Author Archives: Berniece

I gaze out at fire escapes and rooftops, my mind far away in a Kansas farmhouse kitchen. I’m helping mom cut out and decorate sugar cookies, rolling peppernut dough balls, or watching the candy thermometer while stirring the ingredients for peanut brittle. Mom cuts the rich, dark fudge and layers it between wax paper in a Folger’s coffee can. It was, as it should be, the traditional childhood Christmas. It included, besides special foods, caroling. Christmas programs, family gatherings, and gifts from parents, grandparents, and cousins.

Rooftops and fire escapes move in, and the smells of a Country Christmas dissipate; the Child of the Nativity displaced, perhaps, by the lights of Diwali and the candles of Hanukkah. In this city of multi-ethnic cultures, Laurence and I establish a tradition of our own by making stuffed apricots, the energy balls carried by climbers in the High Pamirs.

Laurence and I work together in our tiny kitchen. He makes a small cut in ten large unsulphered dried apricots that he bought from an Uzbek grocery in Forest Hill, Queens, and then uses the handle of a spoon to form a cavity in each apricot. I pound 1/3 cup walnuts to a fine rubble and mix in three tablespoons black raisins and one tablespoon honey. Laurence stuffs the apricots with this mixture. I plug the opening with a walnut half.

While we appreciate our childhood Christmas traditions, we do feel greatly blessed to taste the food of a people who walk the Roof of the World.

Berniece

Laurence and Berniece live in Elmhurst, Queens, where they have the privilege of sharing Christ with the nations. 

This is where we worship. God is in this place. It is our church home. The Word of truth is preached here. Its doors are open to everyone. This morning, there were around 50 people filling the seats in the sanctuary. Our skin was not all the same color. Most of us were not born in this city, and a number of us grew up in another country. Several in attendance this morning first met the people of God in this sanctuary, they were baptized here, and went to their first communion here. Yes, we have revival meetings here, and we know the warmth of commemorating the Lord’s supper.

Here’s a little word picture of the overflowing fellowship hall at lunchtime: I heard Spanish being spoken by a young man sent to the mission by his parents who are acquainted with the Nicaraguan missionaries. Adam from Burkana Faso came because of the missionaries in his country. I felt sure I was missing out as the people of four different African countries were in conversation some distance from where I sat at lunchtime. The two Bronx girls had their heads together in a discussion about Christian attire. Larry, who passes out tracts, said that it’s all about Jesus. I discussed changing NYC neighborhoods with another tract contract. The Africans drank most of the ginger beer that Ellen brought, but I got enough to know that it was delicious and should cure whatever ails me.

The sanctuary was full today. I can’t recall a time like this time with people coming to the mission searching for a church home. God is moving. The Light is shining. Pray for the church in NYC.

How has Sugar Hill Mennonite Mission been a haven for you?

Berniece

The traditional Thanksgiving meal of sweet dressing, turkey, ham, mashed and sweet potatoes, pecan and pumpkin pie filled our plates. The love of family surrounded us in Mom’s Kansas home. Sweet baby Annabelle got handed around. The noise level of the great nieces and nephews rose and fell, depending if they were downstairs or up. The nieces and nephews sang. It was the all- American Thanksgiving of my childhood. I took it for granted back then, never dreaming I would take “the road less traveled.”

We flew home to NYC on Monday. The crowded Q70 bus took us to within blocks of our building. Christmas trees sparkled and lights twinkled in the lobby that smelled of cinnamon. It felt so comfortable – like home.

Laurence brought a plate of food from the Thanksgiving potluck at the clinic: noodles, rice, dumplings, … He said the Haitian nurse brought herring. No turkey or dressing or sweet potatoes. This is not the tradition of our Elmhurst home.

We like to spend Thanksgiving with the Akinyombo and Daramola families in Poughkeepsie. It’s become our tradition and a place we feel at home. Today, the food was American traditional, the conversation lively in Papa Akinyombo’s small apartment where we sat tightly together in the living room. After a while the songbooks came out and Josiah led one song after another. Granddaughter Vera and her husband graced us with their presence. Brother Dayo dropped us off at the train station, and the Metro North carried us to Grand Central. (A brief delay at 125th while the police escorted a man off.)

My people are in Kansas. My people are here. God is good. All the time and everywhere.

Berniece

It’s quiet in our apartment now except for the murmur of voices from the other side of the bedroom wall and of planes taking off from LGA. Our neighbors are The Happy Family. Dad laughs. Mom chuckles. The boys chatter.

We had supper tonight at Spicy Shallot with Bart and Annet, friends from Belgium. It’s the second time this week that I’ve eaten there with them. Bart ordered duck both times. I had sushi.

Barts have been traveling the world the last seven weeks, and then they came to Queens where the world meets. They especially wanted to see the Unisphere in Flushing Meadows. The large globe symbolizes the 1964  World’s Fair theme of “Peace Through Understanding.” My tour with them continued through Little India: The Hindu store with all its small gods, prayer beads, and incense, the grocery with its spices, dried fruits and nuts, and an aisle stacked with 10, 20, and 40 pound bags of rice. Annet moved very quickly past the live frogs in the Asian market. Afterwards, we sipped tea and ate sweet potato puff and coconut bread in Fay Da Bakery.

Fall favored us with perfect weather for a long, but not too hard, hike on Veterans Day. We took the Metro-North to Cold Spring, walked to Nelsonville, and hiked along a ridge with views of the woods, the Hudson Valley and River. A volunteer told us we were the oldest hikers on the trail. I replied, “We’re here to give the other hikers courage.” A young man reached out a hand to help Laurence when he slipped, and then both he and his companion offered me a hand down the slight dropoff. We trudged back into Cold Spring and dined outdoors at the old train station. When a train whizzed by, I recalled little George’s fascination with it, the time we ate there with his parents and my brother and wife.

Soon after 8 one morning this week, I took the subway to the mission to pick up something I’d forgotten there last Sunday. The trains going into the city at that hour were packed with commuters, and I was smushed against the bodies of strangers. No one talked. Eyes closed as we swayed towards Manhattan. I thought about how these people may be fighting each other in other countries, but here we live in peace.

Now it’s early Saturday morning on the subway platform at Roosevelt Avenue. A rat crosses the track. I board the F train after letting the crazy man with the bags of chips crowd ahead to be the first through the F train doors. He takes a corner seat and falls asleep. A mom hands her little son with black spiky hair some breakfast. The commuters beside him sleep, but the boy curiously watches a man striding through the car, unlawfully opening doors, and stepping into the next car.

I left the Roosevelt Island subway station at first light. The Beaver Moon hung over the city skyline. I chose the river path and was surprised by a turkey landing in front of me.

All’s right in my world.

Berniece

Isaiah 8:12,13 “Do not call conspiracy everything this people calls a conspiracy; do not fear what they fear, and do not dread it. The LORD Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, he is the one you are to fear, he is the one you are to dread.”

I am repeatedly amazed at the Father’s knowing my need morning after morning. Today, Election Day, He took me to the above verses. They were my antidote for fear after 9/11, and I would read them again and again, and I would be comforted. These same verses came years later when I’d faced a battle with fear that went on for days, months, and years.

Thank God, fear has been replaced by faith. I’m thrilled to be going out of town on a picturesque train ride to Hudson, NY. Yet the Lord saw a reason to give me these verses. I pass them on to you.

Psalm 90:1-2 NKJV: “Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.
2 Before the mountains were brought forth,
Or ever You had formed the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.”

Berniece

Forty-three degrees fahrenheit with a high of 57 today. “It’s perfect weather for running the marathon,” Andy told me, as I checked him out yesterday at the market. The couple weighted down with backpacks said hi as they walked away from the market to go hiking. Ideal hiking weather too.

“You know our friend Carol? I have good news and bad news about her. First, the bad news. The tumor hasn’t shrunk.” The good news was that it hasn’t grown, nor has the cancer spread. This came from a 79 year old customer who’s on oxygen.

“How are you?” I asked the young man with a dog.

“I’m living the dream?” His answer took me by surprise, and I asked what the dream was.

“I’m alive, and I have my dog.” Simple things.

“How are you doing?” I asked the woman whose mother passed away a few weeks ago. She proceeded to tell me about a phone call she’d received the evening before her mother died, one that gave her so much comfort. The caller had told her that there are two main forces in this world: love and fear, and how she’d chosen love. “O,” I said, “Like the Bible verse: ‘Perfect love casts out fear.'”

“Where is it?” she asked. I told her. “I’m going home before I forget it,” and away she walked, saying, “1 John 4:18, 1 John 4:18.”

There was the customer who was not buying his usual two watermelons because we didn’t have the seeded ones. And a favorite handicap customer who only talks with his eyes but managed to give David a fist bump. Two little girls each bought a pie. They said, “Thank you, Stranger,” to the lady who added grape juice and a mango to their purchase.

Lastly, I visited with boss Israel. Sarah and he are feeling somewhat discouraged because he needs another surgery (it’s at least the third one) on his hand because of an ugly splinter that made it into his palm one market. The only thing I know is that I can pray. You can too.

Everyone has a story. Sharing stories brings blessings to market workdays.

Berniece

We returned last evening to city chaos. The rental car weaved in and out of heavy traffic before exiting the BQE onto Broadway where we stopped, inched forward, halted, moved slowly, and squeezed by a row of double parked cars. Horns sounded, scooters and bikes zipped in and out, pedestrians ambled through not seeming to notice how their lives could be snuffed out by the green light.

Welcome home! We unloaded our luggage and returned the rental car to Budget. Afterwards, we waited on a bus. When 14 minutes turned into 40, we became impatient. Laurence used the Uber app. In one minute a car picked us up. The driver dropped us off in front of our building.

Only yesterday, I looked from the second story of the large windows of the Carriage House Airbnb in Elkton, Virginia, onto a pastoral scene of sheep enclosed in a green pasture that was surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains, which were at peak fall glory. I listened, and I heard no sirens, no people, no rumbling trains; only quietness. Laurence and I drove miles on the Skyline Drive, hiked by musical waters, and picnicked high on a mountain where we had an awesome view of God’s glorious creation. 

This morning, a dog barks, a motor of some sort runs in a neighbor’s apartment, footsteps, traffic noise, music, sunshine and shadows on the fire escape and on rooftops. This is Elmhurst, Queens.

I experience quietness in Elmhurst as well as in Elkton. God says that He is the Good Shepherd. We are the people of His pasture. I am safe from the evil one who comes to kill, steal, and destroy.  “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters” (Psalm 23:1,2).

Berniece

PS I was also impressed that if I want the quietness of a sheep in the fold, I must have nothing to do with the kingdoms of this world.

The glorious vaulted ceiling of Grand Central is an impressive 125 feet high and is 275 feet long by 120 feet wide. Every day, 750,000 people pass under its star constellations. On a holiday, this number grows to well over a million. Commuters rush through the terminal to catch Metro North trains to their destinations in Upstate New York and Connecticut or they go down the escalator to the modern Long Island Railroad Station.

I see the tourists gawking and taking pictures by The Clock as I rush with hundreds of commuters to gate 33 for the train to Cold Spring. The out-of-towners lift their eyes to the stars, searching the large space for a tiny 9 x 18-inch black rectangle that mostly comes from cigarette smoke. If they look long enough, they’ll find the sooty smudge in the corner where I exit to my gate. The ceiling is scrubbed clean of its grime except for the spot that shows how dirty the whole once was, a time when the stars did not shine.

I awoke this morning with the verse in 1 John 1:5 NIV: “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” On the heels of the verse came a picture of the small, small smudge on the Grand Central ceiling. The Spirit impressed me that there is no darkness if I walk in the light of God. None. Not even one tiny smudge.

Berniece

PS “Faith is leaving my loved ones problems to God to solve.” With this, the smudge disappears and there is only Light.

“Put your phone down.”

“You are so right,” I replied as I looked up into the face of someone who we became acquainted with years ago when she was an Elmhurst Hospital employee. Seventy-five year old Libby inquired about Laurence. She told me about her children, grandchildren, and how she worried about her daughter who’d lost her job. I could share freely with her about God and His ways, and she did with me, as we stood there outside Aldi where I’d gone to buy groceries. Libby told me to take care of Laurence. “Tell my friend, ‘hello,'” she said as I pulled the rolling backpack on to the bus stop.

I couldn’t ignore God’s benevolent providence in the chance meeting or in another small incident. I’d had an email saying a library book was due. I felt sure I’d taken it back before we went to Kansas. Before going to bed one night, I pulled a journal from a bookcase. It was a strange thing for me to do. The next morning when I put it away, I was surprised and glad to see the library book on the shelf where the journal went.

Today an amazing thing happened when I went to the Asian market for shrimp. Three cleancut bearded guys asked if I’d do a survey as I walked by the playground where they were. I asked them, “Are you Mennonites?” They weren’t. The others walked away and the man talking to me introduced himself as Bert. I agreed to do the survey: “What do you believe about truth, Jesus, God… What would you like to have prayed for?”

Bert quizzed me about the Mennonite community. We talked about living in Elmhurst. I then asked Bert where he lives. “In Alabama. Around Guntersville!” He knows my people there!

Bert asked if he could pray with me. It humbled me to say, “Yes, of course.” Bert removed his cap. He prayed for Berniece. He prayed for the community of Elmhurst. He prayed for the revival at Sugar Hill Mennonite Mission.

We’re on the train to the revival that God has begun in my heart.

Berniece

My husband is interested in the history of Columbus. Laurence found, while doing research, that Columbus was on a voyage that God planted in his heart. The main reason for his journey was to bring Christianity to the natives of the New Land.

Personally, we like Columbus Day because it’s a holiday. When the scent of fall is in the air, I want to flee the city for the Green Mountains of Vermont and the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

This year, it was not to be. Instead, we took the Metro-North train ride along the Hudson River to Poughkeepsie. It’s a beautiful ride. Fall color became more apparent the further north we traveled. “Last stop. Last stop. Everyone must get off.” The train station in Poughkeepsie is old and grand, having been designed by the same architect who designed Grand Central where we’d begun our journey.

The brilliant red-orange of maple trees lines the riverfront park, and we went down to the water before climbing back up to a Japanese restaurant to have a bento box and sushi for lunch. How pleasant it was to have Brother Reuben and Sister Bisi walk through the doors and join us!

Afterwards, Reuben went with us along the Riverwalk to where a glass-sided elevator carried us 212 feet above the river to the Walkway Over the Hudson. The world’s longest, elevated pedestrian bridge was a railroad bridge from 1889 to 1974 when a fire severely damaged it. The Walkway opened in 2009 with its amazing views of the Hudson River and of the Hudson Highlands. (And if you look in the right place on a clear day, you’ll see the Catskill Mountains.) Good company and beauty all around, including many shades of oranges, greens, and browns, made for a breathtaking, awe-inspiring walk. We continued a short distance on the Rail Trail on the west end before coming back to the smattering of picnic tables and food trucks. While munching cider donuts, an impromptu trio of Asians stopped and played “Amazing Grace on small instruments that I don’t have a name for.

After hanging out by the river and doing the Walkway a second time, we boarded the train for home. Often when we ride the train there are empty seats; however, this time every seat was filled both coming and going. The return trip stopped at Yankee Stadium, and the noisy fans departed. We continued on to Grand Central where we boarded the 7 train for home.

Laurence and I had the blessing of Columbus Day away from the city while enjoying the fellowship of Reuben and Bisi and of experiencing the beauty of fall in the Hudson Highlands.

Berniece