The Strange Song in the Night that You Probably Didn't Want to Hear

"Did you know that you were singing in your sleep last night?" Jonathan asked me last Sunday morning as we were eating breakfast in the basement of the Lower Brule Holiness Church where we had been working on the foundation with a team from Mitchell Saturday.

No, I had no idea. It was absolutely the last thing that I would have expected of myself that night.
We had been sleeping all over the church--the boys up in front of the pulpit on cots,
 
Rose and Hannah downstairs in a basement room on cots,

and Jonathan and me in this room off the vestibule, a room so tiny that we couldn't even walk around the bed!

I wasn't sure what I might have been singing--and was afraid to ask!

Was it about our wonderful Savior...

or did I sound like one of the drunks of the town that we had been duly warned about from Brandie Eberhardt and told not to open the church door if they banged on it in the middle of the night?

Afraid of the latter, I wisely decided not to ask any more questions until later--but more about that later.

As I said, we were there at Lower Brule to try to repair the one foundation wall that was literally caving in.

 Jonathan had brought these three long steel rams that he put together and fastened to the floor at one end, while the other end pushed against steel plates that were pushing the cracking, bowing wall back into place. 

We had arrived Friday evening, and Brandie Eberhardt, the lady who drives 1 1/2 hrs. every weekend to keep this little mission church alive on the reservation, greeted us with lots of genuine appreciation, and loads of wonderful food!

I especially appreciated this wonderful fresh salad sent from the Staffords, with cucumbers, peppers and cherry tomatoes that Brandie said were from Pastor and Mrs. Stafford's garden at Mitchell.

Due to our worries about limiting chiggers and their bites, we finished jacking the rams against the cracked and bowing walls that first evening, and headed off for showers to try to wash off any chiggers we might have gotten that day at Winner. Jonathan was itching with a few bites, too, again, but not nearly as many as I was, thanks to plum picking!

We drove 15 minutes away to the Fort Thompson church and school where there is another mission on the reservation, one that Rev. Lindell Howard pastors.

It has this nice sanctuary 

and even a small school building which is being used for Sunday School classes...

 and rooms for some of the mission folk, to stay overnight, who drive a long ways out from Mitchell to help minister on Sunday.

There was a shower there, and we all took turns and then came back to Lower Brule and went to bed the first night.

Next morning we were up and at it. Bro. Matt Hunter had brought out his mini excavator to excavate the earth on the other side of that cracking wall, so that the wall could be successfully pushed back level. He had already done the excavating the morning before and Pastor Stafford from Mitchell had been on the other side, doing other earth moving.

Jonathan needed two spots especially cleared out in which to form up buttress walls to hold the wall in place.

Sam cut into the concrete basement wall, so that we could join the concrete buttresses into the wall.

Twelve men and boys came out from Mitchell to help! They were a wonderful crew. There were Hunter, Lyon, Duvall, and Light boys, Samuel Blowers, Sam Lyon, Matt Hunter, David Buchanan (president of Faith Bible School), and others whose names I didn't get.

They built forms for the buttress walls, mixed cement by hand and poured the walls, drilled holes through the concrete basement wall into which to put rebar to tie the wall together to the buttress walls.

Then they backfilled. They also mixed a little extra concrete to try to fix the uneven floor of the basement where it met at the crack, with one part about an inch or more higher and causing us to trip!

Meanwhile, Rose and I helped Brandie with setting meals on.

We so appreciated any of the fresh vegetables!

I also prepared a story for Sunday School, as Brandie had asked me on the phone a couple weeks earlier if I would share a story. 

I also tried to iron our Sunday clothes, ironing on an old piano bench sitting in the back of the church.

I first ironed right on the bench, but that was a disaster, because the top I was ironing stuck to the varnish on the bench!

It was my nice light green top, the nicest top I own, my favorite, one that actually isn't too big or too little and is the color Jonathan likes best on me, and that I wear under a lacy jacket, and it suddenly had brown varnish on the back of it! Oh, dear!! I hastily scrubbed my top with soap and water, and amazingly, most of the brown came out.

So I laid another clothing article down first and then ironed the Sunday clothes on top of that...

Then after the fun evening I posted about earlier, we went back to the school at Fort Thompson to shower again.
And that is where, while we took turns showering, Brandie told us her story about being bitten by a brown recluse spider, and the hole it made in her face before it healed up!

We shared our own horror story about my nephew's wife's sister who had been bitten by a copperhead snake on Wednesday of that week. And Brandie warned us not to take walks down the street the church was on, because a Sunday School child's grandmother had walked down the street very recently and had been attacked by three pit bull dogs!
So you can imagine what was running through my mind the night that Jonathan told me I was singing in my sleep!
Brown recluse spider bites, copperhead snakes, pit bulls attacking helpless grannies, and maddening chigger itches!
There I was, trying to sleep on a sagging mattress poked here and there with bed springs,
no curtains on the windows, no air conditioning, and dozens of spiders weaving their way around the front church door.
But right in the middle of that, when I gave Jonathan a goodnight hug and kiss, I had told him that I was so happy to get to come together with him on this trip!

 I had spent just a few minutes after lunch, getting in online on the very end of Paul and Jacinda [Edwards] Stetler's wedding that day.

 I just love weddings, and we were acquainted with both bride and groom a little, as one or the other or both have been out west here to our church different times in the last few years.
The wedding was the epitome of elegance and class. It was gorgeous, romantic, and fabulous, all at the same time that the bride was beautifully modest and her bridesmaids were so refreshingly modest.
And of course, after all these years, with Paul Stetler nearly 40, bride and groom seemed sooo happy!
And then I sat there and thought.
I thought about how I was happy for them, but--I was happy for me, too!
I was so happy right where I was in this little Native American church on a South Dakota reservation,

right in the middle of dirt and mouse droppings and anything-but-honeymoon sleeping arrangements,  

and would be right in the middle of a bunch of wild kids the next day when they got off the bus.

But I wasn't jealous of Paul and Jacinda's happiness.
I had my own happiness!
I still have my own husband after 24 years of wedded bliss (with a few misses in with the kisses),
and I was happy. 
In fact, I wasn't sure that Paul and Jacinda could be much happier than I was.
And perhaps that is where the strange song in the night came from.

 "You were humming at first," Jonathan told me, when I finally dared to ask what I was actually singing. "Then you were singing!"
"What was I singing?" I asked.
"I don't know," he admitted, "something unintelligible."
Something like a drunk, I suppose!
Still, I had to smile to myself.
Right in the middle of the dirt and the droppings and the dreary low-class environment of a reservation,
right in the middle of a sagging bed with chigger bites all over me, God had given me a song in the night.!

Footprints in the South Dakota Sand

A week and a day ago, there were Lucas footprints in the South Dakota sand along the Missouri River.

We'd been through some rough weeks of financial blows; long, agonizing night hours of travel, 

days of hard work at Native American Indian reservations,

 and then suddenly the missionary at Lower Brule told us the welcome words, "You are done with your part of the job! Go have some time off!"

And so we explored a side road (on our way to another church/school where we would shower)

and kicked off our shoes.

It was a picture of joyful abandonment--heavy work shoes kicked off and left lying in the sand

while the wearers ran off to wade in the cool water.
That is, all except me.
Yes, me, Anna Lucas.
 
I was still in the truck, because I was suffering with about 18 (I counted them so I could tell you) maddeningly itchy chigger bites and I didn't want to walk in the wild, unmowed South Dakota grass and just get more bites. I had gotten these ones after going into the thick underbrush two days earlier to pick wild plums that we ladies would help Sis. Judy Sherman turn into plum jam.

It was such fun picking those plums that Beth Montour said we could have at the edge of her house's property right next to the church! Only the Lord knows how delightful it was to get back under some wild little trees and pick gallons of fruit, as if I were back in Pennsylvania. 

Except for the unexpected chiggers--and their red, itchy bites that didn't show up till the next day.

We thought there weren't supposed to be any chiggers this year, as they said it had been cooler and hardly any chiggers.

Well, Anna is so good at finding things, and if South Dakota had any chiggers this year, Anna Lucas would most certainly be the one to find them.

And she did.

So while the others jumped out of the truck and ran out onto the Missouri shore, I sat there,

not really unhappily, because I was preserving myself from all the bites they were going to get!!

But I was there all by myself until Jonathan came back. 

I watched him coming, and I had a stubborn streak come on.

I was NOT going to let him persuade me to go out into that grass and get more bites.

Not on your life.

Not until he told me that it was beautiful out there and I really must come and enjoy it with them--

and that he would carry me!

Well, that did it!

What lonely, chigger-bitten little wife like me could resist her big, strong, work-booted husband reaching around me and picking me up in his strong arms and carrying me, laughing,

like he did on our wedding day,

out through the wild, buggy grasses and onto the sand and into the waves.

It was such a happy, peaceful evening, enjoying the sandy shore along the river or reservoir or whatever it was, (we never did know for sure,we just went down a road and found a pleasant spot like we usually do) 

resting for a little while from the work and heat of the day.

We had first spent three days working at Winner, helping to finish siding the church we had started siding last year and hadn't been able to finish.

One of my jobs was to scrub off pieces of siding that had gotten dirty. Here Keith Lavery is handing me a bucket and dishsoap and a big roll of heavy paper towels.

I could write a whole story about Keith Lavery's lift that we used.

 

 It had this embarrassing habit of backfiring with a huge, fiery explosion every time you started it up and then hit a certain button (I couldn't tell you which one, but Jonathan taught Rose how to start the thing and hit this disastrous button, which pleased Rose immensely
and which also resulted one evening in  police arriving on the scene!

 

 Someone had called in a gunshot! 

I sat there watching police cars pull in, one after the other, and the first police walk by me in the truck where I happened to be sitting at the moment, 

then hesitate just a moment at the corner, with his hand suddenly going to his weapon at his side.
(Envision drunk, out-of-control, red-eyed monsters named the Lunatic-Lucas-Lavery-Loonies about to blow up the whole town...)

We had to let the police know it was just a harmless mission church construction crew with a wild and ornery lift that was trying to let everyone in the neighborhood know we were there!

I was still sitting in the truck when the police walked by again, on the radio letting headquarters know that it was just a construction crew working on a church!
That crazy lift would barely move, taking six minutes to lift whoever was on it up a few yards to where they needed to work, and then other times it would go rather fast and jerk and careen, and you had to hope it wouldn't butt right into the new siding and create a disaster! But once it got up where it needed to be, it was a great help.

I could also tell you stories about caulking. Jonathan asked me if I wanted to caulk, and--

no, I didn't.

I stood there not wanting to caulk with all my heart.

1) I did not know how.

2) I did not think it was a ladylike job.

BUT--
there was no one to do the caulking while the men and boys were hard at work with the huge job of siding, most of them on the other side of the church.
Soooo--I learned how to caulk.
And do you know, it was actually fun! I caulked a lot. I couldn't reach the tall spots. Jonathan had to get some of them. I just get heebie-jeebies that high up on ladders.

 But I did what I could. I mourned to Keith Lavery that I was using up the caulk tubes awfully fast. He didn't seem perturbed. He just seemed to be glad we were there to help, even us ladies, even if I was using up twice too much caulk for a greenhorn caulker.
But please don't go looking very close!!
Oh please!

On second thought, go ahead and look. 

And then you come and do the job next time. I would be only too happy to let you do the   job!

We had spent three days working there, until the siding ran out, and it would be days before some could arrive. So we had to leave before the work was quite done, but I heard a couple days ago that the siding was supposed to be finished that day.

Anyway, after all that, and working at Lower Brule, too, (pictures on that later)

we were here at this spot along the Missouri/river/reservoir water.

The children happily hunted for flat stones to skip on the water.

And Jonathan and I happily watched them.

They happily discovered, collected, and caught toads--and I happily admired them.

Out there with the Missouri pebbles in South Dakota, out there with the wild flowers,
out there with my husband and children and chigger bites...

...out there with one set of footprints leading through the sand.
So we pause in our lives at times, stuck in our trucks,
itching with insect bites and bugged by bloopers,
and we can't make ourselves go any further.

And that is where He steps up to our truck door and holds out His arms.
There is joy awaiting just a few steps away through the wild and woolly weeds
 at the cool shore of His grace and peace.

Will you let Him carry you today, too?

Our 24th Anniversary--and Peanut Butter on My Pillow and God Provides Popcorn from Mormons !!

After being away, the internet at home being down, or just plain not having time, I am posting once again. Jonathan wanted a picture of me on the little bridge in our back yard the day before our anniversary, and I asked Timmy to take a picture of both of us since we were celebrating our 24th anniversary that weekend.

(Timmy noted that there was a star over his mother's head! Not sure what that was supposed to mean!! :)

Maybe this picture (don't ask me how it got this way) is a little more realistic of our life--a bit topsy-turvy at times! :) Since we had just taken a trip to Texas and were going to be leaving in a few days for South Dakota, we celebrated our anniversary "in our own back yard."

All these beautiful sunflowers came up all on their own in the back yard, and we couldn't bear to get rid of them.  God has His ways of making sure a flower-loving wife and mother gets lots of beauty in her back yard even when so many other flowers she planted never flourished.

It makes us realize how very  much we totally depend on God for the outcome of everything in our lives. We can work so hard to make something happen, whether it's to grow a flower garden or raise a godly family, or see a church or mission or Kids Club flourish, but it is truly only God Who gives the increase.

Sometimes the increase comes from sources and in places you don't expect at all--and then God gets all the glory!

 Jonathan took me out to eat at Las Palmitas, since I had a buy-one-get-one-free coupon for there. I know you're probably not supposed to use coupons on your anniversary meal...but as long as his meal got paid for and mine was free--hey, I can think of better ways to spend the anniversary money we saved.  

 I just love the--oh dear, what is the name of this Mexican goulash?? Oh help!

It has savory broth and mushrooms and chicken and steak slices and onions and sweet red and green peppers, and who knows what else in it, and is served in a huge castiron bowl so it stays hot a long time, and makes you have to wait and eat slowly and patiently and enjoy yourself and the food.

PLUS, this plate of rice and beans and salsa topped with avocado came with it!

Was I able to eat the whole thing? You guess!

Did he eat his whole plate? You guess!

I want to share some things that I am thankful for about my Jonathan, things that have happened just in the last few weeks.

Here is something I heard with my own ears recently about him and his work crew.

"They have exceeded expectations!"

Just a couple days ago Jonathan was talking to a former lawyer for whom he had done a remodel job of a cute little cabin north of the Springs. The cabin had received hail damage in the last hail storms, and when the insurance adjuster came down from inspecting the damage to the roof, he told the lawyer,

"Whoever did your roof did a VERY good job! You need to have the same person come to do it again!"

Well, the person who did that roof was Jonathan!

He didn't lie around sulking in bed because something went wrong in his life and/or business.

"Never despair," I've often remembered the saying I have kept for many years in my Bible.

"But if you do, work on in despair."
We are both working on in despair. I have pitched in as much as I could, such as the morning before we left for South Dakota when Timmy and I hurried out early in the morning before breakfast to finish staining these banister rails for a deck job Jonathan was doing. We got them done and then we had to start packing.

Jonathan works on, day in and day out, meeting clients, going to Regional for paperwork and permits, scheduling inspections, supervising myriad details of the jobs, discussing details with homeowners, signing contracts, making an unexpected trip to Denver to deal with more government red tape, and all manner of other things, plus scheduling work on Mission Helps projects like the ones we did two weeks ago (more on those later).

Which brings me to peanut butter on my pillow.

That is the name of this hilarious little book by a mother of eight children,

a book I salvaged from some shelves of books Dale and Judy Sherman in South Dakota were getting rid of.

It's what I picked up today off the kitchen desk (don't ask me how it got there) after the rest of the family left for Denver for church. I was still in my bathrobe with my hair flying every which way when they left, because I am still fighting this cold I got after getting back from South Dakota, and I am just plain weary and felt I should stay home and rest instead of doing the 3 hours of travel and helping with morning service and Kids Club and not getting back till 5:30 in the evening today.

 Sometimes you just gotta pause and rest while the young and robust and healthy go on their merry way.

I  managed to get the crockpot ready to go, elk meat sliced, veggies cooked and added for them to take along with zucchini muffins and apple cake we made last night. And I sent them off, pushed a recliner over into the sunshine, and collapsed with a book and Bible and obviously this computer.

I think of the ways God has provided for us--not just finances and food--but joy and goodness.

The children are soo happy with the little garden they are raising--under a hail screen.

Indian corn, a few green beans, squash, a few little pumpkins, and morning glories twining all around. Nothing to brag about, but just enough to be delighted with.

And a few days before we left for South Dakota, Jonathan came home with something that he thought was very, very special:
a huge bag of gourmet popcorn from a family whose house he is working on!
The man is fighting cancer, but is such a kind man and easy to work for, and the family is Mormon.
And since they already had a bag of this popcorn when someone gave them another, they gave it to Jonathan!

Despite not having gotten paid the large bill on the one job recently, Jonathan had gone ahead and scheduled our Mission Helps trip to South Dakota. Was it faith or presumption?? I didn't know.

But when hours or days after he scheduled the trip and this sweet family gave us the organic popcorn (which we saved for our trip to South Dakota) we felt it was Hand-given of the Lord, a small token letting us know He wanted us to keep our promises and Mission Helps plans despite our financial setbacks. Our travel expenses would be paid, and then God would just have to come through.

And He did!

In South Dakota we were given an unexpected check that Jonathan said had him "blown away."

It was at one of the lowliest places we've ever helped, and a place that probably had the least amount of money to work with--but they shared what was left over that had been raised for the repair project.

Brandie Eberhardt said she and others from Faith Missionary Association wanted us to have it.

Through Mormons, missions, and many other ways, God provides!