Easy Pulled Pork recipe

Sorry the picture is so blurry, it looked good when I downloaded it!)

My family L.O.V.E.S. pulled pork.  I have a usual recipe that cooks pork tenderloins in the crock pot with coffee, beef broth , garlic etc.  I went to http://www.allrecipes.com/ to find it and stumbled across a easier, cheaper version.  It was yummy too.

Easy Pulled Pork
3-4 pound pork butt roast
1 cup root beer
1 large tablespoon mince garlic

Put all in crock pot on low for 6-8 hours, season with salt and pepper.  Drain off most of the juices, shred with 2 forks and add your favorite barbecue sauce.  Cook on low in crock pot for another hour or so.  Serve on toasted buns.

My kids were thrilled with the left over root beer too!

Becoming a more missional family

Our church is doing a 6 week series on family.  Last weekend was on "Being a Missional Family". 
I have been thinking of ways to be more "missional".
Here are 10 ways I thought of.

1. Make cards and visit nursing homes.  Just talking to the residents makes their day, they love to see kids and especially love to hear them sing and play any kind of music.

2. Bake or cook for a hurting friend.  Sometimes I just don't know what to say, but I can cook.  Who doesn't appreciate a hot meal and a heartfelt  "I care"?

3.  Intentionally participate in coat drives and food drives.  I say intentionally, because I have been known to run through the house grabbing old coats or food on the last minute of said drives.  Get the kids involved.

4. Take care of the Earth.  Pick up trash, plant a garden, recycle.

5.  Be prayerful of others. Don't just say it, do it.  Let your kids hear you, and participate. Be mindful of others needs.  Pray for the homeless to find a warm place to sleep etc.  Pray for your sponsored kids, make sure your kids know them by name.

6. Secretly adopt a family.  We do this at Christmas, but wouldn't it be fun all year?  If you know of someone in need, send them a grocery or gas gift card, or a card for a restaurant. Sometimes doing things like taking the trash cans down for an elderly couple can make a huge difference.  Do this anonymously, it will be quite fun.  Even dropping off clothes that you know will fit their kids is helpful.  Being secret about it, helps their shame, and or embarrassment and takes the focus off of you.
7. Volunteer at a local food bank or shelter.  You don't have to go on an oversees mission trip to see poverty.  It's  in our backyard.  Expose yourself and kids to it.  It is much more "real" and pressing when seen in person and not just on TV.  Seeing that these people are just like us is life changing for some.

8.Write thank you's to those who serve us.  Police, military, teachers, church workers.  The unsung heros.  Everyone loves a handwritten note, and attaching a kids drawing will make their day.  Send a long a plate of cookies, fruit, candy etc.  They will be forever grateful.

9. Ready to go packs for the homeless.  Have a large ziploc, or a paper sack filled with things like: a water bottle, gum, granola bars, McD gift certificates, raisins etc.  Have it ready for when you see someone standing on the side of the street. 

10. Send packages to soldiers, and missionaries.  Make sure you get a good address for them and that there are no restrictions.  Ask what they want if you can.  I remember asking missionaries what they missed that we could send them.   Many answered peanut butter, or their favorite candy, hot chocolate mixes etc.

These are simple things we will be implementing into our lives.  Thinking of others before yourself.

Safe

Safe by Phil Wickham
Beautiful song. Listen especially to the bridge.

Just thinking of how the hands that healed the leper, are holding my heart, does me in.
I needed this today and thought you might too.

SAFE Lyrics


Phil Wickham & Bart Millard



To the one whose dreams are falling all apart

And all you’re left with is a tired and broken heart

I can tell by your eyes you think you’re on your own

but you’re not all alone



Have you heard of the One who can calm the raging seas

Give sight to the blind, pull the lame up to their feet

With a love so strong and never let you go

oh you’re not alone



Chorus:

You will be safe in His arms

You will be safe in His arms

‘Cause the hands that hold the world are holding your heart

This is the promise He made

He will be with You always

When everything is falling apart

You will be safe in His arms



Did you know that the voice that brings the dead to life

Is the very same voice that calls you to rise

So hear Him now He’s calling you home

You will never be alone



Bridge:

These are the hands that built the mountains

the hands that calm the seas

These are the arms that hold the heavens

They are holding you and me



These are hands that healed the leper

Pulled the lame up to their feet

These are the arms that were nailed to a cross

to break our chains and set us free

El Salvador update

Our money for the trip is due tomorrow. As of right this very minute, we have raised $3570. of the $4650 we need.

If you forgot and still want to give, it's OK, just make the checks out to either us or Bridges of Hope(to be tax deductible).

Thanks for all of the support, we have very generous family and friends. We thank God for each and every one.

As hard as it is to write and ask people for money, we are continually blessed by it.  The notes of encouragement bring us to tears.  I am always reminded of  advice that was given to me by a sweet older lady in our former church: "give people an opportunity to be blessed by giving. "
 Similar to what Paul writes in Acts 20:35
"In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to recieve'"

2 widows gave very generously to our fund.  We sent the letters to them, expecting the prayer warriors to pray.  They sent letters to us thanking us for allowing them to be a blessing.  They have known our kids since birth, but haven't seen them since we have moved, except in Christmas cards. We felt guilty taking their checks, but we know it is the right thing to do. They would be offended if we sent it back, and the blessing would be gone.

We have been truly blessed.

Psalm 147:1
"Praise the Lord.  How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise him!"

Do the next thing.......

I found this epsode of Gateway to Joy very relevant to me today.  I thought you might too.  I love Elisabeth Eliot, and this is classic her.

Elisabeth Elliot: "You are loved with an everlasting love." That's what the Bible says. "And underneath are the everlasting arms." This is your friend Elisabeth Elliot, talking with you this time about "Do the Next Thing."

When I went back to my jungle station after the death of my first husband, Jim Elliot, I was faced with many confusions and uncertainties. I had a good many new roles, besides that of being a single parent and a widow. I was alone on a jungle station that Jim and I had manned together. I had to learn to do all kinds of things, which I was not trained or prepared in any way to do. It was a great help to me simply to do the next thing.


Have you had the experience of feeling as if you've got far too many burdens to bear, far too many people to take care of, far too many things on your list to do? You just can't possibly do it, and you get in a panic and you just want to sit down and collapse in a pile and feel sorry for yourself.


Well, I've felt that way a good many times in my life, and I go back over and over again to an old Saxon legend, which I'm told is carved in an old English parson somewhere by the sea. I don't know where this is. But this is a poem which was written about that legend. The legend is "Do the next thing." And it's spelled in what I suppose is Saxon spelling. "D-O-E" for "do," "the," and then next, "N-E-X-T." "Thing"-"T-H-Y-N-G-E."


The poem says, "Do it immediately, do it with prayer, do it reliantly, casting all care. Do it with reverence, tracing His hand who placed it before thee with earnest command. Stayed on omnipotence, safe 'neath His wing, leave all resultings, do the next thing." That is a wonderfully saving truth. Just do the next thing.


So I went back to my station, took my ten-month-old baby, tried to take each duty quietly as the will of God for the moment. One of the very first duties that faced me was what in the world I was going to do about the church. We had 50 newly baptized believers, Christians, who a year before had not been Christians. Jim Elliot had been teaching them daily and preaching on Sundays. Jim Elliot was not there anymore. There was no other male missionary.


Now I happen to be a very firm believer in men taking the leadership in church. I believe that God has clearly defined the positions of authority in both the home and the church as belonging to me. So whether you agree with me on that or not, let me just say that I get my ideas from the Scriptures and that's where I had to start when I got back to my little jungle station. I was not going to run that church. But I was literally the only person around who had the Scriptures. There was nobody else that could teach those believers. So what was I to do?


One of the last things that Jim had said to me when I said to him before he left, "What will I do if you don't come back?" was "You must teach the believers." So I took two of the young men that Jim had picked out as potential leaders in the church. I explained to them that it was not my job to be the head of the church. It was their job to take responsibility. I said, "I'm here to help you."


So on Saturday afternoon, each week after that time, I would call one or the other of these men to my house. We would sit down together, translate a few simple verses from Spanish and Greek and English and whatever else I could draw on into Quichua. Then these men would get up and preach the sermon, which I had helped them make an outline for. I would draw out of them their own understanding of the Scriptures and try to get them to give me some illustrations from their jungle experience.


They would get up and preach-not a very good sermon. I could have done a better job. But I felt that it was not my job to take over the church simply because I was competent to do it. It was my job to encourage these men so that they would become competent.


Then there was the question of a diesel motor. What did I know about diesel generators? We had one for electricity, which we used sometimes in the evenings for a couple of hours. So I had to figure out how to run the diesel motor. I had to figure out how to keep the airstrip clean. I had to pay about 40 Indians swinging machetes to do that, which made me their foreman. I'd never been anybody's foreman before.


I was teaching a women's literacy class. We had a boy's school taught by an Ecuadorian teacher that I had to sort of supervise and encourage and pay and do various things that I was not used to doing. I had the medical work. I had the translation of the Book of Luke, which Jim and I had finished only in rough draft when he was killed. I was going to carry on with that, because, as I said, there were no Scriptures in Quichua. If the church was to grow, they had to have spiritual food. So I went ahead with the translation of Luke.


The grass in the jungle grows unbelievably fast, so I always having to hire people to cut the grass, to clean out the pineapple bed, to cut the branches away from the trail between my house and the airstrip. And I tried to decide what to do about a hydroelectric system that Jim had just begun to put in. I didn't know whether I should try to finish that or forget it.


You can imagine how tempted I was to just plunk myself down and say, "There is no way I can do this." I wanted to sink into despair and helplessness. Then I remembered that old Saxon legend, "Do the next thing."


I remembered a verse that God had given to me before I went to Ecuador in Isaiah 50:7: "The Lord God will help me; therefore, shall I not be confounded. Therefore, have I set my face like a flint and I know that I shall not be ashamed."


What is the next thing for you to do? Small duties, perhaps? Jobs that nobody will notice as long as you do them? A dirty job that you would get out of if you could have your own preferences? Are you asked to take some great responsibility, which you really don't feel qualified to do? You don't have to do the whole thing right this minute, do you? I can tell you one thing that you do have to do right this minute. It's the one thing that is required of all of us every minute of every day. Trust in the living God.


Now what is the next thing? Well, perhaps it's to get yourself organized. Maybe you need to clean off your desk, if you have a desk job that needs to be done. Maybe you need to clean out your kitchen drawers, if you're going to do your kitchen work more efficiently. Maybe you need to organize the children's clothes.


I know what an enormous job that is for Valerie, my daughter. All of a sudden, the children are coming out saying, "I can't wear this. This is too short or this is too long or this doesn't fit me anymore." What do you do with those things? If you're going to save them for the next child, you've got to put them somewhere where you can find them. So you just do that one thing. Somehow or other, the peace of God descends upon us when we take things calmly, peacefully and humbly as the next thing that God has assigned us to do.


About three years ago, I think it was, my daughter and her husband were going away for a weekend and taking with them the nursing baby. The baby was just a few weeks or months old. Val and Walt decided to go off for a weekend. They asked me if I could stay with the other children. I was delighted. I live on the other side of the continent from my children and grandchildren, and I was delighted for the opportunity.


So I stayed with them. In the first day, I don't remember ever being so busy in my life. I mean, it was "Granny this" and "Granny that" and "Granny, will you read us a story?" and "Granny, can we have some more juice?" and "Granny, would you pull my pants up?" "Granny, would you pull my pants down?" "Granny, can we have some juice?" "Granny, can we go outside?" "Granny, what time is supper?" Until I really thought I would go mad.


Well, my dear sweet daughter had the good sense to call me that evening. She said, "Well, Mama, how are you doing?" I said, "Wonderfully, Val." And then I said, "But I'm not sure I can make it through the next three days." Then I assured her that her children were wonderful children. They're not disobedient. They're not unruly. Everything was going along really very well, when you think of the way some households are run. But I said, "I keep thinking, 'Valerie's got a baby to nurse. That takes about six hours a day. How does she do it?' So tell me, Val, how do you do it?"


She laughed and she said, "Well, Mama, I'll tell you how. I do what you told me years ago to do. Do the next thing. Don't sit down and think of all the things you have to do. That will kill you. It's overwhelming. It's daunting if you think of all the things that are involved in a task. Just pick up the next thing."


I find this even in the Scriptures. Tucked in the back of the Book of Mark, following the story of the Crucifixion, we read this lovely little story. Mark 15:42: "By this time, evening had come. And as it was preparation day (that is, the day before the Sabbath), Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the Council, a man who looked forward to the kingdom of God, bravely went into Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate was surprised to hear that He was already dead, so he sent for the centurion and asked him whether it was long since He died. When he heard the centurion's report, he gave Joseph leave to take the dead body. So Joseph bought a linen sheet, took Him down from the cross, wrapped Him in the sheet and laid Him in a tomb cut out of the rock and rolled a stone against the entrance."


Can't you imagine the disciples and Mary and Martha and the other bewildered women, sitting in absolute dejection and perplexity when their Lord and Master and King had just died? They couldn't think of one single thing to do. Here came this godly man, who looked forward to the kingdom of God, who bravely went in and asked for the body of Jesus. He could think of one thing to do. He did the next thing. That must have been a tremendous cheer and encouragement to those discouraged people.

Spring Break 2010

We started our Spring Break with Easter at Grandma and Grandpa Reakers in their new home in Bremen. The kids stayed 2 more days while mom and dad worked.  Grandpa took them to Janes Park, DQ and many tours of scenic Bremen.It's hard to believe Annie was 6 months old when this was built.  I have pictures of the kids playing here every year. Beautiful park, missed Aunt!  The kids had fun with Grandma and Grandpa and I'm sure wore them out.Wednesday we headed to The Indianpolis Museum of Art.  Beautiful museum, artwork and grounds.  Aaron was less than thrilled to be there.  The museum is free and so close to home, I wanted to make sure the kids went at least once.  We will be returing to the grounds this summer for pictures though.  It was a rainy afternoon, so we headed to a movie "How to train a Dragon".  It was quite good.Friday and the weekend was spent in Cincinnati.  We went to the Creation Museum, which was way cool.  I think I learned more than the kids did.  It is very well done and affordable.  We spent the entire day there, and then headed to the hotel to swim.  We stayed at the Comfort Suites.  It was perfect for us, 6 sleep comfortably.  Breakfast and a pool too for $79.00.  It is hard finding affordable lodging for our crew, whereas someones not sleeping on the dirty hotel floor(usually Joe).This picture is of a 80 pound boa.  I chose to take the picture and miss out on the holding, thank you.We walked through the grounds and gardens, and went to the petting zoo.

Sunday found us at the Reds Vs. Cubs game.  We got there early for batting practice, and I was able to take some close ups of the players.  Too bad I didn't know who anyone was!I did know this long haired former

Irish player, Jeff Smardija.Soriano stunk it up and the Cubs dissappointed us in a loss.  The weather was HOT, but felt great. We were even able to get some sun.

Overall, the week went fast and I think the kids had fun.

HE IS THE CHAMPION

our 7 year old delightful son ( and sometimes naughty!).  Correctly picked Duke to win the National Championship to win the Bennett Family Bracket Challenge.

well done Andrew, well done.

It was announced today that Brad Stevens the Butler basketball coach signed a 12 year contract extension to remain as coach of the Bulldogs.

well done Butler, well done.

As long as I am giving out compliments.....Gordon Hayward(Butler's best player who is a sophomore and considering leaving school to jump to the NBA) stay in school... so I can say....

well done Gordon, well done.

Seriously... it is a tough decision for Gordon.  He is an academic all-american.  Its not like he couldnt EVER go back and get his degree.  Yet if he is injured he could hurt his draft status and therefore risk millions in money.

However... my stance is...stay in school.. enjoy the time with your classmates.

jb