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In which I hope to bring some sense of edification through entertainment

Where is July going?!

7/18/2015

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Mint, basil and tarragon drying for winter use
PictureCan never have too much basil! I dry it, make pesto and freeze it, and usually end up eating fresh everything I've harvested in that night's dinner because its so wonderful!
 Our garden this year isn't all that diverse. Mainly tomatoes, turnips, a few kinds of peppers, lettuce, SQUASH, and hopefully some watermelon. And then my little herb patch. So far the only harvest we've had is from the herbs, which if I had to choose only one thing to grow it'd be herbs! So that's fine with me. Along with making diet changing I'm also learning about essential oils and reading up a lot on herbal remedies. Not that I want to switch to ONLY homeopathic remedies (I don't. I love me some antibiotics!) but I do very strongly believe that we should START with the natural remedies God provides through nature and when those fail THEN go to the doctor; not dash to the ER the second something bruises or swells or sniffles. My mom grew a lot of healthy things in her flower garden, but we never knew what specifically they did or how specifically to use them. Before I moved out I remember Yarrow growing EVERYWHERE. It was practically a weed, and we knew it did something helpful. I wish I knew then what I knew now, because I'd have pilfered that weedy patch of yarrow like nothing else! Its incredibly healthy for digestion, bringing fevers down, lowering swelling, bruising, and is so pretty in the garden! Oh well, hindsight is 20/20 I guess. I'll just have to keep haunting the 'manager's special' section of every garden center in a 2 county radius for a while...
Along with expanding our herbal horizons, we've been doing a TON of hosting! We've had folks stay with us, people over for dinner, and sometimes both! Its been wonderful, as I love hosting dinner parties. My friend and I have talked a lot about how we DO think we have the Spiritual Gift of Hospitality, and what all that entails. Basically we have to be careful, because if we don't manage it we let ourselves get run ragged! The other thing I wish I knew how to do better is set the women who come over at ease, because if I throw some herbs onto a dish it is gourmet, and if I put said dish in a pottery bowl vs. a pyrex dish and set it on a table covered with a tablecloth then it is a grand evening dinner party! And then the women feel guilty because when we go to their house they don't own a nice tablecloth or pottery dishes or cook with herbs. I need to make a sign or something that says that I'm really not a hoity-toity food connoisseur,  I just know what I like to eat. I'm not making it for them to spoil my  guests, I'm making it because I'm selfish and I like my food to taste a certain way! But if a person invites me to their house and cooks me food, I'm just grateful for the opportunity to get out of the house and not have to cook and not have to pay for it! A new friend I made apologized the other day because she's been over to my house twice and I finally was able to make it to her house. "Its not fair because you've fed me 2 or 3 course meals, and here I am frying up a pan of bologna to feed you!" Well its not a food competition, and that was GERMAN bologna she fed me, so it was actually pretty awesome and dispelled many myths I believed about the horrors of bologna! 
It has, once again, struck me how much women need encouragement and how easily we get caught into feeling inadequate or like there is a competition in who can be the most feminine. I've really been praying about starting a women's Bible study, because I just really feel convicted that we need more discipleship floating around that gives guidance on how to be good wives and assured in our femininity that we are doing God's will. I've had several conversations just this week with women crying about their burden of wanting to be a homemaker but for financial reasons needing to work outside the home, wanting kids but their husbands not wanting them yet, or griping about something their husband has done and watching bitterness creep in. I see the need and I know what to do, but honestly I'm scared because I still don't trust that I am worthy to be that kind of leader or facilitator. I know that's a lie from Satan in my own life that I need to weed out with Truth, so I'm praying for courage. But its getting to the point that I know if I don't start knocking on doors to try and make this happen I'll be disobedient, so... yeah thats been fun. The thing is when I don't obey God voluntarily, He doesn't punish me He just gives me something far more Intense to deal with than the original thing and I end up grumbling an apology and kicking my past self for being stubborn and stupid. 

PictureKyle's leather Firefighting tankard he bought at the Renaissance festival and my white Ikea teacup that is rarely empty. Kinda captures us! Very different but still compliment each other and look great next to one another!
In other news,  our 2 year anniversary is coming up! Its kind of hard to believe. Kyle told me the other day, "It feels like its only been two weeks but at the same time two decades, because I don't every really think of life before we were married. It just feels like its been forever!" I laughed and teased him that what he said COULD be taken to mean he was sick of me already since it feels like FOREVER. Of course thats not what he meant and he told me so, and I grinned because I knew that and know exactly what he means! Our married life has on the one hand NOT been the easiest or smoothest sailing, but on the other hand its been a piece of cake because we have been so blessed with an amazing foundation of Christ in our relationship, and also with lots of older wiser people pouring into us. We have been kind of horrified at the amount of people who say, "Oh you're still in the honeymoon phase. Wait til you get to year 4! You'll be sick of them by then!" The thing is they said that about year 1, too! I asked Kyle why he thought that was such a common attitude. We talked about it for a while and decided that a big thing with these couples is that they didn't really date to see if they were compatible, they dated because they were attracted to each other and got married on that foundation. The other thing is that they only socialize with people their own age. They don't have older people who they go to for advice or counsel or just plain hanging out. I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, I'm just making observations so that WHEN Kyle and I get to year 4 people still accuse us of being newlyweds! Because I don't ever want to get sick of my husband or burned out with marriage or talk about him the way I've heard so many wives talk about their husbands, or hear myself being talked about the way I overhear husbands talk about their wives! And here we are back to the need for more people disciple-ing  younger people and more Bible studies and the fact that I need to stop talking about it and start doing it :-) 
SO back to the fact that Kyle and I still love each other and love being married to each other and love that year 2 is so much better than year 1 and we are looking forward to year 3 being better than year 2! Yes we have faults and bad morning breath and it drives me nuts when he leaves his lunchbox on the floor of my kitchen or leaves 2 squares of toiletpaper on the roll instead of just getting a new roll. And yes I drive him nuts with being over passionate about things that are really none of our business and don't effect us at all but I still have a very loud opinion of it; or when I leave kleenex or seed pods in the pockets of my jeans and don't empty them before he does the laundry and they end up all over his socks. But we still know that God has called us to be together and love watching Him work through us and in us (and despite of us!) in our lives and the lives of others. 


But I still can't believe we're almost to the 2nd anniversary! Where did this summer go?! Oh wait... guess I should re-read this post and the last two posts! Ok. Found where Summer went!

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Why I haven't been posting

4/11/2015

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So that goal I had waaaaay back when I started this blog: to post every other day. FAIL! I honestly haven't even had thoughts about things I should write about recently. Which is a little uncharacteristic of my graduated-from-college self. Usually I catch myself washing dishes thinking, 'That's a good topic. I should write about that. Surely SOMEONE will be interested in reading it!' and then forget about it completely until the next brainwave hits. No, I haven't even had those moments recently. The reason being, 
*drumroll please* 
WE ARE MOVING!  

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Kyle & I have spent pretty much all year pro's & con - ing our ministry/job/living situation here, evaluating where we want to be in the future and asking ourselves & God if this is still helping us towards that goal. And the final conclusion was that, while the answer had been yes for a while, it has gradually grown into 'no.' The work at the Church seems to be ebbing into more of a, 'You've done what you came to do,' instead of, 'this is what you are here to do!' and our spiritual needs as a couple have grown to where we really need a break from Church leadership. God brought a person from Kyle's past back into our lives & he & his wife have an awesome church plant started that we can get involved in whenever we want, but will also be encouraged to REST for a while. Which I cannot tell you how appreciated that is! And its closer to Kyle's work, which will be a HUGE blessing. Currently he's getting up at 4:30 in the morning to drive into work & its so far away I can't really be involved in the community or see him at all. When we move he'll only have to get up at 5:45 or even SIX AM! And I can visit him & bring stuff to the Fire station and be a lot more involved than I am now. 
Our in-laws told us about a house for rent so we went & took a gander & it ended up fitting the bill quite nicely (not perfectly but nicely) so we signed a year lease effective April 1st. I have been painting and transferring my garden from our city to our new town over the last few weeks, along with finishing up Church responsibilities, packing up the household, and jumping into the car to go on a few spur-of-the-moment road trips we are able to take. 
Its exciting & terrifying all at the same time for various reasons. My great-grandma told my husband, "I bet your wife is going to miss those children she's been working with." And she's right. I'm having to very proactively put 'my' kiddo's in God's hands and trust that, just like He brought me into their lives for this season and is now taking me out of it, He will bring other believers into their lives to help shepherd their faith & teach them the ways they should go. But, like my great-grandma continued saying to my husband, "I am sure she won't just sit in the pews for very long. She'll end up doing something in that new Church of yours. She's not one to sit still for very long or leave things the way they are. If I know her the way I do she'll probably drag some Internationals into that church, because she's not just a follower. She's a leader. That time she spent overseas was so good for her because it really shaped who she is today." 
I kinda choked up when my husband told me about the conversation because I felt sooooo complimented and validated. Its not easy leaving a ministry you have invested in for almost 3 years. But the hope that there are still good things if not better things to come is such a blessing. 

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And yes, to those of you who were paying attention: I am transplanting my Garden from the city to the town. Hey, I've worked hard for 3 years on these plants. If its at all possible, I'm taking 'em with me! :-D These are the first lilac & lavender bushes I've ever gotten to successfully come back & bloom year after year. Durned if I let them just wither up and die after I leave here! i'm enjoying those blooms I worked hard to propagate! :-D This picture is of my dear dear friend Emmanuela (she's originally from Cameroon) helping me in the garden when she came to visit a few weeks ago. She calls our new place 'The little Country house," and its stuck :-) Great-Grandma had a fun time picturing what "our new Old Kentucky Home" would look like. I never envisioned myself as a white-picket fence type girl but we have one now & I've got great plans of Clematis and Maypop vines (also known as passionfruit) draping themselves all over it. 
So as terrifying & hard as change is, I think it will be a good thing in the long run.
Ok now that I've updated you, my poor little neglected blog, I must run. I have a Ladies Tea Party this afternoon at church and a household to pack! And a pesky dining-room color to decide upon. WHYYYYYY are there so many shades of yellow at Lowes, and which ones will pair nicely with Country White?! ITs a split-toned dining room with a 'chair roller' or something board down the middle. I think I'm going to enlist Ms Pat's help, because that woman is a genius for household colors. :-) 

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June 04th, 2014

6/4/2014

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So as if Monday wasn't enough to make me feel thankful, then this morning I saw a special on PBS about an AWESOME outreach in Chicago called Albany Park Theater Project (APTP). Inner city kids go and get free theater lessons and help write plays based on their stories. Its not a Christian ministry, but it is doing powerful work amongst kids who really need someone to come along side them. I've honestly thought about ordering the PBS documentary and showing it at my Church and following it up with a time of reflecting and asking everyone to please lets just overhaul our whole ministry model and strategy. Listening to the kids testimonies and seeing where they lived made me think of the kids I left when I finished my time volunteering at the Orphanage in Romania (a place I've been thinking a lot about recently). I want to bloom where God's planted me, but the soil He put me in just doesn't really seem conducive to blooms!
    But then I look at my garden and the chalky red clay that is everywhere else in the yard. And I look at the gorgeous blooms the hollyhocks are starting to shoot forth, and the little basil seedlings that are popping up everywhere, and think of the handfuls of strawberries and bowl fulls of peas I'm bringing in each evening. And if God can make a garden in this washed out, nutrient deprived soil then He can use this burnt out, tired old church to do some good in this community as well. But it took a lot of Miracle Grow and compost and supplemental bags of soil from Lowes to make it suitable for plants! Which has made me think a lot and pray a lot about what kind of Miracle Grow God is going to put into this church. We need something. At this point I don't even know what to pray for.
    But I realized watching the PBS special that
    1. At first I was jealous of the director of that ministry. He gets to write and direct plays, has a Ph.D in drama (Whaaaaaat? Dude if I ever get a doctorate its TOTALLY in that!) is financially successful and has lots of awards and acclaims. But his wife died of Ovarian cancer last year. And she's the one he started all of this with and now he has to go forward alone. And while he was smiling at the camera, I know he goes home to a home all by himself and is sad and lonely. I don't feel pity for him, I just became thankful for myself. I was thankful he had a happy marriage while she was alive and I was happy that I have a happy marriage. And while I'm not rolling in the dough, God's given us ENOUGH without struggle. Which is more than I've ever had before.
    2. I realized that, despite it being a hard ministry; despite it being a job that feels like 5 jobs but no one recognizes as a job and I get called a 'kept woman' by various people; despite the lack of consideration from coworkers or fellow Christians; despite the fact that its with kids from hard families who use up anything good until its sucked dry of all goodness and then scream for more;  despite all the hardship and ugliness... guess what. I GET TO BE IN MINISTRY!!!! Its a needed ministry, its a HARD ministry, and its planting seeds for the future in a place that most people don't even know exists. And I get to do it.
    Thats a dream come true for me. I've always wanted to be in a ministry that reached the hard to reach. I saw 'remember the Titans' and I wanted to be Denzel Washington's character: a mean ol' cuss who won the respect of kids and dragged them from the gutter and inspired them to BE somebody.
    Last week I had all the kids write notes of encouragement to each other and they gave me one too. One of the kids wrote, "Mz Rachel, you're sometimes mean. But I know you're mean because you are trying to teach us and help us do better. And you're really pretty and a great mentor."
(stupid janitor threw all the cards away so I don't have it anymore!!)
    I read that note and almost cried. I get called 'mean' all the time. But that was the first time anyone recognized why. Everyone knows tough love is rough on the person recieving it. No one acknowledges tough love is reeeeally tough on the person giving the tough love. Its easier to be walked all over.

    I love Laura Story's song 'Blessing' and I put it here so you could listen to it too. Sometimes blessings are good and sweet and gorgeous like basil or anemone's or strawberries. Sometimes they come through hardship and toil like roses and thistle blooms or onions.  Or like thunderstorms that give rain but are still loud and scary and noisy. Either way they are still blessings, and its important to be thankful for them - yes not just in spite of but BECAUSE OF the packages they come in.
    I don't know if any of this is making sense, but its what I'm pondering and going through right now so I thought I'd share. I hope it helps you along your journey.



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The wheels on the bus...

6/3/2014

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'Hey, whatcha doin today?' was the innocent text I received about 10:30 yesterday. I didn't have much planned so I agreed to help my friend and former bridesmaid to navigate our bus system in preparation for the oncoming semester. She wanted to save on gas money, and her bus fare would be free now that she was a student. I'm always up for an adventure, right?? Well...
Remembering that, overseas, the bus was NEVER on time, and it was quite easy to get lost on it, I asked if she knew the schedule and which routes we would be taking. I was assured that 'Here in 'Merica" the bus arrives on a dependable, consistent 15 minute interval at each stop, and the routes were clearly marked on the website.
Ha.
We got to the bus station where two African American gentlemen were already waiting, smoking. "Good mornin to ya, ladies." One said as we walked up. We both said hi. "Ya'll are looking exceptionally good t'day!" we blinked and made no reply. After trying to find out where we lived and where we were going (which we gave very VAGUE answers to and I asked them the same questions to which they also gave vague responses to) my friend and I started talking about all our mission trips and various means of travel in various countries. After a while one of the guys noticed my wedding ring. "I see you are married." I smiled and nodded. "When'd you get married?" he asked. "August. So we're still newlyweds." I said, grinning extra wide and hoping he would take the hint that Kyle and I are HAPPILY married. The man nodded and made no response but a few minutes later they both got up and offered us their seats. It was very interesting, because I felt like when we first walked up we were being hit on, and they were trying to find out where we lived to find out where the party was. But once they saw that we were polite, educated ( my friend talked to me in a bit of spanish) and they found out that I was married and happily so, they started being really helpful and gentlemanly. It was kind of touching but I felt a very interesting lesson. Act like a lady and you'll earn the respect and treatment of being a lady. But most people aren't used to girls being ladies anymore, so they treat them bad. Of course that's not to say this will work always, as you'll see as I continue in our adventure.


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Processing and preparation for a procedure

3/26/2014

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It is 10:30 am. So far, I am still in my pajama's, but I've read Hans Christian Anderson's "Snow Queen," made the bed, taken all meds, and drank tea. Breakfast is still pending.
I have this problem. I'll have a SUPER duper productive day (yesterday) in which I cook, clean, get projects for work done, have meetings, etc. and so forth.
Then I have a super lazy day. That would be today.
Part of the joys of being a newlywed with no children and a job that allows you some flexibility.
But today I can't afford that... today I have to be productive two days in a row!!
Today I have to get the kitchen clean, get more groceries, make enough decent food to last my husband the next few days, and smoothie-ify a bunch of fruit and kefir so it can be easily whisked from the freezer and consumed. Then I have to
get my lesson for tonight prepared, and then probably come back and clean up whatever mess I've made in the kitchen.
Then go back to the church to teach the hooligans about missionaries, and try to have a strategy in place for when one of them melts down about something that has caused a crisis in their preteen world.
I'm going to get my wisdom teeth removed tomorrow. Thats why I have to get all this stuff done TODAY.
I'm not scared about the surgery itself (although it did dawn on me last night that I will be going under full anesthesia for the first time, and that was a weird thought). I'm scared about how I'm going to react to all the medication.
My body doesn't do well with foreign chemicals.
I'm fairly confident I will be higher than a kite for the next few days. Either that or swollen and miserable.
The concept of only consuming liquids for a few days was a little disappointing, but I've wanted to change my diet and
get back into shape and lose some weight anyway, so I figured I'd just use this opportunity to make super healthy shakes and jump start the diet change. However that will probably shock my system as it goes into a massive detoxification process too...
As all these conflicting thoughts and musings swirl about my brain, I've decided upon the cowardly course of action: Procrastination. :-)

Nope nope nope. Get up, self!
Grab trial and challenge by the horns!
Grr. Off I go.
You probably won't be hearing from me for at least a week...
aufweidersein!


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    A normal woman learning to serve an Extraordinary Lord in Ordinary ways, and watching Him turn it into Amazing Grace!

    ©  2014-2015 Rachel Hester. All rights reserved. 

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