from scratch

My roommates and I have gotten into the good habit of making home cooked meals instead of going out. We are all recent college graduates and are a bit stingy with our money, so eating in seems the perfect solution. However, it occurred to me this evening just how time consuming this habit is. I began my work in the kitchen this evening about an hour before we sat down to eat. It involved cleaning up the dishes from the day, preparing a meal (all the while being careful not to dirty too many more dishes), and baking a cake for a little birthday celebration. After eating the task of cleaning up after the meal began. All combined, I probably spent about two hours in the kitchen. Don’t get me wrong, I really like cooking, but the realization of how much time it takes to cook a meal got me thinking…

When I was in Cameroon I frequently had to make items such as lasagna noodles, ricotta cheese, and tortillas from scratch. We didn’t buy meat that was already prepared. In fact, we had to grind our own ground beef. Cooking was not a simple procedure there. Substituting papayas or mangos for items such as apples was common, and basic things like cake mix and bisquick had to be made from scratch with the raw ingredients. There was something pure about making everything from scratch, and the idea of buying food at the store already made up became foreign to me (contributing to a bit of reverse culture shock when I returned home). It was as if the challenge of cooking creatively, with what was available, made the work worthwhile. I guess you can imagine that cooking in Cameroon was even more time consuming than it is here, but in some ways, I miss the purity of it. Maybe that is one of the reasons that I try to cook as much from scratch as I can now.

on prayer

You know, it's an amazing thing that we get to pray. We can, at any time, in any place, talk to God. It's amazing enough that there is someone so near that He can always hear us. Even more incredible is that He wants to hear us. But, the most unbelievable of all is that He is the Almighty God. What would God want to do with us? Why would He want to talk to us? I know the answer. It's because He loves us (that is another unbelievable topic for a blog), but don't you find it absolutely astounding that God would lower Himself to communicate with us?

With all of this in mind, it is a wonder that I don’t take more time to pray.

Miss Scarlet in the study with the candlestick

Are you competitive? I played Clue with my roommate this evening. I lost, but it was fun!! We implicated each other with tiny, little implements and made up stories that demanded alibis. It was good to use my mind for something other than the ER, even if we did get a bit goofy at times.

Hope

Romans 3:23 "...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."
Romans 5:8 "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
Titus 3:5-7 "He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life."

This is the Gospel. We are all sinners. We need God, but we cannot even get close to Him because of our filthy sin. But He is loving and merciful, and He sent His own perfect, sinless son to die and pay the price for our sin so that we could become pure and clean. So, if we accept this amazing and costly gift that He's given to us, we can become God's own children and heirs of Heaven. We cannot enter Heaven because we are good people. We do not earn citizenship in Heaven by doing good things. We can only approach the gates of Heaven if we have faith in Jesus and the power of His gift to us.

Can you imagine what it will be like to enter heaven? Do you wonder what it will be like to see God in all of His glory? Have you ever considered how you will react at that time?

My friend Midge recently died and went to heaven. Midge loved the Lord and loved singing praises to Him. She would talk about Him to anyone who asked, because she wanted other people to know Him and to experience His love. I don't know what she is doing now that she is in God's presence, but I am sure it involves singing and dancing. Midge no longer has crippling arthritis. She no longer suffers from kidney failure. Dialysis is no longer a part of her life. She isn't sick, she's not in pain, and she has no sadness in God's presence. Praise God!!

I Can Only Imagine by MercyMe

I can only imagine
What it will be like
When I walk
By Your side
I can only imagine
What my eyes will see
When Your face
Is before me
I can only imagine

{Chorus}:
Surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart feel
Will I dance for You Jesus or in awe of You be still
Will I stand in Your presence or to my knees will I fall
Will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all
I can only imagine

I can only imagine
When that day comes
And I find myself
Standing in the Son
I can only imagine
When all I will do
Is forever
Forever worship You
I can only imagine

Boba

For those of you who aren't from Southern California or an Asian country, boba may be a new word. When I first came to SoCal, my roommate took me out for some "real" Chinese food (she was from Taiwan) and boba. I welcomed the new experience. We ate at a restaurant that serves traditional Chinese food (not American-Chinese food), and the meal was delicious. Then we stopped and got boba at a little shop. Boba is also called "bubble tea" and the "bubbles" are made from little pearls of manioc (a root that grows in tropical areas, serves as a staple food, and is the same thing that they make tapioca pudding from). The little boba balls are about a centimeter in diameter and can be sucked out of the drink with an oversized straw. They really don't taste like anything, but they are kind of fun, and they can be added to any cold beverage (I think they are best with a mango slush). They also make really good projectiles:)
It's strange for me to see manioc take such an urban form. I was first introduced to manioc in Papua New Guinea, where it is eaten as a staple food and called tapioc. As you can imagine, it is very starchy and fills the tummy. Though it had very little taste, the texture and appearance were very unique. It was served as a small loaf or lump and was white and almost translucent. The texture was very similar to rubber, but with a little effort it could be chewed and swallowed. The thing I remember most about it however, was the fact that it sat like a rock in my stomach.
The next time I saw manioc was in Cameroon. It seems that every tribe in Cameroon has a different way of preparing and eating manioc. Two of the most notable are baton du manioc and water fufu. Baton du manioc can be found in open air markets. It has an unmistakable odor that, oddly enough, resembles the smell of cows. It's wrapped up in banana leaves and looks like a stick. When the leaves are removed, the starchy translucent manioc is revealed on the inside. Though it was prepared differently, Baton du manioc tasted just like tapioc. The other form, water fufu, was slightly less appetizing to me. I won't torture you with the details, but the processing of this form of manioc involves fermenting it. Because I was aware of the process used to prepare it, I don't think I ever actually tasted water fufu.
Isn't it strange that something so simple would take on so many different forms? ...tapioca pudding, boba, tapioc, manioc loaves, baton du manioc, and water fufu. I guess it is much like rice, the other staple food of the world; everyone finds their own way of preparing it.

Homesick

"For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself."

Philippians 3:20-21

I don't know about you, but I get homesick from time to time. This world is not our home. We are foreigners here. And yet God has placed us here for a time and for a season such as now. Let's do our job.
Recently, my dear friend, Phil, went home to be with Jesus. Through the grief I realized that he reached the finish line! His race is done. I look forward to eternity, but it seems so far away, so distant and unreal. But, it is not far off. This life is only for a short time, and then we get to spend eternity in the glorious presence of our God.

Peace

Have you ever noticed that stress is a vicious cycle? Some people are positively affected by stress. I don’t happen to be one of those people. Sometimes a certain amount of stress is a motivating factor for me, but normally it causes me to be paralyzed and procrastinate. Of course, that is not helpful. If I am paralyzed, then I am unable to do anything to improve the situation that is causing stress. If I procrastinate, I cause even more anxiety in my life; the longer I wait to act, the more the stress builds up. You see where I am going with this?

So then, what is the relationship between stress and peace? God promises us peace and joy, but the anxiety that I am experiencing doesn’t seem to mix well with peace. In fact, it seems that I am experiencing the opposite of peace. I pray for peace and a decrease in anxiety, and I feel a little better for a little while, but then the old fears and insecurities creep up, and I am back where I started. Do I not trust Him enough? Do I need more faith? I don’t think so.

We live in a fallen world, a world tainted by sin and the consequences thereof. The devil would love to paralyze us and keep us from doing what God has designed us to do. He would love to see us fail. However, we find our strength in the Almighty One. We have shelter under the wings of God. We are ambassadors for His kingdom. Nothing happens to us that God does not permit. He knows what we can handle, and He knows better than we do what is good for us. I think the answer to handling stress is to continue seeking God, to rest in Him, to shun the devil, and to press on even in the midst of trouble. My mother would say that trials produce character, quoting Romans 5:3-5.

I would add:

“What shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Just as it is written ‘For Thy sake we are being put to death all day long; We were considered sheep to be slaughtered.’

But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:35-39)

I’ve never experienced hardship like it is described in this passage. Perhaps someday I will. Maybe this is the time that God is preparing me to deal with that tribulation. Perhaps now is the time to begin a study on the book of Romans.

Awesome

The red, glowing beauty of the horizon during a sunset…

The vast immenseness of the ocean…

The intricacy of the human body…

The faithfulness of God…

Those are some of the things that I consider truly awesome.

Have you ever thought about that word? From my understanding, the word awesome used to be employed only when something was truly spectacular, unbelievable, and provoking true awe. These days, however, that word is used several times a day for things that are merely notable. Doughnuts, TV shows, mattresses, and car sales have all been referred to using the adjective “awesome.” I find myself using this word casually far too often. Then, when I see or experience something truly awesome, the word simply doesn’t have enough power to describe what I feel.

Today, while I was fixing dinner, I noticed a rainbow. It was bright and colorful and spanned from horizon to horizon. As the rainbow faded, the sky and all of the clouds turned a beautiful orange just before the sun set. A few moments later, my roommates and I noticed a flash of light in the dark sky followed by the booming sound of thunder. The clouds, that had been a bright billowy red a few minutes ago, began to water the land as the thunder and lightning continued. My roommate, Lindsey, and I stepped outside for a while to watch. At one point, a flash of lightning exploded just above our heads, immediately producing a tremendously loud clap of thunder. The pop and deep rumble of the thunder was enough to make both of us react in fright and run for cover. Now the thunder and lightning have stopped, but it continues to rain off and on. The calm and peace of the weather now compared to its power a few minutes ago is a strange contrast, but it shows the power of God very well.

Awesome!

Hitting the Books

When I was in school, I longed for the day that I would no longer have to study every waking moment. Now, I am out of school, and what do I do with my spare time? Study!
I have been told by many nurses that while you learn a good deal in
nursing school, you really don't learn how to be a nurse until your first
job. I believe them now. I'm learning so much that my head spins at
times. I have some learning modules that I am supposed to be going
through, but by the time I get a day off from work, I have no desire to
think about nursing.
Add to that the fact that I am trying to learn French and piano. I
considered taking a couple classes at the local community college, but
decided that my work schedule would not allow it, and I am glad to be done with school for the time being. Learning French is enjoyable to me, but it is so time consuming. I spend hours in the books or online doing lessons, and I feel that I have very little to show for it. However, I know that this time is time well spent. Knowing French will help me to communicate well with people in Cameroon, and the more I know now, the less I have to learn in language school in a couple years.

Arrival

For many years I struggled with purpose. After returning from an 18 month stay in Cameroon, where I taught missionary kids, that desire for purpose took on a little more meaning. I've always wanted to serve God with my life, but the question was always "how?" My time in Cameroon was spent teaching, watching the missionaries work, forming new friendships, and allowing God to work on my life. I came away from that experience with a realization that God had made me into a missionary.
I can look back on all of those years when I desired purpose in my life and realize that all the while, God was preparing me. I see evidence of God's faithfulness in every event that I went through during that time. ...and God continues to be faithful!!
Now it is time to look forward. I cannot tell you what the future holds, but I know that God has put a desire in my heart to see the Baka of Cameroon become children of God. I am currently preparing for service among the Baka. Please pray for me as I begin to take the necessary steps to reach that goal. I must apply to and be accepted by a mission organization, learn French, and complete some more training in church planting and missionary medicine.
This is an exciting time! I can't believe that God is letting me serve Him in this way! Praise God for allowing me to be His hands and feet to those who need Him. Lord, please accept my service as worship.