Author Archives: Berniece

Greetings from Point Au Fer. Yes, it’s a French name; we’re in New York, a few miles from the Quebec border. The couples’ conversation in front of us in the ice cream line last evening could not be understood. They called someone over to translate when the girl at the window asked, “Is that all?”

Thankfully, God speaks my language. I awoke this morning to the verse, “Freely you have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8). Yesterday, I felt the Father’s presence as Laurence and I kayaked on Lake Champlain: little me on this great expanse of blue blue water with the Green Mountains of Vermont rising to the east. After rounding a bend on the lake, we spied the Adirondack Mountains of New York.

Yesterday, we toured the Wilder place of the book Farmer Boy in Malone, NY. It’s eleven miles from the Canadian border in beautiful farm country. Afterward, we drove an hour to hike only to find a bridge out right before we reached the trailhead, so then an hour’s drive back to here. But there was beauty all around. Did you know New York has the most designated wilderness area of any state?

After the ice cream, we joined a few friendly strangers at the lake’s edge to watch the super moon rise above the Green Mountains. This morning the sun in all its splendor is so dazzling on the water that we faced the Adirondack chairs south to easier read the Word (and drink coffee). (I’m wearing a jacket. This isn’t Kansas.)

I expect the reader wants New York City stories. God is there among the skyscrapers and chaos. This morning He is here where the waters of Lake Champlain lap gently at our feet. I pray that He is in the boat with you. If so, you have a beautiful life.

Love, Berniece

My husband, Laurence, numbers with the few hires among 4,000 employees who have worked over 25 years at Elmhurst Hospital. He began there as a volunteer during our houseparent days in the Woodside apartment. In the last months under USA Missions, he was hired as an escort in the hospital. We were young then, and he’d often climb steps rather than take an elevator to reach the patients he’d been called on to transport. (Years before, I worked with friends doing this at Halstead Hospital!)

Then, after two years like God parting the waters for the children of Israel, a supervisor opened the way for Laurence to qualify for three months of schooling in order to receive the title of Patient Care Associate (PCA). Laurence graduated at the top of the class and gave a superb speech at the graduation. (Ok. I may be biased, but none of our church family were there to hear. It’s been an alone journey.) PCA is no highfluten title. Laurence’s job consists of doing lots of vital signs, asking questions (have you ever thought about hurting/killing yourself?), making appointments, doing blood work, EKGs, eye photos, and a zillion other things that have been added over the years, making the job much more complicated and stressful than in the good ole days when he started. Laurence works in the Medical Primary Care Clinic.

Sometimes patients think he’s a doctor and will tell him their problems. He’s not anxious to hear them. He does know that with his nature, it’s good to interact with people. He comes home with stories, like about the mother with two little children who said her husband was abusive. He marveled at how quietly the children sat.

My clinic and emergency room visits have been smoother because my husband is an Elmhurst Hospital employee. He draws my blood when necessary. I’ve been stopped on the street so an employee can express their appreciation for Laurence. My time spent in the hospital room (broken leg, burst appendix) was punctuated with, “You’re Penner’s wife.”

Yesterday, I attended the ceremony honoring the employees who’d worked 25 years at Elmhurst Hospital. (Elmhurst Hospital is one of the top ten trauma centers in the country. Laurence says, “If they can’t save your life there, they can’t save it anywhere.) Afterwards, we ate the barbeque from Dinosaur’s that they served us. Elmhurst Hospital has been good to us! (I will refrain from the negatives. They are plenty. But Laurence has one and a half blocks to work and can leave the stress behind to come for lunch.) Berniece

P.s. Another blog written while having a lavender latte at Elmhurst Rostery.

Today I gathered with my sisters in a quiet cove besides the Hudson River. Seven of us sat around a picnic table under a shade tree by the water to celebrate Bisi’s birthday. Her 16 year old daughter joined us. (Gives you a hint about her age.) Donna prayed a beautiful blessing for Bisi and for the food. Donna brought grilled chicken and taco salad. That was one good (and big) salad and we cleaned it out. I hauled potato salad up on the train. The birthday cake consisted of boughten cookies.

The scene of the river and hills, green lawn and trees, white house with a porch overlooking the river, and fenced in decks with Adirondack chairs could not have been more lovely, a scene conducive to sharing hearts. Seven sisters from seven different backgrounds. We came not only from different states but from different countries: two from Nigeria, from Michigan, Kansas, South Dakota, and Elizabeth was born in London. I am a New Yorker. Bisi and her daughter were baptized at Sugar Hill Mennonite Mission. Today, we helped to lift each other’s burdens. We shared joys and sorrows, trivial things and deep. These ladies understood me!

“By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). I’m thinking if this verse is true (it is!) then those few other people in the park must have known that we’re followers of Jesus. It’s not likely that we seven will ever be together in this way again. (The group here is ever-changing.) This then is the blessing of being of one body and of one Spirit.

I reflected on these things until I fell asleep as I rolled beside the magnificent Hudson River on the two hour train ride back to Grand Central. (A Yankee game this evening meant the train was full, and I shared a seat with a young man. He said it was ok that I had my stuff piled on it and took up two-thirds of the space.)

Thanks Donna, Bisi, Elizabeth, Christiana, Marilyn, and Rachel for being here. And to all those sisters who have touched my life: thank you! God bless you! Berniece

Brooklyn vibes swirl around this patch of grass with bright-colored flowers bordered by long rows of old brick warehouses. Ferries, boats, barges, and tugs ply the waters of the New York Harbor. We ate baba ganoush and naan (picked up from the nearby warehouse turned grocery) in this little park with it’s excellent view of the Statue of Liberty. Behind the grocery/warehouse is an old trolley. Once filled with commuters it now sits sadly abandoned, its windows broke out.

The G train cuts through Queens into Brooklyn, avoiding Manhattan, and it dropped us off at Smith and Ninth. (I eyed the riders: a child hopping onto a seat and having the stranger beside give him a smile, workmen, a woman with a dog, a monk in red robes, a young woman with an ornament of two-inch spikes around her neck. A young Mexican woman with a baby on her back went through selling candy. A war veteran begged for money. Young. Elderly. Fat. Thin. Red, brown, yellow, black and white. I saw Laurence and my reflection in the window and thought we didn’t look ordinary either.) The Smith and Ninth train station supposedly has the best view of any in the city from its platform. We then boarded a bus (that goes by the largest of city housing projects) for Ikea. After tramping through Ikea’s maze, we walked through weedy lots to Steve’s Key Lime Pie. It’s a dinky hole in the wall place in a warehouse. Even though it’s famous, I’m amazed that we found it. We had a frozen key lime pie popsicle covered in chocolate while sitting by a picnic table and took a small key lime pie to go. Yum!

The cranes on the New Jersey shore stand ready to unload ships. Staten Island rises across the bay. Laurence says to tell the Kansans about the grain elevators in Red Hook. They were a financial disaster from the time they were built in 1922 and were finally decommissioned in 1965, but they still stand. The Lehigh Valley Railroad Barge No. 79 bobs beside us. The historic barge was built in 1914 to move cargo around the New York Harbor and along the lower Hudson River.

I wanted to give you a picture of this place that none of you will likely ever see. You are blessed to live where you do! Berniece

The “Rain” topic eludes me as I sit here waiting for the guy to finish making the lavender latte I ordered. Instead, the rhythms of our community play in my mind. (That patron looks like Jefferson Smith. I see they’re actually working on the big coffee roaster. Hopefully, they’ll be roasting soon.)

On the way over, I observed that the Korean women exercising to music wore white and black. Yesterday, they all had red skirts with white tops. I wonder how they coordinate. Do they Whatsapp each other, decide today what to wear tomorrow, or have a leader who tells them what outfit to put on?

I followed but never quite caught up with my neighbor who was taking her little boy to nursery school. In Moore Park there was ping pong, basketball, people exercising, and bums. Many commuters disappeared down into a rabbit hole. I mean subway station. After all it’s real life!

The Asian market’s door buzzed with shoppers. Its large fruit displays are pushed against the outside wall. Since the Pandemic, the City hasn’t put the brakes on sidewalk vendors, and the Chinese spread out displays of cheaply made household items or racks of used clothing on the sidewalk where I walked to come here. There’s also an old-fashioned shoe cobbler doing a brisk business. The tools of his trade are in a wooden box. And a Chinese food cart with skewers that I am not brave enough to sample.

When I return home, I’ll pass by the Mexicans with their fresh fruits and vegetables and flowers. Every morning, a truck stops nearby to deliver the flowers. The bouquets are reasonably priced and long-lasting – a bright spot in an apartment!

This coffee shop is the only place in Elmhurst that could almost be Kansas. A place where I can leave my money and laptop on the table while I go to the restroom. I look around and realize I’m wrong: The one patron could have been a brother from Kansas, but everyone else looks like multi-cultural Elmhurst.

What are the rhythms of your life? Love, Bee (In here they call me Bee, and it always startles me. It’s my fault. I put that as my name. Someday, I’ll bring little Bee in here. I imagine she’ll be carrying a bubble tea, which she much prefers to coffee.)

Israel pays me to clerk at the farmer’s market; not to write blogs, but it’s cool in this church and quiet and peaceful. I came here to the fellowship hall to eat my lunch. It’s empty now, but I remember Gwynne serving cookies in this room after a candlelight Christmas carol service. Gwynne, a rather famous Black novelist, humbly became a part of the Mennonite writing group that I belonged to. She passed away in 2015. I attended her memorial here in this church. Gwynne’s publisher told the crowd that day about how the lady from the farmer’s market would visit Gwynne in the room where she lay dying. (She didn’t know how I’d experienced the light of Heaven in that Island bedroom.)

Earlier this morning, I knelt in the chapel to say a thank you prayer. I thought about little Jethro who said the favorite part of his NYC trip a few weeks ago was singing a song with his family in the beautiful old sanctuary (built 1888) of this church with its stained glass windows. I wish I would have heard them sing.

Tomorrow we will worship in the sanctuary at Sugar Hill Mennonite Mission. There is no place I would rather be for a Sunday service. However, God is here. May you find yourself in the sanctuary of the Lord today and forever. Love, Berniece

I just came up from the mailbox. The small metal boxes line a wall in an alcove next to the stairway. Each tenant holds the key to their box. We also have a key fob for the two front doors and to unlock the elevator so it will go to the basement where the trash and the laundry room are. Another key unlocks our apartment door. You’d be amazed at the the number of locks on our door. When our guests want to leave, they stand puzzled by the door until either Laurence or myself unlock it. The funniest thing is when they try to leave via the front closet door. They open it to see coats, folding chairs, and table boards; and quickly close it again. This happens quite frequently.

We are safe here, and I did not lock the door while I ran down the three flights to the mailbox. As I walked through the hallway back to our apartment in the corner, I felt grateful again that the management had the hall walls painted a nice golden yellow (after years of ugly orange). The hall doors and the elevator door are brown. We pass seven apartment doors before coming to ours if we use the stairs. The elevator is in the middle of these doors. So eight apartments to a floor and there are six floors.

This building was built in 1938. The same year as is the map of Bible Lands that hangs on our foyer wall. (The map came into our possession while dumpster diving with friends in Philadelphia. I’ll spare them from telling you who they were.)

The subway came through in 1934. Before then it was farmland. Clement Moore who penned “The Night Before Christmas,” would sometimes stay with his grandparents at the farmhouse that was razed when the subway came through.

I didn’t want to write about this building – to tell you how we have a new red canvas awning that stretches from the entry to the front sidewalk. It’s caused some of the neighbors to raise an awful fuss at the absurdity of it. We even had a letter from the management telling the tenants to take their problems to them and not to complain to the co-op board. I messaged our friend on the board and told him we think he’s doing a great job. He messaged back, “You are great neighbors, and I am very happy to share our home with you.”

Home. This building on this quiet street in this big city is home. We’ve lived here since October 17, 1997. We rented our apartment for two years and then bought its shares in 1999. (Thanks to the encouragement of the late Jay Bullock and a loan from the late deacon Allen Issac.)

Thanks to the many of you who have graced our home with your presence. God bless! Berniece

P.s. What I really wanted to write about was the beautiful scene along the Hudson River by the lighthouse at Tarrytown last evening.

P.s.s. Comments keep me writing.

We’re on the hill where the grills are. Smoke rises from the barbeques around us. I believe the South Korean meal will be quite different from our chicken shish kebabs. (I looked on in amazement as the mother perched on her haunches on the picnic bench. I could have held the pose for only a moment before toppling to the ground.) The Mexicans started the charcoal, put the bag to burn on top of the grill, changed their shoes, and went down the hill to play soccer. The Romanians (I’m guessing at their nationality) started their fire and then sat down in lawn chairs. Looks to me like they brought “everything but the kitchen sink”.

Muslim women walk. Indian men play cricket. Laurence relaxes in the lawn chair. We reminisce about being here with Benns, Randys, Tims, Bee, the boys. Randalyn and my friendship began in this park. It’s peaceful here – so different from the playground I wrote about this morning. There are trails in the woods. Birds sing. The 40 acres of grass playing field looks dry.

Expensive homes surround the park. I’m guessing by the sort of stores that Asians and Jews live in the neighborhood. (We passed a photographer taking pictures of a young Jewish man. For his Bar Mitzvah?)

After thirty years, I know something about other cultures. Still, I’m ever learning. Still, I get things wrong. I say understanding culture is the biggest challenge and the biggest blessing of living here. It seems to me that the American man and the South Korean woman grilling next to us is in the midst of a cultural misunderstanding right now.

The sun is setting. Tomorrow is the market, so we will go wait for the bus that takes us to the train and home. Thank you for being interested in my musings. Berniece

P.s. Laurence says, “Did you tell them that Donald Trump grew up near here?”

I chose a spot in the shade over by the slow moving sword dancers in Moore Playground. It’s quieter here; however, I still hear a jackhammer, the music of the Korean dancers, and the slap of a tennis ball in the handball court. A grandpa swings his granddaughter, and I see a well-dressed group walking through the park – the Jehovah Witnesses have returned. There’s a volleyball game being played and basketball.

The walk this morning took me past Thai restaurants and a Filipino place where they barbeque on the sidewalk. I saw the can man with his grocery cart. I stopped to admire my favorite yellow roses.

I wonder what’s happening in the Asian food court across the street. They’ve put a sign on the building that says, “S Mart,” along with a huge plastic red crab. An Asian grocery? We already have two big ones in the area. (Welcome to Chinatown.) I walked in the side of the building that’s open. I saw a customer buying food at the Burmese Hut and observed sesame balls, piles of fried rice, and foods for which I have no name at the Chinese buffet.

Several hundred Tibetans, many dressed in traditional dress, filled a section of this park Wednesday evening. We watched as someone lit candles on a decorated cake. Afterwards, they sang happy birthday in their language and then in English to His Highness, the Dalai Lama.

Some elderly Chinese chat on the bench beside me. It’s been a quiet week, so while I feel privileged to live here – even that God wants us here – I miss the fellowship with my people.

And now these elderly Chinese are exercising: punch, punch, kick, kick, holler(!) . . .

God bless you in the place you are filling. Berniece

“Roast Coffee, not people,” reads the t-shirt of the barista who just made this excellent London Fog that I’m drinking in Elm Roastery. This place, more like The Meeting House in Segwick, Kansas, is definitely unique to Elmhurst. I walked past the Koreans dancing in Moore Park, saw the drunks side by side on a bench, passed the Muslim woman trailing properly behind her husband, and saw stores with name signs in strange languages. These are the ordinary sights of Elmhurst.

Telling a barista our story. Explaining that I didn’t want to come to NYC, but then God so clearly brought the verse: “I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance,” and seeing the barista’s eyes light with understanding while he adds milk to the tea is so far from ordinary in Elmhurst. (His parents were Christian missionaries in West Africa.)

We are mostly heathen in Elmhurst: Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu . . . Every morning a group doing Fulin Gong stands mediating at the entrance of Moore Park. A unique Buddhist Monastery rises a few blocks from us, and I’ve witnessed a group of orange-robed priests waiting for the elevator in our building. Few people in Elmhurst know or have even heard the name of Jesus.

I observe friends gathering in this coffee shop, speaking in languages I don’t understand. I am humbled. I am blessed with the opportunity to let the Light shine here. I wish you were here having coffee with me. (I wish Gospel Tract was here.)

Today you can say a prayer for the work of God’s people in Elmhurst, Queens. Berniece