Tomatoes

Wanda said to Noel last night, "What do you think tomatoes grow on trees or something?"

Kinda.

Our garden (and Wanda's) is lousy with tomatoes. (I love that phrase "lousy with," we really ought to use it more).

I filled a large shopping bag with tomatoes this morning, skinned about half of them and filled 3 gallon ziplock bags with skinless tomatoes to put in the freezer. There are more tomatoes in the house than we can keep up with. We have made salsa, spaghetti sauce, margarita pizza, salad, curry, caprese salad, BLTs, and fried eggs on toast with tomatoes.

The harvest is PLENTIFUL! But the laborers are few, with Bethany settling in in Dushanbe there are fewer hands to harvest and weed and water.

Last week was a busy week for me professionally and academically, and a hard one personally. I've been working a lot of overtime and trying to finish my last summer school class. I had my 10 year reunion from High school on Saturday night and spent too much emotional energy feeling nervous about that. I didn't get much downtime last week.

One of my 17 year old students passed away on Monday and I've been struggling with my own grief and trying to be there for some of my friends and students that are also grieving.

So some of the tomatoes rotted in the garden on the vine. Getting to the garden just wasn't my priority last week.

Jesus, in the book of Luke (10:2) says, " "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."

There are kids in Minneapolis who are ready to know that they are important, that they are a reflection of God's glory, that God loves them and that they can change the world. But if adults in the church don't take the time to teach it. . . I'm not sure what happens.

A week ago I had 80 volunteer positions to fill for Children's Ministry to launch well in three weeks. I sent out this prayer request to the women who pray for my ministry. Now with 2 weeks to go, 30 of those positions have been filled and there are many more people who have said that they are interested in serving, they just want to hear more.

I am blown away by the abundance.






*ps - we have a new roommate moving in - her name is Holly, she's in my bookclub and in the class next door to mine at seminary. I'll tell you more about her later.

Bethany's Blog again

Hey, the hyperlink to Bethany's blog wasn't working, but I fixed it, so incase you weren't able to get to it, here's B's blog http://www.bcgustafson.blogspot.com/

Tornado

We're all ok and the house is ok.

The tornado today touched down close to our house, but most of the damage seems to be on the other side of 35W. The Wells Fargo Mortgage building looks like it got a bunch of damage and there are a ton of trees uprooted and branches on the ground especially along 4th 5th and Portland Avenues.

But according to RT Ryback's facebook status (yeah, I'm one of RT's 5000 fb friends) no one was hurt and no one was killed. Praise God!

Three Things

I was at camp last week, and am still slowly regaining my strength and energy. I'm having computer issues, and my camera was stolen last week, so while there's a lot going on at our house I have no images :(

• Josh and Alison's Wedding (2) Noel, Theresa and I made the trek up to North Branch for Alison (one of the original Steven's house crew) and Josh's second wedding reception (the first, along with the ceremony, was in Florida early this summer). It was great to meet Joshua (super quality guy) and talk with friends we don't get to see often enough, besides Alison, Mandy, Annie, Pat, and Kendra. It was a very fun and holy afternoon. We were able to have some great conversations and it was a balance of total silliness and completely profound conversations.
• Bethany is in DC After our hike to North Branch, we came home for a quick Indian Food take out dinner, then moved B's luggage out to the car and said very tearful goodbyes. She's made it safely to DC, from there it's off to Istanbul and finally Dushanbe. She gets to stay in this gorgeous hotel a block off the National Mall for her training.
  
• The garden is exploding with produce. I filled the bowl to our salad spinner to the top overflowing with zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, chard and beets today. I am cooking dinner this week and am plotting what I can make using so much produce. Our friend Richard is bringing curry-tortilla chips and either mango chutney or mango salsa, so I think we need some sort of Indian/Caribbean/Latin fusion type of food (but maybe we're looking in the wrong direction) any ideas?
  

Tajikistan - or Tajiki-where? or Taczecherstan

So, have you always wondered what life is like in Tajikistan?

Probably not. If you have please leave a comment below, because I'd like to know who you are.

Most people ask, "Is that a real country?" when I tell them Bethany is moving to Tajikistan. (Or, if you're DJ* you say, "That sounds like a hood baby boy name.")

Well if you are wondering and don't have $4,000 laying around for a flight from Minneapolis to Dushanbe, now you have a great option :) Introducing Bethany's Tajikistan Tales blog.

Bethany leaves for DC one week from today, then she spends 5 days in Istanbul (this I'm sort of jealous of) then she's off to Dushanbe. This is our sad face :(

I leave tomorrow morning for camp with Park Avenue, Dinomights, Banyan and Christ's Children. I'm sad that I'm missing so much of B's last week, but also grateful to have a distraction from the sadness of saying goodbye.

*I tried to find a good picture of DJ so that you could get a good sense of where this comes from, but I didn't have much luck. Just believe me that it's even funnier coming from him.

Bye bye b!

Last night we had a party (#1) to say goodbye to Bethany before she leaves for Tajikistan. Party #2 was this afternoon, party #3 will be tomorrow.

We had a potluck then we laid hands on B and prayed for her. It was beautiful to pray in Spanish, English and Korean. (Later Evelyn gave her a blessing in French).

This picture is Ian, Ina, Kaori, Jay and the newest member of their family Lia. She's six days old. So tiny and cute! Jay used to spend a few nights a week at the Stevens House basement while he was in rotations for nursing school at Mankato. Kaori was pregnant with Ina at that point so it's been awhile since we saw them regularly, but it was great to see them.

Aren't we cute?

"I like me 'cus He likes me"

I have had great times with friends this week, Indian Buffet with Leah, a walk with Jenny, Vietnamese "salad" with Pa Kou, and tattoo shop with Rachel. One thing that came up in each conversation with these women was the fact the growing sense that we like who we are. Our confidence in God's love and the confidence that we've gained through our life experiences have given us a sense that we are becoming the people we were meant to be.

Today I was at a training for camp. We were asked to choose an image that served as a metaphor for our leadership style. I picked up a picture of a tree on a mountain. I know that when I'm "rooted and established" in love and in the solid rock of God's love, my leadership rocks. When I'm being blown in the wind, unsure of myself and of God's feelings for me, my leadership suffers.

This is a song by Kirk Franklin and Da' T.R.U.T.H. that has been one of my anthems since I heard it at camp last year. Enjoy.