Delaware Grammy

    It has been a most eventful couple of days since I last posted.  And I am so thankful for God’s protection, His provision, His direction.  (Now if I could just always follow!)
    Last week, on my Sweet Mama’s family forum, Wertlink, my younger Wert Uncle posted a picture of my grandparents, Alma and Michael Wert, taken on their porch swing at their welcoming mountain home.

    My Grandpa Wert was a school teacher.  He was an intelligent and gifted man.  My Grandma Wert was the prim and proper Pennsylvania Mennonite Lady.  She loved babies and pretty dresses and order.  Their love story was published in a book, written by my Aunt, Freda Zehr, entitled  Faithfully Yours.
    I remember sitting in a darkened room as an adolescent, watching old family slides.  My Grandpa was showing us old pictures of my Grandmother’s family, and in one picture was my Grandmother and her sisters, the five Lauver girls,  Alma, Lura, Esther, Mary and Gladys.  They were, all of them, nice looking ladies, but my Grandma was the prettiest, by far.
    “Look at that!”  I said, from my perch on the floor.  “Grandma is the best looking one in the bunch.”
    There was general discussion from the many gathered aunts and uncles and cousins, but not so much that I didn’t hear my grandpa say softly, as he turned the next slide, “I always thought so, anyhow!”

    While busy in my laundry room yesterday, I heard my driveway monitor go off.  When I poked my eyes out of the window, here came Mel and Priscilla Sayer and their two youngest daughters, Char and Melody.
    “We have one minute!” proclaimed P.J. while I hugged her fiercely.  I insisted that they come on in and sit a spell, but the spell was short lived.  A few words, a few chuckles, and they needed to go.  P.J. handed me an envelope.
    “Good,” I said.  “I hope this is a picture to hang up on my wall.”
    “No,” said P.J. regretfully.  “It’s not a picture.  Just a note.”
    “Well, then,” I said, “Let me get my camera.  I will take a picture of you to put up on my wall.  Sometimes it is good to have a picture to remind me to pray.”
     So they stayed long enough for me to get a picture, and it turned out right well, it did.

Today they are on their way back to the Ukraine. 
God Speed, dear friends, and blessings abundant as you go.

The week has flown by on the wings of incredible activity and sadness.  My heart continues to ache for Lupe.  If you think of her, please pray that God will intervene in her situation.  Her husband is Guatemalan.  She is Mexican.  There are a thousand things against them, but she is certain that she wants to go to Guatemala to be with him.  This will mean that she must leave behind everything and everyone dear to her except him.  And yet, they ARE married.  Her place belongs with him.  When you pray for her, pray that I will have the kind of wisdom that would be pleasing to God, and pray that she will be protected in this desperate situation.  The slavery of young, Hispanic girls in this country is a dreadful but well-documented thing, and I am constantly praying that her desire to be with him doesn’t cause her to take leave of her common sense and do something foolish.  She is not stupid in the ways of this world, but she desperately needs someone to protect her as she makes the trek from here to Guatemala.  It just isn’t safe for her to go off alone.  And there are many, many details to be worked out.

Years ago, when Certain Man and I had foster children, there were many, many times when decisions about their futures were totally out of our hands.  I remember going into their bedrooms at night and standing over their beds and praying that God would comfort them and us as we faced yet another painful parting.  The thing that gave me comfort then, and comforts me in this situation as well, is the understanding that His eyes can see where mine cannot and Hand is not short that it cannot save;  and that sometimes has to be enough.  I have seen Him undertake in marvelous ways as I have relinquished my heart and my desires to Him, but it hasn’t always worked out the way I wanted it to, or even the way that I thought would be best.  Sometimes there have been disastrous results.  And I cannot tell you why God does things one way one time and chooses not to another.  But I have purposed to ask Him for what seems to be needed and to trust Him in spite of how He chooses to answer.

This year, I’ve been keeping (somewhat sporadically) a gratitude journal.  It causes my mind to run down the rabbit trails of thankfulness The other night, so very weary after a long and challenging day, I crashed into our bed and savored the good support of a great mattress, and felt the coolness of the sheets.

“I have it so good!” I murmured to my completely exhausted, almost sleeping husband.

“Why do you say that?” he asked, mumbling, under his warm blanket.

“I am so tired tonight,” I began.  “And this bed is comfortable and my husband is kind.  We have shelter, and even though I am incredibly tired, I can be here in this good bed and I can expect to sleep good.  All over this world, Sweetheart, there are women who are far more deserving than I am, who have worked just as hard and harder than I have today, and they are tired.  Some of them are cold.  Many of them are hungry.  And they may have been beaten or abused, and now they are trying to get some rest on a hard floor or even the ground and they are not protected.  And here I am in this warm and comfortable bed with a good man to love me, and I am just so thankful.  I have it so good!”

He didn’t say anything, but he hugged me.  Long, detailed discussions at midnight are not his forte.  And maybe you don’t get the connection between that story and what I said earlier, but I would like to try to explain, if I could.  You see, when God doesn’t answer my prayers the way I want Him to, there are a thousand things on the “other side of the scales” so to speak that I find just as inexplicable.  I don’t know why He has been so good to me.  I don’t deserve all the blessings that He has poured out upon me and my family.  There have been heartaches.  There have been times when I have wondered if I will ever be happy again.  There have been times when I wanted to pack up and move somewhere else.  When I can’t fix things, I would just as soon be out of the situation.  But running from my problems or from a God that I don’t understand or that doesn’t do things my way has never and will never solve anything.  And so, I come back to the many, many times when God has intervened in miraculous ways in my life and in the lives of our family.  And I believe that He can and He does do it according to His Will.  His Will.  Ah, that is the crux of the matter.

So, I guess what I am saying in this is that I don’t know how this whole thing with Lupe is going to work out.  I honestly cannot say that there is any way for it to work out that will be “okay” with me.  The solutions are just not to my liking.  However, there are some ways that are just plain WRONG and I am purposing to pray against those things that I know are wrong and ask God to work in all our hearts as we look for His Will.

His Will.  His Way.  His Time.  That is what will be best.

Immigration

One word

Hundreds of mind sets

Thousands of opinions

Millions of people

but

One young husband of six weeks

Arrested, deported.

Hundreds of questions

Thousands of pieces of  broken hearts

Millions of tears.

And to me, there is still just one face

That says it all.

 My little Latin Lupe-Lou
May God hold you and your beloved
In His protecting hand.

MaryKay_Girl-

We remember . . .

There has been a heartbreaking journey that has threaded its way through our lives as a community and as part of the greater Mennonite Church family.  It started on June 21, 2007 with a blog on a newly began site:

http://mlmiller.wordpress.com

On that very first blog was the following picture:

Melanie Miller.  Or “Mel,” as she is known to the people who love her.
  An unexpected twist to her young life has made all of us more aware of how quickly things can change — how precious is every single minute that we have.  In this picture, she was getting ready for surgery.  Many, many unknowns lay ahead.

To get the whole story, you need to go to the blog and read from beginning to end.

Tonight, on the latest blog, her daddy asked that we spread the word, publish the link.  The love and prayers of family and friends has been a source of strength for them, and they are so thankful for each and every person who has taken time to pray, to write a note, to visit, to care.

Please pray for Marty, Lori, Lauren, Joelle, Melanie, Cameron, and Jana.

The Family
(This picture was taken about a week after her first surgery.)

And now, these short months later, this precious girlie is fighting for her life, but so loved and so held by that love and the love of The Father.  Please, pray for her and her family. 

This is one of the latest pictures on the blog.  Melanie is a very sick girl (though the last 24 hours have been a little better again).  We serve an incredible God.  Marty and Lori have blessed us with their confidence and trust that He loves them, He loves Mel, and He is worthy of our praise.  What a challenge they have been to me.  Everytime I read their blog I feel like I’m on Holy Ground.

Marty and Lori — We love you.  We’re praying.

The Christmas Village is still up — as beautiful as ever.

But the time is coming for it to come down.

If you thought you would stop and see it and watch the train run around the track, better do it this week.

Certain Man is talking about taking it down this weekend.

I couldn’t sleep last night.  This never happens to me.  Well, almost never.  But I had some of Chick-fil-A’s  wonderful sweet tea entirely too late last night and the caffeine in that stuff wouldn’t go away. 

Today was an unusual Thursday.  Usually we meet at a welcoming house up on Sandy Bend Road for Bible study, and the many children run and play while we ladies congregate around a big kitchen table and talk about Life and what God’s Word has to say to our lives right now.  There’s been lots of laughter, lots of tears, and I come away inspired by these young women who are King’s Daughters and want, with all their hearts, to please Him.  Right now we are studying a book on Hospitality that is stretching me in ways that sometimes causes me to squirm and re-evaluate some of the things I’ve always done, some of the things I want to do, and at other times, gives me affirmation that I feel I desperately need.

But today there was much sickness among the little people.  And our capable young babysitter was rather unavailable because her mother suspects that the two youngest of the brood of nine have whooping cough and is calling for a quarantine of the house.  This is one precious young mother that I don’t think I ever envy, and I especially don’t now.  Nine children in the house and whooping cough?  Dear Lord Jesus!  Have mercy!

So I got to stay home today.  I worked on laundry, I paid some bills, I cooked some chicken, I baked some bread. I “puttered around” and did homemaking kinds of things that do my heart good.  I had a chat with a neighbor and tonight had a significant talk with our “Little Latin Lupe Lou.”  Hispanic life in slower, lower Delaware is anything but “slower” (but it certainly is “lower.”)  My heart continues to break for the turns and twists of this young woman’s life. 

Tonight, there are a great many of things that wring my heart.  In our neighborhood right now there are several significantly ill people.  When I was thinking about what I could do, I felt so ashamed at how little I have cared for the physical needs of the people within sight of my windows.  People are literally dying. . . and some of them without the Hope of Heaven.

What was it that Jesus said? “I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink;  I was a stranger, and ye took me in;  Naked, and ye clothed me, I was sick, and ye visited me;  I was in prison, and ye came unto me . . . Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”  Matt 25:35-36, 40b.  The thing that grabs me the most of this passage is the “shoe leather” Christianity.  There are needs in this old world.  God’s people have the wherewithal to meet those needs —  and in meeting some of those physical needs, the doors open for the Words of Life to be spoken.  How I pray that I do not fail God or these people whom He has put into my back yard.

I believe that I will sleep tonight.  There is much to accomplish yet tomorrow before the weekend and the many things that demand our attention, but this precious day was an incredible gift and for this, I give joyful praise!

The

Pies

Have

All

Been

Eaten!!!

Saturday Morning at Shady Acres.   Eldest Son slept in, then came downstairs to wonder about whether or not his car was coming home from the body shop soon.  It was supposed to come today.  By lunch time.  He wanted to go to the bank.  Finally, he gave up and took the family mini-van to the bank.  And came home again to wonder aloud many times if his car was going to come home.

After much fussing around, in the early afternoon, he and his Dad took a ride down there and were able to come in on the final washing of his newly repainted and repaired car.  He was quite elated.  But he still had several hours before he needed to be anywhere, and he was bored. 

“Mom,” he said suddenly.  “I think I  would like to make some peanut butter pie.”  I must have looked at him askance because he hurried on, “I want to make it myself.  The time might come when I would be hungry for it and you might not be around, so I think I would like to learn to make it.  Everything.  Even the crust.”

This was not exactly what I had planned for this afternoon.  There was bookwork calling me, and other Saturday jobs, but I was rather pleased at this initiative, so I agreed that this would be a great time for him to learn to make peanut butter pie.  “Besides,” he added plaintively, “I am really hungry for peanut butter pie right now.  It has been a long time since we had it.”  I’ve been doing some pondering on that one, and I know we’ve had it since Thanksgiving.  But he didn’t get any at Christmas, so I suppose that has been a long time.

So we started with the crust.  I told him the ingredients and how much of everything, and he actually showed a good hand at this measuring and combining part of it.  “This is good,” I thought.  “I wonder if he will stick by it till the end.”  After cutting in the crisco and mixing the “wet stuff” together and then sprinkling the dough with it, he sat down to form his first ball of dough for rolling out:

Here he is shaping the dough carefully in preparation for rolling it out.

Here he spreads the plastic wrap carefully on the table.

Rolling it out takes careful concentration, but with the help of a form and the help of motherly instructions, he actually did very well with the pie dough business.

Put it into the pan, smooth it down carefully.


Then trim off the edges carefully with the knife.

I was sure I had a picture of his big fingers gingerly going around the pie crust, making almost perfect crimps, but I can’t find it.  One of the later pictures will show the crimps, though, and he did a great job!  After they were all crimped and pierced with a fork, he put the crusts into the oven and baked them.  They were gorgeous looking pie shells.

The next order of business was to make the peanut butter crumbs.  This was another step I neglected to catch on film.  Let’s just say that he made crumbs with vim and vigor!  Lots of them.  You see, my crust recipe makes crust for three to four pies.  He stretched it to four, and then decided that all four of them would be peanut butter.  This would take lots of custard and lots of crumbs.  So he got the crumbs made, and spread a layer in the bottom of each of his baked pie shells. 

Then it was time to make the custard.  This was where I figured he would wear down.  It takes time and patience to make a perfect custard.   But he measured the flour and salt and cornstarch and sugar, he separated a dozen eggs and mixed the yolks and a cup of milk with the dry ingredients while the milk came to a boil on the stove.  Then he mixed the hot milk into his egg mixture and then poured it all back into the sauce pan till it came to a nice boil. 

He stirred it carefully and patiently and was soon rewarded with a beautiful, thick smooth custard. 

He turned off the heat and measured and added the vanilla and butter.  It looked wonderful and smelled even better.

When everything was fully mixed, he poured it into the waiting pie shells.

Youngest Daughter, in Wal-Mart with her friends was able to procure some cool whip for the tops.  She and her friends came home to hang around and giggle and be impressed.  Eldest Son finally said that anyone who laughted at him couldn’t have any.  This caused even more merriment, but did not deter the chef..  Finally, when the pies had cooled sufficiently, the cool whip was applied:

And after that,

The crumbs! 
(I know, it looks like he’s putting on Cool Whip, but it really is the crumbs!)

And then the pies were done.  They were far better looking peanut butter pies than I had ever made, and that is the honest truth.  I think Eldest Son was quite satisfied with his efforts.

What do you think?  Aren’t they beautiful pies?
And doesn’t he look pleased with his accomplishment?
The only drawback is that now he thinks he is the boss of those pies.
So if you want a piece, you will have to ask him.
(And you can’t have any if you laugh at him!)
I heard him saying something about being able to eat them all himself, even if it took a couple of weeks. 
(I think he has some things to learn about the quality of old pie.)

Way to go, Raph!  I really am so proud of you!