Mittens

All politics aside, I have been a little bit obsessed with all the memes regarding Bernie's mittens at the inauguration. 

This is one of my favorites, perhaps because I love a good cuppa and a good sleep.

This one brings a big smile to my face, given the Holderness Family video about the mittens.

This one is just too funny, especially if you grew up Presbyterian.

This one just shows the creativity. I've seen it made out of vegetables and also a cake, LEGO, and also a crocheted version.

Some days I do the NYT mini, and well, of course, mittens would be a word on there. Ha!

And, after someone had had their fill of memes, they made this one. :)

My new wool socks look like they are cousins to the mittens.

And, actually, my mittens look like they're related, too! 

Do you have a favorite Bernie's mitten meme?

Hand me downs

Almost every morning, Little Miss pulls on her clothes, then takes them off, drops them on the floor (we're still working on this part), and says, "Too big for me. Give them to B----." [Translated: These clothes are too small for me. Let's give them to the next girl in our hand-me-down chain.]

After days and days of this (and fewer and fewer clothes left in her dresser drawers),  I steeled myself to go through the hand me downs.  

We are blessed to be #3 in a line of 5 little girls.  Girl #1 is the first girl in her family, and ended up with many, many adorable outfits, t-shirts for every holiday, Christmas outfits & dresses, plus dressy dresses in every size. 

The diaper boxes full of clothing pass from family #1 to family #2 to us.  Yesterday, I went through the boxes in our basement. The sizes printed in marker on each box aren't always accurate for many reasons. Sometimes I am packing a box with size 4, and I notice we still had a few size 3 items, so they go in, too.  Plus each brand is a little different, and after the clothes have been washed dozens and dozens of times, they shrink some, too, and at varying rates.

It's like a treasure hunt, because I know that somewhere in the size 4 boxes I will find a winter coat or two, a few swimsuits, a Christmas outfit, a first day of school dress, an Easter bunny t-shirt to wear to an Easter egg hunt, etc. It's just anyone's guess which box those will be in.  Sometimes one of us moms will sort them by season or by outfit, but sometimes life is too full, and we're just doing well to get the clothes in a box. :)

9 boxes of size 4 girls clothing

 

I ended up with 9 boxes of size 4 girls clothing ready to go to family #4.  I filled another box from LM's dresser. And I will pull a box of shoes from the basement, and gather a box full of dresses from the closet before Mom #4 picks them up later today. 

Obviously, LM did not wear every item in these boxes.  (It's like having a store in our basement.) But do you even realize how many thousands of dollars we have not spent on new clothing for her?!  Even if we purchased used at garage sales and thrift stores, it could easily run over $100 for each size.  And even with these hand-me-downs, I end up buying bike shorts for her to wear under dresses and sometimes other items as well.

LM doesn't have the same body type as girl #1 in the hand-me-down chain, and I don't have the same clothing style for our family as Mom #1 had. As a result, in all our family pictures, LM is dressed up very nicely, and the rest of us are trying to rise to her level.  :) 

Thankful for all the generosity, friendship, kindness, and provision represented in these boxes waiting by our front door!

Zoom for missions

Zoom fatigue. Blue light glasses. Increasing your home internet package.  Just a partial listing of some of the new normal of the past year. 

But Zoom can be a great tool for missions mobilization!  

Can't go on a missions vision trip? No problem! I know a missionary on Home Assignment who leads virtual visions trips to their country of service.  They also lead study groups on "What's next?" as people investigate missions.

My former team & field has offered & continues to offer several prayer opportunities via Zoom. 

Back in May, they tried to recruit as many people as possible to do a trial "big Zoom gathering," to see how it works and to figure out any problems in advance of the local denomination's doing a nationwide Zoom Missions Festival.  Hundreds of us gathered (on Zoom) for a really invigorating program of testimonies and prayer for about an hour.  A great way to have a Missions Emphasis Night, when missionaries might not be able to be on Home Assignment and visit your church!

Then in November, I could have joined Zoom mission reports almost every Sunday night.  I attended three.  Each one lasted about an hour, moved quickly, included several different people (both missionaries and Japanese) sharing stories of a particular missionary's ministry & how God is at work in that ministry.  The meeting concluded with 2 or 3 people praying for that missionary & their ministry, and then a time of Q&A. 

At the end of December, a highlight of my year was joining (on Zoom) with almost 100 people who had served over the years on the same church planting team I was on.  The occasion was the conclusion of that church planting team's work.  (The missionaries are still continuing in new areas of focus.) I really cannot put into words how amazing that particular Zoom was.  The emcee did a great job of keeping the one hour meeting a time of prayer & praise.  Different ones had been asked in advance to pray for & thank the Lord for certain topics, and it moved quickly.  What a joy to see faces from over the decades, and to focus together on thanking God for His gracious work!

Coming up is a 30-minute prayer time for the whole field (all ministries and missionaries serving with the same mission in Japan). So far over 300 people have registered to attend.  I am most excited about this Zoom because it comes with a built-in next step.  After this next prayer time on Zoom, participants will receive a follow-up email with an opportunity to join a prayer group.  Each prayer group will make a commitment to pray together on Zoom for 30 minutes 2 or 3 times in the next three months.  One might be on the 2nd Monday morning. Another might be on the 1st Friday evening.  Yet another might be on the 3rd Saturday morning.  It's not a lifelong commitment, but it might spark some longterm prayer groups.

I am really excited about the multiplication of prayer, and how we will see God answer those prayers in Japan, and also what God will do in the hearts and lives of the pray-ers. 

How have you seen Zoom used for missions this past year?

9:30 AM

It may be January 26th, but we are finally enjoying our living room in its pre-Christmas state.  The Christmas decorations have been put away for a few weeks, but getting the tree down and out of the living room took awhile.  

With the tree gone, the room is more room-y.  :) And I could finally return the side table (the tree stood in its place).  I depend on the side table to set my tea and books, so it feels as if life has returned to normal.  

Instead of sitting on the opposite side of the room, I am back to my normal place, looking across the room and out the windows.  This morning large snowflakes are gently falling, and the pine trees are gorgeous!

Both children are in school.  When I returned from taking Little Miss, Jim and I even had a few moments of meaningful conversation. 

A quiet winter morning to enjoy. Thank you, Lord!

 

Christmas (Part 2) & Birthdays

This was the year that Jim & his siblings were scheduled to spend Christmas with their in-laws, and then his side of the family celebrated together January 2nd.  

This year my contributions to the meals were:

7-layer salad,

oven-roasted vegetables,

Caramelized Ham & Swiss Buns,  and 

gluten-free peanut butter blossoms. 

The next day we celebrated both LM's & LG's birthdays!  So, after one day of family togetherness, lots of presents, and lots of food, we followed it up with another day of family togetherness, lots of presents, and lots of food!  I crashed after two days of that (well, we all did).

Lunch the second day was take-out pizza, and supper was leftovers. 

Some years I just bake a cake in a 9x13 pan, frost it, and put sprinkles on it, and put in a numbered candle.  Other years (like this year - Ahem!), I make a decorated cake. This year I made two separate decorated cakes. Why? Oh, why?! (Note to self - one cake is sufficient.) ;)  LG had a LEGO cake, and LM had a pull-apart cupcake Olaf cake. Both were supposedly simple, but nothing is simple when you're in a busy season and have young children.

Every year I forget just how much (too much?) it is for them to receive both Christmas gifts AND also birthday gifts (from both sides of the family), usually within a 7-10 day time frame.  It's a lot.  Someone suggested I put half of them away, and pull them out later. 

LM needs (& wants) nothing.  She wanted a bicycle helmet like her brother & next door neighbor. So, she's THRILLED with that.  She also is VERY EXCITED about her battery-operated toothbrush. :) 

LG received games (Battleship, Ticket to Ride First Journey), building things (LEGO basic set, Snap Circuits Jr., & a small Playmobil set), and one book - Imagination Station book 26!  This one is set on a ship on the Mediterranean with the apostle Paul! 

And that's a wrap on Christmas vacation!  

Hymns of a Pandemic

Hymns have been a theme of our experience of the pandemic.  Why would that surprise any of us? :)

Our pastor always reads a hymn (sometimes familiar; sometimes not) at the end of his daily Facebook live prayer time.  

A nearby church musician does a hymn of the day on his FB page ... singing & playing the piano. 

And I ran across a 90 year old retired pastor whose son records (& posts to FB each day) him explaining a hymn and then singing it a capella.  I want to be like him when I grow up! 

And of course how can we forget the Gettys' Family Hymn Sings?!  Little Miss asked just today to watch the Getty girls!

One day this week our pastor read a hymn I had never heard before:  None of Self and All of Thee.  The hymn itself is great, but I am fascinated by its author, Theodore Monod.  I had never heard of him before either.  Apparently he came from a very large family and one which figures large(-ish?) in church history in France, so finding information quickly online is not necessarily easy, especially because at least one other family member had the same name. 

Our pastor pointed out his connection to Illinois.  The biographical sketch I found mentions that he "preached among the French Canadians in Illinois, 1860-63." Our pastor said he was pastor of The Second Presbyterian Church in Kankakee, Illinois, serving primarily a group of Reformed French Canadians.  

Our pastor is fascinated to have found yet another hymn writer with a connection to rural Illinois (i.e., not Chicago), and said he would love it if someone studied that phenomenon.  If I had nothing else to do, I would find that very exciting!  How about you?  Would you find that exciting? What would you research, if you had nothing else to do?

 

Oh, the places you will go! ~ 2020 version

Places where I spent one (or more) nights in 2020:

Hannibal, MO 

*Williams Bay, WI

Kingsport, TN 

East Peoria, IL

 and home!


(italics - stayed there more than one night)  
(* stayed there on more than one occasion) 

   
It is a good thing that 2019 was the Year of the Road Trip, because we all know that 2020 was decidedly not! 

Thankfully, after skipping our annual pre-planting getaway in 2019, we had a marvelous one in 2020... only because, by the grace of God, we went a month early (because that is when the babysitting worked out, not because we had an inkling that everything would shut down). 

We usually go for one night, but this year we went for two, leaving around 4 or 5 pm, stopping at a Cracker Barrel at the next exit of any size, and driving on until we got to a Holiday Inn Express where Jim had made reservations. That was the BEST night of sleep I had had in a couple years! :) But our getaway was not over yet.  We continued to Hannibal, home of Mark Twain, where we did the museums, and then hung out in a coffee shop until it was time to check in to the amazing B&B which Jim had booked.  The trip was everything I like - restful, museums, scenic, B&B, great hot tea!, and ... time with Jim! 

Our amazing, well-planned, and much anticipated spring break trip to Chicago (via Amtrak) doing all the museums, zoo, etc. was ... cancelled.  

I spent much of lockdown (March 21-May 30) longing to go to Wisconsin, hoping we could, and worrying we couldn't.  

We made a run for it and went May 23rd for the first time, and ended up going every other weekend until mid-July, and then two weekends in a row in August and I think once in September as well.  I have never been so thankful for Jim's parents keeping the house all those years so that we even had an option of somewhere to go.  We still socially distanced, ate takeout, didn't go to church, couldn't go to the library, etc.  But we walked the shore path, played in the house & yard (a change of scenery did wonders for us all!), and went to the (very socially distanced) beach.  And we were together as a family without the chores awaiting us at home.

The beach and I do not have a good history, and until this year we had made an obligatory trip to the beach one afternoon each summer while there.  But this year ... we hung out at the beach for hours every day!    

Although we took few road trips, we took many day trips this summer and fall.  Time will tell if hiking is our new family hobby, but if this year is any indication, we are headed that direction.  We had tons of family fun discovering new places to hike (on our 16 hikes), re-visiting our favorite places to be out in the woods, and exploring playgrounds all over the state on our way to hikes, beaches, graduation, etc.

New Years Eve at a hotel with a pool was our consolation prize for forfeiting our Christmas trip to see my parents & sisters.  For the children, nothing beats a motel for excitement value!  And the pool did not disappoint. :) 

Instead of asking where you went in 2020 for the first time, I should ask where you hope to go first when travel is safer?  What do you bet the national parks will be crowded?  I'd be happy with going anywhere! 


Oh, the places you will go! ~ 2009 version
Oh, the places you will go! ~ 2010 version 
Oh, the places you will go! ~ 2011 version 
Oh, the places you will go! ~ 2012 version
Oh, the places you will go! ~ 2013 version  
Oh, the places you will go! ~ 2014 version 
Oh, the places you will go! ~ 2015 version 
Oh, the places you will go! ~ 2016 version
Oh, the places you will go! ~ 2017 version
Oh, the places you will go! ~ 2018 version   

Oh, the places you will go! ~ 2019 version 

1000 Gifts, Vol. 6, #29

281.  the gift of life

282.  the believer's death

283.  I Won't Have to Cross Jordan Alone

283.  marking time, celebrating, and remembering

284.  Every Moment Holy

285.  rhythm of Sabbath

286.  gift of prayer 

287.  women to pray with, as we pray for our children & their school

288.  rest & quiet & moments to sit

289.  noise & movement & moments to run & play (or watch little ones run & play!)

290.  daily rhythms of wake & sleep

Winter

On New Year's morning before dawn, the ice storm began.  On January 2nd, we had an unexpected 6" of snow. Since then the mercury has rarely risen above freezing, and the sun has hardly shone.  (Thankfully the temps have hovered between 25*F and 35*F, and not -25*F with windchill -35*F!)

The yards in our village are littered with tree limbs and branches. Every day in carline, I watch a boy on a bicycle going to or leaving school on the snow-packed sidewalk.  He detours w-a-y into the park to bicycle around a fallen limb. Often he ends up on the ground, but picks himself & his bicycle up, and continues on his way, around the rest of the limb and back to the sidewalk.  

Unlike many large cities, our village does not come around and pick up yard waste, piles of raked leaves, etc. from the curb. But for the first time I have known, they asked people to leave their broken limbs by the curb and Public Works will pick them up (although it will take weeks).  

We are very thankful that we never lost power, though many (even in our village) did.  The power outage map online looked like a roller coaster.  As soon as they would restore power to one line, a fallen icy limb would take out power to another line. 

Some of our now-bowed-down evergreens still have snow that looks like marshmallows on it, and our yard is still covered with snow (except for where playing children's boots tramped around), and it is snowing again this morning.  

At least we had a mild fall.  And, inspired by a friend's actions & the book, "There's No Such Thing as Bad Weather," I made a Black Friday purchase of insulated winter snow pants.  We are ready for outdoor play!

Baked Oatmeal

Do you have a favorite Baked Oatmeal recipe?  I can't believe I made it into my 40s without ever eating baked oatmeal.  I cooked oatmeal in a pan almost every morning for about a decade.

My tried and true recipe is the one in the Simply in Season cookbook.  I think the sugar content is high because it calls for brown sugar plus dried sweetened cranberries. (Or maybe it calls for raisins and I sub craisins.)

But recently I made Healthy Blueberry Baked Oatmeal.  Except I used frozen blueberries, and so it could also be called, "Purple Baked Oatmeal." ;) 

And I have Cranberry Apple Baked Oatmeal in my list of recipes to make.  It looks like a great way to use all the fresh cranberries I buy so hopefully during December. ;) 

How do you make baked oatmeal?

2021 Reading Goals

We received (as usual) several books for Christmas &/or birthdays.  I should make it my aim to finish these in 2021. :)

• Swept Into the Sea, Imagination Station (I've already started reading this aloud at night.)
  
• Cheer Up! The Life & Ministry of Jack Miller  (I'm partway through this one, underlining & making notes in the comments.)
  
• The Gathering Storm (seems like that has already happened; might not need to read it)
  
• Devotedly: The Personal Letters & Love Story of Jim & Elisabeth Elliot
  
• Becoming Elisabeth Elliot (I gave these two to Jim for Christmas, but definitely had an ulterior motive.)
  
• Everyday Holy
• Piercing Heaven: Prayers of the Puritans
• Buster Tries to Bail: When You Are Stressed (Little Guy will be THRILLED when these next three arrive.)
  
• Caspian Crashes the Party: When You Are Jealous
• Halle Takes a Stand: When You Want to Fit In

 

Were there any great books under your tree?

Learning

What did you learn in 2020? What do you want to learn in 2021?

As I was decorating birthday cakes, I thought, "I'd like to take a Wilton cake decorating class!"

I have friends who are musical, and challenge themselves to learn a new instrument. 

I have a friend who has taken up poetry writing. 

I was with someone recently who is learning Korean.

LG will be learning electricity as he plays with his Snap Circuits Jr. set. 

I read of a busy mom of preschoolers, learning watercolor alongside her children. 

I'm not sure what I want to learn. 

On the 11th day of Christmas ...

our uncle & cousin left after a stopover on their trip taking her/ going back to college

Daddy went to take care of another uncle's pigs

we played with lots of new toys and games we received as Christmas & birthday gifts

we donned our snow pants, jackets, boots, hats, and mittens

we played in the snow

we did not fight quiet time

Little Miss even fell asleep! 

the evergreens in our backyard continued to droop from an ice storm followed by 6" of snow

Little Guy was shocked to learn he only has one more day of Christmas vacation

Mommy wondered what to make for supper and considered taking a Christmas vacation herself and serving peanut butter sandwiches

My foreign trip

::from the archives::

The tale of a cross-culture experience I had in January 2008 ~

The four of us (three Japanese friends and I) met at a convenient spot here in our town and got into one lady's Mercedes Benz. She drove us downtown Chiba and parked in the cheapest parking lot she knows ($1/hour). We proceeded to walk the distance across Chiba's red-light district to the new 5-story building just purchased for $727,000 by the 7-year old Chiba Korean Methodist Church, which my friend (not a Christian) attends off and on because she is a fan of Korean culture, thanks to a very popular Korean movie star whom many Japanese middle-aged women idolize.

Her Korean friend was waiting outside for us and hugged us all (that was my first taste of the culture shock awaiting me; I live in a non-touching culture) and rushed us upstairs into the meeting room, where about 200 people were already stuffed. They took folding chairs in ahead of us and put them in the aisle (which was only wide enough for one chair), so that if someone needed to get up during the service, all of us on folding chairs also had to get up.

The room was hot, the smell of kimchi was profound, the sound of Korean words filled my ears, and many of the church ladies were dressed in the traditional Korean dress (hanbok). My senses were being assaulted with full-blown culture shock.

The service had already begun and soon everyone started singing, at a much faster tempo than any Japanese church ever sings, "We have heard the joyful sound: Jesus saves! Jesus saves! Spread the tidings all around: Jesus saves! Jesus saves!" I did not realize until much later that the bulletin was bilingual (Korean & Japanese), and so was searching my mind for the words in English, beyond "Jesus saves! Jesus saves!" It was very frustrating to hear what sounded like goobley-gook, and to know that I knew this song, and it would be so much fun to sing it with 200 people (!) and also at a nice tempo. But I was in such culture shock that I couldn't even notice that I could read every other line of the bulletin. All I could see was the Korean, which looked like hieroglyphics. Culture shock was paralyzing me, taking away my ability to remember the familiar.

There was a prayer (I think; at least everyone had their eyes closed, head bowed, and said "Amen" at the end). There was special music. And the service continued as one might expect. I saw a few people with earphones and remembered that my friend had told me that they have translation into Japanese. And I had to deal with the disappointment of having gotten there too late to figure out how to get earphones.

I know how a service goes, and seeing that this was the building dedication service, I also know how a building dedication service goes. I could flip through my Bible and find lots of relevant passages that I presumed the visiting pastor from Korea might be speaking from, and I could pray for this church's ministry, and the use of this new building as a tool. But as for my friends... they couldn't follow it, they certainly couldn't call to mind Solomon's dedication of the temple or Peter's teaching that we are living stones, etc. What were they doing during the hour-long sermon?!? Our friend who took us understands some Korean, and has a great desire to "help" the church, and she wanted to go. The rest of us... well, we just went along with her.

After the sermon, all of a sudden, we were in a Korean prayer meeting. Thankfully I had been in one once before, so I knew it was normal in this culture. Imagine 200 voices praying loudly in Korean, and one with a microphone. Koreans tend to be more emotional than Japanese, so the tears contributed even more to my culture shock.

Then there were congratulatory remarks from (thankfully!) a Japanese pastor. I could understand every word he said!!! (Someone translated into Korean for the other 195 people.)

Then there was special music and an offering (our bulletin had two separate offering envelopes in it, neither of which I could read, and when one friend had asked me at the beginning how much I was going to pay, I had told her nothing, because it's not my church, and I did not want her to feel peer pressure to give when she does not understand who God is). (She was surprised that I am allowed to go to another church, but confirmed that I am not allowed to worship at a temple or shrine. She cannot understand why.)

Then there were more words of thanks, announcements, etc., another hymn (which I sang in Japanese this time), and a very long benediction. Somewhere in there I was sure I was about to faint, as it was hot and crowded and there was a strong, unfamiliar smell (of kimchi) and I had not eaten lunch (because I had arrived home from my own church at 2.30 and thought we were going to a feast that started at 5 pm; I did not know there was a service before the feast). The ambiguity fit in well with all the other culture shock.

I survived, and then was carried along with the crush of humanity that was going up the narrow steps to the eating room, where a meal for 200 had been catered. The middle of the room was filled with one large table (formed by several tables), covered with dishes which were piled high with food. 200 people swarmed the table and people stood eating. Within 20 minutes, the food was gone.

We left, receiving our obligatory gift on our way out (a small alarm clock with words in Korean which I assume say, "Chiba Korean Methodist Church Building Dedication" and the date; the ambiguity continues every time I look at the clock).

Walking back toward the red-light district, we all looked at each other to see what the others thought. I spoke first. "I feel like I went to a foreign country. It was a cross-cultural experience."

Everyone agreed and thanked our friend for taking us overseas tonight without having to pay airfare.

I am worn out from culture shock and culture stress!

And I am so thankful to be past my initial culture shock in Japan.