Who’s the Blind One Here?

I was reading today in John 9. Jesus was walking away from the Temple and Pharisees who wanted to stone him when he saw a blind beggar, somewhere near the Temple.

This man had been born blind. He’d never been able to see. Jesus made clay and put it on the blind man’s eyes then told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. The man obeyed. Once the blind man washed his eyes, he could see. 

Something struck me about the story that I’d never noticed before. 

None of the blind man’s neighbors knew who he was when he could see.

They thought he might be that guy who had been blind but they had to ask each other about it. Some even said, “Nah, it isn’t him but someone who looks like him.”

So I ask you, Who was really blind in this story? The man? or his neighbors?

What about you and I? How many times do we notice those around us? I don’t mean observe their existence but really see them.

This blind man had been begging among his neighbors. They hurried past him without noticing him. How often do we see the needs of the people around us? Do we notice them? or do we hurry on by?

The truth is, the needs of those around us aren’t always visible to the naked eye. It’s easy to walk past people without seeing their needs because they look so normal, so much like us.

But then there is the woman at the grocery store with all of her small children. She’s clearly struggling just to get through the check-out. It’s easy to focus on how long it’s taking her to get through the line and not on the fact that she is so distracted by her children that she feels like she is losing her mind.

There is the elderly man on his walk around the lake. It’s easy to see he is going slower than you are. You look for a way to get past. What you can’t see is that he’s taken this walk for the last 50 years with his wife and this is the first time he’s taken it without her.

There is the single mom at the park whose child acts out over and over again. You pull your kids over to another area of the playground. You don’t want the poor behavior of the child to cause your children to act out. You don’t notice that the woman and her child need someone to overlook the behavior and just play with them and talk to them.

You see the business man at the airport engrossed in his work. It’s easy to see he’s successful. What’s harder to notice is that he feels like a fraud and a failure every day of his life.

Have you ever just taken a moment to step back and see? Not just look at people in passing, but really see them? 

Then, once you’ve seen people, what are you willing to do about what you see? Are you willing to make a difference in their life like Jesus did?

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Of Mustard Seeds and Mountains

I was reading in Matthew the other day and read Matthew 17:20. It struck me in relation to the posts I’d already written about God doing what seems like impossible things on our behalf. 

Jesus told his disciples:

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Sometimes in life we face struggles or challenges that look like mountains to us. There is no way we can fix these things on our own. Sometimes it’s personal, sometimes relational, sometimes financial. All of the struggles look insurmountable — like a mountain towering before us.

Just a tiny grain of faith. That’s all we need. A grain so tiny, it’s difficult to separate one seed from a pile of them. Yet, when we look at the mountain, that needed grain of faith feels impossible. It feels too small.

But Jesus said “…nothing shall be impossible to you.” Even that mountain.

I’m not talking about these health and wealth preaching, “name it, claim it” kinds of faith. I don’t believe we can force or coerce God to do anything. 

What I believe is that we have a God who is so big, so strong, so able, that He can do whatever we ask him to do — even move mountains. And He likes to do it. He likes us to ask Him for the impossible.

It all comes back to asking God. He’s our heavenly Father. He wants us to ask. He wants us to come to Him over and over and over and over and over (you get the picture) with our requests. He wants us to come to him with importunity. He wants to do big things for us — and He wants to do little things that feel like big things.

He wants to do the impossible. All I have to do is have a grain of faith that He can and ask Him to do it. The great part about it, is that when the answer comes it leaves no doubt that God was the one who did it. He gets all the glory.

This is a lesson that God has been teaching me for years. Let me give some examples from my life.

~ ~ ~

Deputation took us 5 years. 5 long years of traveling all over the US, dragging our family along with us. Our youngest son, Gaelin, says he grew up in the car. While this isn’t totally true, it’s what we felt like at the time.

We begged God for support so we could move to Uganda. He raised it slowly but surely, so slowly that sometimes it felt like He wasn’t doing anything at all.

Finally the time came for us to move here. We arrived a month after a family who has become some of our dearest friends. We moved to a totally different city than we’d originally planned to live in, but it turned out this city suited us better than anywhere else would have.

We got to work with Jeff and Carla Bassett for a number of years and learn from them. Because of their influence, we started going to the refugee camp. God directed us to that ministry. If we’d come in our time, we probably wouldn’t have found this thing that has become our calling.

God knew we needed to arrive when we did, where we did. He orchestrated everything on our behalf. All we had to do was wait on Him for His answer.

~ ~ ~

A few years ago, we’d lost a lot of the financial support that we need to live and minister here in Africa. Most months we could live and work, but our finances were tight. 

But one month the amount of support we got was so low, we didn’t know how we’d be able to live for the month, let alone minister.

At the same time, we found out about 28 people with malaria and 15 with typhoid in our churches. We had no extra money to buy medicine for these people.

We cried out to God. We believed He wanted us to meet this need but we didn’t have the means to do it. Within 48 hours, He had not only provided enough money for the medicine but also to buy food that they desperately needed.

~ ~ ~

A couple weeks ago, Hurricane Irma threatened Florida. My sister lives in Florida. We began praying that Irma would move east, out into the Atlantic ocean. Instead, it tracked farther and farther west.

I couldn’t understand this. I was asking, just like God told me to, but it seemed He was doing the exact opposite of what I asked. 

In my desperation and fear for my sister and her family, I cried out to God in tears to please save them, and if possible keep them from even losing power. God gave me peace that He had the whole thing under control.

Then we waited and watched. The storm, instead of getting stronger and stronger as predicted, weakened. I watched the weather report with amazement. It made landfall and I was able to keep in constant contact with my sister. She never lost power. The storm, while devastating for Florida, ended up being no where near as bad as it was forecasted.

~ ~ ~

My best friend lives in Montana. They’ve had one wildfire after another all summer long. It’s grown so severe that over 1 million acres have burned in the state. We’ve been asking God for rain for weeks but what they really needed what snow.

10 days ago there was no snow in the forecast.

This week they got both rain and snow.

It was totally a God thing. Only He could bring this shift in weather about.

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Good News and Bad News

Good News

The refugee camp has been getting rain! Loads of rain! Gallons of rain! God has heard your prayer and sent it in full force. In fact, it was so much that it seemed like the weather was trying to make up for being a month late with the rain by catching up all in one week. 

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The road goes right through this field. Usually it’s just that, a field. People graze cattle and goats there. Today it was a swamp. The water will gradually soak into the ground and improve the groundwater conditions. Meanwhile kids use it as a swimming hole and cars and people avoid it so they don’t get stuck.

The road was sloppy and almost impassible in places because of all the rain. The days of us being able to drive out to the churches on relatively smooth road are gone until they grade the road again. It’s a challenge, but one I don’t mind because it means they’ve been getting rain.

Bad News

Part of the rain fell in a torrential downpour Thursday night, into Friday morning. We got news Friday afternoon that the roof had blown off the church at Ngarama for the third time. Sadly, the “engineer” we hired to construct it was not a good one. 🙁 The building has had one problem after another for the last five years. 

This might be the final straw for that building, but we won’t know until tomorrow when a reputable engineer looks at it. We’re hoping to reconstruct the roof enough to use the building until a new one can be constructed. This was not in our plan time wise or financially, but God has known about it since before the foundation of the world and He has it under control. I can’t right now, but God can.

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Another bit of bad news we got was that one of our national pastors is very sick. A few weeks ago he developed appendicitis and they did emergency surgery on him at the hospital here in town. He hasn’t healed well and the last couple weeks the incision grew red and hot to the touch. He called James about it late one night and James told him to get to the hospital. He went to his local hospital for treatment. They gave him aspirin and sent him home. 🙁

Today we heard he’d developed a bad cough in addition to the red incision which was now causing his entire stomach to feel hot to the touch. We drove to his house, picked him up, and brought him to the town hospital. We still haven’t heard what they found, but it’s Sunday and they have minimal staff on Sunday.

Please be praying for Theogene. He has been a faithful man in his community. He has a wife and at least 9 children. A good portion of the beans he had planted washed away in the rain storm on Thursday — another hit from which their family will have to recover. He is frustrated with being sick right now when his family needs him so much.

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3 Easy Malaria Prevention Tips for Travelers

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Mosquitoes. One of the most annoying creatures known to man. They are also one of the most deadly.

Every year nearly 700 million people get sick from mosquito borne illness resulting in over 1 million deaths. Almost half of those deaths can be attributed to malaria.

Almost half of the world population is in danger of contracting malaria. Approximately 212 million cases of malaria are reported annually with almost 500,000 people dying of the illness. These are only the reported cases. Countless others suffer and die of the disease without ever seeking treatment, including thousands of children.

Malaria prevention has been first and foremost in our minds the entire time we’ve lived in Africa. So far, only two of our family have ever had it and that was in the first 6 months of us living here. We’d broken some of our prevention rules and people got sick.

I’ve had numbers of people ask me about malaria prevention and treatment. Let me give you a rundown of what I tell those who have asked.

1. Take the prophylaxis

Chances are, if you are planning a trip to a place in the world where malaria can be contracted, the CDC or your local board of health will recommend a preventative (or prophylaxis) for you to take in addition to any travel vaccines you will need.

Take it. There is no sense in you contracting malaria on your two week trip to Africa or Asia and then struggling with malaria the rest of your life. First world countries don’t know how to recognize or treat malaria.

You’ll need to get the medicine – usually either quinine or an antibiotic like doxycycline – and begin taking it at least a week before your departure date. This allows it to build up in your blood and form a hostile environment in which the malaria parasite can’t survive. You’ll also need to continue taking the preventative for at least a week after returning to the states.

2. Use a mosquito net at night.

Mosquitoes only hunt at night. That is when you will be most vulnerable to them. You should sleep under a mosquito net to prevent getting bit by them.

Most hotels will provide them. If they don’t have them in the rooms already, you can request them. Sometimes they will also provide bug spray that you can use just outside your door and windows in the evening.

3. Stay indoors in the evening and early morning.

We try to make sure we are inside with all our doors shut by sunset. Mosquitoes are most active at sunset and sunrise. They are desperate to feed at those times.

Try to be inside a well lit building with screens on the doors and windows. If this isn’t an option, request the doors and windows be shut or shut them yourself. You can use bug spray at the windows and doors to prevent mosquitoes from even trying to get in.

Doing these three things will prevent most, if not all, malaria. It’s that easy.

~ ~ ~

We live here long term and so have slightly different practices for prevention.

First of all, we don’t take a prophylaxis. Well, technically we do, but not in the conventional sense. The long term side effects of the prophylaxis are serious. We opted for a more natural approach that has been effective so far.

There is a tree that grows here and in most tropical climates called a Neem Tree. 1-2 leaves per week are sufficient to kill any malaria parasites in the blood stream. We have a tree growing in our yard and everyone gets a leaf every week. You can also make it into a tea and drink it. It’s nasty, don’t get me wrong, but there are no long term side effects that we’ve been able to find.

We don’t use mosquito nets but prefer sleeping with a fan blowing on us at night.

We also treat everyone with sweet wormwood (Don’t let the name fool you. It’s not sweet.) and black walnut extracts every 3-6 months for a general anti-parasitic. The sweet wormwood specifically targets blood borne parasites, including the malaria parasite.

So the next time you are traveling overseas to places you could potentially contract malaria, remember those three tips. Feel free to contact me with any other questions you might have about it as well.

Happy Traveling!

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Now For Some Chocolatey Goodness

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A couple weeks ago I posted a recipe that I love for white cake. Someone asked me if I know of a good recipe for chocolate cake.

Chocolate cake is trickier. I’ve tried loads of recipes and finally come down to one or two I really like.

For one thing, chocolate cake needs to taste chocolatey. Many of the recipes I tried weren’t quite chocolatey enough.

For another thing, chocolate cake can be even drier than white cake. It’s easier to over-bake. Good, moist chocolate cake is hard to come by in the recipe world. 

A third problem I’ve found is that good chocolate cake can be complicated and time consuming. You have to melt the chocolate in a double boiler. You have to beat the cream until stiff peaks form. You have to fold these ingredients in together, little by little. You have to do it just right or the cake won’t rise.

I just don’t have time for that.

Here is the recipe I like to use for chocolate cake. It’s found in the same Betty Crocker cookbook. It’s not complicated at all. It turns out moist and yummy every time (unless I burn it, but the kids eat it anyway. 😀 ).

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Cocoa Fudge Cake (from the 1972 Betty Crocker Cookbook)

  • 2 cups cake flour OR 1-2/3 cups all purpose flour
  • 1-1/2 cups sugar (I use half)
  • 2/3 cup cocoa (You can add as much as 1 cup if you want even more chocolate flavor!)
  • 1-1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1-1/2 cups buttermilk (Do not substitute regular milk. The cake will be dry. You can substitute yogurt.)
  • 1/2 cup shortening (I use palm oil)
  • 2 eggs (1/3-1/2 cup)
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract

Grease and flour baking pans 13×9 or 2 round layer pans 8 or 9-1/2 inches or line 18-24 muffin cups.

Measure all ingredients into mixer bowl. Blend on low for 30 seconds or until all ingredients are moistened, scraping occasionally. Beat 3 minutes on high speed, scraping bowl occasionally. Pour into pan(s).

Heat oven to 350º. Bake oblong 35-40 minutes, layers 30-35 minutes, or cupcakes 20-25 minutes until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool. Frost or decorate as desired.

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How’s Africa? The Bedtime Hunting Expedition

Due to the blessings of genetics and those wonderful “hormonies,” I sometimes struggle with insomnia. Most nights, I can fall asleep right away. Staying asleep is the bigger issue.

All the experts say one key to falling asleep and staying asleep is establishing a good bedtime routine. I did this years ago. It looks something like this: 

Wind down by reading a book or watching a TV show. Most nights I do handwork like crochet or quilting, which also relaxes me.

Put my PJs on.

Brush my teeth and finish all my bathroom chores.

Hunt for mosquitoes hiding out in our room.

Turn off the lights

Climb in bed and read for a little longer before going to sleep.

Wait. What? Mosquito hunting?

How many of you have a nighttime mosquito hunt as part of your bedtime routine? 😉

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We use this lovely contraption to do it. The wire mesh has an electric charge running through it that zaps and kills the mosquitoes (and any other bugs that get caught in it). I always tap out the mosquito on the floor and step on it, just to be sure. We have to check under furniture because they love hiding under beds and dressers.

The worst thing is missing one and having it buzzing around your face and ears all night. It’s horrible when they get under the covers and bite you repeatedly, even through clothing. They even like the palms of your hands and bottoms of your feet. They are insidious. It must be a thorough hunt.

Mosquitoes carry many diseases, like malaria, dengue fever, and yellow fever. We’ve been blessed to not struggle with these diseases. At any point in time, 1/4-1/3 of the people in our churches have malaria. That’s why we’re so strict about looking for them and killing them off.

Every great once in a while we get them in the house bad enough that we have to use bug spray to get rid of them. We close all the windows and spray the rooms right before we leave for church. This gives the poison a good 8 hours to work before we get back. Thankfully, we only have to do this twice or three times a year.

The next time you are getting ready for bed, give thanks that you don’t have go hunting before you climb in bed and go to sleep.

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African American Chinese Food — String Bean Chicken

Chinese food — American Chinese food — is comfort food. There almost isn’t a time when it doesn’t sound good to me. I could eat it several times a week and not get tired of it.

So imagine my surprise and horror when I arrived in Uganda and discovered…there was no Chinese food!!! Sure, you can get Chinese food in Kampala, but that is over 4 hours away and we go there less than once a year.

Thankfully, we’d prepared ahead. I’m kind of a cookbook junky. We’d found a fantastic Chinese cookbook called Enjoy Chinese Cuisine. I’d practiced several of the recipes in it. The only caveat is that it’s quite time consuming to prepare our favorite dishes. Still, when you think about it and crave it all the time, it’s worth taking the time to fix that special food you enjoy.

One of my favorites is String Bean Chicken from Panda Express. It’s also one of the faster ones to prepare. We’ve found ways to adapt it using the ingredients we can get here. The family loves it. Tonight I made a 7 quart pot of just the string beans and chicken (2 kilos) and it was all gone. They might have licked the pan. 8 cups of rice was also devoured by these ravening hoards.

This recipe is one I found online years ago but I’ve tweaked until it tastes the way we like it. I’ll note my changes in parentheses and in a note at the end. 

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String Bean Chicken

  • 2 T soy sauce or liquid aminos (I use 3-4 T)
  • 2 tsp rice wine (I use 3-4 T vinegar)
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • 2 tsp corn starch
  • 1 tsp sugar (optional)
  • 2 T vegetable oil (I use coconut or palm oil)
  • 1 cup onion chopped or sliced
  • 2 T minced garlic
  • 1 tsp black bean sauce (optional; I prefer it without)
  • 12 oz. green beans, fresh or frozen
  • 1 pound cooked, sliced chicken breasts
  • 1/4 cup water

Saute the onion, garlic, and green beans in the oil until tender. Add the soy sauce, rice wine, and sugar. Mix the corn starch in the water until dissolved and pour over the other ingredients. Heat until thickened. Toss in the cooked chicken pieces and toss to coat with the sauce. Add the sesame oil before serving over rice.

Note: I prefer to add more water than it calls for. I usually add equal parts water, vinegar, and soy sauce so we have plenty of liquid to put over the rice. You can also use boneless skinless thigh pieces and it tastes good. (I prefer dark meat.)

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How’s Africa? — There Are No Tigers in Africa

African animals used to roam freely all over the savannas. People lived around them like they were a normal part of life. 

Today, most of the animals you typically associate with Africa are only found on game preserves. This is to not only protect the animals but also to protect the people. Hippos kill more people in Africa than lions. In fact, the only thing that kills more people is the mosquito. Cape buffalo can tip over vehicles, as can elephants.

I’m going to let the photos that we’ve taken over the course of our time here in Uganda speak for themselves. There are two things missing.

First of all, we sometimes see small monkeys on our way to church but we’ve never gotten a picture of them because they run away as soon as we slow down to take it. 

Second, I’m beginning to think the African lion is a myth. Oh, sure, other people see them, but we never have. That’s why there are no pictures of lions. They should put up signs like the dust storm warning signs in New Mexico — “Lions may exist.” 

And so, for your enjoyment, a few of the animals we’ve seen here in Uganda. How many of them can you name? How many have you seen in the zoo?

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(Interesting parenthetical: A few years ago, we were driving to Kampala and saw a zebra dead by the side of the road, killed by a semi. Where else but Africa do you find zebras as roadkill?)

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Friday Funny – Lost in Translation

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A few years ago my best friend, Rachel Miller, and a friend of hers named Laura came to visit us here in Uganda. They got to see where we live and our churches. We loved having them here!

The Sunday they attended services with us, I wanted to introduce them to our church people. I knew I could say “This is my friend, Rachel.” Except I wasn’t 100% sure of the word for “friend” in Runyankore.

You see, “friend” is omwani and “husband” is omwami. One letter difference. And I couldn’t remember which was which.

Was she my omwami? Or my omwani?

Omwami?

Omwani?

I thought for a long time and finally, unable remember, I copped out and introduced her in English and let the translator say it.

Good thing, too! I’d almost introduced her as “my husband, Rachel.”

Let’s just say that one has been easier to remember since then. 😀

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That Time I Auditioned for Cake Wrecks

Let me begin by saying that I’m good at many things.

Cake decorating is not one of them.

I grew up in a family full of women (and maybe some men!) proficient at cake decorating. My sister decorates beautiful wedding cakes and gets paid to do it. Whenever cake decorating needed to be done around our house, I happily sat back and let my mom and sister do all of it. I had no desire to even try. I should have been paying better attention.

We hadn’t been in Africa very long before I needed to make a wedding cake. My husband graciously volunteered me for the duty, then told me about it afterward. I didn’t even own cake pans. I cobbled something together with the help of one of the other missionary wives. Everyone raved about how it tasted, and no one complained about how it looked. Honestly, it could only get better from that point on in my cake decorating career. (That is lace wrapped around each layer and curly ribbon on the top.)

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We had many people who wanted to get married at the refugee camp and wedding cake is an expected tradition here. Each time we had a wedding, we worked out a compromise. I baked the cakes and our coworker’s wife decorated them.

Then, horror of horror, we needed to have a wedding when our coworkers weren’t here! It was time for me to step up and try my hand at it once more. My sisters had given me cake pans and a set of decorating tips. The rest was up to me.

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I’ve learned a lot about decorating in the last few years and even had my sister teach me how to do basic embellishments while we were on furlough. She was kind in the face of my bumbling. She didn’t go back and fix anything when I was around. 😉

Gaelin requested a character cake for his birthday a couple years ago and I gave that a whirl.

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It turned out okay, though Batman’s nose is a little odd and one eye is bigger than the other. Gaelin was pleased, then told me he wanted my sister to make the exact same cake for him for his next birthday and see which one of us did a better job. 

I was not amused. I told him there was no question of who was better – my sister always will be.

Now I’m going to share the recipe for the cake our church people like to say is the best cake they’ve ever eaten. I’m not a cake fan but even I like it. It doesn’t take much longer than a cake mix to pull together and you don’t get all those terrible preservatives found in a mix. Hope you try it and enjoy it as much as we do!

Golden Layer Cake (from the 1972 Betty Crocker Cookbook)

  • 2-1/4 cups cake flour
  • 1-1/2 cups sugar (I use half because it’s too sweet if I use the full amount)
  • 1 T. baking powder
  • 1tsp. salt
  • 1/2 cup shortening (I use palm oil)
  • 1 cup milk or water
  • 1-1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 2 eggs (1/3 to 1/2 cup)

Heat oven to 350º. Grease and flour baking pan, 13x9x2 inch or 2 round layer pans, 8-9 inch. Measure all ingredients into large mixer bowl. Beat 30 sec. on low speed, then 3 min. on high speed, stirring and scraping the bowl occasionally. Pour into pans.

Bake oblong 40-45 min., layers 30-35 min., or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool. Remove from pans. Frost or decorate as desired.

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