Scotch Cake

I spent all day trying to bake what some people call a Texas sheet cake. In my family I grew up calling it a Scotch Cake...not sure if it's because the great-grandma who called it that was Scottish or because it had scotch in it. (the recipe doesn't call for it but someone may have changed it)

Anyway, I needed to make a cake for a funeral dinner and wanted to make something nice that fed a lot of people. I started making it before lunch and realized I had no cocoa powder. A couple hours later (after picking up Maggie from school, taking a boy home and then picking up and waiting on the Emma to finish cleaning my sister's house..oh, and going to the grocery store) I continue making it. But before adding the wet to the dry ingredients I decided I'd better double it. It is a labor intensive recipe, boiling the butter and cocoa, etc...an hour later I am just putting it in the pan.

A mountain of dishes and making the frosting and putting that on...it ended up taking HOURS to make it. It's yummy though. With the double recipe it made half a sheet cake and a small pan for us at home. I took the half sheet pan to the church for the funeral meal. The cm whose dad died ended up raving about the cake and wanted to take every scrap of it home.

So it was worth it in the end.

The end.

Here is the exact recipe I used (although I made it without nuts today)....Pioneer Woman has gotten a hold of it somehow. Texas Sheet Scotch Cake

You can be free indeed...

Saturday night my husband had a preaching gig at a downtown mission. We used to do this regularly in seminary in the mid 80's...he or some other seminary student would preach to a bunch of drunk guys and then we would hang around and talk to people and go home feeling a bit drained but good about ourselves.

This was a little different though.

It is a rescue mission, but it's not the usually sort of drop in after a long day of binge drinking sort of place. It's a live in discipleship place where men are recovering from alcohol or drug addiction, lives of crime and homelessness and they are finding Life. They come in as a mess (aren't we all?) and after detoxing, they are immediately required to be a part of the Bible study programs, Scripture memory, and community service. Every day they are kept busy doing good things. They spend so much time together and have come from the same desperate backgrounds that they bond very tightly. They go through so much healing and life learning together that they Love each other deeply.

All of this was so obvious as we went in to the worship service. The rough looking exteriors were softened by God's love pouring through the more seasoned men who have been in the program for a while. The new ones who were still in the detox phase or maybe had just arrived 'fresh' from the back alleys sat alone and held back while the regulars put an arm around them, went to sit beside them or motioned for them to come sit with them. Everyone was welcome, loved and respected.

Pastor Jack, who came to the mission as one of these men needing help years ago, told us that so many of the men go back to the streets after a while. He doesn't pressure them. He tells them that they are welcome to come back when they decide they are done with it. They will be welcomed back in.

Everything that happened was a whole blog post in itself. There was a dog roaming freely around, getting pats and hugs from the men who were themselves desperate to be loved and desperate to have someone, even a little dog, to show love to.

There was a recognition part of the service for men who had completed 4 months in the program and one for a man who had completed 8 months. They each spoke words of thanks, mostly to God, but also to the men who had walked alongside them through the process. One of them read a paper that was full of words. It was a page full of Bible verses he'd clung to during his time there. All different places in the Bible, but strung together to show what he'd learned....

...my rod and my staff will lead you and comfort you....you were called to greatness....I will give back what was taken...I will restore honor to you....

Those are just a few I jotted down, but the words of strength went on for a good 3 or 4 minutes.

Then Pastor Jack showed the congregation an award the city had given to the mission. It was in recognition of all the community service those men had done. They go out into the neighborhoods they took from and used to destroy and they clean them up and give back. They take the men back to try to help restore what they took. How cool would that be if we all practiced that?

The worship band was made up of various men, all but one had been through the program, who were professional musicians before ending up in lives of addiction. So it was some good music. My ears had that hissing sound in them for a while after it was over because it was loud, but we loved it. As the band played, sang and led the people in worship to Audio Adreneline, Switchfoot and Skillet songs of worship, the people danced, sang, smiled huge smiles, and tears ran freely. Beautiful, sincere, unencumbered and free worship.

Charles and I both said they need to come do a service for our church sometime. It would not be the same because people who don't have problems are not as free.

Think about that....I am lately...

Of course we all have problems and sin issues....we just hide them so well (even though we're full of it) and pretend it's not there so well (even though it's obvious), that we are not as free.

Contradictory... because Jesus came to make us free (indeed....remember?). But in order to be free, you've got to be real, you have to be vulnerable and humbled. There has to be Truth. And did I mention the name of the mission?

It's Set Free.

Jesus said, "I tell you most solemnly that anyone who chooses a life of sin is trapped in a dead-end life and is, in fact, a slave. A slave is a transient, who can't come and go at will. The Son, though, has an established position, the run of the house. So if the Son sets you free, you are free through and through. John 8:34-36 (The Message)

Point me...in the direction of Albuquerque...

Left Phoenix about 1:15pm.

Places along the road we've traveled so many times zip by as we sit in silence for a while. The red rock ridge of Sedona looked like it was freshly painted and the San Francisco Peaks rose up like Kilimanjaro behind it. Lovely day for driving.

The lowering sun in the west made the rock formations along the border at Window Rock and Gallup look really dramatic as we talk of current events. The world events that are shaking up the world are coinciding with shaking personal lives of so many people we know! What is the deal? We listened on Klove radio to people discussing an appropriate (or honest?) reaction to Osama Bin Laden's death. Yeah, it feels conflicting, weirdly relieving as well as sad beyond all reason.

Then later we listened to NPR reporting on lives affected by the tornadoes in Alabama. Nearly 400 people have been found dead and about that many are still missing and presumed dead. A woman was being interviewed by an NPR reporter. The reporter (deadpan voice, as is NPR's style) said the woman, "like many of the people here in the Bible Belt of the South" credited God as saving her life through the storm. As the woman looked through the ruble of what used to be her apartment for any kind of proof of residency so that she could apply for aid, the noticeable smell of death was in the air, as many people from her apartments have not been recovered yet and are there beneath the ruble still. (I cannot imagine this kind of horror) Then she found a piece of paper, a letter from her grandchild's teacher and there was her name and address on the envelope. "Thank you, Lord!" she said. She said it like the Lord was standing there with them. And He is, thankfully. The NPR reporter just closed with that woman's jubilant exclamation of thanks and "this is yada yada, reporting from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, for NPR".

In just the same way, as we see some of our friends and church members going through really tough times, there is always some ray of hope a message or gift from God that comes up in their lives, like a gleaming white envelope among that woman's collapsed home, and they give thanks in the middle of their storm too. Sometimes you just have to grab hold of the Hope among the ruble, and the stench of wrecked lives, and give credit to the One who is the revealer of Hope.

We have arrived in Albuquerque now (someone is already rumbling and poofing beside me) and tomorrow we'll head to Oklahoma City to visit with family before driving down to Plainview to fetch our college girl, who we've missed dearly, and bring her back home with us. In a month Hannah will move home too and we will all live together under the same roof again for the first time in almost 6 years.....for the summer at least. And there will be great rejoicing under that roof by some proud parents, who I know...of. ;)