A little spice

The jalapeño pepper plants in my garden have done extraordinarily well.  There were/are dozens of good sized jalapeño peppers.

Of all the garden produce, the jalapeño peppers have required using the most creativity to use.  It’s not like you can just bite into and snack on a jalapeño (well, you could, but that would be weird and painful).  So here's what I've done with my jalapeños.    

I cut some up and put them on some nachos.  Pretty delicious.

I chopped up a jalapeño and mixed it into some black bean burgers I made.  I really couldn’t even detect the spiciness of the peppers in the burgers, so maybe next time I’ll put a bit more in.

I made some jalapeño poppers on the grill.  I cut a few jalapeños in half lengthwise and removed the seeds and the membranes.  I put them on the top rack of the grill and let them cook for about 10 minutes.  Then I added a bit of cream cheese to the inside of each jalapeño.  I let them grill a few more minutes.  It’s a real good thing the cream cheese was there because even with the cooling effect of the cheese, the jalapenos were super spicy.

I took on the whole salsa-making-extravaganza mostly as a way to use up a bunch of jalapeños.  And I sure did use a lot of jalapenos.  My first batch of salsa wasn’t spicy at all.  I just finished up the first jar of salsa from that first batch.  I’m not entirely sure, but I think that the second batch of salsa that I made is going to be a little bit spicier.  When I was making it I didn’t quite have enough regular green peppers so I put in extra jalapeño peppers.  I haven’t tried this batch yet, but I do hope it is at least a little spicy.

There are still quite a few jalapeños on the plants and I’m not sure what else to do with them.  If you have any suggestions let me know!

Jumping out of a Perfectly Good Airplane

If you are friends with me on Facebook then you know I went skydiving a couple of weekends ago.  For those of you who aren’t on Facebook, you can see some of the pictures below, and for all of you I’m going to try to put my experience into words.

Skydiving. was. amazing.

I’ve been thinking for a while that I wanted to go skydiving.  It was on my “bucket list,” my list of things to do before I die.  So, when my friend Amanda asked a bunch of friends if we wanted to go skydiving, I immediately said I wanted to go.

Luckily, I was really busy with my first week of work at Feed My Starving Children, so I didn’t have too much time during the week before to think about what I was going to be doing.  I wasn’t too nervous about the whole thing even when I was driving to the airport/skydiving place. 

We had a relatively brief orientation led by a pretty funny man whose job it was to reassure us that what we were about to do really wasn’t all that dangerous and that we would be fine even if we didn’t do what we were supposed to.  We watched a couple of short videos.  And then I had to sign away pretty much every right I had to sue anybody and anything if anything at all went even slightly wrong.  I had to sign my name/initials probably about 40 times.   

We waited outside for a while for it to be our turn.  While we were waiting, we got to see other jumpers load up and take off in the plane.  Then a little while later the plane would come overhead and you could see little tiny dots come out of the plane- people jumping out of the plane.  You could see when they opened the parachute and then watch them glide down to the ground and land.  Our orientation man had told us that 99% of people make a nice landing on their feet.  Watching people land we found out quickly that either this was a very off day or he was lying to us.  It was more like 25% of people made a nice landing on their feet.  I saw quite a few landings that morning and there was only one really bad one where a man landed pretty hard.  Most people landed pretty softly on their behinds.  It kind of made me wonder in what other ways the funny orientation man had stretched the truth.

Finally it was my turn.  We started getting all geared up.  Then I met Woody.  He and I would be connected when jumping out of the plane.  Woody made sure that I didn’t die after I jumped out of the plane.  So, in other words, Woody is my new best friend.

Woody explained again to me how this whole thing would go.  Get on the plane.  Ride up.  Get hooked together.  Jump out of the plane.  I would put my head back and arch my back.  I would hold on to the straps across my chest until he gave me the signal to put my arms out like I was flying.  Woody would give me the signal to put the chute at the proper time.  I would pull it.  We would glide down.  I would raise up my legs.  We would land.  I would put down my legs and help make the landing.  A lot of instructions to try to remember, but pretty simple really.  And that’s basically how it happened.

As we were riding up to 14,000 feet, Woody did a good job of trying to keep my mind off the fact that I would soon be jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.  He did a pretty good job.  We ended up on the subject of religion, which is probably a pretty good thing to talk about right before you jump out of an airplane.  Woody told me that he feels the closest to God when he is skydiving.  Skydiving requires a lot of trust in God (and trust in your equipment).  Woody also said that as he is skydiving and looking down on the earth below him, he can think of no other way that something so magnificent could have been created than by God.  I found this to be very true as I was looking down on the earth as I was heading back down to the ground.

So there we were in the airplane. 

The scariest part of the whole experience was when the airplane door opened and people just started jumping out of the plane.  People jumped out of that plane like it was a completely normal thing to do.  Woody and I moved our way toward the back of the plane and the door as other people jumped out.

These people jumped right before I did:

Then it was our turn.  This all happened pretty quickly.  Going through the doorway of the plane is a little bit of a blur- I’m not really sure how much Woody pushed and how much I went willingly.  Once we got out of the plane we started falling (obviously).  At 120 miles per hour.  We did a few summersaults/flips through the air.  

Then somehow (it was probably Woody’s doing) we ended up like this:

We were in free fall for probably a minute.  It really didn’t feel like I was falling- I didn’t have that sensation in my stomach like when you are going down a big drop on a roller coaster.  Despite the fact that I was falling toward the ground at 120 miles per hour, I really wasn’t afraid or worried at all.  It was just an incredible sensation to be so free, to have the air rushing past my body, to be so aware of all that was around me.  Then Woody gave me the signal that it was time to pull the parachute.  I reached my hand back to pull the chute, but I didn’t quite get there fast enough, so Woody pulled it for us.  The chute came out, and we slowed way down.

I could see for miles and miles.  Now that I wasn’t falling at 120 miles per hour, I had the chance to enjoy the scenery a little more.  We did a few twisty turns in the parachute, but mostly we just calmly floated down to the ground for probably seven minutes or so.  I even got to steer the parachute a little bit.

We got closer and closer to the ground.  I could see other jumpers below me landing in the grassy landing area.  Then it was Woody and my turn to land.  I lifted my legs up, Woody made the landing, and then I almost got my feet onto the ground, but I made a nice soft landing on my behind

coming in for the landing

Even thinking back on it now, it’s a little hard to believe that I actually jumped out of a plane at 14,000 feet.  It was such an incredible experience- it makes me excited just thinking about it.

I would highly recommend skydiving to anyone.  And I would highly recommend the Chicagoland Skydiving Center.  And I would also highly recommend skydiving tandem with Woody.

Bottom line:  I LOVED Skydiving.  And I'll probably do it again.

Happy International Day of Peace!!!

Remember when I started a series on trying to define what peace is before I left for El Salvador in July?  Well thus far that series hasn’t really been a series because there has only been one post.  But today that is going to change. 

Installment #2 on “What is Peace” will revolve around a reflection by Anne Lamott on peace.  I’ve written about Anne Lamott’s writing before on this blog.  Even as I read more books by Anne, I continue to find her writing to be a source of deep truth and wisdom.  This particular reflection was in Anne’s book Bird by Bird- a book about writing and about life.

Anne was going through a bit of a crazy time in her life.  She wrote this:

I knew my soul was sick and that I needed spiritual advice, and I knew also that this advice shouldn’t be terribly sophisticated.  So I went to see the pastor of my son’s preschool.

The pastor is about fifteen.  We talked for a while.  It turns out he just looks young.  I said that I was all over the place, up and down, scattered, high, withdrawing, lost, and in the midst of it all trying to find some elusive sense of serenity.  “The world can’t give that serenity,” he said.  “The world can’t give us peace.  We can only find it in our hearts.”

“I hate that,” I said.

“I know.  But the good news is that by the same token, the world can’t take it away.”

As with just about everything Anne Lamott has written, her brief thoughts here on peace are filled with truth.  And she knows how to deliver that truth in a way that is easily understandable- or at least as easily understandable as a deep truth can be.

Peace is already in our hearts, we just have to find it.  Perhaps peace is something innate in each human being.  Such peace could only come from God, it is something that God puts within each of us (and perhaps God even puts peace within each and every single living being- human and non-human).  If in fact peace is something innate and it is the Creator who put it in us, this can tell us a lot about that peace…peace is universal, everlasting, more powerful than all evil, and ever-present.

As Anne points out, the trouble is finding that peace.  Human nature and the crazy world we live in make it difficult and sometimes impossible to find the peace that is present within ourselves.  It often seems that everything works against us finding that peace.  Finding peace in ourselves has become so counter-cultural.  It is even more counter-cultural to try to work for peace in the world.

The world can’t give us peace, but there are certainly people and things in the world that can help us find and embrace the peace in our hearts.  There are individuals we can learn from: Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, John Dear, Mahatma Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, and so many others.  There are movements and groups and organizations that have set an example of what it means to work for peace: the civil rights movement, the Plowshares movement, the Catholic Worker, the Quakers…  These people, groups, and movements can help show us what peace is and how we might find it in ourselves and create it in the world.

The preschool pastor was so right: the world- the evil, the injustice in the world- can do nothing to take away the peace within us.  Peace will always be present within me, within you, and within every person.  The evil and injustice in the world may mask that peace or make us forget about peace, but the peace will remain with in us.

Taking all this into account means a few things for my search for peace in my life and in the world.  No one and no thing is going to hand peace to me on a silver platter.  I have to find it in my heart through transcending the non-peace of this world (obviously much easier said than done).  Perhaps I have been focusing too much on looking to the world to help me find peace.  Peace is something I have to find first within myself before I can have any chance of leaving the world more peaceful than I found it.

Seeking peace is something active.  It’s not just going to find me.  And so today, on this International Day of Peace, I’m going to try to begin something new.  I’m going to try to spend at least a few minutes everyday actively searching for that peace in my heart.  For a few minutes, I’m going to block out every thing that is not peace and try to connect to that peace that is somewhere within me.

First week at Feed My Starving Children

I completed my first week of work at Feed My Starving Children!  The first day was really overwhelming with trying to take in and remember everything I was supposed to.  But it got less overwhelming each day.  All my coworkers are great people- they have made me feel very welcomed and have been very helpful in teaching me everything I need to learn.

I went over some human resource stuff with the site supervisor, read some of the employee manual, watched some safety videos, and took some safety quizzes.  Most of the time I spent observing the team leaders as they led groups of volunteers.  I also did some food packing along with the volunteers and I jumped in and helped the team leaders when help was needed and I knew what I was doing.

I was amazed at just how different every group of volunteers is and you never really know what to expect in a volunteer session.  Just this week alone there were families, middle school field trips, transition students, a high school tennis team, church groups, 85 people from UPS (they are all about efficiency!), a 16^th birthday party, a Kiwanis club, Starbucks workers, college students, elderly people, 5 year-olds, and volunteers who have been to Feed My Starving Children more times than me.   

This afternoon I did my first bit of leading.  I led the clean up of the warehouse and I led the group as they prayed over the food they had packed.  I think it went pretty well.  This is probably the easiest part to lead, so it was good that I started with this one.  I’m a little worried about leading the other parts because there are lots of instructions that I have to remember to give to the volunteers.  I have a whole week to learn though, and of course I’ll have the support of the other team leaders.

I think the coolest part of the week was today when we sent off a shipping container (think of a semi-truck or train boxcar) of food to Liberia.  Once or twice a week we send off a shipment of food to countries all around the world.  The food goes from our warehouse on a truck to a port then onto a ship and across the ocean, then through another port, then on another truck probably over some not so great roads to get to the organizations that Feed My Starving Children partner with on the ground to distribute the food.  It can take anywhere from 2 weeks to a few months for a shipment to get where it’s going.  With the long journey and the chaos and uncertainty of the journey, the food can use all the divine protection it can get.  So, once the food was all loaded up on the semi-truck, some of the staff members gathered to pray that God would watch over and protect the food throughout its journey and that the food would nourish all those who will eat the food.

Thus far I’m really enjoying working at Feed My Starving Children.  The staff and volunteers are so passionate about what they are doing and it’s easy to catch that passion as well as to spread it to others.  

A Bushel of Tomatoes

I have spent WAY too much time with tomatoes over the past two days.

I decided to make some salsa to use the jalapenos from my garden.  I went to the grocery store to buy some tomatoes.  I was looking at the selection of tomatoes trying to decide which kind to buy, when I noticed about 7 bushels of tomatoes.  A bushel of tomatoes was only $14.99.  How can you pass up a deal like that? 

I thought about it a lot.  A bushel is a lot of tomatoes.  And I knew canning them would take a lot of work.  But I didn’t have any plans for the next two days and I did want to make salsa and I wanted to can some more crushed tomatoes.  So, I brought home a bushel of tomatoes.

The bushel- with some tomatoes already missing

 Yesterday I started working on the salsa right after I ate breakfast and I am just now (38 hours later) processing the last batch of jars of salsa.

To make the salsa: Wash tomatoes.  Put them in boiling water for about a minute.  Take them out of the boiling water.  Put the tomatoes into some ice water.  Peel off the skins.  Put them in a bowl.  Repeat this process in batches of about 7-10 tomatoes.

naked tomatoes

 When all the tomatoes were peeled, then came the dicing of the tomatoes.  I think this is what took the longest.  I had to cut out the core of the tomatoes and then dice up the remainder of the tomato.  Then I had to chop onions, green pepper, jalapeno pepper, garlic, and cilantro.

This was about 4 hours of tomato preparation and vegetable chopping.  I had to run over to church for a meeting, so I got to take a little break from the salsa.  When I got back I mixed up all the tomatoes and veggies, and added some vinegar, tomato paste, and cumin.  The salsa went onto the stove where I brought it to a boil and stirred it for the next 30 minutes while it boiled.  While the salsa was boiling I got the canner started and got the jars and lids all ready.  Then the jars boiled in the canner for 45 minutes.  After working ALL day, it was really disappointing to see that I only got 5 jars (quarts) worth of salsa.

Salsa!

 This morning, I thought I would start with something a little bit easier so I canned some crushed tomatoes.  I had to go through the whole tomato cleaning and peeling process and then cut the tomatoes into quarters before putting them into a pot on the stove.  I used a potato masher to crush them up a little.  I brought the tomatoes to a boil for 5 minutes.  Then came the canning.  I ladled the tomatoes into sterilized jars along with 2 tablespoons of lemon juice to ensure it was acidic enough.  Then the jars went into the canner for 45 minutes.  I got 5 jars of crushed tomatoes, which will be good for making chili, spaghetti sauce, lasagna, and maybe some other things too.  And there was half a jar which I'll just put in the fridge to use in the next couple of days.

At some point during the crushed-tomato-making I decided I needed a little snack of chips and some salsa that I had made yesterday.  So, I opened up a jar, dipped a chip right into the salsa in the jar, and I so very pleased with the deliciousness of the salsa.  Knowing that all my hard work the day before had produced something so yummy gave me the motivation I needed to continue on with dealing with the tomatoes.  For dinner I made a quesadilla with the salsa inside along with salsa on the side.  Totally worth all the work.

quartered tomatoes

crushed tomatoes

While the crushed tomatoes were processing I began the salsa making process all over again.  I had enough tomatoes to make a batch and a half, so that meant even more tomato preparation and veggie chopping than the first salsa go-around.  Many hours of chopping followed.  I did get 7 quarts filled with salsa.  And I even had some left over that probably would have filled another jar.  However, my canner only holds 7 quarts and I didn’t want to deal with the time and effort of canning one jar by itself.  So, I just filled a couple of smallish plastic containers with salsa and I’ll put it in the freezer.

Yesterday I made the mistake of cutting up the jalapeno peppers without any sort of protection on my hands and so my hand that had most of the contact with the pepper was burning most of the night from the spiciness of the peppers.  I looked up how to make my hands stop burning and someone suggested veggie oil.  I rubbed some veggie oil on my hands and that helped quite a bit.  So, today I wore some plastic gloves and my hands are just fine tonight.

the scene of the canning- this poor kitchen sure got used a lot the past 2 days

jars in the canner

The results:

5 1/2 quarts of crushed tomatoes

13 quarts of salsa

That should be enough to last us till next year when hopefully my own tomatoes grow better than they did this year (there’s quite a few green tomatoes on my plants, but no sign yet of anything close to red tomatoes).

I got a real job!!!

Feed My Starving Children offered me a job and I have accepted it!!! 

I first learned about Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) when I was in El Salvador a couple of years ago.  The homeless shelter run by the Lutheran Church receives food from FMSC and it was there that I saw the food being used as well as the boxes of food that had been marked as being packed by volunteers in Aurora, IL.  When I got home, I learned more about FMSC and saw they were a pretty awesome organization.  So, when I started looking for jobs, this was one of the places I kept checking for open positions.

Feed My Starving Children was founded in 1987 by a Minnesotan who had taken a trip to Honduras and then felt called to do something about the hungry children he witnessed there and knew existed around the world.  Working with food scientists, FMSC developed a specially designed food formula that would provide the nutrients needed to restore starving children to health.  In order to make a significant difference in alleviating hunger, FMSC sought to find the most cost-effective way to produce and package the food.  They found that volunteers could package the food much better and cheaper than machines.  So, volunteers from churches, community organizations, businesses, etc. have been an essential part of FMSC.  FMSC partners with nonprofit organizations around the world to distribute the food to those in need.  The vision of the organization is to “strive to eliminate starvation in children throughout the world by helping to instill compassion in people to hear and respond to the cries of those in need.”  FMSC has been growing rapidly over the past few years, with hundred of thousands of volunteers packing millions and millions of meals.

I’m going to be a Team Leader.  I’ll be leading groups of 10-90 volunteers that come to pack food at FMSC’s location in Aurora.  It will be my job to ensure that the volunteers follow the proper food packing procedure and to create a positive volunteer experience.  I’ll get to tell the volunteers about FMSC and its mission, teach them the packing procedure, and make sure everything goes smoothly from start to clean up.  Then I get to see a whole bunch of food shipped off to hungry people all over the world.

That’s right.  This is the real deal.  I’m going to be working at a faith-based non-profit organization! 

If you can’t tell, I’m pretty excited about this job.  First, I’m excited because it is a job, a source of income.  Second, I’m excited because I get to work for a great organization that is doing great work around the world.  But most importantly, I’m excited because this job will provide me an opportunity to do what I am called to do- teach people about injustice in the world and then encourage and enable them to DO something about that injustice.  In a very concrete way I will be able to educate people about the injustice of hunger around the world and then immediately give them a way to respond.

The only downside of this job (at least the only downside I know about so far): this is only a part time position. I’m only guaranteed 12 hours a week, but there is the possibility of picking up other shifts as they are available.

I’m going to start soon- I’m not quite sure when exactly- probably within the next week. 

My birthday and refugees

My birthday is on Saturday.  It’s a pretty big birthday.  I’m going to be 25 years old- that’s a quarter of a century, folks.  I’m feeling a bit ambivalent about being that old, but there’s not much I can do about it.    

As part of my birthday celebration, I'm going to be participating in the Run/Walk for Refugees to support Exodus World Service. I've gotten involved with Exodus World Service over the past year and I can't think of a better way to spend the morning of my birthday than joining with others to raise awareness and funds to support the work of Exodus. Through Exodus, I've been volunteering with a wonderful refugee family from Bhutan. It has been such a pleasure getting to know the family. I have learned about their life as refugees in Nepal. I have also had the opportunity to learn about the joys and struggles they have experienced as they adjust to a new life here in the U.S. 

Here are my most favorite refugees!  (the kids from the family I've been volunteering with)

I would love for you to join me on Saturday at the Run/Walk for Refugees in Long Grove.  You can learn more about the run/walk and register here.

Whether or not you can join me for the run/walk, I would really love for you to sponsor me in this fundraiser.  I made my fundraising goal $625.  That's 25 dollars for each year of my life.  I’m 70% of the way to my goal which is pretty awesome!!!  Thanks to those of you who have already donated!!!  I have asked friends and family to make a donation to Exodus World Service in lieu of giving me any birthday gifts.  But even if you weren’t planning on giving me a birthday gift, you could still make a donation.  ;-)  As a volunteer with Exodus, I know Exodus does some incredible work supporting new refugees through connecting them with the support of volunteers. 

You can make a donation by visiting my fundraising page here: http://www.ministrysync.com/event/website/?m=736164

Thanks so much!

Acorn Squash

As I mentioned in an earlier post, a surprise acorn squash grew in my garden.  Well, there were two squashes that grew, but one was still pretty small when the squash vine died prematurely, so I’m not sure if that squash will be any good. 

I have to confess that I am not a huge fan of squash.  With the exception of pumpkin, I would normally turn down any offer to eat any kind of squash.  Some are far too sweet, some are stringy, some are slimy, some squash is just mush with no taste.

However, the squash that came out my garden was the best squash I have ever eaten.  To cook it I cut it in half, removed the seeds, and then put the squash halves upside-down in a 350 degree over for 30 minutes.  Then I took it out, turned over the squash halves, put about two tablespoons of brown sugar and one tablespoon of butter in the hole of each half, and put it back in the oven for about 30 more minutes.

This squash made my mouth so happy.  It was perfectly sweet with a complex and delicious taste I can’t even describe.  I sure am glad that squash grew in my garden.  Maybe next year I’ll consider actually planting some on purpose.  Maybe. 

Pickles Part 2

I canned a bunch of dill pickles a few of days ago.  It went well- I’m getting more comfortable and confident with my canning abilities.  However, I’m really worried about my pickles.  Mostly I’m worried that they are going to be mushy.  I did add some Pickle Crisp- we’ll see if it did its job of keeping the pickles crisp.

I bought about 14 pounds of pickling cucumbers a farmer’s market.  The cucumbers that I’m growing in my garden aren’t the best for making pickles and I don’t have enough cucumbers from my garden to can a batch of pickles.

I got an awesome book on canning for the library- Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving.  This book is filled with 400 recipes for canning just about everything.  So, I followed their recipe for dill pickles.

Here’s the basic pickle canning process:

Step 1: Clean the cucumbers.  Slice off a little slice from each end of the cucumbers.  Soak them overnight in some salt water.

Step 2: Prepare the canner.  Sterilize the jars and jar lids.  

the canner

Step 3:  Mix up the vinegar solution- vinegar, water, sugar, salt, and pickling spice.  Heat it and simmer for 15 minutes.

Step 4: Fill the jars with chopped garlic, dill, and pickles.  Pour the vinegar solution over the cucumbers.  Put the lids on the jars.

Step 5: Put the jars in the canner and process for 15 minutes.

Step 6:  Remove the jars and let them cool.

I ended up with 12 jars of pickles, each with about 4 or 5 good-sized pickles.  They look like pickles should look.  I’m going to let them sit for a few weeks at least so they can soak in all the flavor of the vinegar and pickling spice.  Then I’m going to open up a jar and hope that they are the most delicious crisp pickles I have ever eaten.  I’ll let you know.