away from the All White Meal (eggs, keefir, cheese) we paired the egg with some boiled beets for a striking ensemble; I've been color-coordinating food since my 8^th grade Home Economics cooking class, where I learned the importance of coordinating color in stimulating the appetite. We are so fearfully and wonderfully made!

Beets are a new addition to our weekly shopping; it is the one locally grown food group I have been reluctant to incorporate into our lives, but with the new economy just had to give it a serious look. I don’t actually ever recall eating beets in America, except for when Bread & Circus in Boston started adding it to their carrot juice in the late ‘80’s, and even then I gagged, literally. The juice clerk later told me to start off with a little less. So when Matt and I went to the outdoor market this week we did a crazy thing and bought a bagful of boiled beets, close to 2 pounds.  In the photo you will observe a toothpick in the diced beets; Olivia eats many diced foods with a toothpick –it helps keep her (and the area she eats in) cleaner, and the portions that go into her mouth are apt to be smaller and on-target. Not to mention she makes a game out of spearing everything. She is capable of stuffing an entire bowl full of food into her mouth if allowed to eat with her fingers. Not pretty. Overall, we’ve found beets to be quite satisfying this week, especially when paired with a saltier food item, as it seems to emphasize their sweetness and juiciness.

One morning this week we were up really early, much earlier than usual. I am in a complete fog until after my first cup of coffee, so let Olivia watch a cartoon while I busied myself in the kitchen. The cartoon was of a duck and a squirrel walking outdoors, and the narration was dubbed into Estonian; but rather than record a whole new soundtrack the original recording remains and the new narration is dubbed on top of it. So you hear not one, but two languages simultaneously! They’ve done that with old Disney cartoons like Donald Duck and Goofy too, and it is absolutely daffy (ergo, frustrating) to try to listen to what sounds like one person (usually a woman with a slightly aged, scratchy, high pitched voice) handle all the narration, and hear the muffled original voices underneath. Half the charm of those old cartoons is the distinctive and individual narration of each character, so it totally ruins Disney for me. I was kind of excited the first time I saw Donald Duck here, but was as quickly disappointed.

So I’m in the kitchen for a good five minutes before I hear Olivia yelling “eck, eck, eck, eck!” from the living room, which, translated, is “Egg.” I reply, “Wait,” thinking she is asking for breakfast. She persists, “Eck, Eck!” to which I come into the living room, expecting to correct her, since I don’t like it when she doesn’t listen the first time, only to see her point to the TV, where eggs are popping out of a duck. I laugh, because her face is all wrinkled up, and she is quite alarmed to see where her beloved eggs come from, which appear to be the same place her ‘stinkies’ come from. I had to grab the camera very quickly to capture her expression.

 

Far Out Food

Proverbs 31:14 She is like the merchants' ships; she bringeth her food from afar.

Things have been getting a bit boring in the kitchen. My husband never complains, probably because I’m not serving partially scorched entrees anymore, but by my own admission, my level of performance in food creation has been minimal. It’s just so much easier, post-childbirth as a 40-something, to stick a bird in the oven and walk away, peel a carrot for the side dish, and present an apple for dessert. “Oh, did you want some seasoning, honey? Here’s the sea salt.” Also, we’ve begun to eliminate many items on our weekly shopping list and substituting them for less expensive items, since the USD has fallen in value against the EEK and food prices have risen. We did the math last night on gas, and discovered, much to our dismay, that we are paying $6.50 a gallon for gas. In southern European states it is even higher, more like $8/gal. Yikes! I saw red bell peppers from Egypt selling for $25 a kilo, and salmon is not far behind, to name two food items we rarely splurge on. The little fresh pots of herbs I like so much, also deleted from our list, are nearly $2 apiece. Our refrigerator is looking more and more like I remember my grandmother’s General Electric did 30 years ago: full of cabbage and carrots, butter, milk, potatoes and onions. Apples are another staple. We buy mountains of them. I will splurge on Rapunzel unrefined sugar and olive oil, but otherwise I’ve put Joy of Cooking  on the upstairs bookshelf, and it’s back to doing it all from scratch. If we need a cake, I just grind up wheat berries and oats, throw some eggs and honey and oil into the mix and dribble it over apples or fresh rhubarb. It’s not uncommon for one Estonian yard to have between 5-10 apple trees in their yard; a missionary friend here in Estonia described to us a man driving his Russian-era car (equivalent maybe to the Dodge Dart) entirely filled with apples (windows rolled up to accommodate the load); it goes without saying, we are very big on apples now. The economic changes have been maybe a little uncomfortable, but we’re adjusting, and it’s all good!

So when we were expecting guests (aforementioned missionary friend and his family) for lunch on Wednesday, and then some Estonian men on Saturday, I gave myself a personal challenge: use only what I had on hand. The inspiration for this idea came from a cooking show on BBC: two teams of cooks are given a (small) handful of random items with which to turn into a meal, and the audience votes for the best. Have you ever had one of those moments when you open your closet, which is chock full of clothes, and moan, “I have nothing to wear….”? The same thing can happen when you look into your frig. I spied items that I would not likely serve by themselves; a cup of cauliflower, a head of cabbage, and quite a few Ziplocs of leftovers. But the last thing I wanted to do was spend MORE money on MORE gas and MORE time getting MORE groceries. So I had to figure out how to dress up what I had, and to make it special. The days of assembling a $70 pan of lasagna that takes eight hours (yes, I’ve spent that much money and time preparing lasagna) are gone.

So, I surfed food blogs, cut/pasted recipes, dug around some more in my cupboards, prayed for focus, went back to the internet drawing board, entered a contest to win a cookbook, and Voila! My baking/cooking block waned. It helped to win the cookbook (Spain at the World Table, thanks to Jayne at The Barefoot Kitchen Witch), and to be inspired by mouth-watering photos by all the food bloggers out there, who seem to actually enjoy cooking and have turned it into either an art form or sport. It seems more like a sport if you get flour in your hair and on your face, but an art form if you add a sprig of mint or shavings of chocolate for flair.

Anyways, I found a most amazing recipe, appropriately called “The Most Extraordinary French Cream Tart” (Baking, From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan) with step-by-step instructions at The Barefoot Kitchen Witch; her crumpet recipe first got my attention, and what started my taste buds watering, but I had two lemons to use so opted for the tart (tip: VitaMix the entire lemon, peel and all). All you have to do is see what’s possible, and it’s not long before the plethora of ideas makes a decision difficult. A search for cabbage and cauliflower recipes resulted in the very satisfying but simple Sweet and Sour Cabbage Soup from the Food Network, and a tasty cauliflower flatbread called Parantas (East Indian), accompanied by a dipping sauce of cayenne/lemon/yogurt dressing, courtesy of The Knead For Bread blog. That was Wednesday’s menu, and I sent them home with a fresh loaf of bread too. I kept my VitaMix a-mixin', and on Saturday made pizza for the boys with a wheat berry crust, and more loaves of bread to send home with them. Sunday morning I got up bright and early to continue the baking spree and threw together some muffins, and today I find I still can’t stop in the kitchen, for I threw together rhubarb cake just for the fun of it, with the fresh rhubarb my friend Rita gave me on Sunday. Wait a minute, did I just say ‘fun’ and ‘baking’ and ‘kitchen’ all in the same sentence?

The kitchen is still not my most favorite room in the house, and the electricity it took to keep the oven and dishwasher going every day may have eaten up what we saved in gasoline and expensive cheeses, as my skills at food assembly are messy to say the least. But many people were fed and watered, my food at least appeared to be "from afar", in the spirit of Proverb 31, and the lemon tart produced the hoped-for oooohs and aaahhhs that will inspire me to conduct an encore. The best part is that a combination of wifely thriftiness, tasty food, a clean kitchen every night, and satisfied guests is one sure-fire way to add a little something extra to a marriage, and encourage the heart of a husband!

My Mother's Day Headache

On Mother's Day we visited Heigo in a convalescent home about 50 kilometers from Tallinn. As robust as little Estonia’s economy has been, elderly care is on the fringe. By fringe, I mean a nursing home is not where I’d want to spend my last days here on earth, judging by this one, but it is a roof over the head and there is food. There are worse places to be right now, like Burma. But...

the odor just about blew me away when we entered the small building, the ‘been-sitting-too-long-in-the-basin’ urine smell. Obviously it’s an odor that everyone in the building gets used to after awhile and doesn’t even notice, otherwise they would surely be doing their best to eliminate it, but I sat for thirty minutes at Heigo’s bedside and couldn’t take it. It was positively toxic! Olivia burst into tears the minute we entered the building. There was an adult diaper (wet) sitting under Heigo’s bed that I eyed for a half hour before determining to roll it up and toss it, his morning diaper, although we were there at noon. The windows were jammed shut, so there was nothing to be done to improve the air circulation, but it helped to walk around a bit. On his pension, he gets an allotment of two diaper changes a day, one in the morning and one in the evening. If he pays a little more he can have haircuts and shaves and things like that. Whew! Just for the record, he pays the equivalent of $400 a month for a bed. Mind you, living is more expensive here than in the U.S., so while that sounds like a good deal, it’s his WHOLE monthly pension. The foam mattress was about 2 inches thick, and a large piece of plastic tablecloth served the purpose of a wetness barrier. Lunch was served with a smile, and it is always pleasantly quiet when we are there. But it's a place that puts me in a weird funk. The desire to take him home right then and there was very great, very conflicting. All my emotions get jumbled up, and it takes a lot of prayer and scripture to set me right again. My poor husband! Upon leaving, I wanted chocolate, a nap, a sermon, comfort and appreciation, a good cry, leadership, to name just a few of the most pressing things I (may have) demanded (okay, did). With me, it’s never “just a visit.” I was honest and told my husband I just wanted to be “happy” again, to which he replied, “Happiness is dependent upon happenstance.” I chewed on that one all the way home. It is possible to be joyful in life, and unhappy about circumstance, such as a natural disaster or illness. Recall the hymn stanza: "Through it all, I've learned to trust in Jesus, I've learned to depend upon God's word." It is also necessary to see life as others do, for I recall visiting Heigo in his own apartment three years ago, and it was little more than two rooms with a light bulb, one bed, one chair, and a carpet made out of newspaper. Heigo was full of joy back then, and he still is. He wasn’t looking at everything he didn’t have, and truthfully, he has a lot more today than he did back then. He basically was joyful in life, even though unhappy about the economy that made him less comfortable than in Soviet times. My husband, earlier in the day, found it necessary to quote another valuable verse of Scripture (when I was being particularly unwise in the management of my emotions): “The woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.”

So there you have it, my second Mother’s Day, and I couldn’t wait for it to be over. Who wants to be honored with so many other people suffering­? I’ve been following the plight of the Burmese, too, and the very little that can be done. For the greater part of today, I put myself at the mercy of my own undependable emotions and what they were telling my head. Of course by the time I got home all I wanted to do is crawl into bed and put the covers over my head. I gave myself a great big fat headache, that’s what I did. But that’s just where I’m at in my growth as a missionary’s wife. The road stretches out so long before me!

So now I know there’s a reason God tells me, in Scripture, to “be still and know that I am God” because I won’t know him in the busyness of doing things, or even in helping people. I know there’s a reason he says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways” because my thought life is a constant jumble of changing theories and posits; my ways are continually adapting and adjusting to circumstances, and completely open to interpretation, whereas God's ways never change, throughout the entirety of scripture or in the present day. I know there’s a reason the first and greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart” because there are so many other things to love, and to hate, that prioritizing them can be very exhausting and you will have no love to give anyone else, whereas God’s love is infinite. In the end, it is necessary to just leave the cares of the world and the burden of the day at the altar. You ask for wisdom to make the right choices, and for more love and strength to care for the people you are given to care for. You ask forgiveness for selfish thinking, and meditate on the love that demonstrated itself in all of creation and then on the cross, and that continues to demonstrate itself in ways you can’t even imagine. You begin to be thankful again. The headache goes away, and you again see life as full of possibility and hope. Unfortunately, I didn’t go through my whole day without causing someone else a bit of pain; as soon as I felt free of my headache, it was evident that I had given someone else a big fat headache: my husband.