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Covenant_Mom
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Name: Becky
Country: United States
State: Oregon
Birthday: 11/23/1951
Gender: Female
Interests: Books, homeschooling, Welsh Cobs, Dressage, cooking, anything nature, interior design, country living, learning of all kinds and hospitality.
Expertise: Home design, cooking, horses--particularly performance, homeschool resources
Occupation: Other
Industry: Hospitality
Message: message me
Member Since:
1/14/2006
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| When God Sees Red
When God dips His paint brush into the palette of creation I am convinced he gravitates towards red more than any other color. There is no neutrality in red and God reserved it for His biggest and best creation, the sun. In the spectrum of color red is the most dominant. Where there is red there is warmth, vitality and life. No more is this in evidence than when you meet my friend, Quinn. I once told her if she were a flower it would naturally have to be a sunflower.
At first glance you might think God got a little out of control with His paint brush, because he splashed her hair in such deep shades of auburn that her thick, beautiful tresses seem to literally catch fire in the sunlight. I believe the tawny color was so intense it threw tiny red sparks right onto her cheeks, ending in a little trickle across her extremely cute pugged nose. ( Her Grandpa Ted's theory is she chased a cow too closely with a short stick, but I prefer to think my idea is better than cow manure!)
Her doe brown eyes fairly sparkle with a warmth and fire that is only matched by her passionate love for life. She is a great lover of the outdoors, children and babies, animals and all things living. In fact, I always tell her she "speaks animal". She has a special way with them including her very adorable jack russell terrier, who is a miniature of her in dog version--smart, perky, energetic and full of mischief!! Perhaps if she hadn't had all the red, her difficult childhood would have made her a different person, but it only intensified her goodness and passionate belief in people and life. To me, she is a real life "Anne of Green Gables" and I have come to believe that a day without Quinn is like a day without sunshine.
She says she is a "carpenter's dream" ( a board) but I don't think there would be many now who would deny she has outgrown the cliche, turning into a willowy young lady who turns heads wherever she goes. The amazing thing is God created Quinn all girl with just enough boy sprinkled in to make her be able to ride faster, shoot further and spot wildlife quicker than any man I know in Wallowa County. One year our local sheriff loaned her his horse to compete in a horse race here. She'd never ridden the horse before, but she beat every competitor there--grown men and all! People still comment on her ride that day.
As a matter of fact, there isn't much she can't do better than most men-- including spitting further too! Fortunately, now that she is a young woman her female side usually dominates. She has outgrown the urge to spit, I am told. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if it would surface again on a dare, because a dare for her is much to much temptation!
You might imagine I think she's perfect and I guess she does come pretty close, but you can't have all that warmth without it getting you into a little hot water every now and again. With her strong beliefs, passions and talkative nature she can sometimes get herself into a lot of trouble. But the good thing is she is equally quick to say she's sorry if her tongue gets too unruly, even if honest.
However her tongue, along with her whole life and way of thinking, changed drastically after her baptism on New Year's Day, 2006. Our little church was packed out that day to witness the transformation that Christ was working in her life. And it wasn't full of Christians only, but with people throughout the community whose lives she had already touched before she became a Christian. People I never thought I would ever see in church, much less my church, were sitting in the front row. I knew then, that her sunshine would spill over onto many, many more lives now that she belonged to God.
Not long ago I shared with her my mother's favorite verse, "Delight thyself in the eyes of the Lord and He will give you the desires of thine heart". (Psalm 37:4) She has clung to it's promise and faithfully followed Him each day since. Lo and behold, not long after that her beauty, life and story touched a particular young man in such a way that he couldn't help but ask her surrogate father, my husband, if he could court her. To be loved and to marry and have children with a Godly man, thus breaking a long chain of unhappy and unhealthy family relationships, is her greatest desire. We said yes and she said yes and the rest is yet to unfold!
As of this writing I don't know the final outcome of her story, but I do know that God is watching over that lovely red head in a very special way and we can hardly wait to see what comes next...Whatever it is, we certainly won't be sad if it included a quiver full of curly little redheads!! We will definitely keep you all posted on that! | | |
| This Christmas past I awoke to the sound of the melodius singing of finches and canaries in my house. It was the sweetest sound, aside from the wonder of little grand voices "ewwing and ahhing" over the presents under the tree, that I ever awoke to on a Christmas morn. I followed the musical trail to my laundry room, where I discovered a half converted closet turned aviary full of finches flitting and flirting around among natural branches in a finely fashioned bird home.
I am still pondering which was sweeter–that melodious sound, the fact that my dear husband spearheaded this special Christmas present or my daughter’s quotes plastered across the front of the cage taken from our favorite read aloud "Laddie, A True Blue Boy", which read:
"Sweet bird, thy bower is ever green.
Thy sky is ever clear;
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
No winter in thy year."
"Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble there’s no place like home!
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek through the world, is ne’er met with
Elsewhere."
I love birds and if you’ve never heard a canary in full throttle than you haven’t lived. I was stunned to think that I never had until I was way past forty–why hadn’t anyone told me how beautiful and amazing they sounded? Maybe I like birds so well because we have so much in common. They are flighty and I am flighty. They sing and I love to sing (though not a fraction so well as them). Their plumage is gloriously colorful and I must confess to loving glorious plumage myself. I suppose I can preen with the best of them too. I am comforted to know how much God loves birds because he reminds us that we are worth more than the sparrows and he knows everyone of them. ["are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father."] Can you imagine the music from just the birds when we get to heaven? How glorious it will be when they are singing in chorus with all the Heavenly Host!
This wonderful Christmas present (so out of character for my husband, I might add) reminds me of the time we were on the Snake River for almost a month as caretakers for the Forest Service at the Kirkwood Ranch. It was a time none of us will ever forget. The ranch, condemned by the government in 1934, is now a sort of museum, only accessible by jet boat, air or over high and treacherous mountain trails.
Our nearly a month’s stint there started January 1998 when the mail boat dropped us off on the sandy beach by the ranch dock just a little way below Big Bar. In that country nearly every bar on the river has a name. We got the idea to go there in the first place after reading, "Home Below Hell’s Canyon" by Grace Jordan. Her memoirs of becoming homesteaders there after coming from the East coast was a pure inspiration to me and it made me want to know more. As another unusual Christmas gift my husband contracted the mail boat to take us up the river to tour the place. After that, we discovered we could sign up as caretakers for a month there. The ranch has no phone or electric and is situated on one of the remotest stretches of the Snake River in Oregon.
Getting our one hundred pound+ Great Pyrenees off the boat was just the first adventure! There we were juggling dogs, kids, bags and about a hundred pounds of home school books, which I was not about to get wet while getting off that boat! I had planned out our month’s curriculum carefully, and brought along every book I thought might pertain. I figured it would be a good time to teach our children the county’s history, and particularly that stretch of the river, so rich in old timers tales and adventures . A month would barely do it justice because a person could spend a lifetime, and never fully know or understand that unbelievable place. For science I brought along all the ingredients to make molds from animal tracks in addition to field guides so we could study the flora and fauna of the area as well. Our old piano teacher had taught me one thing about learning and that was to teach it "from the score".
"When it comes up in the music", she said, "I like to teach it in practice rather than in abstract theory. That way they always remember it better." So, I figured when we came upon these things in nature we would learn about them right then and there. I have never forgotten that advice.
What a magical place and time in our lives! During the long winter evenings in that tiny little funky house, with it’s kitchen and postage stamp living room in the basement, the crackling sounds from the stove and the walnuts the children were shelling by the warmth of a wood stove competed with me, as I read aloud our current literature pick by a kerosene lamp. In this case it was a Greek tragedy. The oil lantern’s flickering shadows on the walls seemed to loom larger when the darker side of the tragedy appeared, almost as if it were reading along with us.
We covered writing and art by allowing the children to write in the journal provided for caretakers. Inevitably it was Jordan who handled most of this, and his pencil drawings and verse are still considered some of the very best entries (so say the Forest Service) in the many years of journals kept by caretakers.
By day I cooked all of our meals on a wood cookstove and washed our clothes in the sink using an old rusted wash board. We hung the clothes out on a line in the yard and while it was January, the daytime temperatures usually climbed to the 60's. It was so warm that winter that Rahn and I spent our nights sleeping on the screened in sleeping porch while the clamorous roar of the creek flowing to the mighty Snake lulled us into a deep sleep each night. My new home plans feature a master bedroom that is glass and screen all round, influenced by our bedroom at Kirkwood.
It was a heavenly place and time for us, but one that made you fully aware of your smallness and God’s greatness. The Almighty fashioned those hills, cliffs and bench land in such a magnificent way that a body naturally felt his raw humanity and finiteness. A deep feeling of loneliness enveloped both Rahn and I at about the same time each evening near dusk. The solitude of the place oozed in under the doors and into our very pores, smothering us in a kind of vague loneliness that lapped at the edges of the mind until darkness fell. Then the feeling passed and we would spend many a cozy evening playing hearts and reading aloud.
It also revealed how vulnerable we were to the isolation and the elements, and brings me to why I started to write about this grand adventure in the first place. One beautiful evening towards the hushing hour when the sky was still shot through with the last vestiges of that great golden orb, we spied a wonderful specimen of a Magpie nest patched into a Hackberry bush which hung over the river’s edge. Though it was getting near dark my dear husband, always eager to please, ascended the small tree for me. It was a bit of a precarious climb to reach the nest in a tree which seemed to be hanging in space over the water, but I wanted it for our science unit. He quickly made the ascent, snatching the nest from it’s moorings. Unfortunately, the branch he was standing on suddenly broke hurtling him to the earth below faster than a speeding bullet. Luckily, his fall was broken by hitting another branch below. Unluckily, he hit that branch bottom side first, tearing a three inch rip in his pants and into the soft flesh of his lily white backside. It was a nasty sight (don’t picture it!) It probably needed stitches but there was no way he was going to allow me to radio headquarters to ask to be taken out to have his fanny sewn up! I had to be Nurse Nancy and good night nurse-- I ain’t one! In retrospect, Rahn would have probably been better off taking his chances on getting gangrene then letting me doctor him! We sure had some good laughs at his expense over that one and instead of sitting down like a normal person, he did a "one bun salute" for nearly a week! There are many more adventures yet to be told, but I will save those for another time. For now, suffice it to say nothing will ever completely dim that time from my mind but death. I cherish the fact that my husband made that experience from a-long-ago-Christmas a wonderful reality for our family, as he did this past Christmas.
Sadly, as I write this, I must confess that I have lost almost all of those dear little birds and their passing is still a mystery. Yet the sounds of my finches and canaries in the aviary here on Hurricane Creek, which I first heard on Christmas morning, will never be dimmed–and not even in death–because I am sure that along with the angels, the Birds of Heaven will be ushering us into His gates as we leave this earthly home. And what’s more, that melodious singing will continue on all through eternity, never ceasing–what a glorious thought! | | |
| Below is an excerpt from my cookbook, "Around the Covenant Table", which I just finished for my family and friends. It took me about a year to get done and wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for "Katie the Great", who is our office manager and long-time family friend. Katie has that rare talent of making each person think that she loves you more than anyone else, but of course, deep down we really all know that's just one of her special gifts.
Be sure to check out the recipe after the excerpt. It's an amazing one that is simple, simple, simple. If you would like a copy of my cookbook, let me know. It's full of color classic artwork (which for the life of me I can't figure out how to load a picture here) in a three ring binder (so you can easily add other recipes), and features the best of the best in recipes from family, friends and beyond. There are lots of great quotes sprinkled throughout as well as excerpts from my grandma's letters, which always included something about food & cooking--her greatest love in life. The cost is a donation, which will be given to Providence Academy, the private school we are involved in.
Gute Essen--as we say in the Pennsylvania Dutch Country!
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For as long as I can remember I have been in a family where foods and cooking were a high priority, and why not? I grew up in Lancaster County, the garden spot of the world and home to the Pennsylvania Dutch, a people known for their wonderful cooking. My earliest memories of the covenant table center around my Grandmother Wenzel’s huge “summer kitchen.” In Grandma’s enormous eighteen-room Lancaster County limestone house, there were two kitchens: one for winter time and one used during the hot, humid Dog-day months of summer. It was an open air affair with screened in windows all around. Undoubtedly, the centerpiece of this airy light-filled room was a huge, oval oak table as permanent, stout and practical as Grandma herself. Benches on either side held up strong, bronzed and sweaty field-hands whom Grandma lovingly fed each day. She presided over all with a quiet air of dignity, saying little.
Grandma was a woman of few words. Mostly, you could hear her whistling as she worked in a kind of breathy, whisper. It seemed to go on for hours. Twelve field-hands around that table were not uncommon, especially during tobacco season. Despite the stifling, muggy summers, Grandma’s hot noon meal never faltered. Each day it was something new and delicious, but my most memorable meal consisted of mounds and mounds of mashed potatoes, her browned-to-perfection-fall-apart roast beef (straight from her barnyard), homemade bread slathered with apple butter, brown buttered lima beans and perhaps any one of a dozen or more choices of traditional Dutch salads (Pepper Slaw was one of my favorites). Of course, her pies grew legendary and they sat in a straight row adorning her deep windowsills!
This went on every day until the tobacco was put up. In between those wonderful meals, a host of hours passed as we worked putting up the produce from her enormous garden. Grandma Wenzel did all of her canning and freezing in that heavenly spot with its continuous breeze to fan us. This process demanded great discipline and perseverance (attributes I lacked in those days). Her two acre garden---hand tilled by Grandpa (using Louie, their plough horse) yielded bushels and bushels of every kind of vegetable. I loved running my fingers through a newly hulled bushel of peas, though I knew it would bring instant and sure reprisals. The texture, color and smell of the cool rounded legumes playing through my fingers were too tempting.
As I think about it, I am sure a good portion of the creative genes our family inherited came from Grandma. Though by nature a sober and practical woman, she was not content to have “just a garden.” Hers was a riot of color as well. Function, yes, but beauty must have compelled her, too. I remember the rows and rows of flowers, but particularly I remember her many-hued zinnias and, in particular, the neon ones which screamed out for attention in a grand cacophony of color. Dozens and dozens of butterflies hovered lazily above them like tiny hang gliders in the stifling afternoons of Lancaster County, and my greatest desire was to wander away from her huge table to stalk her garden rows in quest of a new variety of butterfly to capture. I often succeeded, but not without due punishment for my waywardness. As a child, I was not always fond of being there, but as I look back, I am thankful for that time.
What Grandma Wenzel started in her summer kitchen continues in this book of recipes and remembrances, making it a sort of family chronicle through the eyes of food, family, friends and faith, featuring quotes and verses to help along the way. When I started this journey of married life, I never imagined we would have been blessed beyond imagination as a family, but we have been. What God has done for us can only be called miraculous.
My prayer in these reaping years of my life is that each of you---my dear children---will continue on in the heritage begun all those years ago, much like a small bit of leaven in the rising dough in Grandma’s summer kitchen back in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. May that original “yeast” of home, hospitality and hope in God and His promises continue to grow into full maturity and overflow, spilling out around your covenant tables; in turn, being passed on to your children’s children---until we all meet again together around God’s great covenant table in Heaven.
Becky Hostetter (‘Marmie’)
Christmas 2005
Preheat oven to 450
5 large tomatos
3 T olive oil
2 T minced garlic
3/4 t salt
3/4 t pepper
1 1/2 lb shrimp - peeled
1/2 c fresh parsley
2 T lemon juice
1 c feta
- Place tomatos in baking dish - toss with olive oil, s & p and garlic
- Roast 20 minutes on top rack, or until tomatos begin to brown
- Remove and add remaining ingredients
- Bake 5 - 10 additional minutes, or until shrimp are cooked
Serve with crusty bread, or use as a sauce for pasta.
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Welcome to my site. This is my debut into the World of Blog. Please stay tuned for my next installment: "He Built me a Barn" (swirling in my brain) and my memoirs of Christmas Just Past. (I'm slow on this writing business.)
"Wherever there is unity in diversity, then we are free to be ourselves; it cannot be done in isolation; we need each other."
(Circle of Quiet, 237)
Recently, I finished a novelized version of the Donner Pass account, where a wagon train in the 1840's tragically became stranded in the Sierra Nevadas in over 20 feet of snow. The book, by Vardis Fisher,called "Mothers" (who also wrote "Mountain Man"--certainly in the running as one of my all time favorite novels)puts forth the thesis that it was the mothers who had the "grit" to survive such a cataclysmic tragedy. A mother, after all, will do anything to protect her children. If for no other reason than the passage below, I would highly suggestreading this book.
"[Tamsen Donner] was a woman of unusual intelligence. She realized from the first that cheerfulness was as important as food. If, she told herself, persons yielded to despair, then even an abundance of food might not be enough; but if they were cheerful, if they were full of courage and hope, then they could sustain life with a very little. To keep her wards, and especially her children, in good spirits she did many things which no mother did at the lake camp. She strove to arouse in them mirth for their predicament; she encouraged them to jest with one another, to laugh, and to seek things to laugh at. And what she asked of them, she gave in abundant measure. It was her quick smile and her cheerful words that made her husband cling to life week after week while the poison from an infected hand crept through him.....It was her amazing energy that aroused her children when, in damp clothes, half-frozen, and full of deadly weariness, they would have preferred to remain in bed.
With the coming of daylight Tamsen always rose, and she kept busy until dark. Along the creek, water melted the snow and there was a bare shelf of earth; and here Tamsen searched for mice and other living things. Years ago she had wanted to be a painter and she had brought with her canvas and brushes and oils. Almost daily she bundled up in heavy clothes and went outside for a while to paint the magnificent winter. For [others] these mountains were the walls of a horrifying prison, but for Tamsen they were a cold white splendor. Such majesty she had never seen before, nor such loveliness as snow made of evergreen trees..."
Perhaps more stunning than even the Mother’s courage and pluck, though, was the parties astounding lack of communication and community. It was every man for himself, even to the point of hoarding food while others lay dying. Not surprising, this attitude didn’t rear its ugly head only towards the end of their predicament, but from the beginning of the trip the seeds of selfishness were planted. It was grueling reading, to be sure, and a harrowing tale of the survival of the fittest.
This stirring testimony has caused me to ponder more about the role of Mothers, which ironically, I had been thinking about before I read the book. My thoughts prior to this reading, however, were running along the lines of mothers as peacemakers. What mother hasn’t been a peacemaker, especially where her children are concerned? Whether it’s helping the headmaster understand our child better, actively arbitrating disagreements between siblings or just presenting another side of the child that Daddy may not have seen; mothers are always busy in the employment of peacemaking
As I thought about "Mothers" I began to draw parallels with regard to our church and our sister church. How often has lack of communication and community ended up in disaster? And since mothers are naturally peacemakers shouldn’t we help our men in this way? "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God..." Matthew 5
For this reason I emailed a good friend the other day to ask if as mothers and wives we shouldn’t/ couldn’t help our husbands in regard to the doctrinal differences and discussion going on between our two churches. God made women naturally softer in form and I believe in graces. It should be and is the goal (I think) of every mature Godly woman to learn to measure and soften her words whenever possible. Of course this should not only be the goal of women, but men too. This doesn’t mean we aren’t "up front" or honest, but I am convinced it is not what we say, but how we say it that can make all the difference. Yes, I am still growing in this area, but I think it should be the goal and, as wives and mothers, I think it should also be our goal to help our men in this way.
My own dear husband often brags about how men can "fight it out" and then go home and no one gets hurt, he says. He returns from those meetings between the two churches pumped up and excited about what a great meeting it was and how it’s so wonderful to confront things head on. As he’s telling me all this he’s punching the pillows on the couch with lightning quickness, stabbing the unsuspecting fluff with alternate blows from his fists. (Can you picture it!!?) I am not sure everyone feels quite as positive as he does or sees it quite like he does!
Around here we jokingly call Men’s Meetings "Men’s World". I can assure you I have no desire to attend these meetings, but sometimes I think the presence of that softer counterpoint might be a good balance. Maybe not being as free to say whatever they please (because men can "take it") would be a good thing.
While I agree men are tougher, I don’t agree they don’t get their feelings hurt. I feel certain my husband’s blunt words have quite possibly at some time or another hurt an elder at the sister church, though he may not have thought so at the time. Words hurt and written words (even worse) leave a sting far longer than the uttered word.
This makes me think of how far we have come with the written word. While I love email (it’s instant gratification), I am alarmed at how people will often say in an email what they would be ashamed or embarrassed or afraid to say in person. I have seen this time and again in different organizations I have been involved in through the years. Someone, for whatever reason, has become hurt so they fire off a stinging missive and what’s worse, they cc it to everyone from here to China. This breaks so many rules of communication that I can’t even begin to count the ways–and makes a whole other subject.
I’m sure I have probably erred in this way and I repent of it. If anything, we need to measure our words much more seriously and carefully when exchanging emails (or with any writing). Perhaps it is because it is so instant, quick and easy that we have gotten into this bad form, but really, most writing needs the test of time by setting it down and coming back to it later. This way we can gain a fresh perspective and eye, sifting through our work more carefully. I always wrote my best articles for the newspaper I worked for if I could let the rough draft sit for a few days; though I acknowledge we don’t always have the luxury.
One of the best pacts Rahn and I ever made during the years he served as Wallowa County’s District Attorney was to never--NO NEVER--respond to a letter to the editor or to communicate a point by writing a letter to the editor of our small local paper. Many was the time that we would be falsely accused or raked over the coals by some citizen who didn’t like the D.A. --for whatever reason (small towns can be lots of fun this way . We never broke that rule, though I can tell you countless letters were written, ending up in file 13. Just writing it out and then tearing it up was usually enough to assuage our passions.
Suffice it to say, Rahn has often thanked me through the years when I have confronted him with how he said something or how I think it came across (whether to me or someone else). The Lord only knows how many times I have had to thank him for just such a thing–though it usually takes me quite a bit longer to admit it!
All these musings have inspired me to encourage and to ask–implore--each of our women, mothers and sisters in the two churches to pray for our men more in this matter. I hope that each of you wives will also give your spouse constructive feedback with regard to how they communicate as men one to another. I believe this falls under the heading of "helpmeet". I have been thankful for a man who handled constructive criticism well and through the years I have done given it,even helping him analyze how he could have been more effective during trials. ( I only wish more women married to pastors would critique their sermons!! I digress....)
My prayer & hope is that along with just the right words said in just the right way our men will grow in their patience with each other, and that both sides would ask the Lord to grant them a truly open mind as they continue on in the journey towards truth and, where necessary, reform. I feel it would be a senseless tragedy, (okay, maybe not on the Donner scale), but bad nonetheless–to see our churches part ways mostly because of a lack of communication and community. Maybe not all, but many of our issues are secondary ones after all; and with a greater degree of sensitivity, patience and prayer we should easily be able to continue on in our rich friendships and bond of Christian brotherhood.
The two churches are different or we wouldn’t be two churches. Let’s find our common ground, which does not negate iron sharpening iron, to be sure; but allows us to continue the dialogue in a truly healthy way. If we would go into discussions with an attitude of where we could be taught and not how we can teach, maybe both sides could find that they can learn from one another–maybe even things that both sides thought they could never agree on.
We live in times where we are misunderstood in the broader Christian community. I am sure they love to see us bickering within our Reformed ranks. In my opinion, we have enough wars to fight on that front, without having to worry that our brothers in the Reformed faith will take their toys and go home too. And we must face the facts,because the discord from without is only going to get uglier. We need each other.
I will say it again, we need each other and it is for this reason that I ask each and every woman of these two churches to put this at the top of their prayer list: to pray for softer words that facilitate better communication in an effort to display uncommon unity even in the midst of our doctrinal differences and in the midst of a world that has forgotten what the Bible really says and what it is all about. Isn't there more at stake than just perfect doctrine?
I am sure the Donner women wish they could have done things differently in encouraging their men towards unity. Certainly, our disunity is no where near as catastrophic as theirs, but I–for one–am not too interested in looking over a camp littered with dead bodies, when I know the outcome could have been so different. | | |
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