When a Brother Comes by with His Wonderful Wife

 

Last week my brother Fain and his wife Regina traveled up from Missouri for a few days.

Fain wanted especially to bring us a bunch of asparagus roots he'd grown in his lush Missouri garden to plant in a bed in ours, and a bunch of garlic, too.  But he also brought fixings for wonderful Mexican fajitas with three kinds of meat and plenty of jalapenos and other peppers from his own garden.

 

Regina rolled out homemade tortillas. The meal was yummy! 

Fain helped in other projects, too, such as putting up a nice long shelf in the attic for storage. 

Boxes of my books are in the background in that picture.

(Recently I read that Hannah McDowell's autobiographical book of her missionary stories had reached at least eight or nine printings and sold over 8000 by now. Which made me feel pretty piddly. 

But then, we are not supposed to compare, just do our best with the abilities God has given us.)

Fain's wife Regina isn't in the public eye much, but she was such a help in the kitchen. She made a huge batch of sourdough bread, teaching me how to make it her style. 

She was willing to get up really early one morning to jump into a cold Honda with me for my drive to Rapid City for a medical appointment and other errands. Since my sister-in-law Anita had sent ten layette bundles, we stopped at Black Hills Pregnancy Center to drop them off for moms who choose life.

The center was in the middle of a layette drive, and were very happy for these darling bundles. Later, back at home, Regina showed us a video that her brother had taken long years ago at her wedding to my brother in Mexico. It was the most fun I've had in a while, seeing that video and remembering, seeing once again all the people in my family and the many friends we had at that wedding.  I had the honor of being one of four bridesmaids in that wedding, and Regina had sewed my dress for me. I think it was the first time in my life I ever wore lace on my dress, since my parents believed lace to be superfluous and worldly.
I decided to believe that lace was dainty, pretty, and feminine rather than worldly. A couple years later, I would wear that same dress for the English program my students put on in Kiev, Ukraine, where I was teaching, and my fiance, Jonathan, would decide that was his favorite dress of mine! But back to that wedding, it was interesting watching us play the bells and sing "Gentle Shepherd," Fain's choice of song for their wedding. And the best thing of all was watching the video from 32 years ago and know that my brother and his wife have been faithful to their vows and have stayed together. 

(Thank you, Regina, for being faithful to my brother and loving him through thick and thin! I am so very grateful!)

Another thing Regina helped with was putting together the puzzle my brother Hoshea sent down in the sunshine basket. I don't know how he thought I had time for puzzles, but Sunday afternoon, Regina sorted the pieces and started putting that puzzle together. I'm glad she had the patience, because I didn't!  

However, she cheerfully allowed me the privilege of helping finish placing the last few pieces! So there I am, in the slanting afternoon sunshine, placing the last puzzle piece! 

A huge amount of turkey breasts had been donated to the mission, and after many had gone hither and thither, a huge box of them was given to us. Regina helped me cook and debone several while she was here. We made a Turkey Biscuit Bake with some, a huge turkey salad for sandwiches for my work guys, and froze the rest. 

This was our final supper together before before they headed for the Black Hills. There they stopped to take a picture of the little house on Bear Rock Road just outside Custer where our family lived three years, back when I was age nine to twelve.  

This last week with my brother, old memories converge with making new ones, and I am blessed.

Autumn--Raking Leaves, Hauling Firewood

 The leaf rake Hannah and I took up to our church lost its handle halfway through our job of raking and vacuuming up leaves with a leaf blower/vacuum that Jonathan got on clearance at Home Depot for $20.

Hannah used it anyway! She also operated the vacuum that shredded the leaves all at the same time, while I tried to pick out any twigs that were too big for the shredder to handle. 

I loved having an excuse to be out in the late afternoon sunshine. 

Hannah wanted to use the leaves for mulch or compost in her garden.

 

So I held the big trash bags when she emptied the stuffed vacuum bags.

She prefers raking and gathering leaves to doing algebra, but she is doing great with her algebra, too, soon to be halfway through her textbook.

Meanwhile, Jonathan, Danny, Ricky, Ned Sherman, and Lakota men spent most of a day cutting and hauling firewood to the Martin church, which heats mostly with wood, and another trailer load for ourselves. 

What is more fulfilling than a load of logs on a big trailer?  

Especially in the sunset?

Fun With Mom's Wig

Take a guess what met me the other night when I came out of my bedroom after I had been modeling my wig for my sister-in-law Regina.

It was my son--with Samson-length hair (i.e. my wig)!

Here's a closer-up look of his mom's face while his sister cackles!

 

Here he is from the front! :) :)

My brother Fain (who was here for a few days) says I look better in a wig than without.

Hmm.

The problem is, how to get the wig to stay on.

So I googled it. 

And maybe I will order special double-sided wig tape.   

Until then, I wear caps knitted lovingly by hands whose owners usually know from experience the difficulties chemo patients face.

As I was going through my photos on my phone a couple days ago, I saw the picture of me in the wig shop before I started chemo.

I couldn't believe how much hair I had.

And after seeing myself in the mirror for these last two months, I thought, for perhaps the first time ever, 

that my hair used to look beautiful.
That was just two months ago. 

But I can't let myself focus on all the loss, but instead focus on the joys we can have in the present, 

laughs in funny moments with children who can still tease and laugh and say silly things that help us forget the hard and focus on fun with each other in the moment!

Family Photos

 Recently on a Sunday afternoon, Alanna Lavery drove out to take some family photos for us.

SIM is making prayer cards for the missionaries and needed a family photo.  

We tried a couple different backgrounds on the same section of old road. 

Us ladies. 

Another view.

The girls wore the western blouses they had worn as bridesmaids at Rose's wedding this summer. 

My sweetheart and me

One of those in-between moments that are really fun to put on the blog. 

The three siblings.

Behind them fly several flags up at the veteran's memorial at the White River Cemetery. 

When Your Favorite Blouse (and Other Worn Out Things) Must Go

 It had been my favorite top for years--this cozy blue and white cotton floral top with pretty scalloped crocheted lace edging around the wrists and waist.  I had found it at a very small thrift shop somewhere up in the mountains where I had gone with Jonathan when he had a job in the mountains of Colorado.

Inside it was fuzzy soft, and outside it was sturdy and resistant to dirt. But little by little, it had become worn, faded, and dingy, and finally there were slight stains that just would not quite come out. 

It was time to say goodbye to my beloved blouse. I cut it up into pieces for rags so I would not second guess myself, and also so that it would not seem that I just threw it away. The pretty blue and white floral pieces would still be useful.

I've thrown a shirt or two of Jonathan's away recently, maybe a pair of jeans, and another one or two of my skirts and tops. 
It was just time--time to let go of our favorite, worn out articles of clothing. 

"There is a time for every purpose under heaven," Ecclesiastes tells us. There is a time to gather, and a time to throw away. 

For worn out clothes and unnecessary items in our home, the time has come. 

It's hard to let go of things--unless you love being a minimalist. It feels wasteful. You think about poor people in Africa, refugees, and others who would welcome an old top, a shirt with a worn collar, or holey jeans.

Also, if you live in South Dakota where you must travel sometimes hours to get anywhere to shop, it is downright scary to get rid of things. What if you need them later on? 

What if the economy crashes and you wish you had kept all those sawed-off parts of plumbing pipes and scraps of electrical wire and boxes of leftover stuff from jobs that were finished and had to be cleaned up?

What if you end up needing the chain saw that doesn't work and the tool that is missing a part and one of the very out-of-date stories that you've saved all these years for Sunday School?

 But sometimes hanging on to things hampers our life. We spend an awful lot of time hunting through our stuffed closet for a blouse or skirt or shirt or pants appropriate for whatever occasion while several totes of clothing are stowed away in the attic.

Our mission director's wife was telling me tonight about how her brother (the dad of these children above to whom Crystal read stories during staff meeting recently) is clearing most of the "stuff" out of the huge shop/barn that belongs to the mission, to make room for what is really needed, including activities that need space. 

It's kind of scary, watching all those things go.

It's a good thing, but a painful experience. Seeing a special memento leaving for good can be hurt, just like saying goodbye to my favorite blouse was seriously painful.

But because space, dignity, and self-respect are important, I will decide that it's just time.

The stained and worn top, however loved, must go. 

The worn out hankie must become a rag. 

And the holey jeans, too worn for denim crafts, must find a hideout in the wastebasket. 

It must go and make space for the new and better.

It's time has come. 

Apple Schnitz--and Stuffed Jalapenos

 I'm at it again--finding ways to use or put away the bushels of apples the children picked a couple weeks ago. (Well, that's been a few weeks ago by now.)

Some of the best apples are stored in the basement, but the ones with bad spots, squirrel bites, or bruises I have been cutting up little by little.  .

I layer them on the plastic racks of my dehydrator and dry them overnight or all day long, hoping they'll come out as yummy as the apple snitz made by our old friends the Guenthers, an old order Mennonite family who made friends with our family way back in the Dark Ages when I was about 12 years old. 

That wonderful family (with whom we still keep in touch by hand-written letters) shared bags of apple snitz with us, dried in their ovens, and those were such delectable treats to a family of eight children  at that time, who didn't have many treats. 

I do have to keep an eye on the snitz I make here, though, because Danny likes them too much.

I also slice or dice apples to freeze, bag after bag in our freezer, for future apple crisps and apple cakes.  

Unsprayed apples are one of the healthiest things I can feed my family and myself

So are jalapenos, I suppose. My brother Fain who arrived yesterday from Missouri for a few days, brought a whole slew of these hot delectables from his garden. 

He made his own recipe of cheese-stuffed jalapenos for the evening meal after evening church at Mission tonight...

while his wife Regina and I started a puzzle that my brother Hoshea had in that sunshine basket. 

Regina enjoys puzzles on a Sunday afternoon, and Hannah and I joined her. 

I'm not a puzzle person, but I don't mind finding a few pieces, especially if it means spending meaningful time with a sister-in-law whom I first met in Honduras 32 years ago when Fain was starting to be sweet on her. 

But I better close this post while it focuses on mere apples, jalapenos, and puzzles--

before I start into another love story.

Orange Lips--Trying to Compensate

One morning (while I still had some hair left) I was running around the house looking like this (maybe minus the smile). I don't remember whether I discovered the orange lips when I looked in the mirror or if my youngest daughter came on the scene and looked a bit scandalized, or just what.

 

Either way, I came to realize that my lips looked a bit--shall we say, unusually gorgeous (if you agree that lips this orange are gorgeous.) Or maybe I was just trying to match the elk hunters going out in their orange gear.  

The orange culprit was not lipstick. It was my astaxanthan supplement. (And if you can't pronounce that, don't worry. I couldn't at first either.) But the point is, that supplement is a very dark red, oily substance, and I am supposed to eat ten drops of it a day. It is an anti-inflammatory, anti-this and anti-that supplement that cured somebody and maybe a lot of somebodies of cancer. I don't expect it to cure mine, but I figured it might help at least in the battle. So I choose to eat it with a few bites of my scrambled egg and avocado for breakfast, and if I'm not super careful, my lips end up like this without me knowing it till I look in the mirror.

I asked myself if the orange "lipstick" would make up for my future lack of hair, to compensate, you know! 

I am not sure what Mr. Elk's opinion was of the matter, but I was having way too much fun with these pictures (taken several weeks ago by now).

Yes, definitely having way, way too much fun with these pictures!

 

My Newest Book--Number Seven!

 Last week I was excited to receive by UPS three boxes of new books--my seventh.

 

It is the story of the trip my brother and I took with a team to the land of the dragon in the year 1 9 8 9. 

We were there during the famous (or rather infamous) Tia nan men Square Mass acre in the capitol of the country. 

Yes, that event did drastically affect our trip, even though we were a thousand miles away.

Under His Wings in China  has finally been published after months of trying to squeeze in finishing final formatting and editing details. I wrote the stories in a matter of about three weeks, as I combed through the very tiny handwriting in my brother Elon's old journal and mine of those very full two weeks of taking the gospel in unconventional and quiet ways. Writing the stories was the fun part. Then comes the working through the manuscript, editing, considering whether to leave in certain questionable or controversial or personal parts. Most or all of those were scratched!

Meanwhile, a couple weeks ago I filled most of a box with several each of my other books to send to an address that will get the books to a Christian bookstore in Mexico. A Mennonite lady who met my brother Elon's family in Mexico when my niece Amaris was at a clinic in Mexico was given a book of mine and wants more for her bookstore. The one book she already has of mine has gone from one hand to another there, being read to a dying  relative and to a lady who was unable to read herself.  

I am so happy to hear stories of my books being read and enjoyed.  

So I keep writing.