Welcoming a Special Young Lady to Our Home

Last week a very special young lady arrived in Colorado for a visit.

I think Jennifer is a beautiful name, and it matches a beautiful young lady that Sam thinks is pretty special. 

Here she is out with our children on a walk at the nearby Indian Paint Mines last weekend.

Playing games the first evening together.

Jennifer Neidermyer has a lovely touch on the piano, and Rose and Hannah tried to play along.

Hannah tried to copy Jennifer on the piano.

While Hannah tried to play the melody on a song, Jennifer filled in accompaniment.

"I feel like she is my big sister," Hannah whispered to me later.

I thought that was pretty sweet.

For some reason, Sam decided to ask his dad for a couple days off work in town, but he still helped around the house, repairing drywall issues and other things in between taking his girlfriend various places, such as for supper with Justin and Melanie Stanton who moved recently and wanted to show Sam their new home. Sam even cut up a pumpkin for me.

Saturday Jennifer got to go up Pikes Peak--at least part of it. Since it had snowed, the last part of the way was closed.

Then Sam and all the children and Jennifer had lunch with Grandma and Grandpa that day so the grandparents could meet her.

Carrie babysat a couple days that weekend, too. Prischita is fascinated with the pizza baking in the oven!

Now it is out of the oven!

We love this little darling!

She is fascinated with the puppies!

Rose, our animal lover. Even cats.

We had one blueberry pie left for the first night Jennifer was here.

Everyone finds a puppy to hold while we have family worship--even Jonathan.
Jennifer played the piano for us.
Sam had to be gone that evening to a training at the fire station.

Jennifer tended the apple waffles we made one morning, while Jonathan takes a part out of the kitchen spigot that needed to be repaired so that the spigot would turn off better.

We had to go all day without a kitchen spigot working till he could bring a part home.

The waffles came out the best ever, thanks to Jennifer's careful watching, despite it being perhaps the first time she had made waffles!
We only recently bought this waffle maker at a yard sale, so I am just learning to make them myself.

The girls out riding the horse.

Jennifer was so happy for the snow!

I couldn't resist this photo of Jennifer and two of our girls after church Sunday morning, 

looking over the town of Elizabeth.

Inside, Sam got the ribbing!

Here is another photo taken back in PA a few weeks ago when Sam was visiting back there.

Several young people got together to stuff several hundred missionary newsletters.

Our girls decided that Jennifer needed to be introduced right off the bat to their daddy's favorite

peanut butter pizza!

It was the best ever!

Hannah really hated to see "big sister" Jennifer leave for home.

Jennifer was a blessing and delight.

We pray for God's continued leadership and direction in the lives of our young people as they seek His will for their lives.

"If You Must Die, Iron!"

Yesterday was difficult and complicated at first.
But I remembered the advice given by her mother to Margaret Jensen, author of First We Have Coffee.

When nurse Margaret came home one day so depressed and discouraged that she told her mother, "I could just die!"

her Norwegian mother pulled a basket of ironing out from under the table and said calmly,

"If you must die, iron!"

Margaret ironed.
And she learned something she would carry with her throughout life.

Rather than die, we iron.

Perspective returns.

Our mind calms.

Our heart is mended.

Problems are ironed out.

Huddling by my window praying yesterday morning, I was sinking fast instead of being lifted.
 It seemed it might be better to leave my room and my prayer time and go back to work.

There was genuine blessing in simply going out to the van and cleaning it out,

bringing in the laundry off the lines,

and looking up a recipe for blueberry pies.

It just seemed that the pressure of what was weighing on me simply lifted.

My heart really was in the right place after all--

the place of being a servant as a housewife and mother and country cook.

The joy came, not in the praying of long prayers,
but in the doing of common and ordinary tasks of the day,
with a special task added in--

the choice to make my favorite pie!
I'll admit it was for me.
I had skipped lunch because I wasn't hungry and my imperfect, very non-angelic youngsters were arguing around the table and I just didn't feel like lunch.
I ate mine later while making pies!

 Somehow, the choice to make myself a blueberry pie and keep busy at my ordinary tasks

helped me in ways that trying to die to myself about certain issues during prayer time simply could not accomplish.

The joy was back again, and I even ended up going on a date with my husband!

If you are depressed and feel that you would like to die,

iron!

Otherwise, make pies!

Visit from Mr. Nobody--Will Byler Asks an Interesting Question

Last weekend Mr. Nobody came to visit.

But first, let me tell you about somebody else.

No sooner did our friends the Albertsons move on than we received another visitor, Bro. Will Byler, president of Mission Helps under which Jonathan is construction manager.

The two of them stood admiring the sunset over Pikes Peak just after Bro. Byler's arrival.

Jonathan showed him the Spanish Peaks off to the southwest as well.

It was Sam's night to spend at the fire station again. He had stayed Friday night at the station as well, to make room for our ten or eleven extra visitors when the Albertsons and crew came through!

Bro. Byler was so kind to spend time talking to the younger children about their bird watching and photography. He is a man who is so empty of himself that he finds value in everyone else.

His godly influence pervades the atmosphere around him, but it is coupled with grace, mercy, and humility which makes it possible for him to enjoy being in the Lucas home!

Yes, despite his position as leader of Mission Helps, his passion for missions, and his being sought after by leaders in church circles, he spent parts of three days in the Lucas home and petted rabbits and followed the boys around the farm after doing chores, and spent the whole trip to church Sunday morning looking at Danny's and Hannah's bird notebooks and asking them all about their drawings.

He was able to do stuff like that because one day he made a decision to be a nobody.  

And as we were talking about different things, he asked an interesting question.

"What would it mean to you to be a nobody?" he asked.

Like we haven't felt that way for a long time. 

But what if you were always trained that being a nobody for Jesus meant leaving worldly ambitions and quitting your job of making money and instead going and teaching, pastoring, preaching, being a missionary, singing, playing, testifying, giving, serving, and otherwise performing for and within the kingdom of God, especially the church?
What if only God knows what it really means and what it really costs deep down inside
to have that whole concept turned upside down on its head
and for you to become a different kind of nobody--

someone that just washes windows before company comes,
someone that just offers a cup of water,
or coffee,
or a pallet on the floor,
or a loaf of homemade sourdough bread to someone just out of surgery?
What if it means cleaning up doggie piles on a consistent basis behind dogs and puppies belonging to a daughter you are trying to help through college,
and cleaning up other people's stuff, and helping a grumpy child do his geometry?
While you watch other families singing and playing up front like you used to do,

and other missionaries sharing their stories like you used to do,

and other church people put into offices you used to have,

and other people teaching in lovely schools 

and working in neat offices?
And you are left somewhere in the dirt underneath the doggie shovel or the muddy boots slogging around horse pies in the pasture.

 

But what if a nobody was so empty of self that he could find value in everyone around him?
What if he could somehow clean his boots each day and forget about everything he ever learned to do, and learn patience in things he must simply endure? What if he could learn, like Uncle Tom's cabin's characters, to sing, not on platforms, but in the middle of pain?
 Some of their songs weren't much more than what we call "seven-eleven" songs now--
seven words sung eleven times.
But that's what slaves sang when they did not have the energy to come up with the classical pieces of the rich and the classy and the masters and the people who had time and peace and inspiration.
They sang simple, pathetic words that somehow spanned the space between the dirt and the pain and the heaven they longed for someday.

And they were nobodies.
Simple slaves who picked cotton and ground meal and dusted the massah's boots
and served the meal to mistress.
   
Yet their simple songs are remembered to this day--
"Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen,
Nobody knows, but Jesus!"
Jesus became a nobody, too, so that He could meet us where we are and help us in our needs.
He said, "Follow Me," and that means becoming a nobody, too.
Jonathan and I have been nobodies for a long time.
Sometimes I have chafed under it because I was trained for excellence in studying, singing, music, teaching, writing, missionary work, and "full time Christian service."
So sometimes you kind of have to throw away your training and simply become a follower--
just a follower of Christ.
Now we know another of the names for a follower of Christ--a Nobody.
So now there are Mr. and Mrs. Nobody in Colorado along with the Mr. Nobody from Pennsylvania.
And we'll just see what God can do with nobodies.
(Except, as Bro. Byler reminded us, what God does with nobodies usually is unseen.)

Babies, Boys, Bylers and Bonnie

Last weekend for a couple days we hosted the Randy and Joy Albertson family and three students from Faith Bible School who were traveling with them.

Of course, Joy's new baby girl found lots of willing arms!

Especially Hannah's!

When Rose got home from her morning work, she let the children ride the hay bales on the little trailer behind the fourwheeler as she got ready to feed the horse.

The Albertson children had so looked forward to helping with chores on the farm, riding the horse, and four-wheeling.

I had Jewellyn helping lay out the veggies for lunch.

All on the same day that we had so much company, Carrie was also babysitting! Hannah helped a lot!

It was a pleasure listening to the family practicing their songs for Sunday service.

With that many children, I gathered the younger ones that evening after supper and chores to listen to a couple bedtime stories and got them to bed rather early to catch up on their rest since they had arrived about 11:30 the night before.

On Saturday, Joy took the whole gang of youngsters to the Paint Mines near Calhan, where the boys pretended to be Indian Warriors. It was here the native Americans found many colors of clay which they used for paint.

Joy shared this photo of the boys and the one below of Hannah with me.

At home, I was catching my breath and raking the yard, dusting a ceiling fan, scrubbing walls, and otherwise trying to get the place looking presentable for even more company later on.

And Carrie put baby Mandylyn to sleep.

What a doll!

Sunday evening we went to Foothills Missionary Church to hear the Albertsons share about their work in South Dakota with the native Americans.

James playing "This is My Father's World."

The family singing about how "God has a bigger thing going than these little eyes can see."

Loved how Jewellyn needed to straighten out little Mishael.

There! Got him all fixed up.

Micah played "Oh Worship the King" for the offertory.

The lady with the white hair is Bonnie Lacy, sister to Mrs. Asbury who heads Ropeholders under Mission Helps. Bonnie moved to the Springs recently to be closer to family. Jonathan's parents invited Bonnie for a snack afterward along with us and Bro. Byler who had arrived at our house Saturday evening for the weekend (more about him in the next post).

It was a pleasure to get to visit Bonnie as we took her back home after Sunday snack.

Bonnie remembers one time about 26 years ago when Jonathan was visiting her parents' church in Octa, OH. She noticed Jonathan looking at the bulletin board where there was the picture of a certain young lady missionary to Ukraine. She saw him writing down the address on the prayer card!

And now 26 years later, Jonathan and Anna are helping her into a car driven by Will Byler, president of Mission Helps, and we are all sharing memories together as Jonathan gives directions to the driver as to how to get to Bonnie's assisted living apartment!