An Unconventional Picnic (and lots of videos)
Greetings sisters in Christ!
I thought I'd share a bit of insight of my keeper of the home activities...we had a picnic:-) Yep, when we left the sinful city we were in, we ventured into the wilderness for almost 2 whole days of no driving, no street preaching, no sign holding but lots of online ministry in the quiet of God's creation. While we were there we had a picnic. A simple one at that:-)
Here's a video of our camp spot.
Which by the way is the first time we've paid to camp in 2 years. $12 per night and we got all the water we needed so of course I washed every speck of clothing I could find:-) And brother Jim got to have a fire, he was joyous about that! It was the only place we could find without having to drive more hours after being out witnessing and it was on the way to our next destination.
We enjoyed a bit of quiet time by the water and brother Jim made a teaching video, you can find that HERE on his teaching blog.
After some quiet time I began working on our picnic dinner.
I'll share a quick way to make pasta salad without using much energy.
I love using veggie pasta and just put a couple handfuls in the pot along with a handful of freeze dried peas. Cover it with water, put the cover on it, bring to a boil and shut it off. Let it sit about 10 minutes (all depends on what sort of pasta) and it's ready to be drained and cooled off. I put our rechargeable fan blowing on it for a while, that did the job.
Then I add some mayonnaise, salt and celery salt and call it good. But, I had a carrot and small tomato so I added that also.
I like to add less mayo and then stretch it with a bit of water so it covers good.
Meanwhile brother Jim was cooking the hotdogs on a stick over the fire.
***Ummm....the next night when we decided to roast some more, brother Jim learned a good lesson. Don't use a real stick more than once to cook hotdogs because the stick can burn, then break and tumble the hotdogs into the ashes. It then takes much effort to dig them out using 2 sticks like chopsticks. But with determination (brother Jim is rather stubborn:-) he got them out and with a good rinse of water and wiping down with a paper towel, we hardly tasted the ash. Yep... we ate them and were thankful:-)***
I buy the more natural hotdogs that claim there are no chemicals in them and are very affordable. I also dug out a can of discounted beans.
So you're thinking that sounds like a typical picnic right? Well, we're a bit more unconventional (of course, if we eat ash dogs haha :-) and instead of wasting a paper plate or dirtying up more dishes and running back and forth from the van with it all, we ate out of the pan and the can and the bread held the hotdog. Quick, simple and no fuss. Sometimes we, in our flesh, can get carried away with things being just right, or how we've always done it. (I wrote an article about traditions and mindsets, you can read that HERE if you like.)
One of the biggest keeper of the home lessons I've learned is how to let go. Let go of those mindsets and traditions (when needed) and be open to a more simple life. Living a minimal, frugal, tiny house, off grid life has taught me many hard lessons that end up making my life much less complicated. I'll share this with you and you might actually cringe when you read it:-) I grew up on a lot of one pot meals (some people, like me, call them hot dishes) and that's how I raised my children because it's simple and definitely more frugal. If they dished up too much food on their plate and they were full, I had them dump it back in the pot and I would then stretch that hotdish for another meal by adding more ingredients. (I know, that's really strange.) Maybe some of you have heard of 'friendship bread?' You make a base bread starter and keep adding flour, sugar, milk etc and after so many days you take some out, make some delicious bread and keep adding to the starter mix and the process continues on and on....that's what i used to do with my hotdishes. In Wisconsin at the end of potato season (we lived in an area of potato fields) they would sell 50# bags of potatoes for $6-8 per bag. I'd get a couple bags and we would eat various forms of potato soup all winter long, morphing it into different dishes by adding new ingredients to the left overs.
Going back to our camping venture, you might like this video...
And this one of a caterpillar we saw on our walk.
And a cute little chippy.
And I share the sunset with you...
Check out this ant dragging a dead wasp that's so much bigger than him! He certainly was diligent because he'd drag it, let go, run around then go back to it.
And I know you're already wondering where the flowers are:-)
They are so sweet looking aren't they? Speaking of sweet, I have to show you what brother Jim got. He knows how much I love dark chocolate and peanut butter. Put them together and oh...my...
It was a huge peanut butter cup! That sure was a treat and I appreciated the gift from my sweetie. Of course we shared it:-)
We are currently someplace else heading toward another area that might be a good place for street preaching, we shall see when we get there. Everywhere is good for witnessing because you can fly signs anywhere but it's even better if there are a lot of people around to hear the preaching of the Word.
I've been sharing the wilderness and peaceful scenes like this...
If I walk to the back of the van and look out over the field that's what I see. But this here is much more the view we normally see...
A parking lot, and even that picture brings us great joy...know why? Because there's no car parked by us and we have privacy! Anyway, that's a glimpse into our simplified, unconventional life, living in a van on the road.
I leave you with this encouragement.
John 6:32-35
Peace and joy to you sisters!
Sister Deb
I thought I'd share a bit of insight of my keeper of the home activities...we had a picnic:-) Yep, when we left the sinful city we were in, we ventured into the wilderness for almost 2 whole days of no driving, no street preaching, no sign holding but lots of online ministry in the quiet of God's creation. While we were there we had a picnic. A simple one at that:-)
Here's a video of our camp spot.
Which by the way is the first time we've paid to camp in 2 years. $12 per night and we got all the water we needed so of course I washed every speck of clothing I could find:-) And brother Jim got to have a fire, he was joyous about that! It was the only place we could find without having to drive more hours after being out witnessing and it was on the way to our next destination.
We enjoyed a bit of quiet time by the water and brother Jim made a teaching video, you can find that HERE on his teaching blog.
After some quiet time I began working on our picnic dinner.
I'll share a quick way to make pasta salad without using much energy.
I love using veggie pasta and just put a couple handfuls in the pot along with a handful of freeze dried peas. Cover it with water, put the cover on it, bring to a boil and shut it off. Let it sit about 10 minutes (all depends on what sort of pasta) and it's ready to be drained and cooled off. I put our rechargeable fan blowing on it for a while, that did the job.
Then I add some mayonnaise, salt and celery salt and call it good. But, I had a carrot and small tomato so I added that also.
I like to add less mayo and then stretch it with a bit of water so it covers good.
Meanwhile brother Jim was cooking the hotdogs on a stick over the fire.
I buy the more natural hotdogs that claim there are no chemicals in them and are very affordable. I also dug out a can of discounted beans.
So you're thinking that sounds like a typical picnic right? Well, we're a bit more unconventional (of course, if we eat ash dogs haha :-) and instead of wasting a paper plate or dirtying up more dishes and running back and forth from the van with it all, we ate out of the pan and the can and the bread held the hotdog. Quick, simple and no fuss. Sometimes we, in our flesh, can get carried away with things being just right, or how we've always done it. (I wrote an article about traditions and mindsets, you can read that HERE if you like.)
One of the biggest keeper of the home lessons I've learned is how to let go. Let go of those mindsets and traditions (when needed) and be open to a more simple life. Living a minimal, frugal, tiny house, off grid life has taught me many hard lessons that end up making my life much less complicated. I'll share this with you and you might actually cringe when you read it:-) I grew up on a lot of one pot meals (some people, like me, call them hot dishes) and that's how I raised my children because it's simple and definitely more frugal. If they dished up too much food on their plate and they were full, I had them dump it back in the pot and I would then stretch that hotdish for another meal by adding more ingredients. (I know, that's really strange.) Maybe some of you have heard of 'friendship bread?' You make a base bread starter and keep adding flour, sugar, milk etc and after so many days you take some out, make some delicious bread and keep adding to the starter mix and the process continues on and on....that's what i used to do with my hotdishes. In Wisconsin at the end of potato season (we lived in an area of potato fields) they would sell 50# bags of potatoes for $6-8 per bag. I'd get a couple bags and we would eat various forms of potato soup all winter long, morphing it into different dishes by adding new ingredients to the left overs.
Going back to our camping venture, you might like this video...
And this one of a caterpillar we saw on our walk.
And a cute little chippy.
And I share the sunset with you...
Check out this ant dragging a dead wasp that's so much bigger than him! He certainly was diligent because he'd drag it, let go, run around then go back to it.
And I know you're already wondering where the flowers are:-)
It was a huge peanut butter cup! That sure was a treat and I appreciated the gift from my sweetie. Of course we shared it:-)
We are currently someplace else heading toward another area that might be a good place for street preaching, we shall see when we get there. Everywhere is good for witnessing because you can fly signs anywhere but it's even better if there are a lot of people around to hear the preaching of the Word.
I've been sharing the wilderness and peaceful scenes like this...
If I walk to the back of the van and look out over the field that's what I see. But this here is much more the view we normally see...
I leave you with this encouragement.
Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.
Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.
And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.John 6:32-35
Peace and joy to you sisters!
Sister Deb
The biblical gospel...