Author Archives: Berniece

We are leaving the sea for the mountains. The sea calms me. I walked a mile on the beach and boardwalk one morning this past week. The blue expanse stretches into infinity. The tide rises and falls in a precision set in order at Creation; therefore, I am humbled by God’s order, and I’m able to believe in His control. Not only believe, but to rest and be still.

I recall the carefree days spent with Bee on Rockaway Beach: dipping in the water, building sand castles, flying a kite. I remember her saying while holding the kite string, “This is the funnest day of my life.” I could agree. Bee and I like to eat chicken empanadas at one of the colorful picnic tables on the boardwalk, overlooking the sea.

The full moon cast a luminous glow on the waves as we stepped onto the boardwalk. A young man said, “If only _ was here.” There’s a romance about the ocean. (He has been happily married for many years to that sweet girl.)

A sea sunrise should not be missed. Perhaps, it’s my favorite time to stand on the shore, and I remember gathering with the writing group, coffee mugs in hand, watching the orange ball rise over the horizon at Myrtle Beach. Beach time is bonding time. (Not everyone appreciated the sand drug into the vacation rental.)

Why go to the mountains? Look for me on the beach this summer. Berniece

Benn and Sundaymar brought their daughter, little Berniece, to the city to celebrate her nineth birthday. Last night we ate scrumptious cupcakes that Bee helped Grandma Marilyn decorate (I’m big Bee. She’s little Bee.) It was a fun party. However, I do not do Saturday evening supper company because I am completely exhausted after a work day at the market. But Bee is very dear to me, and I had exactly enough food left from Thursday evening’s supper guests for last evening. Happenstance? No. God knew.

The Benns came to church in the city today. (They live in Mifflinburg.) We have a friendly 10 year old young man in town with his mother. The mother, Beth, is a cousin to the missionary’s wife, Marilyn. The young man, Baine, is playing Michael Jackson on Broadway. (I think he must be a very good actor. I had the privilege of teaching him in Sunday School this morning.) The story I heard in the church foyer this morning is that Brother Benn picked up Baine and Beth from the airport when he had a call to transport a client last November when he came into the city. This morning Benn and Baine met at Sugar Hill Mission, and they both remembered that they’d met before. Coincidence? No. God’s plan. Amazingly, God also had Beth rent an Airbnb near the mission. Beth did not know when she rented it that she had a cousin in the city, nor how close she’d be living to her.

My father fell and couldn’t get up. My mom could not get him up. Just then my brother walked in. He called the ambulance. Did he just happen to walk in? No. God planned his steps. God is watching over Dad in Newton Medical. Tonight you can say a prayer for Dad.

Brother Benn told us this morning of his journey to the mission at Sugar Hill. His name was posted in a Liberian newspaper that he’d been shortlisted to come to America. He didn’t know. His sister-in-law read Benn’s name in the newspaper. God brought him and Sundaymar to America. He found Sugar Hill Mission online. He called. Sister Yvette answered and told him he is welcome to come to church. Benn and Sundaymar are our brother and sister and our friends. They gave me Berniece. We both love bubble tea and the beach. God’s providence is marvelous.

In what ways have you experienced God’s providence? Berniece

I’m looking past the red fire escape to rooftops with brown shingles, and on to the treetops wearing the new green of spring. I hear a siren near the hospital and small noise from the neighbor’s apartment. I visited with Carlos the neighbor one day this week. He told me his wife is a queen, that he sees how much Laurence and I love each other, and how he likes the singing coming from our apartment. Thank you for the music Jerrold and Jan, Todd and Donna, and Stan and Marilyn.

The Irishman in the elevator today told me, “It’s sure hot out.” Earlier the building superintendent inquired how I’m doing, and then he also remarked about the heat. Laurence says New Yorkers take to the cold better than the heat.

Laurence and I had chicken salad/cranberry wraps in Forest Park Thursday evening. Friday evening, we dined with friends at Kingsland Point Park in Sleepy Hollow. We talked and walked, ate and played there by the Hudson River. I am mystified at why two baseballs landed in the river. The sun slipped behind the hills and darkness fell as Laurence and I walked the mile alongside the river back to the train station at Tarrytown. Words do not suffice to write of the beauty of the view from a landscaped park by a lighthouse on the Hudson. Lights twinkled in the hills opposite the river and the lavenders (Laurence says blues) and greens of the Tarrytown bridge reflected in the water. These sights will keep us in NYC, I thought as we rolled along on Metro North into Grand Central.

I rode with Todd and Donna to the park last evening. I’d been in Poughkeepsie for a writing class with Elizabeth and Josiah Akinyombo. After two years of classes, we are finished. I am sad about this. Josiah got it right when he wrote, “It was fun looking at how we went from basically being lectured by Mama Berniece on the dos and don’ts of writing, to talking on closer planes and even having relatable writing experiences.” I learned right along with the children and stand in awe of the writings they produced. Where will they, and where will I go from here?

It’s been an eventful week. One that included telling Jerrold and Jan goodbye, having bubble tea with my sister-in-law Kris, making lunch for a former unit boy with a layover at LaGuardia Airport, and my very first ride on the Long Island Railroad out of Grand Central. Thanks to brother-in-law James for that!

I’ve enjoyed the ordinary of today: laundry in the basement laundromat, making French bread for Sunday lunch at Sugar Hill, cleaning the 755 square feet of this apartment, and dinner in our submarine kitchen with Laurence. This evening we’ll go for a walk – it isn’t hot!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the special moms in my life! Berniece

I leave the apartment early on Saturday mornings to take the subway to Roosevelt Island where I work at a farmer’s market. My boss is Israel Wengerd. At least he’s the one who hired me in 1999. Over 23 years later his son, the little boy who wore boots and a small version Amish hat, follows in his dad’s footsteps, so when Israel is gone, I listen to David. (They are not Amish anymore but Mennonite.)

I love walking along the East River to the market from the subway station in dawn’s early light. The Manhattan skyline awes me at this hour. The red tram might be gliding over the river beside the Queensboro Bridge. Often there’s a tug pushing a barge downriver to the bay.

Usually the Wengerd men are just about finished setting up when I arrive. Mrs. David, Kimbre, might be placing the many price signs behind fruits, vegetables, cheeses, baked goods, coffee, etc., and even freshly ground peanut butter. In the summer, Mrs. Israel, Sarah, will be busy filling pint boxes with berries. The market is beautiful in the early morning, and it’s the best time of day. (Coffee from the deli across the street might have something to do with this.)

In the beginning of my working at the market the other clerk, Mr. Kahn, and I used a scale. We held dollar bills and had change on the table. Who could have foreseen that we’d advance to cash registers and credit card machines and that we’d go from two clerks to seven or more?

Some of the customers from those beginning days have left us for Eternity. Children have grown and are away in college. Poor health and dementia has taken its toll on others. There are so many stories. I ask the father where his handicapped daughter is. He gives me a little smile that tells me he likes it that I’ve acknowledged seeing her and says, “She didn’t want to come out today.” The couple with backpacks and I talk about favorite hiking places. Others ask about my husband, acknowledging his fight with the long tail of COVID . . .

At the end of a workday, I drag back to the subway station. My feet are tired. I only want to be home.

If you’re in the city, stop by the market. Thank you for being interested. The comments are appreciated. And now I need to pack a lunch and check the train schedule for the market tomorrow. Berniece

Laurence works twelve hours on Monday. When he comes home around 8 pm, we eat a little supper, and call it a day. It’s good to have that behind us at the beginning of the week, so we can move on to more interesting things.

It isn’t that we don’t have any social life during the week, and especially now that the pandemic is behind us, we’re happy to spend time with friends. We did this week on Wednesday after a service at Sugar Hill. Food is the tie that binds, and we enjoyed a snacky supper with three other couples around the table of the missionary’s apartment. Even better than the food was the fellowship – the kind of conversation that feeds the spiritual person.

Tuesday evening, Laurence and I took the Q53 bus to Forest Park. We didn’t have a plan but decided after we arrived there to walk the orange trail. It mostly took us near the perimeter of the woods. We could have been on any woodland path except for the sound of traffic. Birdsong thrilled me as we walked deeper into the hardwood forest. As often happens, we walked further than planned, so Laurence says, “This can be a once a year outing.”

“Once a month,” I replied, because I was having such a good time. Laurence is right though because the list of places to go and things to see stretches from the shore of Rockaway to the East River. (That reminds me, we went to the ocean on Saturday and then ate lagman soup at Umas.)

Last evening, Laurence and I took the G train between Queens and Brooklyn to Greenpoint. Sadly, the G is the only train that doesn’t go through Manhattan. Last evening, it was packed with well-heeled commuters.

It’s been years since I was last in Greenpoint. I remember it as a gritty, Polish neighborhood. It was there, back in 1990, when I first learned the meaning of agnostic. A real estate agent driving Laurence and me around said, “It’s interesting that you are missionaries. I’m an agnostic.”

We came out of the Nassau subway station by a darling little coffee shop. I could hardly believe how gentrified the area has become. We went to check out a couple Japanese stores. I am not going to try and describe them to you. We did buy mochi and ramen soup, but we left the $89 pottery mug.

Gentrifying is ok. Until it’s not. We walked into a plant store with vintage clothes in the back. Music played and the forces of evil felt so strong that we could not leave fast enough. It took a prayer on the sidewalk to be free of that force.

A block over on a street running parallel to the other, were the ordinary, the gritty, the Polish stores. While we could not read the labels, we felt more at home among the beets and borscht. Laurence found his favorite cheese perogies.

Now I need to pack a lunch to take to market tomorrow, and I want to check the MTA site to see what the weekend trains are doing. They’re often not running normal due to track work. I like to have my work done before Laurence comes home, so that our evenings are free to walk and explore.

Thank you for being interested. Have a good weekend! Berniece

It’s the most beautiful time of the year! My view beyond the fire escape brightens with sunlight on brown-tiled roofs backed by treetops wearing the new green of spring. It’s time to stock chips, sandwich stuff, yogurt, and cookies for the evening picnic after Laurence’s workday at Elmhurst Hospital.

Pink cherry tree blossoms carpeted the lawn of Brooklyn Botanical Garden. The lilacs’ scent carried me ‘back home’ to a playhouse in the bushes west of (I say west because that’s how Kansans talk) the farmhouse. (The nieces and nephews also had a playhouse there. Will Emma Claire, Max, and Levi of the next generation?) Tulips circle the Dancing Maidens in Central Park. And a row of white redbuds bloom at the head of Juniper Valley where I walked alone one day this past week. Did you know there are white redbuds? The red redbuds look magenta to me and bloom as beautifully here as they did behind the Melvin Becker family vacation rental in the Ozarks.

My friends and I ate a packed lunch on the picnic lawn of Prospect Park. Olmsted and Vaux designed this park after doing Central Park. It’s said to be their crowning jewel. The park saw two million visitors in 1868, the year it opened.

It’s the time of year when the city cannot hold us, and we’ll go into Grand Central – that magnificent station – to ride the Metro North train to a stop in the Hudson Valley. Yesterday, after a writing class with the Akinyombo children in Poughkeepsie, I went with Todd and Donna Schmidt to walk a few miles of the wooded Aqueduct Trail near Sleepy Hollow (think Washington Irving and the Headless Horseman). Most notably, we spotted the 1.4 million mausoleum of Lenora Helmsley through the trees and also of Walter Chrysler. If beauty mattered, I’d ask to be buried at the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

Meanwhile, Laurence had arrived in Tarrytown, and was waiting for us in a park by the river. We picked him up, ate barbecue on Main, and then went back to the river to see the sunset. The fiery orange ball colored the sky and slipped behind the hills. The architectural wonder of the Tappan Zee Bridge glowed with lavender lighting. We rumbled back into the city on the train with its view of the Hudson River.

Soon now we’re going to meet friends in Flushing Meadows. I expect thousands to be there with their soccer balls and barbecues. It’s spring, and our small apartments cannot hold us.

Happy spring to you. Plant some radishes and garden lettuce for me. Berniece

The plane landed at LGA and quickly halted so as to not dump us into the bay. We walked and walked to exit the Delta Terminal and waited for the Q70 bus that brought us back to Roosevelt where we had a short walk home. I overheard tourists trying to figure out the bus and subway system. As Laurence pulled the suitcase home, he said, “It feels different than when we’ve been gone for two weeks.” We hadn’t gotten so disconnected.

However, I was lonesome for early morning on the deck with my great nephews: Carson, Max, and Ethan, or for the evening Peter, James, and John songs with these and Emma Claire, Drake and Bella. Or the time Laurence and I went with them to throw rocks into the lake. I missed my parents, my brothers and their wives, the grown up nieces and nephews, and the babies: Tobias, Hannah, and Levi. We’d just spent a few days with them in the Ozarks to celebrate my parents’ 65th wedding anniversary.

But then I took a walk, and a building superintendent sweeping sidewalk greeted me. I said, “It’s a beautiful day.” After he agreed. I replied, “I love it.”

He innocently replied, “I love you too.” There’s a lot of love in this city. The customers at the market today asked how I’m doing. Those who know about Laurence having had Covid inquire about his health. Today I could tell them we were married 41 years on April 11. I got coffee and joked with the young man how the other clerk thinks I’m old; “She gives me the senior discount.”

He said, “I think you’re young and pretty,” but then he gave me the senior discount too.

One evening this week we took our picnic supper to Forest Park, and then walked in the woods. Another time, we rode the bus to the wildlife refuge and walked there at sunset. We stopped to visit with a man and his son about the osprey nest. And the man wanted to show us the picture he’d taken of a swan on the lake. In the distance was the Manhattan skyline looking ethereal in the fading sunlight.

Laurence just made us tea, and we’re relaxing in our bedroom, happy to be home. Berniece

“You’re looking good this evening, Mama.”

“It’s morning,” I replied to the man by the food cart in front of Elmhurst Hospital. It was 4:30 a.m. as I walked towards the bus terminal a half mile away this morning. I’m waiting now in Terminal B for a flight to Chicago and on to Wichita. They’ve demolished grungy LGA. A world class airport replaces it. I love it.

Laurence and I watched the planes landing last evening from our view at Plane View Park. We marvel to see how the silent runways of the Pandemic have come alive with planes that fly the friendly skies.

Like we usually do, we walked the two miles to the park, and then took the bus home. After getting off on the corner of Roosevelt and 82nd Street, I told Laurence, “One thing consoles me: A week from now we’ll be back here,” so while I’m excited to be with family, there is no place like home in Elmhurst. (Laurence flies Saturday. We’re celebrating my parents’ 65th anniversary. Laurence and I will have our 41st anniversary celebration Tuesday.) That corner on Roosevelt hops with music, taco vendors, a food stand where a salesperson hawks his avocados, with people, and always, the Mexican women with grocery carts that hold kettles of tamales. The overhead 7 train adds to the cacophony.

I heard on Saturday that we’re moving from the city. Let the rumors rest. We have nowhere to go. Not now.

“Group 9, you’re welcome to board.” God bless. You’re looking good. Berniece

How could I reach out to the young man across from me, the one with studs piercing his nose, lips, cheekbones, and eyebrows? A tattooed skull peeks at me from the ripped jean hole of his knee. The passenger to the left of me reads in the Spanish language on her phone while the one to the right watches a Korean movie. We have this closeness, but we don’t talk or make eye contact. I don’t reach out to say, “Young man, Jesus loves you.”

“Stand clear the closing doors.” Ding dong.

“Due to a track fire, this train will be going over the F line.” The passenger beside me gives a sound of disgust. A few seconds later, there’s another change, and we hear, “Attention passengers, this train will be going over the E line. However, there is a circuit problem, and we may go at slower speeds.” The train proceeds through the East River on the E line. This is ordinary train travel.

Since selling our car in 2004, we traverse the city by train and bus. It’s a relaxing way to travel, though it requires patience. I will stand on a subway platform early tomorrow morning with others from this city’s vast workforce to wait for an F train to carry me to Roosevelt Island. (Note: Israel’s market is moving to the Good Shepherd Church plaza.) A crazy person or two from Friday night’s revelings may be making a fool of themselves on the platform. No worries. Often now we hear the train announcement, “There are officers on the platform if you need them.”

The MTA rolled out the futuristic R211 subway cars on the A line in March. We spied them going downtown when we were going uptown, but we didn’t dare cross the third rail for a ride. We hoped for one of the new trains last night when we left the mission after tract packing, but the D arrived first at 145th, so we ran down the stairs (yes, I can run; yes, I am careful) and took it to 7th Avenue.

Our stop is Elmhurst Avenue on the R or M line. It means four flights of stairs to get out of the station. We walk one block to Layton Street and home.

The day of the token is long gone. Soon the metro card will be phased out. Today it’s “Tap and ride.”

The lives of New Yorkers play out on the train. I lift my eyes from my phone to see a passenger praying, and then I pray for the young man across from me. God sees us all, here on this E train.

Berniece

Do you have a subway train story?

A former unit boy mentioned in a comment on this blog, the Woodside mile between here and the apartment rented by USA Missions from 1988-2001. This morning, I walked that Memory Mile. I remembered how Lonnie would walk there to visit with the Mexicans while they stood waiting for a van to pull up and offer them work. I smiled to remember Ron asking if we have our body armor on, and the mom who asked if it was so that we wore such protection. (We do not!) I passed a school and churches, including the Seventh Day Adventist Church where the young men would come to volunteer at a food pantry. So many memories.

Today, I turned into the u-shaped road beside the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. The forsythia blooms again just as it did in March 2020 when I walked there alone; my husband being too ill to care about going out. The Long Island train glided past, and I happily recalled riding it last evening to meet the NJ tract workers on Long Island for supper.

Today, I walked on past Moore Park. Recently, a city project hung a banner there listing the obituaries of just a few of the 45,000 New Yorkers who lost their lives because of COVID. In the park, men played basketball, board games, and ping pong, Asian women synchronized in fluid exercising. Children played. On a Wednesday evening, the Tibetans circle in native dress to the music of their homeland. This community though having been impacted by death celebrates life.

One day this week, I rode the 7 train along Roosevelt to our stop at 82nd Street. Laurence worked late at the clinic that day, and it being evening, I was hungry. Therefore, I did not resist the tempting taco truck on the corner. I ordered a beefsteak taco: two corn tortillas, meat, cilantro, onion, slivers of lime, and a small container of picante sauce. Muy sabroso! I felt like the luckiest person in the world, standing there with the train rattling overhead, Spanish music playing loudly, people swarming around me on the sidewalk, and that delicious taco (in front of an Asian bubble tea joint!).

I want to use this blog to say thank you for the many prayers for us when Laurence had COVID. I believe it is because of these prayers that today we celebrate life. These prayers give me the faith that one day his healing will be complete.

I give to you the words of the school crossing guard this morning: “Be safe. God bless you today.” Berniece