A grateful heart.

As I look out my kitchen window and look at the beautiful green mountains, small village homes and busy Sunday afternoon road I am filled with thanks.

The Lord has filled my heart with gratitude this week. Wednesday morning I met Him with a revelation of Yeshua on the cross. Not only was I overcome with thankfulness and praise but I came face to face with the truth of my wickedness and need for the beautiful work on the cross.

The Lord gave me a prophetic song:

Who am I, Who am I?
That you would pour our Your mercy
Who am I, Lord, Who am I?
That you would send your only Son
Who am I, Who am I?
That you would die for me

On Thursday night I was SUPER excited to go up to Knarr’s house and bust in on the intern’s dinner party with her. I went up early with Sietske and Abigail to cook and set up which was totally a blessing for me to get extra time with this wonderful woman in our community.

The Lord has given me a heart for justice and has always spoken to me through the orphan, widow and stranger. He has been really showing me His heart for the widow and the beauty in His love and adoration for her.

Deuteronomy 10:18
He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing.


Thursday night we went to serve and receive from a woman who is close to God’s heart. It is not a coincidence that God is using this community to walk alongside 3 widows. There’s so much more and I want to dig deeper!

Knarr made roasted lamb, potatoes and a lemony fresh salad that included fresh mint and lemons that I picked from her garden! The olive oil was even olives pressed from our ministry’s land. She shared her salvation testimony and love encounter’s with the Lord. It was nice to be in a warm home around a dinner table with the interns. Ask and you shall receive! =)

For the erev Shabbat meal I assisted Sarah with an Indian feast! Unfortunately I didn’t get a lot of experience with the Indian spices and how to make her butter chicken…but Michel and I did make some AMAZING Coconut Demi-Cake’s filled with cream cheese frosting.

Other than the mixer being down and having to mix the recipe 6x’s by hand we followed the Martha Stewart recipe as follows:

Makes 2 dozen

• 3 cups flour (not self-rising)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 1/4 cups sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup coconut milk
• 2 large eggs and 2 egg whites
• 1 1/4 cups shredded sweetened coconut
• Fresh Roasted Coconut, for garnish
  

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Cream the sugar and butter together and add eggs, 1 at a time. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet mixture and stir.

Pour the cupcakes into greased and floured cupcake pans. Bake at 200 Celsius (375 Fahrenheit) for about 15-20 minutes. If you’re not sure, you can check them with a knife. It should come out clean! I found a frosting recipe in a Better Home’s In Garden’s cookbook.

2 (3-oz) cream cheese

½ cup butter, softened

3-4 cups powdered sugar

½ tsp vanilla

Pinch of salt

Since our mixer was down we tried mixing the frosting in the blender. It turned into more of a glaze which we would later use for the tops of the “demi-cakes.” Then Sarah suggested trying to make it in the food processor and it worked perfectly! The recipe called for 5 cups of powdered sugar but everyone agreed less is more. The texture and sweetness was perfect! We used Cas’ frosting decorator bag to stuff the demi-cakes with the delicious frosting. We put the hole on top and then one of us rolled the tops of the cupcakes in the glaze and finally in the roasted coconut for garnish.

Lastly, we melted a bowl full of chocolate chips and put the melted chocolate in baking paper that Michel rolled up like a decorating bag. We drizzled the chocolate over the tops for beautiful presentation. Voila!

For Valentine’s Day, the second years and some staff and interns played a very competitive game of soccer. When you get German soccer players together with a French, Scottish and whole bunch of Americans… the game is ON.

Our house took this opportunity to dress up for the occasion and take photos of our fun “soccer attire.” We called ourselves the “Valentine’s” and sported hearts, red and pink. It was fun but today was actually quiet warm and we were all sweaty and miserable in our leggings and knee highs. Haha!

I surprised myself a bit since it’s been a good 10 years since I’ve played soccer…I’m not counting youth group soccer either! I was on “Rebekah’s” team and we lost by 1 point. Our second game Reuben and Joel wanted to play together and we lost 5-2. But it was fun and we were shocked that we even scored on them!

Tonight the staff are gonna celebrate this day of love with hot chocolate, truffles, brownies and coffee. Definitely a European Valentine’s Day for me!