His Hand on Mine

Wednesday this week I had my second round of chemo. We didn't have a great start to the day as I could hardly get out of bed or stay awake on our trip to Rapid City, thanks to the anti-nausea med I was supposed to take the night before chemo. I had hoped to drive at least part of the way so that Jonathan could do some paperwork on his laptop or phone, but I was too dangerously drowsy. He was often on the phone that day trying to help a fellow missionary, Ned Sherman, who was having to put in a propane wall heater for a parishioner. He was also on the phone with Danny at times, working through details of the work crew sawing logs for firewood for the reservation and mission.

   I felt as if there wasn't anything this trip to look forward to--just chemo and the usual stops for business materials and groceries plus a stop at the mill for oats for our animals and another stop at Farm and Fleet for chicken scratch feed. 

Plus, when we arrived at the cancer center, we discovered that though my blood was drawn at 8:40, and then a visit with my oncologist at 9:40, I'd have to wait until 2:00 p.m. for the infusion! I would have to wait four whole hours!

I tried not to fall into despair and managed because I was too out of it to think straight enough to even be upset. 

"You could have the nurse call upstairs," the lady said who had checked me in and helped me know where to go at which time. "She could ask if they could get you in earlier."

So I asked my oncologist about that, and she said her nurse would call up to see if by chance the second floor infusion nurses could work me in. And guess what? 

"She can come right up!" they replied. 

I went right up, and within minutes a very sweet young nurse had me started. 

Each needle poke that day was extra painful, but I got through it. 

The fact that the center could rearrange the schedule for me was such a mercy, that the mercy overshadowed the hard things. 

It reminded me of what a dear man prayed for us at Faith Missionary Chapel in Mitchell Sunday night where we visited and stayed overnight on our way to our medical appointments in Sioux Falls.

"Carry them through this difficult time in their lives," he prayed. 

And God was carrying me. 

There was more than one mercy that chemo day--including the chicken scratch feed we needed being  on sale. 

God was carrying me even when I went to sleep on the way home (again with Jonathan driving due to how drowsy I still was) except when I jerked awake, terrified, when we went over bumps with a trailer on behind.

It was loaded with about 740 pounds of oats to hopefully last our chickens and goats a long time, but it also made the bumps a bit more bumpy. 

But it's the chemo that makes me nearly go through the roof when I jerk awake after I fall asleep after the infusion. It happens nearly every time. 

Jonathan noticed, of course. And as I settled my frantic self back to snooze again, I felt him reach over and just place his hand on mine. 

God was carrying me once again, and I felt not only Jonathan's hand on mine, but His.

Cold Owl Ears--and Shutting Out the Upsetting Noise

"There are so many things to be upset about," our pastor said Sunday at church after reading the call to worship where Jesus said, 'Peace I leave with you." 

 

Yes indeed.

The riots in Minneapolis, the deaths of acquaintances, the possible government shutdown, people in pain from cancer or other issues, the relentless attacks by Russia on Ukraine, especially Kiev right now.

We have personal acquaintances living 20 miles from Kiev, and their house was shaking from the explosions in Kiev a few days ago. Another pastor we know is 30 miles from Kiev. Could he feel the explosions? I don't know. 

I just know that on Sunday morning our dear aging pastor, with a Peace Lily plant behind him, admonished us to lay aside being upset with many things and simply come and worship before our God. 

Sometimes we may have to put on spiritual ear plugs (or very literal ones like our daughter and son-in-law put on their baby at a noisy rodeo at the Denver Stock Show recently). 

I think of a plaque we have hanging on our wall: "Make time for quiet moments, as God whispers and the world is loud."

 And so on Sunday morning, 

at a warm chapel in the middle of the freezing cold, we made time for quiet moments of worship.

Danny had prepared a message titled, "Faithfulness in little things."

He talked about faithfulness in chores such as milking goats,

in starting one's day by making the bed,

in remembering to read the Bible and pray,

and in sorting one's socks before throwing them all into the drawer in one big mess instead of matching them ahead of time!

But even in the weekdays, we can make time for quiet moments--

because God whispers while the world is loud. 

 

Birdless January Blahs--and This, Too, Shall Pass

Our January has been so bird-less that I must resort to taking pictures of cold turkeys in the middle of the city of Sioux Falls on my way to medical appointments. 

They looked so totally cold, and I didn't blame them because our vehicle thermometer had registered about 10 degrees that morning.  

Is this where they get the saying " stopped cold turkey"? 

I loved the scene with the flag! It had been an almost bird-less January for me. Even our friendly woodpeckers seemed to have disappeared. Even our pastor's wife has noticed not many birds at all coming to her feeder. She thinks it's because we've had so little snow this winter that birds are able to keep finding grain and seeds in fields around us and don't come to the feeder. 

Our dry weather is quite unlike other sections of the country, such as Virginia where my older sister lives and where her daughter created an Ice Heart on a bench on their deck! I loved it!

Or North Dakota where my youngest brother lives and where he said he was fighting a losing battle with the snow drift at his door. 

And where the temperature had dropped to at least 28 below zero and a wind chill more like 45 or 60 below at times. 

If I want birds, I have to hang pictures--or embroider them! But "this too shall pass," Jonathan reminded me the other day after something had happened that weighed on our spirits. 

And I have so much to be grateful for, such as the beautiful bouquet a friend surprised me with last week on Tuesday. 

LaDawn Smith stopped by with this bouquet of lilies that opened so sunnily within days. Then I invited their family for supper, and we had so much fun playing a game together after supper, worship, and Jonathan reading them the first chapter of my book Cowboy Sam Learns to Ranch. That chapter is so hilarious as we green ranchers tried to learn our way about buying animals at the auction and raising them successfully. We gave the book to them as a gift, but they said they wished Jonathan could read the rest of the book out loud because they liked to watch us grin guiltily or laugh at ourselves outright as we read about our crazy decisions and silly outcomes and yet the delicious pork sausage we finally ended up with in that story. 

I stood by my bird wall hanging for this picture of me with my thick hair that has been growing in so nicely, and I do so hope it won't all fall out again as it did last time when I started chemo. I'm not getting so much chemo this time, just some alongside the herceptin drug, and maybe, just maybe I can keep at least some of my hair. 

"This too shall pass," 

just like our birdless January suddenly has birds in it!

We spied two juncos that have discovered our birdfeeder in the tree and are finding bird seed on the ground as well where the wind must have blown it. 

My Mom's 86th Birthday

Yesterday on January 27th, my mom turned 86 years old. Just for fun I discovered on google that many famous and important people share that same birthday

 including musicians Wolfgang Mozart and Schubert,

 author Lewis Carroll (who wrote Alice in Wonderland), 

Edward Smith who was captain of the fated Titanic, 

and in 1940  Brian T O'Leary, astronaut, born in Boston, Massachusetts. Fun tidbits!

On this day yesterday, nearly every relative who lives nearby (except those who were gone to Mexico or Africa) stopped in to spend some time with her. She had put on the cheery yellow dress that my dear sister-in-law Regina had sewed for her before leaving for Mexico. (She sews my mom a new dress once or twice a year, because she is probably the only one in our family who knows how to make them the way my mom likes them. We sisters are so thankful for her caring about my mom's favorite dress style and making them faithfully. My sister Joella arrived with Laura, beautiful roses, and matching dresses!

"How did you end up matching?" I asked, figuring it was planned. 

It was not. 

"It was a miracle!" Joella quipped. She had brought gingerbread, and later veggie pizzas were brought in, besides other things to eat and have for leftovers for her. 

Isn't this beauty for drooling over! I loved this bouquet! Thanks to my dear sister Joella. I just sent a homemade card with a book of stamps that my mom always appreciates as much as anything. 

This little great grandbaby was born to Jesse and Salinn and big brother Elias a few days before Mom's birthday, Cheyanne Renee Barth.

And here's what Danny was doing on Mom's birthday, working with BHE guys to put in a better sink situation at the Antelope Community Center. Every cupboard in the place had a padlock on it and since no one was there to unlock them so the guys could work under the sink, they were directed to cut the locks. 

So they did. And they put bigger, better sinks in so community people can wash or fill or scrub big pots. The old sink was too small. 

The Baby I Didn't Think I Could Manage

Yesterday at one of my medical appointments I noticed that my nurse (whom I've known for a couple years now) looked ready to have a baby soon. She is such a nice nurse that I was excited for her, and glad for the baby to have such a wonderful mother--a wonderful mother like my niece whose baby made the third in a 3-generation photo my sister Joella sent a couple days ago.

As this nurse and I talked, she told me that she was thirty-seven years old, "too old to have another baby," she sighed, looking weary. I understood. I had our Tim at age 37. I felt satisfied after that. He was our fifth, and that was enough babies.

This is his home in western Colorado--all lit up because our fifth son loves light in otherwise dark places.

But back to my story. At age 37 I had Tim and thought he would be our last--but he wasn't. At age 40, I told the nurse, I had another baby, Danny. And then at age 43, I found out I was pregnant again.

I think of that day every time we watch the March for Life in Washington, D.C., as we did again last Friday--along with our cat. I remember standing in front of my dresser, having just found out I was pregnant again--and telling God, "I can't do it."

I was too exhausted.

I was too old. 

I remember that day as I watch the different marchers and their posters in January in our nation's capital. These posters were a couple of my favorites, the one in the center being one that made me almost tear up. 

"Thank you, Mom," says a little cowboy.

And I remember that day in my bedroom, completely overwhelmed, realizing that this is how some women feel who choose to not give their baby life. I know how it felt to feel I couldn't do it. 
I was a Christian and already a mom of children, but I felt I just couldn't physically do this again. 

How could this be happening to me all over again?

That is when a Psalm came to mind. 

God wanted me to stop beating myself up for what was happening. It wasn't somehow just my fault that I got pregnant when I was that old and not planning for this.

He reminded me, "It is He who has made us and not we ourselves."

I suddenly knew that it wasn't my husband and I who had made that baby. 

It was God.

That was the comfort that got me through eight miserable months of pregnancy with its related morning sickness, hip pain, weariness, prolapsed bladder, and other miseries. It also helped that my older sister Dorcas was pregnant with her ninth and last baby--all at the same time I was--and she was fifteen months older than I!

I shared a little of this with my nurse and told her how that baby whose pregnancy I thought I couldn't do, was right at that moment giving up her plans for the day so she could drive our friends to Pierre for a medical appointment.  

Mrs. Ambrose, who is also fighting cancer, hadn't slept much the night before and was feeling terrible and just didn't know how she was going to stay awake to drive her husband to his appointment. 

She had texted to ask me to pray for her to stay awake on that long trip. 

Instead, I called Hannah who said she could drop everything and go with them.

They were needing to leave immediately. 

Hannah had been up on time, done her animal chores, and could be ready in minutes.

The baby I couldn't do is now driving one person after another to medical appointments, cheering their day by helping them or gardening with them, and helping organize my home and keep it halfway cleaned up. 

Today when I stopped for a few minutes at Mrs. Ambrose's home, she told me how they had enjoyed taking Hannah out to eat at Perkins and watching her so thoroughly enjoy her breakfast platter with a whole pile of yummy pancakes!

And in Sioux Falls clinic after the nurse had drawn my blood, I was telling her what a blessing our two youngest children were that I had borne well after being "too old" for it. 

I told her how at that very minute Danny was taking Jonathan's place supervising reservation men who were sawing firewood for the reservation and some for the mission. Officials had arranged that if Building Hope Enterprise workers would saw firewood, the mission could have half of it. So while we parents were at medical appointments in Sioux Falls, Danny was giving a crash course to the guys on chainsaw safety and use, and they were bringing three trailer loads of logs to the community.

This afternoon I was spending time praying and thought about the baby I heard about Sunday as we fellowshipped after church service.

"She's a meth baby," a lady told us, "what do you call it?"

We couldn't remember in the moment, but today it popped into my head. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

The mother no longer had the baby, and a relative was taking care of it.

"Does the tribe help take care of a baby in this situation?" I asked. 

Dumb question, I suppose. 

"No," the lady shook her head, the lady who has helped care for who knows how many children, young people, and relatives of her own. 

Of course not. 

But God cares about each one, even when the tribe doesn't.

And when a weary mother who is "too old" to have another baby ends up with one, He cares about that, too, and today I am blessed with the baby I thought I couldn't manage. 

Giving Sons, Glorious Message, Godward Music

 Today I was surprised to see that my brother Elon was calling me on the phone. When I answered, there was a sort of Elon-style grunt on the other end (family dynamic for me as a sister). Then as I cheerily greeted him with a "good morning," there was just a flat, toneless, "Hi." 

I sensed that something was maybe not quite the same with Elon, because even if he does some silly grunt when I call him, he usually quickly becomes human. This was taking some coaxing this time. 

"How are you?" I asked, unable to think of a silly way to respond to tonelessness.  

"Sad," he said. 

One word. No explanation. 

Suddenly I remembered.

Elon's son Ezra had flown to Africa today. Elon admitted that he was on his way home from taking Ezra to St. Louis Airport this morning and had seen his oldest son off with a one-way ticket. He does not know when he will see him again. 

But he gave him anyway. 

The words came to me later, "Give of thy sons to bear the message glorious..." from the hymn "O Zion Haste."

Elon was sad, but he still gave. 

God had done no less for us. 

But it's still hard to say goodbye to the sons and daughters we love, the ones we raised from babyhood, the ones who have been a blessing to us so many years, 

especially when they are flying thousands of miles away for an indefinite amount of time. Ezra has a three-year visa. 

And yet, if they don't go, who will?

Stephen Gibson, our former coworker in Ukraine, former president of EFM and current president of Holiness Pilgrim Mission, has been put on hospice, and who will fill his shoes?

Ezra has worked with Stephen Gibson for years with Shepherds Global Curriculum online, and now Ezra is going to Africa himself.

Others are saying goodbye as well. My brother Fain and Regina said goodbye to their son David who traveled to Mexico recently to spent a couple months (at least) immersing himself in culture and language there, and they are joining him soon for a couple weeks. 

My sister Joella this year said goodbye to her son Ethan and his sister Charity as they enrolled at Penn View and now are both involved with Penn View's music groups. 

Tuesday evening we watched the groups at their commissioning service at Beavertown God's Missionary Church. (Charity is the girl on the far left in the photo above.) 

 One of the ways to carry the glorious message of the gospel is in song, and I so appreciated the music Tuesday evening, including the acapella hymn, "All That Thrills My Soul Is Jesus" which Charity was part of.

And so we give our sons and daughters,

to carry a glorious message

with Godward music and ministry. 

And though our feelings may be sad,

our hearts still give

to a world that is reaching--

for God first gave His Son for us. 

The Moose, the Van, and the Not-So-Ordinary Day

A few days ago, I was looking through chapter titles for a certain topic in a book by one of my favorite authors, Dorcas Smucker. Her story about a not-so-ordinary day making her thankful for the ordinary, blah ones caught my attention--partly because it had to do with the topic I was searching for, but also because I was going through a few days of January blahs myself. 

We were running out of propane because we'd forgotten to call in for propane, so I was cooking on the woodstove and even making homemade laundry soap on it (which is actually extraordinary and enjoyable) but it meant I wasn't baking or doing any extra laundry or much that required spigot hot water or propane. 

We made waffles with the waffle iron one morning so we wouldn't be cooking on the propane stove. 

And there wasn't any particularly fascinating, tragic, or wonderful news from relations to chat about on chats. 

I was just doing ordinary things on cold days after chemo like editing and cooking and embroidering and dishes and gathering eggs and working on newsletters and bringing in firewood and dusting my bedroom furniture. 

I realized I was wanting drama (because, for one thing, I LOVE stories!) and I had to check myself.

It was okay to have some blah days.

Drab days.

No drama days. 
Because, as former Mennonite missionary Dorcas Smucker wrote about one of her days as a missionary in Canada, the drama of hitting a moose on a sub-zero-temp day on a Canadian road

and having the van catch on fire 

and having to singlehandedly get all her little children out and try to snatch some coats and blankets from the back of the van before the gas tank exploded

made her forever afterward never be ungrateful for the ordinary day! 

In case you think I made up that story, here is the link to it, and I recommend you read this spell-binding story for yourself.

https://dorcassmucker.blogspot.com/2008/07/while-were-at-it-official-van-moose.html

This photo is not of the burning van about 30 years ago, but of a house fire (probably caused by arson) that Danny spent hours at yesterday. He had just passed a 2-hour online test as part of his Firefighter I or II training that very morning, and then worked at this fire site most of the afternoon, coming home with a terrible headache probably from dehydration working inside his heavy firefighter suit. 

It could have been our house that burnt. 

Shouldn't I be thankful for every "ordinary" day?

Baby Meets Baby-Ellie and Titus

Last weekend, our daughter Rose in Colorado was so happy to have her cousin Susanna arrive with hubby and baby for the weekend. 

 Susanna had encouraged Rose so many times and been another first-time mom for Rose to confide in during pregnancy and early motherhood.

Finally they had a chance to get together with their babies! Of course, this grandma dearly loves any pictures this one or that one sent. 

 I don't know which of these three pictures....

 is more charming!

So I put all three on. 

Ellie appears to not be too sure about things in this scene.  

 

L-R Elizabeth Hagerty (who is dating my nephew Reggie Miller), Pearl Morley, our Carrie, Rose and baby, Caitlyn (and baby unborn!), Carrie Morley, and Susanna together Sunday in Colorado at Carrie's place.  

They and other cousins attended a day of the Denver Stock Show, and I enjoyed these cute pictures. 

 

Rose said this amazing pig named Spankey could sit, play dead, dribble a ball and put it in a basket ball hoop and even open a mailbox to get the mail out! 

The cousins preferred the stock show to protesters screaming and politicians undermining.

Two mothers sat together with their babies,

and kissed their little ones.