Minestrone Soup

I wanted to give you the minestrone recipe that I made last week.  It is so super yummy and would be a perfect meal for a cold winter night or a rainy day.

MINESTRONE SOUP
2 cans (one 28 oz, and one 14 ½ oz) diced tomatoes, undrained  - I did not buy cans the right size.  I had three cans of Mexican or Italian tomatoes and I used those.  I pureed them in the blender so they weren’t in chunks

2 cups water

2 medium carrots, sliced

1 medium onion, chopped

1 medium zucchini, chopped – We do not have zucchini here so I did not add that

1 pkg. (3 ½ oz) pepperoni  - did not have that either

2 tsp. garlic

2 tsp. chicken bouillon granules

½ tsp. dried basil

½ tsp. oregano

2 cans (16 oz. each) kidney beans, rinsed and drained

1 pkg. (10 oz.) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry – I used fresh stuff I found at the pasar (market)

1 ¼ cups cooked elbow macaroni  - I did not measure, I put in a small  box

Shredded parmesan cheese – We don’t have that here

You can put the first 10 ingredients in crock pot.  Cover and cook on low for 6 hours or so.

I do not have a crock pot so I simmered it on the stove for about 45 minutes or so.  One time I added some ground beef but it would be so super duper yummy with ground up Italian sausage or little chunks of sausage.

I made garlic bread sticks to go with it and it was wonderful.

Two Sides to the Coin

If you gave me a plane ticket home today I would have grabbed it and ran to the airport.  My frustration level was high.  Our microwave is broken, our water dispenser is broken, we have a kid getting over malaria, one with a bad foot infection, others with various illnesses, on top of that our cook Ibu Poppi has not been doing her job, she hasn’t been making meals that I have asked her to make which makes for A LOT more work for me, there were ants throughout the entire canister of sugar, there were weevils in the oatmeal bag and in the flour, black ants all over my mouthwash and toothpaste, and big red ants that take over the kitchen after 7 pm.

Ugh!  I woke up to pouring rain and it would have been a good day to stay in bed.  Do you ever have days like that?  It is so easy for me to think that if I was in the States I wouldn’t have these frustrations, but that is not true.  The frustrations would be different but they would still be there.  I keep asking God for patience and He is giving me perfect opportunities to work on that with these annoyances.  That is one side of the coin,  I need to look at the other side and rejoice. 

By being here in Indonesia with the schedule we have, we have been able to connect so much more with our kids than we ever did in the States.  Our lives are much more relaxed and unrushed.  We are here in the morning when the kids go off to school and at recess and at lunch and every day after school.  We are in tune with everything they have going on and their friends and their frustrations and joys.  We are able to spot bad habits right away and as Barney Fife would say, “Nip it in the bud.”  We are a part of their classroom and help with games and activities and substitute teach .  Not just one of us but both of us.  That is a treasure that the kids love.  These years of their lives are just flying by.  They are growing up so fast.  We have been able to invest so much of ourselves in their lives and we see the benefits of that.  They have grown so close to us and us to them.  Our devotion time as a family is wonderfully rich.  We have been able to find ways to serve here as a family that helps us focus on someone other than ourselves.

Most importantly, we all feel like this is where God wants us to be right now.  That helps us get through hard times because we know that God has a reason for all of this.  Hard times are not punishments-they are times for us to learn how to hold on tighter to God’s hand.  With all that in mind, I want you to know that we have decided that we will be staying for one more year.  It is our fourth and final year.  This summer MAF is sending us home to the States and then we will be back here for that last year.

Thank you for all the prayer and financial support you all have given us.  You are a vital part of helping us continue. 

We greatly appreciate you.

Love

Rachel

Ice Cream and Meatballs

What would we do without weekends?  I think we would either walk around like zombies or blow up like let-go balloons and be hurtling around in space.  I NEED weekends.  Don’t you?  It is a good time to reconnect with our own kids and with the dorm kids. 

Garth and I have found out that if we want to plan something with the whole hostel we need to set it up in advance and write it down for everyone to see.  That is what we did for our “dorm date” on Saturday.  We try to carefully stay in the budget so every once in awhile we can splurge.  And we did by ordering some pizzas from Papa Ron’s.  (They were yummy!)  Then we took the kids up to the Multi Purpose room and watched “Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs” while we celebrated with cake and ice cream for Josiah’s 12^th birthday.  It was a good time of bonding and togetherness.

Today I took the girls on a date down to the mall to shop.  That usually means Sophie and I watch Emma try on shoes!  That girl is amazing when it comes to shoes.  She is infatuated!  While Soph and I were waiting we took pictures of some more funny Indonesian/English shirts.

All the girls bought was a new Batman outfit (with cape) for Cale and a new shirt for Wyatt.  No shoes!  Yipee!!  Before we went to the store I straightened Sophie’s hair.  (She, of course, wants her hair straight.  Emma wants hers curly.)  On our walk to the mall we stopped at a little push cart and bought ice cream cones for the kids.  10 cents a cone!  Nice huh?

Love you

Rachel

Kids

Here are a few shirts we saw hanging in a local store.  The English is always so funny.  In case you can’t read the last one, it says “Sweet and smart little frizzy”.

Tonight was our first Friday Night Game since the basketball season started.  The kids love running around playing with  all of the other kids that are up here during that time.  Sophie, (always in ‘leader mode’) set up a water project on the playground instructing people to build dams and trenches and all sorts of lakes.  Notice the gender of ALL of her workers…I wonder if I should be worried…

Cale had a terrific time making friends of his own.  (Again notice the gender…)

One of my favorite things to do is to take pictures of children.  I have found that there are some really beautiful kids here.  One day I want to compile all the pictures I have taken of Indonesian kids into some sort of album.  These three girls are just lovely aren’t they?  One of them could have been me.  Or you.  We had nothing to do with where were born.  We have so very much don’t we?  How often do we thank God for where we were born and how we look and all that we have??  Today would be a great day to do just that.

Love you

Rachel

Getting in the swing of things

Sunday

The dorm kids arrive back today after having a month off. It is quite the adjustment for our family, but we are ready, and we enjoy the change. Our cook Ibu Poppi is still gone, so the feat of feeding everyone lies in my lap. I normally don’t mind as long as I have advance warning. What would you make if you were soon to have a houseful of 18? It is a totally different way of thinking here since we do not have the convenience of premade or packaged foods. Say for instance if I wanted to make some lasagnas, this is what it would be like- first I would make the noodles and boil them. While they were drying a bit on a towel I would make the sauce from scratch, then since there is no ricotta and I don’t make my own, I would use the homemade yogurt that I made the night before with some seasonings, and brown the ground beef. There is one store that sometimes has mozzarella so hopefully I would have been able to find some and then while the lasagnas are all in the oven cooking I can make the homemade garlic bread. A few hours later we can all sit down to enjoy my “speedy” creations. I opted not to make lasagna, instead I made a big pot of potato soup, some soft pretzels and a huge batch of pancakes..that should fill some stomachs for awhile.

Today is Monday and the dorm kids are all back now. One came with a broken arm, one is recovering from hernia surgery, one flew in this morning and had to go straight to school, and the rest are here and reluctant to start back up in school. It is always tough to get back in the swing of things. The house is bustling and thankfully, our cook, Ibu Poppi showed up!!! Yeah! That is awesome news for me.

Sophie wrote something that she said I MUST put in my email. We were studying the planets and how cool it is that we are on Earth as it is the only planets with water and just the perfect tilt and the right distance from the sun…so part of the email is from that new information. I am not sure about the rest. But here it is:

From Sophie

We travel threw the world to people in need . We love to follow god any ware he tells us to go. We live in a hostel, but we don’t own it. Now could you pray that we are doing the right thing? ]prayer] thank god for you and me. He made the planets not the same, but he provided a planet just…for…us.

Love you all     Rachel

A New Beach

Today we decided to go to the beach.  We woke up to a nice steady rain and prayed that it would soon stop.  However, it ended up foreshadowing how the whole day was going to be.  We had heard about a new beach that we hadn’t been to and thought we would try it out.  Here are some pictures of our day:

We all had a nice time, and yet have decided that we will not be returning to that beach.  The flies were horrendous and there was no sand, just rocks and shells.  We did find quite a few fun souvenirs, a sand dollar, a lobster shell, hermit crabs and some beautiful rocks and shells.

And now we are back home safe and sound, showered off and ready for some dinner-something about the beach always makes everyone so hungry.

Love you all

Rachel

Little Blessings

I have been thinking a lot about an article I read in the November issue of Woman’s Day.  The article was called Little Blessings.  The author, (a busy Mom of four children,) took everyday annoyances and showed us a different way of looking at them. 

For instance: 

Being thankful for the eternal mess the kids leave the house in stating that having a child is the quickest cure for perfectionism there is; being thankful for the 10 minutes it takes a child to put on their shoes because it forces us to stop and smell the graham crackers; being thankful for the 3 AM wakeups because it is good to feel needed; and being thankful for the empty bankbook because the money has grown into four amazing people and that is a pretty good investment.

I have mentioned before my mindset of doing the opposite.  The opposite of what you feel like doing.  When my daughter spills her drink all over the table (again) and I look at her and see her eyes welling up with tears over her offense-inside I want to holler at her foolishness-but the opposite would be to respond in a loving hug and help her clean it up.  I think that idea is what the Author was writing about.  If all of these annoyances just annoy me then I am missing out-and I am allowing myself to get in the habit of reacting negatively when someone does something wrong.

I read a quote that stated that : “Patience gives the other person permission to be human.  It understands that everyone fails.”

I feel like the thing I ask God for the most often is patience.  I am so far from where I want to be in that area and I realize that He gives me many opportunities throughout my days to work on it.  One way to do that is to find ways to see the annoyances as blessings.

Love you Rachel

Are your feet up?

You know, sometimes I am not the most patient person. I have noticed that the worst of it often creeps up at bedtime. I expect everyone to quickly do what needs to be done and then happily climb into bed and immediately fall asleep. I don’t like anything that sounds like, “Mom, can I get some water,” or “Mom, I forgot to go potty,” and especially anything that sounds like, “But I don’t want to go to bed…” I think the Grinch lies in wait and then jumps out of me in moments like that. Ugh! It is absolutely awful and I do not like it. I am working on having self-control in areas like this.

Cale has this thing he does when I come over to his bed to put him to sleep. He will ask me, “Do you have your feet up?” He is asking that because he wants me to lay on his bed with my feet up. He knows that I stay in there longer with him when I have my feet up. However, there are nights when it is late and I think he needs to be asleep or I need to put the girls to bed and can’t spend much time with him. Those nights I just kneel by the bed and pray and kiss him and go. But the nights that I can lay and put my feet up and talk and snuggle with him are nights that he treasures.

It is that way with God. How often do we rush through our time with him because we have so many other things to do? I am sure that we miss out on so much by being rushed. God treasures the moments that we decide to ‘put our feet up’ and soak up His presence without thinking of all the other things we need to do and without being in a rush.

When was the last time you did that?

Rachel

Friends

I have been reading in II Samuel.  The end of the book in Chapter 23 talks about David’s mighty men.  It goes into detail about how these men fought for King David and even risked their lives to go through enemy lines to bring him back some water from the well at Bethlehem.  It also talks of Thirty seven men who were very important to him, surrounded him, and protected him.  That is so essential to our well-being.  We all need, (crave), those friends that will stick with us through everything.  Do you have that?  Maybe not thirty seven, but even one or two?

I was reading awhile ago about Mary the Mother of Jesus.  She was the only one that was present at His birth and His death.  It says in Acts one that Jesus and His twelve friends, the disciples, “joined together constantly in prayer along with the women and Mary the Mother of Jesus and His brothers.”  I think that is cool.  Jesus had a vital group of friends that were with him in life and in prayer.  Now it doesn’t say specifically who those women were but I could guess that Mary had her own band of special women that surrounded her to encourage her with prayer as well.  Mary had been told that Jesus’ life would not be easy.  If I were her, I would need a bunch of women to help my grieving heart deal with all that was to befall my son Jesus.

I know life is crazy and so very busy, but I think friendships, really good meaningful ones, are something that we need to make time for.  Friends that will bring you soup when you are sick, pray with you through a tough decision, let you know when you are out of line, make you laugh when you only feel like crying, drive you to a doctor’s appointment, remember days that are special to you, love you no matter what…Do you have that?  If you don’t, you should make it one of your New Year’s resolutions.

And if you have an invaluable friend like that, treasure them.  Don’t take for granted what God has blessed you with.

Be that kind of friend to them.

Rachel

Oooohs and Aaaaahs

Our last few days have been full of FamilyTime.  I love days like that.  Here are some pictures of the things we have been doing:

I brought back some Perler beads and the kids have had a blast making all sorts of creatures from them.  I also brought back one package of dye and showed the kids how to Tie-Dye.  Last night Wyatt, Emma, and Sophie made us dinner-tacos.  And it was wonderful.  I was very proud of their effort.

Today we took some of our boomerangs, and our bow and arrows, along with some other outside toys the kids got for Christmas and went out to the soccer field to have fun.  Garth got a little carried away with one boomerang and it landed up high in the tree.  We tried to shoot a small soccer ball up there with the water balloon launcher but we couldn’t get it down.  Eventually we had to leave it.  We did show one of our yard workers where it was, so maybe he will go up and get it.  That was good for a lot of laughs.  Last night we shot off some of our fireworks in our backyard.  The kids thought that was really cool.  I heard lots of “ooohhs” and “aaaahs”.

Hope you are finding your own things to “oooh” and “aaaaah” over.

Love you

Rachel

Happy New Year-Selamat Tahun Baru

What a crazy week back!  We had an earthquake, the Internet has been out, our kittens all “mysteriously” went missing at the same time…Ibu Poppy is not coming in until next week, Cale has been waking up on Wisconsin time, Fireworks, music, heat, our phone is not working, one of the burners on my new stove is not working…

O.k. enough complaints-there has been good stuff too.  I get to hug and snuggle all of my  kids again, and play Garth in racquetball, we have had movie nights and game nights and been baking together in the kitchen, gone to the pool twice, read lots of books etc.

It takes awhile to get back in the swing of life here in Sentani.  It is so very different from life in the States.  I have to remind myself to remember to expect nothing.  Don’t expect things to be done on time, don’t expect the people helping you to be quick, don’t expect to find what you are looking for at the store, and on and on.

This is a New Year-How do  you feel about that?  You have a brand new start-a clean slate.  Do you make resolutions?  We have the resolutions that we made as a family up all around the house: Relax more, spend time with God, Ignore the small stuff (Don’t let little things bug you), Laugh more, and be patient.

From all of the Erickson’s here we want to wish you a Happy New Year and to thank you all for sticking with us for these three years.  We greatly appreciate  you.  You have helped make our years HAPPY!

Love you

Rachel

The Trip

I am telling you-that was a long trip!  But now I am home and trying to get back into the current time zone.  This is how it started: My family took us to the airport on Sunday for a noon flight.  Goodbye’s are awful and I will not even tell you how hard it is for me to say goodbye to my family, but I did (again).  The first five minutes of the flight I dropped my yogurt and Cale knocked over our water and it spilled all over his pants.  The flight to Hong Kong was 7779 miles and took 15 hours and 2 minutes.  Then we had a 2 hour flight to Singapore, an 8 hour layover in the Airport there, and then a flight over to Jakarta.  We got to Jakarta at 9 am and had a layover there until 11:30 pm.  Thankfully we were able to take the shuttle to a hotel and sleep.  We slept from 11 in the morning until 10 at night.  Praise the Lord I was charging up my cell phone and Garth was able to get through, because I had looked at the tickets and thought our flight out was at 12:30 but it was at 11:30.  Garth reminded me of that when he called (yahoo).  We had a situation where my luggage was supposed to be checked all the way through to Jayapura but it wasn’t.  So I had to get it in Jakarta and there was a chance I would have to pay a large fee for it there, but thankfully, they said I didn’t.  We left Jakarta at Midnight on Tuesday, flew 1 ½ hours to Bali, then 3 hours to Timika and 1 hour to Jayapura, and landed there at 9 am (their time) on Wednesday.  Garth figured the whole trip was around 58 hours.  Crazy, huh?

The first night back Cale was up at 2 :30 am hungry and wanting breakfast.  The second night he did a little better (5 am), so hopefully tonight will be wonderful!  There is a lot going on here with the pondok natals (those music huts that blast music all day and most of the night), and Christmas fireworks also going off all day and night, and Cale and I trying to adjust to being 15 hours ahead of the time zone we were in…so I am feeling a bit muddle-headed.

I know a lot of you prayed us through this whole trip, and for that I am beyond thankful.

You are wonderful!

Rachel

Sprinkles

Do you ever take the top off of a bottle of sprinkles to decorate a cake and everything is going well at first-sprinkle, sprinkle and then plop, a big spluge of sprinkles all comes out at once?  Well, that is how I feel about my trip back to the States.  I have always felt sprinkled with blessings but when I was there I felt like the blessings were plopped on me.  There were so many people that were a part of that.  My family doctor who had been out for 7 weeks with surgery on his knee was back at work, agreed to see me the day I called, and gave me two time slots so we wouldn’t feel rushed.  The specialist that I needed to see had been out with surgery on a tumor on his back, but was there for my appointment and called the hospital to get me in right away for a CT scan.  Friends and families donated clothes so that Cale and I would not be so cold.  Nurses called me with advice and thoughts about my condition, I was able to get my appendix out BEFORE it burst, (It could have happened at anytime), my home church gave us the money we needed for the trip, my parents Bible Study gave me lots of stuff to bring back for the Hostel, When Cale and I slid on the ice into the ditch we had 5 wonderful people come right away to pull us out, The lady on the phone with United switched my flight for me and did not charge me the penalty fee, My family watched Cale while I was at appointments and helped me make my recovery comfortable and wonderful, I was able to meet my new niece (that was so special), I had the chance to celebrate Christmas with those I love, and I could go on and on.  Talk about blessings!

I hope you find ways to enjoy the blessings you have whether they are sprinkled on you or plopped!

Love you-

Rachel