Almost Stepped on a Rattlesnake!

  Our beautiful Sunday last week was suddenly interrupted by an excited Danny bursting into earshot. 

He had come within a couple feet of a rattlesnake down by the river! As he hunted for ammo, Jonathan grabbed a long-handled cultivator implement with tines.

And all four of us jumped on the four-wheeler and took off across the fields, through the prairie dog town,  through the fence gate, in between hundreds of prickly pear cactus freshly blooming with yellow petals, and down by the river where wild grape vines grew profusely.

We waded through tall grass and the ones ahead of me didn't seem to notice they had just rushed through patches of poison ivy!

But then one can do that if wearing tall rubber boots as Danny was! 

This is the scene I came upon when I arrived a little later and slower than the others.

Danny said the rattlesnake had gone inside its hole. 

We could hear its rattles buzzing!

Danny dug some dirt from the front of the hole, pushed a clod down the other end of the hole so the snake couldn't go out the other end, and got the snake to slither out. 

And he killed it. 

He probably wouldn't have if he had known that somewhere up in Pierre they will pay $1000 for a live rattlesnake so they can milk its venom for anti-venom. But we didn't know it until afterward.

That snake kept twirling and slithering even though it was as dead as a door nail.  

We read that if you put the whole dead skinned snake in a carton, you must put a lid on the carton or it will "crawl" out!

We are learning many new things!

Very exciting things!

Things to keep our Sundays far from boring for teenagers!

 

Jonathan and Danny got online to find out how to skin and cook rattlesnake!

And then while Jonathan took a nap, Danny skinned that snake, rolling the skin on a stick.  

Measuring the rattles 

The skinned snake 

g

Yes, we did eat some of that snake! I even tasted a tiny sliver of it just to say I had tasted rattlesnake!

In Sunday School this morning, (which happens to be Father's Day as I am finishing this post) when I told about the happy father/son fellowship Jonathan and Danny had last Sunday finding, capturing, killing, and cooking a rattlesnake, eyes in Sunday School class lit up. One lady beamed and said, "Rattlesnake is good!"

We're connecting with the dear people here, first over cancer, 

and now over rattlesnake!

Who would have thought that the fellowship over rattlesnake would make a good illustration of the Father/son relationship we can have with God--

a God Who cares, who is interested in our lives, Who listens and speaks, who comes along to help,

who teaches, instructs, and even sups with us!

Might I Give My Life for Obeying--or Get a Life?

 Before moving to South Dakota, I remember wondering if I was going to die up here--

die because my cancer would take me

because

I wouldn't have what I needed.

I wouldn't have the right kind of food or organic produce or resources of whatever kind.

At first it didn't occur to me to stay home in Colorado;

God had called my husband to go, and I was his wife. That meant I followed wherever he went.

That meant even if I died, I was going. 

 I didn't know where we would find what I needed like fresh, organic produce; 

goat milk (we only had one milk goat shortly before moving, and she had dried up; we bought another one just before moving);and many other things. 

I literally thought I might be giving my life to say yes to missions again.

Instead, up to this point, God has been supplying my very special needs over and over.  

And I am still very much alive! 

In fact, this morning I felt better than I have felt in a very long time.

The goat that had dried up miscarried her triplets, but started producing milk--a few quarts a day!

She even comes right up to the door of the travel trailer to be milked--as if her milk is a gift to the lady with cancer and her family.

The hens are laying fresh eggs chock full of vitamins and minerals from fresh South Dakota bugs and greens every single day--laying them all over the place--in their nesting boxes, in the outhouse :)

and in the bag of wood chips in the garage. 

Danny found twenty of them this morning there. 

And when fresh produce is hard to be had, there are bushels of fresh yucca blooms nearby, some only yards from my travel trailer door. They are edible!

The whole plant is edible.

 I took a bunch of them this evening with my fresh veggie plate for the carry-in after service, wondering if there would be any interest at all. One person after another not only asked about the blossoms but actually tried them!

Danny said they tasted like snow peas, one person said they tasted like lettuce, and another one was reminded of grass! I agreed with Danny that the petals tasted like snow peas!

And then on our way back from our walk to the river this afternoon, I discovered wood sorrel-a cancer-killing herb that my  mom has used to cure hers and others' skin cancers. 

It is also edible.

 

You can see its heart-shaped leaves with tiny yellow flowers about to bloom behind the yucca blossoms. It is also called sour grass, something kids like to chew. I pulled some and ate three whole plants, one at a time with time in between. It is very high in oxalic acid, tasting like fresh rhubarb, but it fights cancer. And God provided it.

When I thought I might be giving my life, and was tempted to stamp my little foot and say, "I'm not going! I want to spend my last day with my children," instead, God is giving me a life!

"He who seeks to save his life shall lose it," God said, "but he who loses his life 

for My sake (there is the key, it's for His sake)

the same shall save it."

He also provided beauty galore--something this mom needs as much as good food.  

Can you find the hidden dragonfly?

It was flitting about as I made my way back from checking out the ground nest of a lark sparrow

that Danny had found recently.

Four baby birdlings in there! 

And a brilliant monarch in the bright green grass.

I was in awe this morning with the perfectly idyllic weather and the beauty of nature around us. 

Is it just a gift from God for today?

Is it the calm between the storms?

I don't know. 

I am to talk to my nurse practitioner tomorrow about the results of some tests I had in Colorado.

I don't know how that will turn out, or what the results were. 

But for now, I revel in God's beauty. 

This whole place here in South Dakota just seems like a perfect blend of Jonathan's Colorado and my Pennsylvania.

Only God could wed together so many familiar things that mean so much to both Jonathan and me--

trees and flowers, cactus and yucca, singing birds and insects, big sky and soaring eagles,

green herbs and thriving garden, a river and rattlesnakes!

Rattlesnakes. 

That's the next post!

Colorado Interlude

In the whirlwind of our trip this week to Colorado, including a youth camp and mission speaking engagement, Vitamin C IV and blood tests for me, and other things (while we were banished from our house in SD due to drywallers hanging drywall) we managed to spend an evening with Jonathan's dad and Ruth.

 Their place is beautiful with flowers.

Only the Lord knows how much I miss having flowers, because our goats, chickens, hail or drought seem to destroy so much. Here were yellow iris! 

A whole big snowball bush! 

Clematis out front! 

Inside I discovered the flowers from Ruth's wedding bouquet! 

 Outside our beautiful Rose was pulling rhubarb since Grandpa said it needed to be picked.

 Here she is bringing armloads!

The girls preparing rhubarb for freezing while Danny combs his hair. After days of hard work, he finally got a shower and Rose was going to give him a hair cut before heading to youth camp.

 

Pleasant weather.  

Ruth enjoyed listening to Carrie on the piano. 

Jonathan listening to "This is My Father's World" which Carrie is practicing to play for Father's Day at church. It's her dad's favorite song.

Memorial Day Connections

  Memorial Day Sunday was a blessed, profitable, and rewarding day, especially when we got to pick up a native family from White River to come to church with us in Mission that evening. It took two vehicles to get us all there, and it was raining, but it was incredibly rewarding to wheel a grandma up the new ramp by Hope Family Chapel in Mission.

This ramp had been built in the awful heat of last summer so that people who couldn't climb stairs could attend church, and so that coffins could be brought in for funerals.

 Sunday evening was the night we got to experience some fruit for our own labors as we helped a dear grandma who used to serve with her husband under SIM many years ago into her wheel chair to come to service.

Rev. Marc Sankey, staff pastor and SIM board member, sang with his wife and spoke in the service about Jesus meeting us in the storms in our lives. 

Earlier that day, thinking of Memorial Day and my own veteran father, Jonathan and I visited the White River Cemetery, where we had heard there was a grave of two Indian scouts. We couldn't find it, so will have to ask someone to show it to us.

 There was also a veterans' memorial.

That morning, since Hope Family Chapel only meets in the evening, we visited Lakota Community Chapel, begun by American Native Crusade many years ago. The pastor had stopped the week before to meet us, and we found out his son is dying with a brain tumor.  Interestingly, he and his wife have sons named David and Jonathan! We struck it up immediately and have stopped by twice because they live right by the road in our little town. Crystal and I took pumpkin cupcakes after a day of baking. I can't imagine being parents of a son dying of extreme pain with a brain tumor.

We were so grateful the one day when there was news that the son had an appetite and was eating and drinking.

After the morning service there was a fellowship meal, and I went home and brought our crockpot of elk and veggies which made a hit with natives there. We feel God is leading us with the many different people we are meeting. 

 

That includes the Cassalino family who came to help work at the Rosebud parsonage this last week. We had the six Casalinos, eight Troyers, and six of us for supper Saturday evening. The three Casalino boys got coaxed into carrying three Troyer little girls on their shoulders all around our place!

I loved the watermelon stars served Sunday evening at the chapel fellowship meal!

 

SIM Staff Picnic- and Star Quilting

Last week Society of Indian Missions had a staff picnic following the annual board meeting.

We were delighted to have some time again with our old friends Ward and Naomi French who make their home now practically next door to Crystal in Missouri.

Ward and Naomi both have spent years serving native American missions in South Dakota, New Mexico, Arizona, and who knows where else.

SIM honored Ward this year for his many years of service with SIM, more recently as a board member.

Nathan Becker, another board member, with Tovie Blackcalf, newest board member and Naomi's son, 

took part in the presentation of a beautiful star quilt. 

It was one of the happiest times in Naomi's life, I do believe, to see her own son take up the mantle of serving native American ministry for Christ as a board member.

Of course, Ward did not want to wear the quilt alone!

Naomi joins him under the quilt with their son. It's a great step forward to have a native American included on the SIM board.

Marsha Turner, who lost her first husband a while back and is now happily remarried, was honored next for 20 years of service with SIM. She is stepping down this year.

Judy Sherman was presented next with a star quilt by her daughter Tasbah, wife of President Keith Lavery, and Melodie Sankey, wife of board member and staff pastor Marc Sankey.  

 

It was a beautiful ending to a full day of board meeting. 

Jonathan and I met with the board for the first time that day. We couldn't ask for a more supportive and kind board, considering my situation with this cancer which is certain to affect our ministry here, especially timing of many things. Satan wishes it for bad, but God will work it all for good according to His good promises.

The staff picnic took place by the Missouri River. I loved the American flag and South Dakota state flag in the background.

 

Jonathan and I got a photo by this old cabin nearby.