Fellowship Thursday

Several years ago, the Pastor at our church asked me if I knew a particular women that was in our congregation. I did not. He told me she and I had parallel interests, that he was certain we would be fast friends, and that I should contact her. I did, we do, and we are. I phoned her and we set a lunch date. Oh my! She loves to study the Word (sound familiar?), she has a deep and special interest in the women of the Bible (definitely a long time passion of mine), she has a deep desire to see women free in the Lord ( something I am passionate about), she is a retired English Professor (hello!), and author(oh if only, eh?). Well, Pastor got it right, we were fast friends. It did not take long for our light lunch fare to become heavy and wonderful conversation. As we shared with each other how God had been so vital and fulfilling in our lives, we made an interesting discovery. Millie, my new and fast friend, said that while she and her husband were missionaries in Taiwan, they had worked with a lady missionary that had the same last name I did. She wondered if I knew of her. Knew of her??? She is only the best Aunt on the planet!! Millie had worked with my husbands' Aunt Dorothy, for four years some forty years ago. Small world? Yep! Coincidence? Come on... you know me better than to think I believe in coincidences. God was at work, and He was shining out strong in our lunch date. Since that time, I have grown to love, Millie Samuelson. Her heart is so bent toward the Lord, and what he has done, and is doing in the lives of women. This is a quote off of her website.

"Growing up in China, Millie saw how the Christian faith gave dignity and freedom to Chinese girls and women. Not only were their feet unbound, but their lives as well."

When Millie was a little girl in China, her father asked her if she imagined that it was only men at the Last Supper. In that conversation, something was birthed in Millie's heart. She began very young to explore the role of women in scripture. Though Millie, has authored other books, I will only mention two of them and then one she is penning now. The first in the series of three is titled, Men and Women of the Last Supper: We Were There Together. The second is, Women of the Last Supper: We Were There Too. The book she is writing now is I believe titled, Children of the Last Supper: We Were There Listening. You can find out more about these books on the website link above, or just click here.

I mention these books because of what I am about to share with you. After Millie, published the first book, our church began performing the monologues from its amazing pages, throughout Lent. Every Wednesday, beginning with Ash Wednesday, until the Thursday before Easter, our church had dinner together. Each Wednesday, all the disciples, and the women that were most likely present at the Last Supper would be there in full costume. A few disciples would perform their monologue from Millie's books at each dinner. The women that were there in costume also spoke monologues. I have been Mary Magdalene, in these performances. Oh, what a blessing. How could Millie, have known how much that story meant to me? She didn't, but God certainly did. I was honored to do it. I may write more on that someday. If I do, I will ask Millie, for her permission to post the monologue she wrote for Mary Magdalene, that I did, on this blog. We were invited to other churches to perform as well. Oh, what an experience. Millie has given me permission to write a script for a play from the inspiration I have gotten from her book. I have a pretty big project in the works right now, but that script is on tap for the summer! Millie, if you are reading this, I want to publicly thank you for so many hours of prayer, research, writing, editing and rewriting that you have put into these wonderful books. Thank you.

Now, for this year. I mentioned the third book in this series, Children of the Last Supper: We Were There Listening. Well, though it is not off to the printer yet, we performed out of it. Remember the account of Jairus' daughter? You can read about it here, here and here. This last book reflects the historical and spiritual perspective of the children that most likely were there. If the women were there, the children were too. And if there was food being served, the women were there. The new covenant using bread and wine was part of the evening, but supper was served as well. Jairus' daughter ( a youth at church) performed a monologue from this newest book, of what Jesus would have meant to her. These monologues though not word for word scripture, give you an historical and scriptural perspective of what it would have been like to be there. Instead of being the Last Supper all those years and cultures ago, it becomes a real, present and relevant event when you can get a glimpse of what it might have been like to be there. Very wonderful road to ponder down. I love those things that make Jesus so real to me. Precious!

Click on the pictures to enlarge them if you like.
Since we added the children this year, Millie gave us some amended instructions before our Last Supper was performed. That is my dear friend herself standing in this first picture. Perhaps you recognize Jon, seated in the photo facing us.


Millie is in my circle at church, and so are these women. These are two of my favorite sisters on the planet! We were in the ladies room preparing to perform. Couldn't resist this shot.


Here we are, Jon and I. I loved making these costumes. Actually, I love every aspect of drama. My grand daughter wants to be in a performance like this, and wants me to make her a costume just like mine. She is the older of the two that I made those cowgirl costumes for. She is also the reason I will get that play written this year. :-)


There are two people missing in this photo, but you get the idea. Jairus' daughter is front and center. Jesus is in at the table, in white. He is more commonly known as, Pastor.



Some call the Thursday before Easter Sunday, Maundy Thursday. Some call it, Holy Thursday. This day is referred to as "Maundy Thursday", because of how Jesus gave a new commandment to those in the upper room after Judas left. Maundy is derived from the Latin word, mandatum, which means command (mandate).

I call it, Fellowship Thursday. That is precisely what Jesus was doing with those there, and the new covenant given that night gave us and all people, the opportunity to choose to have fellowship with Him, yet today and forever.

I can not close this post with mentioning something wonderful that happened that night at church. I will start by sharing a little about Communion, since that is what this Thursday, night was really about. Often churches, therefore people, focus on the forgiveness aspect of Communion. In and of itself, that is great and there is certainly nothing wrong with that. The problem is that there is so much more. And, when we don't have an understanding of that we miss some very precious blessings. Read with me in Isaiah 53: 4-5.

Surely He has borne our griefs (sicknesses, weaknesses, and distresses) and carried our sorrows and pains [of punishment], yet we [ignorantly] considered Him stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God [as if with leprosy].
But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement [needful to obtain] peace and well-being for us was upon Him, and with the stripes [that wounded] Him we are healed and made whole. (AMP)

When Jesus went to the cross, he took every need we had and redeemed it there. When He conquered death and came up out of that grave, he gave all the answers to all our problems the power they needed to come to fruition. Hallelujah!! He gave us resurrection power, the ability to come up out of any problem we face.

Now of course we have to believe those promises. To believe them we must first know what they are. We have to have faith in God's word. And, we must choose to receive them when we ask for them, and believe we receive them. There is so much to write about all of that, and I will go into more on that later in a future post. But, if you want to live a life clothed in victory, that's the pattern for the victory cloak.

So, lets review what Isaiah had to say. Essentially, Jesus took all of our weaknesses and problems on Himself, and nailed them to the cross. His body was beaten and cut open so we could have healing in our bodies. His blood ran out as a result of such mutilation so we could have forgiveness for our sins. His spirit was tormented so we could have peace. God gave us Jesus, and Jesus gave us Himself, just to redeem us back from the curse. God loved us enough to give us everything, at a cost that bankrupt Heaven.

So, can you guess what I am doing when I take Communion? Often I have my Bible out on my lap and am thanking God for ALL He has done for me. You know how some religions call the bread and wine the "Eucharist"? Well, that is just a fancy word for what they deem "consecrated elements" for Communion. If you drop the capital "E", and simply spell it eucharist, it simply means "thanks", or "giving thanks", or "thanksgiving". In the Greek, eu means "good". Charisma means, "divine favor". And originally Eucharist was, Eukarist, a combination of the two. So simply put, "good divine favor that we are thankful for". Long before I started studying words, I was spending my time at the Communion table, in communion with God, thanking Him for His merciful, wonderful, abundant favor... His grace to me! I was so tickled when I realized that in blind faith I was actually on the mark. Oh, did you know that sin really means, "to miss the mark". That just popped out. Okay focus. Often, I am reading this while I am at the Communion table.

Psalm 103: 1-6
Let all that I am praise the Lord;
with my whole heart, I will praise his holy name.
Let all that I am praise the Lord;
may I never forget the good things he does for me.
He forgives all my sins
and heals all my diseases.
He redeems me from death
and crowns me with love and tender mercies.
He fills my life with good things.
My youth is renewed like the eagle’s!
The Lord gives righteousness
and justice to all who are treated unfairly. (NLT)

And now about that wonderful something that happened that Thursday, night. After we were done with our performance, Communion was served. During the distributing of the bread and grape juice, I had such a pressing in my spirit to pray for my husband's shoulder to neck area. Jon had been going to a Chiropractor for some pain he was having in that area. Jon does not seek medical help unless it is absolutely necessary, and then he fudges as much as he can. So, enough said. The Chiropractor had just ordered an MRI. Jon's condition was not good. Jon knows how to believe God for healing and so do I. We have seen it different times in our family. Anyway, I was really feeling pressed to pray about it. Then, I felt the Lord move me to not just pray about it, but to lay hands on him and pray over it. There was a woman at our table that I knew understood biblical healing, and also knew how to receive it. So it was no surprise when I felt the Holy Spirit lead me to ask her to if she would get in agreement with me over, Jon. She was happy to do it. Thank you, for your yielded and sweet heart, Elaine! God laid it on my heart to ask Jon if it would be okay if we prayed over him. He was good with that. I then felt the Lord lay it on my heart to tell Jon to just receive the healing by faith when we he took the bread and juice. He said he would. The earth did not quake. The building did not shake. But, I felt a complete peace for obedience. You gotta love that feeling... I do! Next day, Jon is at the Chiropractor for an adjustment. He told Jon to cancel the MRI. He couldn't figure it out really, but the problem did not exist anymore. Jon was and is, pain free! Thank you, Jesus for:
For I will restore health to you and heal you of your wounds,’ says the LORD... Jeremiah 30:17 (NKJV)


Be blessed!
Teresa

Brett's decision.

Brett Favre, #4 and quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, has played his last season. It is now official, he is retiring. I plan to write more on this later, but I have an important lunch date and must be off. I probably do not need to mention of course, I am just a little choked up. More later.

Blessings,
Teresa

Tea, a book and friends.

I receive Celestial Seasonings newsletter and email alerts. I received this the other day. I thought this was really nice when I looked it over, and thought some of you might like to see it. Have any of you read the book Peony in Love, that is on that link? Generally, I do not read what might be considered a love story, but this one seems to be that, but so much more. I would love to hear reviews.

Will Brett be back?

We should know by the week end!

Flapjacks with a British flavour and twist.

   I always love to learn new things about, Britain. Anything about their culture, customs, country and even... well maybe especially, their cuisine. Yesterday, I learned something new and wanted to share it with you. And I am wondering, am I the only one that did not know this? It seems so basic and yet I completely missed it. If I had gone to England, and ordered a Flapjack, I would have been either surprised or certain the waitress did not hear or understand me - or both. I would have been expecting a somewhat thin pancake, larger than the average... maybe 8 - 12 inches in diameter, with a little crispness on the outsides, that was done on a griddle. The whole point of the word “flap” in Flapjack, is that it is flapped over. Well, in reading some of the recipes on Barbara’s blog, I was really surprised to find that in England, that is not what a Flapjack is. Her recipe resembled what I might have guessed to be a granola bar. This is a picture of her Flapjacks at tea time. After doing a little digging, I found that English Flapjacks are made from oats, butter, sugar and a form of syrup like sugar. I did find recipes that had nuts, other dried fruits (I made Barbara’s and there were dried apricots in that recipe), and even chocolate. They are not like a granola bar, even though the ingredients suggest that. They are somewhat chewy and very decadent. Addictive even.

   Before I go any further, I want to tell you that the golden syrup referred to in this, and other British recipes is referring to something different than is typically sold here in the States. I happen to have access to a grocer that has a small display of British foods, mostly condiments. That store has a golden syrup just like what is used in Flapjack recipes. It is called, Lyle's Golden Syrup. Oh, and there in nothing like that golden syrup..... yum!! We use it in tea, and on toast. It is that green and gold can on my counter in some of the photos of my baking. But, here in the states, if you have no access to a golden syrup, use corn syrup like, Karo. I imagine light or dark is personal preference. If you looked at Barbara's recipe, you saw "demerara or brown sugar" listed as ingredients. Demerara sugar's closest equivalent would be our light brown sugar. Brown sugar in a British recipe I believe is closer to our dark brown sugar.

   I just received a comment from Barbara. In the event you do not read her comment I wanted to add it here. I stand corrected on the Demerara sugar. What I thought I read on the websites I read about English cooking and their ingredients, I either misinterpreted, or just did not understand. She is English, and would know. I want you to get it straight from her, so here is a that portion of her comment to this post.

"For your information Demerara sugar is very different to light brown sugar in both texture and flavour. It is mainly used here in coffee as it sweetens the coffee without altering its flavour like a brown sugar would. We do also use it in cooking as we do light brown sugar, dark brown sugar and Mollasses sugar which is even darker. We would NEVER put any of this in tea."

I am going to repost the recipe with all U.S. conversions.

Sticky Apricot Flapjack

Preheat oven to 425°. Grease an 8" cake pan. I used butter flavored non-stick spray.

1 stick butter
5 tablespoons golden syrup
1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons brown sugar (I did use the dark)
2 cups oats
1/3 cup dried apricots, chopped
1/2 tablespoon lemon juice.

Put butter and 4 tablespoons of the syrup into pan with sugar and heat gently until melted.
Stir in oats and apricots and mix well. Spoon into cake pan and smooth top.
Bake 25 minutes or until golden.

Once baked, remove from oven and while still warm mark into square (be sure to make these marks down to the pan or getting them out might be difficult. Melt remaining syrup and add lemon juice (I did this in a small cup in the microwave). Pour over the flapjack and leave to cool.

   I was amazed at how delicious these were! I was a little skeptical of the lemon juice, and all of you know I love lemon. But oh!!! what a wonderful little note of flavor the lemon gives. They would not be as good without it.

Here the Flapjack is in the tin. (or cake pan)

   As long as this has to do with British fare, I thought I would share something else with you. Some time ago, I discovered a tea offered by Tetley, called, British Blend. The name got my attention, but looking at the box I noticed three other things I liked. First, it did say, "A rich, full bodied blend". I really do not like troubled water that is passed off as tea. I like "full bodied" flavor. Second, there are 2.5 grams of tea in each bag rather than the 2 grams in most brands. That would give the "full bodied" flavor a little more kick. And last, the bags are round, tagless and fit right in the bottom of a cup or mug, rather than having strings that can be messy. So I bought the tea. I really like it. It is full bodied, the flavor itself is very good-I actually like it as much as I do some loose leaf teas, and the round bag is quite nice. I am pleased to tell you, this tea is not bitter at all as some bagged tea can be. If you like full bodied tea, try this. I think you will like it. Oh, and it is great with the Flapjack above. :-)

   Please forgive the lack of a photo of the finished product. This is one post I can not seem to find the rest of the photos for after the loss of so many photos on my blog when Picassa deleted them when I deleted them out of my Google+ account, not knowing they would be permanently deleted from my blog. I was thankful to just find the photo above.

Enjoy!
Teresa

Pumpkin Scones and Tuna Bake

   A while back I was looking for a pumpkin scone recipe and came across a blog that focuses on coffee, tea and chocolate. The link is in my side bar, and is called, Coffee, Tea and Chocolate. The link for a pumpkin scone recipe was on the opening page, easy enough. This is the page for that recipe. I have not completely familiarized myself with the sight as I normally would before putting a link for in on mine, but there are great recipes and ideas for having teas, so I did. This is the recipe as it appears on that page.

Pumpkin Scones 
2 cups flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup cold unsalted butter
1/3 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup pumpkin (if canned, be sure there are no spices or sugar added)
1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix together flour, sugar, spices, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Cut butter into small pieces and cut into flour. Mixture should look like coarse crumbs. In a separate bowl mix together the pumpkin, buttermilk and vanilla. Add to flour mixture and mix until the dough comes together (don't overmix). Transfer to a lightly floured surface and knead gently 3-4 times, and then shape/pat dough into a circle about 1 1/2 inches thick. Slice in half, and then cut each half into 3 equal pie-shaped wedges. Brush with egg glaze (1 egg beaten with 1 tbsp milk), and sprinkle with Turbinado sugar. Bake on a cookie sheet for @ 375° for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Makes 6 scones.

Optional: Add white chocolate chips and/or chopped pecans.

Pumpkin Spice Butter
1/4 cup (half a stick) butter, softened
1/4 cup pumpkin puree
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp allspice

Combine all and mix till creamy.

   I added white chocolate chips and chopped pecans to the scones. Perfect! I know the recipe says to cut into sixths, but that was a far bigger scone than we needed. I cut mine in eigth's and they were ... Perfect! I did not however, make the Pumpkin Spice Butter. Jon is not crazy about putting things on scones, if fact butter is about as far as he goes with toast, English muffins, or bagels even. Although, he has been seen on very rare occasion, spreading a little strawberry cream cheese on a bagel. If he wasn't going to eat it, guess who would. I would. So as delicious as I am sure it is, I passed. That butter would be a good excuse to make these scones again and have someone over. Hummm... or just take a couple of batches to Joy Circle at church. Those women would help me eat that yummy spread.

Scone photos missing due to Picasa incident mentioned in my Missing Photos section above.

   This dough is really easy to work with. Make sure your buttermilk and butter are as c old as possible. Putting them in the freezer for ten minutes with your bowl and utensil is a good idea. Use a cold bowl. I used a cold pastry blender to mix the dry ingredients and butter. Handle the dough as little as possible.

   You can roll and cut these however you like. You could probably make them drop scones if you wanted. I like a disc for scones. You can see there are eight instead of six.

   The recipe does not say, but I use parchment paper for most baking. One of these days I am going to get a Silpat.

   That scone recipe got printed out and is a part of my permanent recipe file. I am going to try dried cranberries in them next time. And now it is time to put supper together.




Here is what's for supper.

I already had the oven on, I just turned it up 25 degrees, and for supper we had Barbara's Tuna, Broccoli and Pasta Bake. It was as she said, tasty and simple. We have enough leftover that we can have it for lunch tomorrow after church. That works out well since I am really hoping to groom, Baxter. I highly recommend going to Barbara's blog. I have her permanently on my side bar as a link, but I want to mention it here. She has many wonderful things for you to look at and read. If you are enjoy reading about how the Lord can work in someone's life, read the section of her blog called, My Story. Being a blog, it goes in descending order chronologically. Start with the first one and work your way to the present. You will be glad you took the time to read these.

Tuna, Broccoli and Pasta Bake

Preheat oven to 400° I sprayed my 12 X 9 casserole with Olive Oil Pam non-stick spray. Just wanted to mention, my daughter Tara, gave me the Le Creuset casserole crockware a few years ago for Christmas. I love this piece of bakeware!! She got me another one that was green, oval and a little smaller. Amazing bakeware!

8 ounces Rotini pasta, I really like Barilla pasta.
3- 5 ounce cans tuna, I use solid white albacore tuna.
8 ounces broccoli florets, I used half of a 16 oz bag of frozen -it’s winter
2 ounces butter
1/4 cup flour
2-1/2 cups milk
8 ounces cheese, I used shredded mild and sharp cheddar.

• Cook pasta in boiling water for 5 minutes then add bite size broccoli and allow to return to boil. Cook 4-5 minutes until pasta is just tender. Drain well.
• While in colander, dump cans of tuna over pasta and broccoli. Once drained, flake tuna and place inside casserole.
• Arrange pasta and broccoli over tuna.
• *Make cheese sauce and pour over all.
• Sprinkle with remaining cheese.
• Bake for 25 minutes.

*Make cheese sauce by placing butter, milk, flour and half of the cheese (4 ounces) in sauce pan. Gently bring to a rolling boil. Whisk for a couple of minutes until thickening begins.

I added nothing to this. No salt, pepper, hot sauce, nodda. It was really good. Since the oven was already hot, I stuck a French baguette in while the casserole cooled. Bread warm and crusty, casserole cooled down and set a bit.... supper. Thanks, Barbara. :-)

Update:
A little update on the book in the Hannah Swensen murder series, Carrot Cake Murder that is to be released February 26th.

I was going to check on the county library since I was 4 on a list of 4 of requests for the book when it comes in, at my local town library. At the county library, there are ten requests. Ugh. And now, I am 4 on a list of 5 at my town library. Guess I will just stay put. They will probably get more than one copy, so it should not be too bad. Besides, it is not like I don't have enough reading to do with homework.

I haven't gotten any recommendations for a good murder mystery author or series so, I think I will give M.C. Beaton's, Agatha Raisin series a go.

Happy Valentines Day!

Love Is the Greatest

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! But when full understanding comes, these partial things will become useless.

When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (NLT)

Love,
Teresa