More Chemo Ahead--but Flowers Today

I was finally approved for more chemo treatments at the clinic in Arizona, so Jonathan has bought tickets for Crystal and me to fly down again to Arizona next weekend, August 3rd. The clinic is scheduling two IPT chemo treatments the first week and one the second week with other IVs.

With these things to "look forward" to, I'm grateful for so many things--that chemo was approved again, as the cancer is spreading slowly but surely; that a daughter can come with me, and then trade places with Jonathan the second week;

that God will be always with me, even through Arizona heat, hunger and weakness of 24-hour fasts before each chemo (twice in one week), and whatever else is just plain hard like being away from family.

I'm also glad for Hannah's planting this beautiful flower garden outside our windows behind the house.

Those flowers are amazing. 

I'm also grateful that despite my cancer battle we can keep working for Jesus.

Jonathan and Danny keep working at Martin, as well as various projects at Mission, Rosebud, Winner, and elsewhere. 

Thursday they traveled all the way to Watertown, SD, about 4 hours one way, to get this load of materials that would have taken an unknown amount of time for the company to deliver.

The same day, Hannah and I drove to Rosebud to bring to our home the girls who come to our church and whose grandfather passed away last Monday. 

We had them help make cookies and banana bread, some of which we sent home with them for their family.  

I also printed off some photos and memories about Chuck for the funeral, for the girls to help glue onto a small poster and decorate with glitter and decorative gems that I had let them help pick at Dollar General.  Then Hannah and I took them home again. It took most of our day and I was so very tired, but I loved trying to reach out the best I could. These girls have given their hearts to Jesus, and need support to follow Him.

What a beautiful thing to hear later that the girls' grandmother chose to have a Christian funeral for Chuck instead of a typical wake with all the drums and sage burning and other things related to native religion that is not Christian.  Chuck's church family had shown up for him over and over at Long Term Health Care Center in Winner, and his wife took note. Our pastor and wife drove the hour one way more than once to visit him, twice different ones from our family went to visit him, a couple named Kruse visited, and Chuck's sister who attends our church was there often for him. 

When our pastor and his wife were unable to go pray with Chuck's wife after his death, we were able to contact Ned Sherman, pastor of the SIM church in Winner, to go and pray with them. 

Later that day, the pastor, his wife and I took food over and Pastor Ambrose read from the Bible and had prayer with the relatives who gathered in to eat. 

Now nearly everyone of us who reached out to them in their distress are being asked to participate in the funeral. 

Pastor Ambrose is to have the funeral, Mr. Kruse is to help, Chuck's sister is to do most of the music, and Chuck's wife asked that we sing a song with my auto harp as we had done at the care center for Chuck. 

This win for Jesus was not liked by the enemy. When we arrived to church this morning, we discovered someone had gotten into the church basement, left open the refrigerator and freezer, pulled out a few pieces of meat and left them on the counter to thaw, gotten into the First Aid cabinet and apparently stolen the Tylenol and who knows what else. Our poor pastor and his wife were so rattled trying to decide how to rescue the thawing meat and wondering who had done it and why that they forgot to turn the oven on to bake the chicken casserole for church lunch. 

A couple ladies who usually attend and bring food were not there, and our crockpot, cucumber salad, and loaf of bread with butter and jam was all there was except for a small pan of brownies for about 16 or 17 people to eat! Danny and Hannah hurried home to bring another loaf of bread, banana bread, and zucchini muffins I'd made yesterday. 

 

Pastor's wife hurried home to get her freshly canned green beans and some ice cream. Turned out there was enough food anyway, and no one went away hungry.  It was just a rather rattled morning.

But I noticed something wonderful despite everything. When Pastor Ambrose asked all the men in the church to gather up front to pray about the break-in, a group of five or six went up, besides a guest who remained seated and another man who came in late and Pastor himself. Some of the men aren't Christians yet, but for a Lakota church, it's wonderful to see nine men (that includes our Danny who is almost 18) in attendance this morning! 

Before leaving church after the meal, those of us left gathered around our pastor's wife who has also recently been diagnosed with breast cancer at age 78, and we had prayer for a procedure in Rapid City this week. She and I are suddenly thrown into the same battle together. But we have each other now, our families, and God.

When God Gives Bananas--and So Much More

A few days ago I went up to Wigwam grocery store for a few bananas to add to ones we had for banana muffins or banana bread or cake to share with neighbors and friends. I figured I'd pay full price because for months I hadn't found any bananas marked down at that store, and last time they were marked down they were so brown I don't know who would use them.

 Still, before getting out of the van, I paused and asked the Lord for marked down bananas! :)

And wouldn't you know it, as I entered the store, there right under my little round eyeballs was a whole crate of marked down bananas! They were as nice and yellow as marked down bananas could possibly be! 

 After I left the grocery store, I went to my favorite shady spot up at White River cemetery where I can park and have some quiet moments. I got out of the van, and without any fanfare or long prayers, I just asked God for some things that were more important than bananas.

  I don't know what to expect but Jesus said, "If ye being evil know how to give good [bananas] to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him." 

Two Deaths in One Day--But Special Mercies Accompanying

 Yesterday not just one but two friends went to be with the Lord. At 3 in the morning, our friend Chuck, a grandfather who has faithfully brought his granddaughters to church every Sunday possible despite his own struggles with cough and breathing, slipped away to Jesus in his sleep.  About 3:45 in the afternoon, our friend Beth Montour, who has been with her family in Arizona the last few months of her cancer fight, slipped away peacefully as well.

I am grateful to be able to share special mercies of the Lord. As Pastor and Mrs. Ambrose and I made our way to Chuck's family's place yesterday to take our scalloped potatoes, Mrs. Ambrose's ham, and Hannah's "oatrageous" cookies, Mrs. Ambrose was telling me how Chuck's old friend had just arrived yesterday from Oklahoma to see him. Chuck and his friend used to drink and ride motorcycles and carouse together. They were karate instructors, as I understand it. Then Chuck's friend came into contact with Jesus and got saved.  

Later Chuck did, too. Their lives changed. Yesterday that friend's family and Chuck's family got together at the long term care center to visit. They ate both lunch and supper together, Chuck joking around as usual. Extra tired but happy, he went to bed and when the nurse came to check on him in the middle of the night, he was fine. The next time--he was gone.  

Mrs. Ambrose told me how Chuck had told Pastor Ambrose that he had been having beautiful dreams about heaven. Three nights in a row he dreamed about heaven. 

There was beautiful light! I forgot that I was driving and nearly went off the road and to heaven myself! It gave me goosebumps!

Those of us discussing it felt it was a special mercy that he passed so peacefully. Obviously his tired heart just stopped. No struggling to breathe, no long hours of anxious family members suffering beside him. It was a special mercy, on top of the special mercy that his friend from Oklahoma made it up just in time to spend a wonderful afternoon and evening with him. 

The same type of special mercy happened with Beth, our friend that I've visited every time I've gone to Arizona recently. She is the daughter of the Montours who founded Society of Indian Missions. Monday night she had become unresponsive, and by 3 o'clock the next afternoon, she was gone. Her sister texted me that she had passed peacefully and was now happy and free.  

 And a person like me with the very same cancer listens with relief and gratitude, seeing that God is merciful. Not everyone has it happen this way. Nearly all of us have experiences of different stories, allowed by the same good and merciful God. But we observe these gentle mercies yesterday and breathe out worship and gratitude. 

Yesterday two native friends slipped away safely to Jesus. What a triumph for Christ on the reservations of South Dakota!

Surprise at Home!

Apart from the spider monster that  surprised me when I got home from Arizona, something else did, too!

When I came through the doorway into the kitchen, beautiful stonework-style tile backsplash above the counter greeted me!

I screeched!

Jonathan and Danny had spent many hours installing the tile.

Then Saturday they grouted it. The kitchen was a mess all day, but it was worth it.

I had arrived in Rapid City late Wednesday night where Jonathan picked me up. We stayed overnight with friends and had so many errands to do on the way home that we didn't arrive till around three in the afternoon.  Jonathan had to pick up commercial doors for the project in Martin, get more stuff from Menards, and load a trencher.

While he was loading the trencher, I visited with our friends the Grillos who minister in Wanblee. 

Amid huge stacks of clothes to be ironed and neatly hung stacks of clothing already ironed, she and I discussed everything from their VBS that week to the news of a 12-year-old boy who had taken his own life that week in their little town

(his father had died of a rattlesnake bite the year before)

 to other difficult news that week. I admired their garden, because I think a garden helps a person in a world of bad news, and I loved their flower pots,

because I think flower pots are a big help, too, in a world of trouble.

 

Jonathan did an estimate at a public school in Murdo, then dropped me at a grocery store while he ran to the local hardware to see if they carried mortar. 

And finally we arrived home.

Hannah had gathered a flower bouquet to ravish the eyes, 

 

wild from the fields or grown in the flower beds. 

While Rose and Tom were here, Tom had installed several outdoor lights and gotten one or more outdoor electrical outlets working.

And Crystal was preparing a delightful Indian/Malaysian dish of curried chicken, rice, and naan bread.

Over July 4th, Jonathan and Danny had tiled under our woodstove.

They also tiled our mudroom.

Jonathan got this picture without me knowing it, so I snitched it from his phone!

I am greatly blessed!

What If the World Falls Apart Tomorrow?

When I arrived home to South Dakota after several days in Arizona for cancer treatments, I was not expecting what stared up at me in the middle of the night. 

I had gotten up to take a supplement that I had forgotten, and pulled the dish towel off my basket of supplements on the kitchen counter.  

And this is what I discovered.

I really don't know how I managed to not even scream, except that this spider was so monstrous, and so artificially colored, that I quickly realized it was not real. 

It had been put there by a certain mischievous person in the household to scare me. 

Sometimes things worse than unreal spiders lurking scare us--like news about attempted assassinations that end up in someone else losing his life trying to shield a wife and daughters--

and missiles blowing up a children's hospital and dialysis center in Kiev-- 

and a man being beaten to death with a baseball bat only blocks from where we usually attend church Sunday evening--

leaving a person wondering what the nation--and the world is coming to. 

What if the world falls apart tomorrow--or blows apart?

What if something terrible happens right while I'm making a meal for supper?

 

What if the phone rings with devastating news as a daughter pulls a rhubarb dessert from the oven? 

My mother loves the story of the monk working in his garden. He was asked, "If you knew that you would die tonight, what would you be doing?"

Without any hesitation he replied simply, "I would go on working in my garden."

 If, instead of being a monk, we are a maintenance director, we could just go on loading materials for projects.

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Or go on replacing lights over chapel platforms.

Or laying plumbing in ditches at all-purpose buildings.

 

If we are in construction, we could go on doing estimates for doors that need to be replaced at a local public school.

If we're a dad or mom, we could just go ahead and eat breakfast with our family and bow our heads to thank God for one more delicious meal.   

 If we're a mom, we can go ahead and make the next batch of cookies or applesauce spice cake or zucchini muffins.

When someone comes to our driveway as a young man did last week and tells us he had a dream recently telling him to escape the city he was living in and go through the country telling people something bad is about to happen, 

we can listen and pray, but we can choose not to fear.

We all feel it in our bones--that something big is about to happen.

But if the world unravels tomorrow, we can find our refuge in God, because actually something good is about to happen.

Jesus is coming again, the King of kings and President of Presidents.

His reign will be righteous and good and beautiful.

We can choose to trust God, because God will be with us in trouble.

He will not fail us or forsake us.

His providences, just as they protected former President Trump Saturday evening, will continue to guide and guard us,

working all things, even evil things, for good in the lives of those who love God.

What was meant to take a life Saturday evening merely pierced the target's ear. 

With watchfulness, constant prayer, and faith, we can face this new morning.
If the world falls apart tomorrow, heavenly Father, help us not to be afraid.

When Moments of Joy Outweigh the Hard

A certain person in my life thought young couples should just go to the JP to get married.

Skip the expense and the stress. Just go to the courthouse and say I do.

I couldn't disagree more vehemently.

What incredible fun our daughter Rose had preparing for her wedding--dressing up in wedding gowns together with her cousin who had just celebrated her own sacred church wedding a few months earlier!

Weddings are times for both sacred and collective joy, and in best and worst of times, we need sacred celebrations, and we need joy. 

This year our clan has already enjoyed two weddings,

  and at least one more is coming up, Lord willing, in October.

More couples are getting together, anticipating more happy times ahead.

How beautiful it is when God gives these moments of joy, grace, and goodness--

right in the middle of a hard and horrid world--

like slips of feather down wafting from the sky,

a little bit of heaven in our world!

Preening--What Young Hens Can Teach a Mom

A few mornings ago, when the freshly laid tile in the mudroom was still drying in place, I noticed the young hens preening themselves on the grate-turned-fence just outside the window. That grate had been set up over the transplanted rhubarb and peppermint to keep the chickens and goats out, and as you can see, that grate is dangerously close to being ineffective! Due to the tile work, the live-edge coat rack that Tim and Danny built for our mudroom had been set outside, covered by that big blue tarp because of the unpredictable rains.

 

But there sat those hens, apparently having slept there all night instead of in their own chicken coop, now preening their feathers. I stood there for a moment, watching. 

It occurred to me that in this early morning hour, those hens were not all about work, or getting their next meal, or even having a conversation with the hen beside them.

They were just perched there preening--every last one of them.

Preening, I read, is birds "using their beaks to remove dirt, broken barbs, and debris. It is the process of quickly realigning the barbs and barbules on each feather.  Preening helps our birds stay healthy and maintain their ability to fly smoothly. It's a natural behavior that birds instinctively do to take care of themselves." (https://birdsupplies.com/blogs/news/your-ultimate-bird-preening-guide)

And I stood there watching those hens, telling myself, "It's okay to take time to take care of yourself."

There's always so much to do--making the bed and making my hair. Drinking this and taking that and then taking something else half an hour later and drinking something else half an hour after that.

In between time, hoping to have time to read my Bible and pray. 

Making breakfast and straining the goat milk. Packing lunches for the guys. Cancer protocol. 

Starting some laundry with homemade laundry soap.

But that particular morning, for a moment, I watched some young hens preening, and reminded myself, 

"It's okay to take time to take care of yourself--whatever that might be."

To brush one's hair gently. 

To meditate on a verse of God's Word.

To clip one's broken nails.

To share a loving word or touch--and receive one in return--with a family member.  

The day with its work and projects will be long enough.

It's okay to take time to preen.