College AGAIN…

***Some of you, probably most of you, know that I have insanely enrolled as an online distance learning student to complete my four year degree.  This last week in a class that I am taking, Short Story, I had to write a paper.  I thought I’d share it here with you.  You can give me a grade!!!  LOL

Breathing in, breathing out,

Rhonda

Bamboo Scratching on my Window

Rhonda Benz

               The soft glare of the computer monitor illuminates the darkened room while I check my email.  It is 4:30 AM in Phnom Penh, but it is 3:30 PM in the States.  This morning I find emails from both college daughters.  There is nothing from my son in the States or the son in Germany.  Before the rest of the family awakens and while I still have some quiet, I turn aside from the computer to read the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Babylon Revisited.”

For the next hour I read of the story’s main character, Charlie Wales.  The story is one of struggle.  On the surface it is the struggle for Charlie to regain the custody of his daughter, Honoria, but beneath this it is Charlie’s struggle with the consequences of poor choices, even worse decisions, and life-shattering behavior in an earlier period of his life.  I turn to the window to watch the sun rising over the horizon of coconut and bamboo, and  I wonder, “Did Charlie realize when he was taking his first step down the path that lead to the traumatic change of his life, his family, his world?”  I listen to the bamboo gently scratching on the window and I know he didn’t realize that first beginning step…because neither did I.

On another early morning in 2001, I opened my email in our Carthage, Missouri home and found an adoption announcement from a long-time friend.  They had just adopted a little boy from Vietnam. Over breakfast, our family looked at all the pictures they had sent and talked about this wonderful miracle of adoption.   This email was an answer to our prayers and wonderings.  For years, even though we had five wonderful biological children, we knew that our family wasn’t complete.  Somehow we just knew.

My husband, Mark, and I began to research adoption programs and after much study, we decided on the country of Cambodia.  We knew little of this small Southeast Asian country as we began, but soon the only thing that mattered was that Cambodia was where a little girl and a little boy were waiting. As we waited the orphanage director would send us periodic updates and photos of the children that had been referred to us.  These pictures covered our refrigerator and our children joined us in learning more about Cambodia and Asia.  The wait seemed long and hard to handle.  It was not as easy as nine months of pregnancy, a time of labor, and then you have your child.  My labor was months of red tape, paperwork, and government investigations. When would they be home?  Would they be here for Christmas, for family reunion?  One fact was certain:  international adoption is certainly not for the faint of heart.

Because of Mark’s job, when the wait was finally over, it was me who traveled alone to Cambodia to complete the adoption with a final ceremony, visa applications, and then bring the children home.  As I boarded that flight out of Tulsa I thought I was bringing the children to their new home.  I had no way of knowing how far away they would take us.

Politics and governments rarely allow for the individual and their needs.  So as destiny would have it, I landed after almost two days of flight and layovers to learn that my appointment for the adoption finalization was cancelled.  My planned four day stay turned into almost a month in Cambodia alone except for two young children that did not know me and could not be convinced that I was not an ax murderer.  So sad that Mark was unable to share physically in these early days of getting to know the young ones, I sent scanned photos back to him daily.  I could not hide out in the hotel room or I would have gone crazy.  So with the children, I would buy food, school supplies, or medical supplies in the morning.  Then in the afternoon, I would take the supplies to other orphanages and children’s centers.  The situation in Cambodia and the orphan crisis was far worse than we had understood.  I took pictures of it all.  I thought that I was sharing snapshots of our day; I didn’t realize the mural of our lives was being changed.

I finally did return home.  Mark finally did get to touch, to hold, and to smell the sweetness of the babies.  As he rolled up his sleeves to help with our now larger family and while I moved in and out of a jet-lagged haze—he shared with me the dream of leading others to help be a part of caring for the many, many children that were left behind at the orphanages.  He also shared with me that he had already began speaking of this possibility with others and there was a lot of interest and a lot of support for the idea. This dream became a reality when next year, along with ten others that included our then thirteen year old daughter, he did travel to Cambodia for a two week trip.  As I said goodbye to him at the airport, I didn’t realize that this was a foreshadowing of many, many more “goodbyes” that would soon be said.

It has now been eleven years after that adoption announcement arrived in my email and we have been living in Cambodia for more than seven years.  We have adopted three more (for a total of five) children previously at risk.  We scratched and clawed official legal status for our organization out of this red Cambodian clay.  We have a private children’s home (not an orphanage) with presently 29 children, all previously at risk.  Thirty percent of the children have medical special needs, unloved and unwanted by others—adored by us.  We added a private Christian school four years ago.

Like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s protagonist, Charlie Wales, I have learned of choices, decisions and behaviors.  Every day our choices, willing or unwilling; our decisions, wise or foolish; and our behaviors, acceptable or rebellious; take us another step down this journey we all call life.  No one knows what is ahead of us down the path but like Charlie we all live with the ripple effect of consequences for years…sometimes, usually, for the rest of our lives.

Christmas blessings all around…

For those of you who partner with our ministry, you have heard of all the work we have been through this last month.  Unbelievable!!!!  And we aren’t over the mountain peak yet.  I am looking forward to that slide down the other side.

However, I wanted to share some of the joy of Christmas with you.  On Bykota House Facebook page you can see happy, happy faces of the Bykota Kids while they were opening their Christmas gifts.  That was so much fun to be a part of!

Our sending church, Bykota Ministries in Carthage, MO, set a Christmas tree up in October.  The team had each child’s name, age, and an appropriate gift idea list on each ornament up in front of the church.  Two of the team members, a married couple, explained the tree to the congregation and I am told they informed the church that they were standing up there looking back at everyone until each and every child’s ornament was chosen.  During greeting and fellowship time, the tree was stripped bare within two minutes!

In addition to this, a collection was taken up to provide $10 to each and every child so that they could go themselves or be taken by a care giver to the garment markets and make a selection of clothing or accessories of their own choosing!  This time it was clothing from a donated box (those boxes we are always so very thankful for!) but they got to make the choice themselves!!!  What fun!

Also, an extra $200 was given to cover the cost of taking the extra suitcases of gifts back to Cambodia when our family returned.

A week before we left, a study group out West contacted us and asked if they could again provide a Christmas gift per child.  They had done this last year also and even though it was last-minute, they were sure they could do it.  We said okay!  We are game if they are willing to move that fast.  Move fast they did!  We had gifts and an extra suitcase to carry them in on the doorstep just two days before we left.

The gifts from both places were perfect!  As I was wrapping them with Heather, our school administrator, we both kept remarking how miraculous it was to see that someone who had never met the children, were led to buy the “just right” gift for a child to bring that smile to their face.

As it turned out, we managed to use our free allotment of suitcases to carry everything over so when it came time to purchase the food for our big Christmas Eve meal…how much did it cost????  Right at $200…the same amount collected to pay for extra suitcases that we didn’t need.

We had some extra funds arrive from unexpected source that joined us again last-minute and those funds were able to help provide for all the things that you don’t think about…like $40 worth of wrapping paper, clothes for  Christmas programs, donation to the Khmer church so the children can join the fellowship meal…every single detail was taken care of or provided for.

Then Christmas morning arrived…Mark and I hadn’t bought anything for our own children.  But we kept asking them to remember the wonderful 8 months that we had in the United States…something that was a big gift by itself.  We had bought very small stocking stuffer things…one or two each for the children…and since our move is coming so soon after Christmas, I wrapped them instead of unpacking to find the stockings.

However, they were blessed this Christmas in a very special way!

We visited North Carolina on our big ministry road trip and the family we stayed with had three sons.  The boys just kinda took over with our kids and gave us some much-needed rest.  They had a Wii and that was something my kids hadn’t seen much of so they played and played with the three brothers assisting as coaches to teach these jungle kids how it worked.

On our last night there, the oldest boy came up to speak to me privately.  He said, “Mrs. Benz, with your permission, we’d like to give your children our Wii as a surprise Christmas gift.”  I was just floored!  After our kids all went to bed, their family packed up the game, the controllers, the disc, the game guides…everything…and it was packaged and waiting for our departure in the morning.

Our children never saw it and thought that it was ministry materials the whole time we were traveling and packing to return to Cambodia.  As they opened it Christmas morning in shock…they said it is just like so and so’s.  I said, “No.  It isn’t “just like it”…it IS it.  They sent it home with us for your Christmas because they knew how you don’t have things like this in Cambodia and they are blessed in their home. ”  I LoVeD seeing my kids pause, without words, to experience God’s love pouring down on them.

Then it was Madi’s turn to open her gift.  Her gift started with a trip to Downtown Disney in Orlando, FL.  We had inadvertently walked into a Princess store and all over it was these little girls, Madi’s age, all dressed up in full princess regalia…make-up and hair included…getting photo taken with “their” princess.  I won’t type the cost of that experience in here because I wouldn’t want you to fall out of your chair.

Well, Madi started wailing for it…Daddy assured his princess that she didn’t need clothes to be HIS princess.  Mommy said NO!

Madi kept wailing.  Then Daddy started to tear up.  Mommy said “ Let’s go buy a Cinderella ink pen that lights up.”  It was NO FUN!

Later in our trip we arrived in Washington DC where God provided a little girl who had outgrown all of her princess dress up clothes and we were asked if we might have room for them for Madi?  Maybe it might even make a nice Christmas gift????  So….our little princess opened her gift to find EIGHT princess outfits.  She has been wearing a different one every hour since.

We have only one regret this Christmas…well, maybe two…because it is always true that we miss our family back home during the holidays.  But our main regret is that now the Big Move is upon us and we can’t just sit and bask in this wonderful feeling of God’s love providing not only our needs, but also the desires of our CHILDREN’S HEARTS.

I pray your holiday season has been more than you ever could imagine.

Breathing in, breathing out,

Rhonda

“I understand….but…”

I awoke this morning to find this email sent to me questioning our work in Cambodia.  (names have been omitted for privacy’s sake.)

Hello,

I understand you trying to help some of the most vulnerable children in society by supporting them in orphanages but are you also reintegrating children with their families? Internationally its been recognized that children are best off with their families. There are also statistics that it is cheaper to support families to take care of their own children than running orphanages. I am just wondering what your thoughts are on this seeing that the fast majority of children in Cambodian orphanages have at least one living parent.

 Best,

No, I don’t think this inquirer understands!

This was my reply to this email:

Thank you for your inquiry.

However, to clarify things, we do not run an orphanage.  We have a children’s home.  There is a very big difference because one is an institution that basically stores or “warehouses” children whereas a children’s home is just that…a HOME.  We are based on the God-given model of the family and that makes a world of difference.

If any of our children in our home have a living parent we do our best to try to support them to stay with their parents.  However, the children that ultimately stay with us are with us because their parent has no desire for that to happen.  You can’t MAKE someone raise their child if they are set against it. 

We only have 28 children in our children’s home and that is a small reflection of the number that we have worked with and their parents wanted to just leave them here and walk away.  So the children that are Bykota kids are the ones that there was no other choice.

Of our family of 28 children, we have about 1/3 who, while any living parents may not be willing, they may have grandparents, older siblings, aunts, or uncles that we encourage and actually facilitate them in joining with their remaining family for Cambodian holidays so they remain connected with their roots.

Unfortunately, far more than half of our children are those that their families have left them, walked away, and never came back.  Most because they were failed adoptions to Cambodian families or because the child had medical special needs that culturally this is seen as bad Karma and the parents want nothing to do with them.

I am quite certain that it is less expensive to support a child with their Cambodian family if the family is willing because we have done/do that.  However, those “statistics” often don’t show the reality.  Yes, the child may be with the family but they may have no medical, no dental, and no educational provisions for the child.  And the reality in THIS country is that when a parent or a grandparent has a medical crisis, it is far too common that in order to meet those financial challenges the young child is sold to a brothel or in domestic slavery.

It bothers me tremendously when a parent brings their child to be left here and they are set and won’t hear any other alternatives.  They are determined to leave the child and walk away.  But like I said earlier, you can’t make someone keep their child…you can’t make someone value their child.

One of the hardest cases we had are of two beautiful Bykota children who the woman who brought them was a mother to one and a grandmother to the other.  To abandon two generations of the Lord’s blessing to a family is beyond my comprehension.  She has never been seen again.  Her daughter did come one day to take her child to a family gathering and he wasn’t seen for two months.  When she finally set him on a moto taxi with a complete stranger and instructions to have him returned to us, it was after she had drug him through the villages along the Thai border as she vandalized and looted during an international incident that led to border fire.  He had been shot at, gone hungry, without shoes, and arrived basically shell-shocked from the incident.

While you may not agree with our work, it is what it is.  Without Bykota House, we have no idea what fate may have awaited the children we are blessed with.  I have trouble sleeping at night when we do have to refuse to take a child because it becomes apparent that the child has two living parents.  I lay awake wondering where did they go from our gate.  Did they seek out other children’s homes?  Did they seek out an orphanage?  Or did they decide to sell the child?  All I know is that we make the best decision we can each and every day and we work as hard as we can for children that no one else is willing to lift a finger for each day.  We have literally walked away from loved ones and a life that is much easier than life in Cambodia because these children are worth it.

So you asked my thoughts are on this matter?  Well, while each month is a financial struggle and we are constantly juggling priorities to make ends meet, that isn’t our bottom line.  Our bottom line is that the children the Lord entrusted us with are cared for.

And yes, I do agree that “internationally its been recognized that children are best off with their families.”  I agree with that because WE ARE THEIR FAMILY.  The ones that the Father has brought to us are WITH their family.

Thank you for your inquiry.

Best regards,

Rhonda Benz

Director International Orphan Aid

Mother to Bykota House

Mark and Rhonda go back to school…

We are getting settled back in after our furlough to the US.  We have only had two furloughs in our time of service on the mission field.  The first one was only 100 days in length.  That was WAYYYY too short…but because of lack of additional team members on the field, we didn’t feel that we could leave Bykota House much longer than that.

This last furlough was 8 months.  That was WAYYYY too long for a number of different reasons.  The length of the furlough was set by a task that we had to get done while in the US this time.  It was the citizenship process for our adopted children.  We went by the time frame that the government estimated to complete the task which was 6 months and then added a month because when have you ever had the government finish something EARLY????  Then that put us so close to Thanksgiving that we just planned to return after the sharing the holiday with our family in the States.

It was, as I said, too long.  We got way too comfortable in the States.  It is really easy living there and here in Cambodia it is really hard living.

It was too long to be away from our kids.  Even though we couldn’t help the situation, it was really hard being away from the children of BH.  I am so thankful for their English writing skills because they were able to email us daily if that is what they wanted.  We were never out of touch with them and that was such a blessing.

Anyway, since we were in the US for such a long time, Mark and I went back to school through the MSSU Distance Learning Program.  I think we might be their farthest distance students.  LOL

We just finished our first semester of what will probably be 4 or 5 semesters total until we finish our bachelor degrees.

The remarkable thing was that we completed this last full-time semester while we were traveling with a pop-up camper, with five kids, through 15 states, and working full-time.  Challenging…but we did it.

Why did we do it?  That is a question we have been asked many times.

Well, Mark is motivated more by the idea that he just never finished.  That has always bothered him but it didn’t cause me any concern at all.  And since the distance program is a little limited, I am just getting a General Studies degree so it isn’t like this is going to improve my “career” options at 48 years of age.  What a hoot!

However, with a General Studies degree, I can take any class that I want!  I am not limited by a major’s program with set classes that must be taken.

So this semester I just made straight A’s in:

Microcomputer Applications:  this was a course that taught on the Junior level about MS Word, Excell, and Powerpoint.  Wow!  I have learned (now I just hope I don’t forget) so many things about these programs that were right here on my computer all the time!  I think this will help us in the ministry.  PLUS the book that I had to buy was really great and had so many visuals of the actual computer screen.  With us starting a new computer lab for the Bykota House kids, we are excited to have this resource and plan to use portions of it as we teach the children.

Educating the Special Child:  Again…WOW…this course has really opened my eyes to the education needs and more avenues and techniques to meet those needs of the BH kids.  Many of them appear “normal” without special needs…however, as their Mom, I know that all of them have issues due to their early childhoods.  This has given us more tools to use and that is exciting!!!

Music appreciation:  Okay, this one wasn’t so wow!  I had to take this to be a full-time status so that my scholarship applied and there wasn’t much else available.  But I do really enjoy music.  It was at times enjoyable…especially the Romantic Period of music…but other times it became another chore.  But it was very interesting to watch the DVDs and my instructor was a very kind and funny man.  He was a hoot!

Intercultural Communication:  This was a writing intensive course and I was concerned about it.  As a reader of this blog, you know that I don’t get much writing time.  But boy, oh boy, this was well worth it.  I cannot begin to tell you the number of times that I was reading this book on communication barriers between cultures and thought “Why didn’t I have this book seven years ago? ” Or “THAT explains [fill in the blank]!” Or “I/We/They really did act just like that.  Oh, how embarrassing!”  I feel like that book was so good that it would be useful even if people just read it prior to moving overseas.  A full-blown course wouldn’t be necessary…just reading it would help.

So that wasn’t enough to make full-time status so I took a little one hour course on “Career Planning.”  Again, that sounds nutty because my career is set before me but oh, what a great book!  It was very easy to read and understand.  My plan in taking it was that maybe I would find something in it that would be useful to immediately RETEACH the BH kids.  I was spot on!!!  There is so much good information.  I have bought the book in Kindle edition and so the older children of Bykota House will read through it again with me on the Kindles that we are adding to our school platform.

As I mentioned before, I needed a scholarship to apply.  I was really floored when they dug into records and found my 25+ year transcripts from before, saw my GPA, and offered me a scholarship.  That together with Pell Grants meant that going back to school and learning things to help us more in the task at hand here in Cambodia didn’t cost me anything.  All my costs were covered.

It is kinda funny to think about how when I graduated with my little AA degree, I was big and pregnant with my daughter.  If this goes as planned, I will be graduating with my bachelor’s the same year as my daughter.  giggle

I am sure there will be hitches along the way. For instance,  we have to always find someone to carry our books over to us and to later return them to the college for us.  But we pray that works out each time. For this upcoming semester, we brought our books back and we will have them returned by a team later.  I also bought one book on Kindle.

Again, my semester is going to include classes that I pray are useful to me here in my role and task that God has set me into.

One additional benefit is that on this last Monday, one of the BH kids came up and asked me about something that needed to be done.  I said “Oh, I can’t do that tomorrow…I have a big test!”  They all looked at me with big eyes and so I explained to them what I have just explained to you…then, they looked at each other…since break was over, they went back to their desks to continue their school work.

It is like Philippians 4:9 in action:

“Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me–put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”

The children won’t be able to come to me and complain about having to do schoolwork for the next couple of years.  LOL

Breathing in, breathing out,

Rhonda

In loving memory of Janice June Batson Stone

In Music Appreciation 101, I learned that the Hungarian composer, Bela Bartok’s, final words were that He could hear them, all of them, all the masterpieces that he just didn’t have time enough to write and that no one would ever hear them. Ironically, he died at the age of 64 of complications from leukemia.
My Aunt Janice died of complications from leukemia last night while I slept. Just calling her “aunt” somehow belittles her role in my life. She was my aunt by relation, yes. But she was my mother during many critical periods of my life as I lived with her. I may still call her by the title of “aunt” but in my heart…I doubt that anyone loves their mother any more or holds them in any higher place of honor.
She was my champion…there was nothing that I couldn’t do as far as she was concerned. She told me that often…often enough that I have dared to believe it many times. She never was one that ever wanted it to be said that she made me prideful though. I remember once that I was complaining about my teenage looks. She looked at me astonished! “Why, Rhonda Lynn! You are very pretty! You have nothing, absolutely nothing to be complaining about.” Then almost as if she realized what she was saying she said, “You know…you have very pretty… teeth.” It makes me smile to this day to remember that. I went from her to a mirror. Somehow I saw myself differently and yes, I thought, “I do have nice teeth.”
She was my role model. When Mark and I got engaged, I was so inept in the kitchen that I had to read the box of macaroni and cheese in order to make it and still managed to ruin it. So she took me…a messy, inexperienced girl into her kitchen and allowed me to trash it while I tried new recipes. I know she bit her tongue. I watched her raise her hands to take over many times and then drop them back down and try to lead my own hands through the process.
She was the first person who I saw that being a stay-at-home mother was a full-time job. Not just a woman who stayed at home but it was a job to her. I know that over the years, as I have been a stay-at-home mom, there have been some days, when I have just been at home…but for the most part, I have been at my full-time job…working just as if I was clocked in to work for someone else.
She was my rescuer. I have told that story before in my blog. http://rhondabenz.wordpress.com/2011/05/10/change-of-plans/ The plain and simple fact is that I might not be alive if it hadn’t been for the rescue of my aunt and uncle.
She was the one who led me to the Lord. I well remember the summer that I came to spend the entire time with them. She knew that my life back home with a drunk for a step-father was dangerous and ungodly to boot. She sat me down and she told my plainly, “Rhonda, your life will be based on what choices you make. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you live, or how much money you do or don’t have. Your life is up to you and what decisions you make. You can live for the Lord and be blessed or you can live for yourself and hope for the best.” It was almost like she knew that those 90 days of summer was a brief time of clarity and that it was my appointed time. So she was the first person I saw standing on the banks of that muddy cow pond when I came up out of the baptismal waters…a new creation.
Just as Bela Bartok spoke of masterpieces that would never be heard, Aunt Janice told my mother that she had been thinking a lot in these last days about how much more she might have done in her life. Maybe she should have done more in the church. Maybe she should have tried to have been more involved. That just rips my heart to hear that she was wondering that. That she would not be able to see just how much she has done and how well she has run her race simply stuns me but yet, as humble as she was her entire life…could it be any other way?
There are so many people whose lives have been touched by in her life’s journey and I can’t try to tell their testimonies. However, I sit here in Cambodia unable to tell you how many lives have been saved or changed because of our presence on the mission field. Without her ministry into my life, how differently those life stories might have been ended. How differently my life story might have ended…
This morning at our international church’s Christmas program, I stood with the worshippers singing “Oh come let us adore Him.” I closed my eyes and realized that while I am singing this still remaining here on Earth, I am joining in a Heavenly chorus that is singing the same words of adoration to our King. In that chorus are many loved ones that have gone before…my grandmother, my aunt’s mother; my father-in-law, who knew her well, and now her…
All of us here on this side of life’s journey are in pain. I wish I could say that I was numb but I am far from that. However, I am so thankful that her pain is ended. As we told our children this morning at the breakfast table, we tried to smile about the fact she will be spending this Christmas in heaven with Jesus. That is a wonderful thing…our hearts just aren’t there yet.
See you soon, Aunt Janice. I love you and hope that I have made you proud.

Walk down memory lane…

I was trying to clean up my inbox and I found this newsletter update from our first year on the field.  It was sent to friends and family who were all anxious for as many emails as they could get to know how we were doing…I thought you might enjoy it.

 

If you are receiving this email, it is because I feel that I can trust you with a very big brag.  I haven’t felt too proud of myself since moving over here to Cambodia.  I have felt totally overwhelmed and pretty much lonely and at times, completely crazy for getting on the plane.  However, I can tell that my personal adjustment is getting better.  I do much better if I can maintain the outlook that this is an adventure.  Rather than getting stuck in the mire thinking “I can’t do this because I don’t have this or that or I don’t know this or that”, I do much better if I focus instead on “there must be a way to do it because God knew I was going to be here with what I have or don’t have before I had any knowledge of it.”

 

Food issues are something that NO ONE in the “how to prepare for the BIG move” articles and support groups EVERRRRRR talk about.  But once you are here, everyone will lean over and whisper that often it is their number one struggle.  Tell me WHY?  If it is the number one struggle, why not talk about it!?!?  I could have added a crate of FOOD to help us through this had I known…but no one ever mentioned it.

 

So last night we are needing something that tastes like home.  It was bad enough for me to struggle with being the end of the month already.  If you’ve ever stood in front of a pantry or fridge right before pay day and thought the cupboard looked bare, believe me, in a family with 6 kids…bare can be BARE!  So I am trying to come up with a meal with those weird little things still not consumed.  God visited me in my kitchen and blessed me with inspiration and I made cheese enchiladas with Spanish rice.  Okay…not so difficult a meal you think?  Read on…

 

First of all, I have no tortillas.  I have never made tortillas.  Aldi sells tortillas at $.79 for a bag of 10.  Why would anyone decide to ”make” tortillas?  If you are in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, you have no other choice.  How hard can it be, I question.  Women been making them on flat rocks in Mexico for a couple of hundred years.  So I find a recipe and go to town.  ONE HOT HOUR later….I have 12 of the ugliest tortillas you’ve ever seen but boy, was I proud!  I also had a pretty good burn on one thumb, but that is beside the point.  I mixed the flour/salt/shortening/water together and went to rolling.  I don’t know how a human without a machine can get them very thin.  I did the best I could.  Anyone trying to raise a 13 yr old son, SHOULD be given a recipe for tortillas.  It would do wonders for their stress level.

 

In preparation for this meal, God has made sure that I am blessed to have a chunk of cheddar in the fridge. They don’t sell cheese in grated form.  You gotta do it yourself!!!   However, I have no food processor any more.  So I take out my handy dandy expensive Pampered Chef hand grater and start grating…round and round in between tortillas and burnt thumbs.  I get a respectable size pile of cheese and call it done.  That is a nice little gadget but NOT what you need to feed 9 people dinner!

 

Then I start on tomatoes….dice, cut, squish…throw in rice (blech! I’m sick of rice), seasonings and get it going on the back of the stove in a cast iron pan for Spanish rice.   Oh did I mention the half pound of kidney beans cooking FOREVER on the stove and they didn’t ever get as soft as canned ones?  I cannot find pinto beans here in Cambodia.  Plenty of black beans, lentils, and kidneys though.  So all Mexican dishes are cooked with kidneys.  Note to self:  Start cooking at least a week in advance if you want them to get soft.

 

I then slide my tortillas through a can of tomato sauce (my only convenience item) and spices and then fill it with cheese and roll it up.  I do this 8 times and have to stop…I am feeding 9 but the babies will have to share one because my largest pan is FULL.  I dribble the remaining sauce over the rolled up little beggars and top with a tiny handful of remaining cheese.  While this is getting hot and bubbly in the oven, I mix my kidney beans into the Spanish rice.

 

Kati walked in at this point.  Where has the child been now that I’ve been in the kitchen for two solid hours working on this?  Oh well, she goes crazy to see the remaining 4 tortillas and so she butters them, cuts them into shapes and sprinkles them with cinnamon and sugar to make Crispy something or others!  they did taste very good…but as hard as I had to roll on them to get them flat, I really wanted to frame one of them or at least lay one out on a scrapbook page to preserve it for my grandchildren to see some day.

 

I took my little Mexican feast to the table where it was received with great gusto and as usual every scrap of food was consumed.  I no longer see the empty plates as a compliment to the chef though.  It is just a simple fact of life when dealing with the vacuum called my FAMILY.  The children eat everything put in front of them and I don’t think there is an upper limit!  Mark and I are just very careful when we reach out to fill out plates so that we don’t get stabbed by forks or anything.

 

We’ve been sent over here to learn the language and to get acclimated to ministry in Cambodia…learn the culture…get settled…get to know the “lay of the land.”  Well, part of that is learning how to live over here with what we have and what we don’t have.  With all the other frustrations and struggles, it was wonderful to feel good about something for a change.  But alas, another day has come, another dinner needs to be prepared…I’m off to the kitchen, dear friend, while you are snug in your bed.  I pray that God meets me again with inspiration and guidance.  Some night as your going to bed and you say a prayer for our family, maybe you might include dinner????

Breathing in, breathing out,

Rhonda

Mad squirrels…

If our relaxation time here in Florida could be summed up it would be two words…”Wild Wildlife.”  We have had a very good trip ministry wise but in our attempts to enjoy Florida as a family…critters have been a highlight.

First, I will refer you to the previous blog entry about the bear and snake encounters.  We thought that we had seen the worst so it was over.  Well, yes AND no.  We had seen the worst but it was not over.

Aunt Merrilee and Uncle Jerry wanted to take us to see the beach.  That was a grand time!  We had not been able to see the beach prior because of the tropical storm.  The beach was CLOSED!

So we headed to the beach and the kids had such a great time.  We stayed over lunch and had food packed and that is when the trouble began.  We had found some stale Bugle chips and thought that with all the sea gulls and the other birds, that would be fine for the children to feed to them.  Well, again, yes AND no.

The birds must have been hungry as the number of beach goers might have been down because of the storm.  However, the Benz kids obviously weren’t feeding them fast enough.  They began dive bombing little Madeline and Mary’s heads.  I would love to say that it might have been funny if it hadn’t been scary.  But the truth is that even though it was scary for the kids, all of us adults were laughing over them dodging and screaming that the birds were going to bite them!

We also traveled to the Tampa area for meetings and for a speaking engagement on Wednesday night.  For lunch, Mark took the kids to a park he remembered as a child in Ballast Point.  While we were there, again a lot of birds came because it was right next to the pier.  However, the squirrels were the ones that were scary there.

One squirrel was particularly brave and fearless.  It kept coming closer and closer.  It was kinda freaky to see how close it was to me.  Mark just kept finding it funny!  His laughing at me didn’t help either.  But then the squirrel jumped up on the picnic table bench to sit next to me!!!

As if that was bad enough (and all the while I am wondering if squirrels carry rabies) it then jumped to the table where I was making peanut butter sandwiches and it stuck its nose right into the peanut butter jar!!!  I am not talking about dashing up and sticking the nose in.  I mean walked up to the bottle and despite my squealing for Mark to do something it stuck its nose right into the peanut butter jar!

So I took the knife that I had been cutting up apple slices with and pointed it towards the squirrel to SHOO it away with the blade.  The squirrel reached up and grabbed the knife blade and so it was only five inches from my fingers.  My squeals turned into a rather loud YELP! and a jump of about four feet to the left (regardless of the fact that Seth was sitting there…a boy should let his mother sit on his lap if necessary!)

Then and only then…I mean golly…the squirrel just tried to grab the kitchen knife from my hand…did Mark kinda stand half way up and wave a plastic grocery bag at the squirrel to scare it away.

Later while we were walking down the pier, Madi kept calling out to the manatees in hopes of seeing one.  I was half-scared one would show up because it might just jump up on the pier with us.

We had a great time sharing in Tampa and we feel that God is really forming or rather reestablishing some old relationships from Mark’s earlier years.

We are leaving tomorrow to travel to Lookout Mountain, Georgia followed by Cary, North Carolina and the Washington D.C. area.

We ask that you pray for safety on the road and for easy highway miles.  We are believing that the Father is really going to use this time to build new relationships for Bykota House.

Breathing in, breathing out,

Rhonda