Moro con Minerva

Have I bragged to you guys about Minerva yet? Even if I have, I'm sure I haven't bragged enough. I know she would want me to tell you that all the glory goes to our Lord Jesus. In fact, I mentioned that I was going to write a little about her on my blog and she told me to leave her name out and claim the following recipe as my own. But I want you all to know her name so you can constantly be lifting her up in prayer. Minerva is our house mom in Casa de Fe, our girls home for 8 of the sweetest, kindest, most loving girls you will ever meet. Our girls range in age from 7 to 18 in that home, and Minerva is the most incredible mom to them. Our girls love and respect her in a way that both inspires and humbles me. For many months over the past year, Minerva was also the only house mom on the entire property. She was basically playing mom to 20 orphans, and I'm pretty sure if you look in the Bible, it mentions something about that. Minerva is wonderful, and I pretty much want to be her when I grow up. It's common to come over in the afternoons and see her playing dominoes with our older boys while the laundry she washed earlier is drying outside, while the leftover food she made is being eaten by 5 kiddos, while she is asking someone if they already finished their homework, while she's talking to one of the older girls about making good choices, while she's making me a "cafecito" (small cup of coffee). She does it all, and we love her. 

This week, Minerva invited Lydia and I over for a cooking lesson. Ok - that's not exactly how it happened. Lydia and I basically begged her for a cooking lesson, because she makes the most incredible Dominican food and (like I already said), we want to be her when we grow up. Minerva taught us how to make Moro, which is Dominican rice with gandules (pigeon peas). The recipe is below...if you can find pigeon peas with coconut in America, you should DEFINITELY make it!! And while you're making it, thank the Lord for Minerva and the other men and women like her who are serving as house parents for our orphaned Kids Alive children all over the island. They have the hardest job in the world and the Lord is using them in mighty ways.

Moro de Minerva - Arroz con Gandules (Rice with Pigeon Peas)

*Minerva doesn't measure anything, sorry!

8 cloves of garlic, smashed with a pinch of salt (we do this in a "pilon") 

2 cans of gandules con coco (pigeon peas with coconut)

onion - chopped

green pepper - chopped

cilantro - chopped

tomato - chopped

oil

vinegar

sopita (chicken bouillon cube)

oregano

salt

rice

1. Lightly brown the onion and garlic in oil on the stove

2. Add pepper, cilantro, tomato, pepper, vinagre, oregano, 1/2 cup of water, and sopita

3. Mix on stove OR blend together in a blender or food processor

4. Add gandules to the mix on the stove, add more water (the amount of water is based on the amount of rice you are cooking)

5. Add rice and some salt, mix with a spoon

6. Let cook on stove for 20 minutes covered, then stir, replace cover and cook for another 15 minutes until rice is done

A little taste of Heaven

Our girls love to sing. Part of my ministry at Casa Monte Plata is teaching piano and voice lessons to our girls on Tuesday afternoons. The Lord brought Lydia to Monte Plata for three weeks and Lydia has an amazing voice. We would often sing together at home while cooking or getting ready in the morning and we were so excited to teach a voice lesson together while she was here. Since there were two of us, it was much easier to do a group voice lesson and teach the girls a little bit about singing in harmony. We were shocked when our girls sang perfectly in harmony on the first try! Below is a video of our girls singing "Santo, Santo, Santo" (Holy, Holy, Holy) at our devotions last Monday at Casa Monte Plata. I told them that this is just a little taste of Heaven. The Bible says that in Heaven, the singing of "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty, who was and is and is to come!" will never cease!  (Revelation 4:8) I can't wait to be singing with these girls forever!

Make Me Invisible

Anonymous. Nameless. Unidentified. Unknown.

My fleshly arrogance shudders at the words. My desire for appreciation, affirmation, applause, approval, and admiration screams inside of me at the mere though of anonymity.  But the still small voice of the Holy Spirit whispers words of conviction to the deepest part of my soul that harbors my pride and my falsly perceived self-importance.

And it tells me to let it go.

In a world that tells us that our value is based on the accolades assigned to us by others, God’s Word clearly tells us that our worth is found solely in our identity as a child of our Heavenly Father. It clearly says that apart from the Creator, His creations are nothing. It clearly preaches that our lives are best spent taking the focus, attention, and glory off of ourselves and reassigning it to the only One who is truly worthy of it all.

I was warned by a wise fellow missionary before my trip home about guarding against pride and arrogance. “Prepare yourself,” she told me. “Someone is going to call you a ‘hero’ when you get there and you’re going to need to know to respond. People will think of you as the ‘super Christian’ and it’s your job as a missionary to redirect the praise.”  It only took 2 days for me to face it. I am so thankful that the Lord was preparing my heart before the comment came my way. “Kristin, we’re so proud of you. You’re really a hero to my family.” And that’s the first time I prayed for the Lord to make me invisible.

As I already said, my natural desire is for recognition and praise. However, since my return to Monte Plata, the Lord has been convicting me of my pride and leading me to live a more God-glorifying, self-concealing life. Maybe a better way to say it is that I desire to be so deeply hidden in the Father’s love and overshadowed by His glory that when others look at me, they see only Christ because I am so profoundly covered by Him. When I’m raking leaves and picking up trash at the residential facility, “Lord, make me invisible.” When I’m teaching math to fifth graders, “Lord, make me invisible.” When I’m playing piano and singing with our girls, “Lord, make me invisible.” When I find myself thinking “If only the people at home could see me now,” I reject that fleshly desire and run as fast as I can back to “Lord, make me invisible.” It is a day-by-day, sometimes moment-by-moment fight. But as an anonymous writer said in his book, “ As we learn to embrace our humble King, we might just come to appreciate our true and right place in this world: We are nothing. He is everything.” And one of the many wonderful things about my humble King is that He chooses to share His joy with me – for when He is most glorified, most honored, most exalted, and most admired, I am truly most joyful.

Take a look at this extra blog page for more of my favorite quotes from the book that inspired this blog post. (Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God’s Everything)

“Are you ready to be less than a drop in the bucket? To be so totally insignificant that no one remembers you even if they think of those you served? Are you willing to give and be poured out until you are all used up and exhausted – not seeking to be ministered to, but to minister?”

 – Oswald Chambers