The Chicken Rut

Do you ever get in an absolute rut with meal planning?  My most nutritious creations are rejected by my Mexican-born children, and we end up with the same ol’  same ol’.  I could use some inspiration.  Give me non-chicken, non-Mexican recipes, please.

My one daughter-in-law figured it out right away.  Her definition of Mexican food:  the exact same ingredients rearranged and called something different.  Give me these staples and we can eat for a month:  black beans, tortillas, chicken, cheese, tomatoes, avocado, onions, cilantro, salsa, and sometimes corn, lettuce, or sour cream. 

Wrap it all in a flour tortilla and call it a burrito. 

Wrap some of it in a corn tortilla, cover with a sauce made of the other ingredients, cook it, and call it an enchilada. 

Spread beans on a tostada, add lettuce and rest of ingredients and call it a tostada.

Mix it all with rice and add olive oil and lime juice, and call it Fiesta Rice.

Put the chicken and cheese in a flour tortilla, fold it in half, cook it on a griddle, add avocado and pico de gallo (diced tomatoes, onion, cilantro, lime juice, and sea salt), and call it a quesadilla.

Beans, cheese, and chicken on tortilla chips with chilies and ya – we have nachos.

Add a tomato based broth, add chicken, cheese, sour cream, avocados, and fried corn tortilla strips, and call it Tortilla Soup.  Use a chicken broth with lots of seasoning and pureed beans, and you've got bean soup.

My latest craze is Southwest Chopped Chicken Salad, a recipe I found on Pinterest, with mostly the same ingredients (diced chicken, tomatoes, corn, rinsed black beans, green onions, bell pepper, cilantro, avocado, and lettuce, mixed with a dressing of ½ cup mayonnaise, 2/3 cup plain (Greek) yogurt, 1 tablespoon ranch seasoning, and 1 tablespoon taco seasoning.  Top with crushed tortilla chips, and yum!

Have I made my point?  We seriously eat the same thing ALL THE TIME.  The only thing missing from the list is tacos, which may involve some of the same ingredients, but we generally go out for tacos when we have a hankering for them, so we can get out of the chicken rut and have pork or beef.

I’m probably making some of you salivate thinking of Mexican food.  Hopefully (surely?) you can get these ingredients, except maybe the corn tortillas.  Feel free to incorporate my boring menu plans into your own – on one condition:  please give me some new ideas!  I am desperate to get out of this rut.

What are your stand-by menus?  Have you incorporated local spices and recipes into your daily fare?  Can you share some ideas for those of us craving something new and different?  Variety that doesn’t involve spinach would be greatly appreciated by my family.

IRL* Yes, ladies, it really is possible to have too much of a good thing.

Note:  I'll be out in a village without internet access when this is published, but I will respond to your comments later on.  Thanks in advance for your inspiring recipes!  Jamie Jo

The In-Between

One of my most memorable prayer letters started out with the shocking announcement that Jim and I were splitting up and leaving the children at the orphanage.  The truth is that while I was going to Canada for a son’s graduation, Jim was making a trip to South America, and a friend in Mexico was keeping the youngest kids for a few nights in the children’s home where she worked.

This summer is sort of like that.  The family is split up and all over the place.  I’m getting a small preview of the empty nest, which has its benefits to be sure, but it feels so unnatural.  The girls have been visiting their niece and older siblings for a few weeks, and Jonny, our youngest son, has been working with an older brother in another state.  We are all over the place geographically.

Meanwhile I am spending four consecutive weekends in four different states during this whirlwind summer tour – slash- “home assignment.”  Jim and I welcome the simplicity of traveling together, just the two of us, but it still just feels odd.  When I think of it, nothing feels right any more.

Next week is our designated time to have all the kids “home” again, although we aren’t really going to be home, but in at our temporary home base in Ohio.  Even having all our adult kids back together isn’t exactly natural.  I trust it will be wonderfully fun, but it’s just not the norm any more.

After that I will be in Dallas for a long weekend visiting with my mom and siblings in the house where we grow up.  We can’t wait to be together again like old times, but nothing about it will seem normal either.

A side of me just wants to fast forward and be home, at my own house in Mexico, looking at photos of the summer, sorting it all out in quiet devotional times.  Right now I am getting weary of too much food, too little exercise, too many thoughts and too little solitude.  Summer trips to the U.S. are like that. 

My heart cries out for normal, but as my international friends keep reminding me, “Normal is just a setting on the dryer, and most of us don’t even have a dryer.”  There is no such thing as normal.  Not until much, much later.

What I am experiencing this summer is sort of the in-between phase between big family and empty nest.  What I am living here on earth is this unnatural in-between thing between earth and heaven.  I feel it strongly.  My heart yearns for a normal that doesn’t exist outside of heaven.  For now I only get glimpses every now and then.

Scripture says that all nations will hear the good news, “… and then finally the end will come.”  I’m clinging to that truth.  That’s what keeps me going when the kids are scattered all over the globe and home doesn’t feel like home any more.  That’s what gives me strength to be so far away from my precious grandbaby and aging mom and dmil.

Like you, I desperately long for the end to come, but at the same time, I want our loved ones overseas to hear the good news before He returns.  Until then, I keep striving ahead, muddling through the unnatural junctures of life, and embracing the reality that I am doing something worthwhile.

One lie saying I keep hearing this summer is “It’s all good.”  It’s not true yet, but it will be someday.  No one can convince me that “it’s all good” to be so far away from so many loved ones.

IRL*My diet this summer is like my life, it’s not all good, and it’s not all normal or natural, but it’s all for a good purpose.

What's Your [Furlough] Blessing?

People genuinely do want to “bless the missionaries” while we are stateside.  Really they do.  Okay, at least some do.  Churches who regularly pray for us are the first to find tangible ways to bless us while we are here.

Hopefully all of us could share a long list of blessings we have received, and maybe we can even rejoice with our colleagues (without jealousy) in the provision of things we have personally never received.  I  once struggled with envy when I heard of other global workers returning home to free dental work, car mechanics, restaurant and gas cards, and trips to amusement parks as a family.

It’s taken 26 years to accumulate quite a list of lovely tokens of love and appreciation from friends and partners in our work.  But let’s face it, what is a tremendous blessing to me might fall short of that objective in your case.

For example, a friend gifted me with kefir grains, fresh raw milk, subsidized nutritional supplements, and even a kombucha starter!  All of my hippy, happy, just-a-bit-out-there friends will say “Cool”!  The rest of you are scratching your heads saying, “Huh”?

With this said, let me share some “blessings” my kids have experienced in real life on summer furloughs.  My oldest daughter remembers being in a supporting church at age six or seven, and being forced to stand up in front of about fifty children she didn’t know and share about life in Oaxaca.  (Don’t your children hate that?)

To make it worse, the teacher then said, “Because you are our special guest we will let you take our offering this morning … but first you can start us off by praying in Spanish!”  Now whoever thought that would be a treat for a shy little visitor?

Another story happened to one of my boys who was too young at the time to remember it.  One of our supporting churches is a lively little church, very different from the denominations we usually attend.  We were sitting on the front row, all however-many-of-us-there-were at the time. 

The pastor had asked people to come up for special prayer. He proceeded to holler at the devil, until one person after another fell at our feet, slain in the spirit.  When the pastor ran out of standing people to pray for, he came over to pray for us. 

My youngest son began crying loudly, “Don’t let him pray for me!  Don’t let him pray for me!” until I shushed him and rushed him out as though he needed a sudden diaper change.

Sometimes blessings fall a bit shy of their goal. 

What amazes me about WOTH is how they truly minister to such a diverse group of women, touching mind, body, and soul.  They “get” our lives in a way few people do.  It was a blessing to be a co-presenter at the Writer’s Workshop last week at the WOTH Furlough Retreat in Denver, and a pleasure to introduce many new readers to this blog! 

Now it’s your turn to share.  Please share with us some of the greatest blessings of your current or past furloughs.  I promise to rejoice without (much) envy, even if your list trumps my kefir, kombucha, and raw milk.  Feel free to add your own stories of things your kids have had to endure on furlough.

No pressure to comment, but I did tell lots of the women at the retreat that the stories in the comments are the best part about this blog, so don’t let me down! 

IRL* Blessed.

The Sin That Feeds Me

What do Kool Aid, peanut butter, and M&Ms have in common?

As I shared with a group of missionary women last Saturday, I have been rereading a book called Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate, by Jerry Bridges. With Easter just around the corner, I have been examining my own heart and dealing with some resistant sin issues that are lurking there.

One of my pet sins came to light when I went to answer this missionary ethics question posed by a friend overseas:

A sweet and valuable short-term helper who is due to return to the U.S. in just a couple of weeks asked if I had any Crystal Light she could add to her water. I told her that I had none to spare, but was I wrong to not share with her? All I have is a private stash I’ve been rationing to last until my next trip to the States.

My initial reaction is, “Mercy, no! I’m sure if you explained your plight to your visitor, she certainly would have understood.” However, in light of the book I have been reading, I think I must change my answer to choice #2. Yes, by all means you should be generous and share your limited supply with your short-term helper.

Before y’all shoot me down, let me say that I have been in this position many times myself. Usually I respond selfishly, like answer #1, feeling fully justified. Then again sometimes I have had no choice but to share, but honestly I don’t always feel very gracious about it.

When my two oldest sons were still in high chairs, my sister came to visit with her two children. She asked what she might bring us, and I begged for some American peanut butter. All we had available in Guatemala was a local brand called “Gato Gordo” (Fat Cat) which was expensive and not very tasty. I had plans of hoarding that one jar of peanut butter to last a good long while.

However it turned out that my niece and nephew were picky eaters (and who could blame them, being in a foreign country with a weird aunt who only cooked from scratch). Each time they turned their noses up at my meals, my sister would jump up and quickly offer them a peanut butter sandwich. “No problem,” she would say; but each time I would just about cry, watching our precious new jar being consumed in one short week.

Selfishly I hid away the package of M&Ms she brought, figuring her children could have all they wanted in another week when they went home. But even worse, I hid them from my own sons, figuring they didn’t need to be introduced to American candy anyway. They were just little guys after all; they’d never be the wiser.

After further contemplation, I think we’d have to agree that selfishness in any form is a sin. Making up new rules to compensate for being poor deprived missionaries doesn’t quite add up to what Scripture clearly teaches us. I think I owe an apology to a friend or two.

The truth is that I have seen God multiply things like vitamins when my supply was dwindling. Without a doubt I know that He can stretch or replenish our stockpile of Crystal Light and Jif— if and when we are generous to people who ask.

IRL* Kool Aid, peanut butter, and M&Ms all bring out the miserly side of missionaries.

Canned Salmon: The Thrill of the Hunt

Canned salmon for me, seedless black olives for dh, Mountain Dew for the kiddos, and we’re talking one happy family. It’s funny how little it takes to turn a simple grocery excursion to the city into a big thrill. I mean, canned salmon! Did you catch that?

Disclaimer: Let me apologize in advance to anyone suffering from a true craving that can’t be satisfied right now. Some of you have much more limited shopping than I do. Here’s a (((hug))) for you.

When we first starting living here, we were on temporary visas, requiring a “border run” to the U.S. (900 miles / 24 + hours in the car) every six months. Those were tedious, but at least I could fill the back of the van with non-essentials like cream style corn, cheddar cheese, and some American cereals.

One time I got so desperate for cheddar in between visa renewals that we piled all seven kids in the van and drove five hours - one way - to the Sam’s Club in Puebla to buy cheese. Then we got in the car and drove all the way back. In case you ever wondered if I really am nuts, this should confirm your suspicions. Other things were going on at the time, making a day trip well worth the time and expense, but still….

Nowadays there are very few things we cannot find down here. I am thankful for our very own Sam’s Club, only an hour away, with at least a few American brands and luxuries when we choose to splurge. What keeps it interesting is that the stock is forever changing. Sometimes they have an item for a very limited time, and all the gringos go overboard buying whatever it is.

Whenever I have used moderation in buying a new treasure, I have regretted it when I return a few weeks later to find it sold out, never to return. Once, for instance, I found Triscuits. Never saw them after that day. Another time they had Frosted Mini-Wheats, and having learned my lesson, I bought more than one. Now they seem to stock them regularly, and I don’t have to risk hoarding stale boxes of cereal.

The exciting bonus about the salmon and olives is that they are manufactured in Mexico, and the cans are in Spanish. Now we can add that to the long list of things to take for granted. As for the Mountain Dew? I’m afraid it will go the way of Root Beer and Dr. Pepper, just making an occasional appearance to tease us.

So, what kind of treasures have you found lately? What do you ask visitors to bring you from the U.S.? My list is shorter all the time.

Tomorrow I leave for the U.S. with plans to return August 15. My suitcase will have canned pumpkin, Triscuits, chocolate chips, schoolbooks, vitamins and nutritional supplements, and mineral makeup. The kids will each have a new pair of shoes and jeans that we can’t find to fit down here. No need to pack a pantry any more like the old days.

IRL* A few more days, and I’ll be at Stuff Mart; no big thrill there, but everything on the shelf where it belongs. (Not that I’m complaining!)

Next Week: I have invited a Guest Blogger to take my place while I too busy being a MOG to blog! Please welcome my df, visit her blog, and leave her lots of comments.

Soup for You

Fully recuperated from last week’s soiree, I am now on a rare-for-me village trip, with dh and the kids, which is about eight hours from home. Next week maybe I will have some inspiring, hopefully not embarrassing, or drama-filled, yarn to spin, but for now I simply leave you a taste of Mexico.

Can you get real Mexican food where you live? If not, I honestly pity you. How can anyone live without an occasional Tex-Mex dish? This recipe may not work for you until your next furlough, unless you can figure out where to buy or how to make your own corn tortillas. Sorry about that.

It works fine with a regular blender, but I have to say that I am blessed with a Vitamix, which is my absolute best-loved appliance in the house. I use it at least once a day for grinding wheat, oats, and other grains for flour, and also for green smoothies, creamed soups, or any other chopped or pureed dishes. (Did I ever mention that I am somewhat of a health food junkie? – Not in the pathological/need-help-now kind of way, but just a wish-I-could-eat-better/cut-out-the-junk-food kind of way.)

Without further ado, then, here’s one of my favorite recipes. Enjoy!

Jamie Jo’s Sopa Azteca (Tortilla Soup)

Adapted from a recipe used at The Mansion on Turtle Creek, a Dallas Mexican restaurant
(Quadruple the recipe to feed 25 people. Believe me, I’ve done it!)

For the broth:

3 T. corn oil

1 Cup onions, pureed

2 Cups fresh tomatoes, pureed

1 T. cumin powder

1 t. chili powder

1 bay leaf

½ branch epazote (this is literally a weed that grows wild in my garden, but maybe you can find it where you live, especially if you are in Latin America)

2 quarts chicken stock

2 T. tomato puree

4 large cloves garlic, finely chopped

Salt and cayenne pepper to taste

Garnishes:

1 cooked chicken breast, cooled and cut into strips (two whole chickens for a big crowd)

1 avocado, peeled and cubed

3 oz. grated cheddar cheese (or Oaxaca cheese, if you have it!)

3 or more corn tortillas, cut into thin strips and fried

Sour cream

In a soup pot, heat the corn oil and sauté tortillas with garlic and epazote. Add onions and fresh pureed tomatoes; bring to a boil. Add cumin, tomato puree, bay leaf, chili powder, and chicken stock. Bring to a boil again. Add salt and cayenne pepper to taste and cook for ½ hour. Strain to remove all large particles. Sometimes I remove the epazote and run the broth through the blender, adding a few more tortillas that have been soaked in broth, to thicken it and give it more tortilla flavor.

Either put soup in bowls and serve garnishes on the side (for company – which dirties a lot more dishes), or just put the tortilla strips and garnishes in the bowls, and serve the soup on top of them like we do for our family. Serves 6-8.

IRL*While the soup simmers for you, I’ll be showing the Jesus film to a group who has never seen a single movie in their own language.

Cinnamon and Sandwiches

Another true confession.

I used to try to manipulate my kids' memories of their mother by purposely doing amazing things that I was sure would win me a place in the Missionary Mom Hall of Fame. Things I could imagine my children remembering fondly after I die. Things to place me on a pedestal right up there with Edith Shaeffer, Mrs. "Art of Homemaking" herself.

One of these fabulous feats was to start every long road trip with fresh homemade cinnamon rolls. Yes, just for the sake of future glory, I began a tradition of making a big batch of cinnamon rolls the night before we would leave for a journey to the States (see sidebar for recipe). I would put them in the fridge to rise overnight, and then first thing in the morning, I would pop them in the oven to bake while Jim finished loading the car.

Then the children would experience the indescribable blessing of waking to the amazing aroma of cinnamon rolls, which would soon permeate the car as we piled in and prepared for breakfast on the road. What a wonderfully devoted mother I was, right?

Ah, it's a fond memory to me even now. I love cinnamon rolls!

Unfortunately, my kids don't see it that way. What they remember (besides the long grueling 20-plus hours in the car before reaching Texas) is regurgitating those lovely cinnamon rolls on the first stretch of barfy, curvy highway. One child in particular still cannot stand cinnamon rolls because of that negative association. Walking through a mall and smelling Cinnabon does not stir up fond memories for her, but evokes a gagging sensation instead.

Even worse, this same child cannot stand sandwiches for the same reason. Living in Mexico, we seldom eat sandwiches for a quick easy meal. Instead we tend to eat beans and rice, quesadillas, nachos, or leftovers. (Okay, and even cereal when Dad's away.) But seldom sandwiches unless they are tortas (hot submarine-type sandwich made on a bolillo--like a French roll--with smashed beans, avocado, Oaxaca cheese, tomato, jalapeno, and sometimes a slice of lunch meat or scrambled eggs with chorizo - yum!).

On a long car trip, I would make tuna or egg salad, and simply make the sandwiches as we needed them, so we wouldn't waste any uneaten sandwiches. I would also take along a few peanut butter sandwiches for the first day on the road. That's the only time they remember eating sandwiches, and the memory grosses them out.

Great. Now I have children who hate not only cinnamon rolls, but sandwiches, too.

IRL*So much for manipulating memories...

Jungle Camp

On Saturday we got together for a swim and barbecue with some of our dearest buddies and co-sufferers of so-called “Jungle Camp” (missionary training experience)—our first meet-up in 24 years! We laughed over our ludicrous antics back when we were young and silly, rebelling over the rules of “camp.” We were only allowed one suitcase and one apple box apiece for luggage, and once in the camp we had no access to our cars or telephones. If we wanted to go to town, we had to hike there. No food could be brought back into the camp.

The story I remember best was the time a couple with no kids walked the five miles into town one Sunday and ordered pizza. Following the letter of the law, Methuselah* and several other people snuck out late that night, and met the pizza deliveryman just outside the gate. I was back at the cabin with a sleeping infant, anxiously anticipating my first bite of “real” comfort food. To my extreme disappointment, Jim returned with empty hands, shocked that I had expected a slice. “But that’s against the rules, honey.” WHAT?!

Another time our friends received a visitor who managed to sneak in a whole suitcase of contraband. Late one night we were invited over to their cabin for a sneak peak and snack. Nothing ever tasted as good as that forbidden Snickers bar. The Jenisons became friends for life at that moment. My heroes.

The last memory is the most preposterous of all. We got our hands slapped for audaciously helping each other on what was meant to be an “independent assignment.” We had backpacked most of the day along a dry riverbed to our campsite. With one piece of plastic and some rope, we were expected to build a makeshift shelter for the night. Then we were to build a campfire and cook dinner for ourselves.

Our “sin” was that the men worked together (a no-no) to build both families’ sleeping quarters while the wives nursed babies and pondered how to turn our rations into dinner without too much cooking involved. By the time we got our fires started, the other campers (minus small babies) had already finished eating their own meals, and we could all but taste the delicious smells wafting toward our camp. One couple kindly offered us their leftovers, but we were informed that this, too, was “against the rules.” With friends sharing our misadvantures, we could laugh instead of cry.

In all these years, I can’t remember a single incident on the field where we met a new missionary and thought, too bad they didn’t go through Jungle Camp and learn to work more independently. On the other hand, many times we have wished our friends and coworkers had been taught the art of partnership and collaboration

IRL*which camp are you in?

[*see Jamie-Jo Speak in sidebar]