While in the States I purchased some round cake pans to add to our collection here of squares and oblongs. Jim tried one of them with a homemade mix that utilized some strawberries we had forgotten too long in the frig. Turned out perfect and delicious.
On Saturday we tried them again with Jim’s chocolate cake recipe—a nice moist dark brown chocolate. So many chocolate cakes here are dryer, and Jim says it’s because they’re skimpy on the eggs. All went well until we turned the pans upside down to release the cake. Too much of it stuck to the bottom of the pan! Yuck! What do we do? The cake was for Sunday dinner to celebrate Cathy’s birthday. [Cathy is our daughter Ruth’s mother-in-law.]
Well, no chance of the cake going into the dustbin. So we borrowed on the trifle idea. [Trifle: a dessert made of a sponge cake, according to the dictionary] Jim made a boiled white frosting, and we put everything all together in his famous orange bowl. First clumps of cake topped with spoonfuls of frosting and repeated again and again. Jim put an empty plastic flour bin over the top and we set it high out of the reach of ants. The cake the next day was a big hit along with ice cream and some homemade chocolate sauce.
Cathy’s birthday had been on Friday, and we left her a gift bag at the butchery where she works. Midland’s Butchery—the best in Zimbabwe! On the card we wrote a scripture taken from The Message Bible, the introduction to Mary’s Magnificat although I didn’t think of that at the time. I’m bursting with God-news; I’m dancing the song of my Savior God. God took one good look at me, and look what happened—I’m the most fortunate woman on earth! Cathy later told us this scripture set the tone for a day that just got better and better.
The time spent finding the right scripture is suddenly so worthwhile. At first I tried in the Psalms and Proverbs, using the month and the day for a guide. Then I saw on the gift bag a scripture in the NIV, and looked it up in the Message, and it was so perfect!
Birthdays can be fun because they are individualized. Custom-made gifts or thoughts. Not for everyone every time but sometimes I hit the jackpot and it makes the little things so perfect. Like a bar of creamy perfumed soap when the norm has been harsh soaps in the shops. Or anything from my gift drawer made up of miscellaneous items and books to give away. The fun comes in unknowingly picking the right gift for someone who was wanting just that but didn’t have the time or money or source to find it for themselves.
It comes, doesn’t it, from listening and putting ideas on the shelves of your mind for future use. And it doesn’t always have to be birthdays, but people are more comfortable with receiving for a birthday rather than just any day of the year.
Giving brings pleasure to the giver as well as the receiver.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Thursday, August 5, 2010
COMING HOME
Little Megan with her own version of the two-step or maybe three- is a welcome sight when I emerge from the baggage and customs area at the airport in Harare. So good to see them all -- Jim, Bowen, Ruth and Megan.
En route to the parking lot, minus luggage (somewhere between Minneapolis, Chicago, Washington Dulles, and Addis Ababa my two checked in bags were left behind), Jim tells me much has happened since we last talked on Saturday. Today is Tuesday. He hit the high points quickly.
Saturday evening a kombi carrying students and teachers from our local Christian school collides with a mining dump truck. Four die, and a teacher named Edith is in ICU at Avenues Hospital in Harare. She sometimes came to our church and is good friends with one of our musicians.
Sunday morning Charmian is found in the old folks cottages within a few hours of suffering a stroke. She is in Claybank, a Gweru hospital. Her daughter Mel is a longtime member of our church.
Somehow a bit of lost luggage diminishes in importance. I had filled out a "lost luggage" form and was told to check in the next day. With a three-and-a-half hour drive involved each way, I said we'd call.
Back home on Wednesday we're making arrangements to visit Charmian when via a phone call we learn she has died. The service will be Saturday at the Dutch Reformed Church, and Jim is asked to play the organ.
Among many calls welcoming me home is one from the airport, saying my luggage has arrived. We make the trip up on Friday, and take the opportunity to stop at Avenues to check on Edith. No visitors allowed, but Jim shows his clergy credentials and he is allowed to step into her room and pray for her. She is very sedated but a flicker of her eyes seems to show appreciation for Jim's presence.
Just a few fleeting thoughts during my first week home:
Good Presbyterian hymns, says the presiding pastor at Charmian's service. The King of Love, Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, and What a Friend We Have in Jesus. Jim confesses to frustration with the church organ because there's no way to regulate the volume. Not that the people care. They absolutely love to hear that organ being played. They sang well for the first and third song, but petered out for the second. Somehow the less known tune had been chosen! Jim gallantly labored through all the verses.
The tributes to Charmian's faith and love for the Lord touched every heart. And more than one of us could help but enviously wonder if such good things would be said of us when we passed on. Charmian's husband had died before the family was forced off their farm some years ago. She would now be buried in a lovely private spot on another farm not too far away.
But first a tea for everyone at the service. It's traditional to bring a plate of eats to share, and so there is no shortage of cakes and sandwiches. Jim and I sit with a family from our church. The Dad sees a Sudoku book I'm holding for someone and he has to take a look. He's an avid fan, I'm told. With a sweet, personal glimpse into the family's life, I learn that he works the puzzles at night in bed while waiting for his wife who checks the doors and windows, etc. And then they pray together.
Out at the farm we wait for the hearse, and then walk across pastures to the burial spot. And then another tea for those who had come so far. And we leave for home with such a good feeling. It had been a good day. People coming together from other parts of Zimbabwe and also from South Africa to honor the homegoing of a good Christian woman. So much love and hugs and laughter and sadness, too, as people met again and remember other times and places. And we remember, too, with soberness, the four from the school whose lives had had a much shorter run.
And on Sunday someone visiting just that one day who found herself so tired of being far from God and asked for prayer to begin anew with Christ. And then our church family enjoys the food and fellowship of a braai with the added pleasure of cotton candy, popcorn balls and candied apples.
My visits in the States were the greatest, and I found in myself an even deeper love and appreciation for my family and friends, but it's good to be home again with Jim and Ruth and Megan and Bowen and all the folks at Emmanuel Fellowship in Gweru, Zimbabwe!
Kombi is a small bus
Braai is the African name for a barbeque
En route to the parking lot, minus luggage (somewhere between Minneapolis, Chicago, Washington Dulles, and Addis Ababa my two checked in bags were left behind), Jim tells me much has happened since we last talked on Saturday. Today is Tuesday. He hit the high points quickly.
Saturday evening a kombi carrying students and teachers from our local Christian school collides with a mining dump truck. Four die, and a teacher named Edith is in ICU at Avenues Hospital in Harare. She sometimes came to our church and is good friends with one of our musicians.
Sunday morning Charmian is found in the old folks cottages within a few hours of suffering a stroke. She is in Claybank, a Gweru hospital. Her daughter Mel is a longtime member of our church.
Somehow a bit of lost luggage diminishes in importance. I had filled out a "lost luggage" form and was told to check in the next day. With a three-and-a-half hour drive involved each way, I said we'd call.
Back home on Wednesday we're making arrangements to visit Charmian when via a phone call we learn she has died. The service will be Saturday at the Dutch Reformed Church, and Jim is asked to play the organ.
Among many calls welcoming me home is one from the airport, saying my luggage has arrived. We make the trip up on Friday, and take the opportunity to stop at Avenues to check on Edith. No visitors allowed, but Jim shows his clergy credentials and he is allowed to step into her room and pray for her. She is very sedated but a flicker of her eyes seems to show appreciation for Jim's presence.
Just a few fleeting thoughts during my first week home:
Good Presbyterian hymns, says the presiding pastor at Charmian's service. The King of Love, Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, and What a Friend We Have in Jesus. Jim confesses to frustration with the church organ because there's no way to regulate the volume. Not that the people care. They absolutely love to hear that organ being played. They sang well for the first and third song, but petered out for the second. Somehow the less known tune had been chosen! Jim gallantly labored through all the verses.
The tributes to Charmian's faith and love for the Lord touched every heart. And more than one of us could help but enviously wonder if such good things would be said of us when we passed on. Charmian's husband had died before the family was forced off their farm some years ago. She would now be buried in a lovely private spot on another farm not too far away.
But first a tea for everyone at the service. It's traditional to bring a plate of eats to share, and so there is no shortage of cakes and sandwiches. Jim and I sit with a family from our church. The Dad sees a Sudoku book I'm holding for someone and he has to take a look. He's an avid fan, I'm told. With a sweet, personal glimpse into the family's life, I learn that he works the puzzles at night in bed while waiting for his wife who checks the doors and windows, etc. And then they pray together.
Out at the farm we wait for the hearse, and then walk across pastures to the burial spot. And then another tea for those who had come so far. And we leave for home with such a good feeling. It had been a good day. People coming together from other parts of Zimbabwe and also from South Africa to honor the homegoing of a good Christian woman. So much love and hugs and laughter and sadness, too, as people met again and remember other times and places. And we remember, too, with soberness, the four from the school whose lives had had a much shorter run.
And on Sunday someone visiting just that one day who found herself so tired of being far from God and asked for prayer to begin anew with Christ. And then our church family enjoys the food and fellowship of a braai with the added pleasure of cotton candy, popcorn balls and candied apples.
My visits in the States were the greatest, and I found in myself an even deeper love and appreciation for my family and friends, but it's good to be home again with Jim and Ruth and Megan and Bowen and all the folks at Emmanuel Fellowship in Gweru, Zimbabwe!
Kombi is a small bus
Braai is the African name for a barbeque
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