An Ordinary Life

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Thank God, fear has been replaced by faith.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

A tall scantily-dressed person stood in the corner of the subway car. I cannot tell you if they were created male or female, so it is early Saturday morning when the all-night parties end. (Mostly though it’s medical workers in uniform , construction workers in blue jeans, and people like me who clerk at a farmer’s market.) How, I wondered does God love this person? I picture him/her as a old woman: bent over, stringy gray hair, crazy.  Haven’t we seen many, many of her kind in their old age, shuffling down the sidewalk?

Then the Lord put another picture in my mind of the two of us leaving the subway car together. We both were bent over and had straggly gray hair.

Does the Lord look at us both the same, loving this person as much as He loves me?

Another day, we walked past the clock in the great room of Grand Central Station. People, people everywhere. “Lord,” I said, “Show me how much you love these people.”

He replied, “You couldn’t take it.” I understood that to see mankind running to and fro and not caring about the One who loves beyond my comprehension would be more than I could bear.

John 15:12: “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” What kind of love is this?

Berniece

The slim, dark-haired woman strode into the coffee shop and threw her arms around my friends and me. Though we’d gained weight and had gray hair, she called us by name: Edith, Donna, Karen, Bev, Gaylene, and Berniece. We six Mennonite women had come to Halstead, Kansas, to meet four of our former classmates who we had gone to music, gym, lunch, and library together with at Halstead Public School. That was over 50 years ago. Still, we connected.

One of our former classmates had lost her husband in 2023. Another’s grandson passed away only a short while before we met. A third cried because her sister’s cancer has metastasized. Sobriety replaced the foolishness of childhood as each of us recounted life’s journey in the years since we’d walked across the gym floor to “Pomp and Circumstance” at eighth grade graduation.

Skip forward to today’s worship at Sugar Hill Mennonite Mission in the heart of Harlem. I can confidently say that nowhere in the conference  did such a diverse group meet to worship. (Ghana, Germany, Nepal, Nigeria, Maine, Michigan . . .) The pure Light of Heaven shone in the chapel as truth was preached and eager hearts drank from the well of living water.

Some of us sat in the backyard of the mission after lunch and listened to the cry of a seeking soul. The young woman with us softly prayed at one point when she wanted to explain what was happening in her life.

This past week I gathered with people from my childhood. Today, I met with these people of my present life in NYC.  Yesterday, I had the opportunity to be touched by and to touch the lives of a multitude of customers. Each person placed in my life by God’s providence for such a time as this (Esther 4:14). Berniece

P.s. Edith Koehn Jesser, Donna Dyck Wedel, Bev Johnson Base, Karen Koehn, Gaylene Smith Koehn, and myself along with our husbands had an Airbnb in Newton, Kansas, for three nights. We six girls who went to grade school together live in six different states.

Queens Night Market where thousands (20,000) of foodies meet and eat on a Saturday night is a sensory experience in the flavors of many countries. Prices capped at five and six dollars mean it’s possible to move through the market to purchase from different vendors: Mexico, Turkey, Venezuela, Philippine street food or Hong Kong, Venezuela, Ethiopia, and Haiti, Ecuadorian ceviche or Polish perogies. The list goes on. To order Burmese Bites, Tibetan momos, or Malaysian burgers means standing in a long line.

While you wait someone passes with a scrumptious-looking dish. Suddenly, I wonder if I am making the right choice. “Where,” I’ll ask, did you get that?” This question delights a foodie, and they’ll go into detail about where, what, and how good it is!

Conversations continue at crowded picnic tables. The Brooklyn girl with freckles and pigtails understands our love for the city. A couple about our age surprises us by saying that they are Antabaptists. Like us, they once lived in Upper Manhattan.

Last evening, Laurence and I visited with a group of Mennonite youth. Most of them were from Brooklyn. As we exited the market, we noticed a group of men wearing Gideon Bible t-shirts. What a blessing to see active Bible-placing Gideons. The blessing continued after we boarded the 7 train and the woman beside me commented on my dress. Turns out, she lived in Wichita and Salina Kansas for a couple years, but now resides in Long Island City with her husband and three wiggly daughters. (I’d tell you about Long Island City, but you have to live here to understand.)

Before leaving Night Market, we ordered a blueberry creme brulee. The smooth flavors of the custard entice me to return another Saturday.

Berniece

P.s. Written while riding the train to church.

“See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ” (Colossians 2:8 NIV).

The above verse is enough. Nothing is more clear than the Spirit speaking through the Word of God – not Ann Voskamp or some other deceptive religious philosophy.

Laurence asks, “How many people are beginning the day with caffeine and Ann Voskamp?” It is tempting to take up reading material besides the Bible before moving into the day’s work.

Sunday morning in the sanctuary at Sugar Hill Mennonite Mission, Minister Paul Raber stood with the Bible held high in his hand while humbly encouraging us to say a small prayer before we begin to read it, asking God to give us the portion we need for the day. God will supply. Every time! (Personally, I am often amazed at what God knows about me that I hadn’t realized.)

Minister Shawn Becker’s wife, Bernice, asks, “What does 2 Corinthians 5:14 mean to you?”

“For Christ’s love compels us” (2 Corinthians 5:14). For this reason, I write this blog. The truth is in the Word of God, in the writings of our forefathers, and in present day writings of the brotherhood. These truths give a safe place for our soul. It’s drinking living water from a well that never runs dry.

We must be saved. We must not be deceived. May the peace of God be with you today.

Berniece