Hannah's Missionary Apples

Hannah's Missionary Apples

    A true story for children by Anna Lucas

    As Hannah sat down on the old, bent trunk of the big apple tree near Grandma’s house, her teeth sank into one of the tart, yellow apples.

Hannah took bite after juicy bite of that fat apple, little knowing that the apples her brother and sisters were picking would turn into missionary apples in no time at all!
  
 The first thing the girls did with those apples was to take some to Grandpa and Grandma’s house on Old Dutch Mill Road where Grandma had a broken elbow. Her poor arm was all wrapped up in cast and a sling, and Grandma was having trouble doing her cooking with just one hand to work with!

“We are going to make you an apple pie!” the girls told Grandma as they set on the counter a bowl of apples fresh from the tree. The girls set out lunch, sliced apples for a pie, mixed up a crumb topping, and washed the dishes. When they left, a warm apple pie was cooling on the counter smelling absolutely delicious!

    That evening after dishes and chores were done, Hannah saw that Mom was busy at the table cutting up apple after apple. She was cutting out bad spots, dicing the apples into small pieces, and mixing them with lemon juice to put in cakes the next morning.

    Hannah’s family had a very favorite apple cake recipe with butter frosting. Each cake had four whole cups of diced apples, and Mom had cut up enough for four cakes. By the end of the morning, the counter was full of apple cakes cooling on the counter. Who were they for?

    Well, first Mom was planning to take apple cake to a lady named Brook who managed a small dairy farm a few miles away. The lady was a veteran who had lost both a brother and a sister in a tragedy only weeks before, and had just lost another friend that very day.

  “Brook was on my mind last night and this morning,” Mom said. “I was just praying for her this morning and then the text came that her close friend had a heart attack and passed away. I need to make the butter frosting and hurry right over there to see if there is anything I can do and let her know we are praying for her.”

    Mom stirred the sugar, butter, and milk together and cooked it in a pan for the frosting. When it was cooled, she poured the sauce over pieces of the apple cake which she had put on paper plates. On top she laid several pecan halves and covered each plate of cake with plastic wrap. Away Mom went to see if there was anything she could do to help Brook.

    Meanwhile, Rose and Hannah got busy with another plate of apple cake. Down the road at the corner lived an elderly lady who liked to say she was the children’s extra grandma! Sometimes she would hire the children to come stack her firewood. Other times the children would just go down and visit her and tell her all about life on their little ranch. They would tell her all about their puppies and kittens and chickens and horse and gardens. This time, Rose and Hannah took her apple cake!

    “Here come my children!” Grandma Stephanie exclaimed with a bright smile as she came to the door. “Oh, my, oh, my! What is that you are bringing?”
    “Apple cake!” Hannah said. “We picked apples yesterday at a tree in town, and Mom made our very favorite apple cake to share with you!”

    How happy Grandma Stephanie was! And she was not the only lady happy for apple cake. Down the road the other direction was another family who was going through a hard time. The dad had been put in jail, and the lives of the mom, three children and a grandma were difficult right now. More apple cake went to them, along with the recipe.
    “That is the best cake I have ever eaten!” the mother texted that evening. “Thank you for sharing the recipe!”



 Only a few days later, Hannah’s family traveled to New Mexico to join a crew that was building a little school building for a Navajo mission. While Hannah’s dad and brothers worked with the men to paint the school, her mom and big sisters helped the missionary lady make the meals for the work crew.

Out of some of the last of those apples, they made five apple pies to eat for Sunday dinner!

    Yes, little did Hannah know that when she climbed up into that old apple tree and handed down bags of apples from the high branches, that those apples were going to turn into missionary apples!

For anytime you take what God gives you and share it in love with others for Christ’s sake, you are being a missionary for Jesus!