New Recipe!

I threw this dish together last night and it was so, so good. I have no idea what to call it or how to describe it.

The filling was leftover smoked chicken thighs, sausage, a bit of okra, onion, celery, garlic, bell pepper, ro-tel ("tomatoes with chiles", for you Owens out there) and cream cheese, all cooked down in the cast iron skillet, then topped with a fabulous cornbread mix and baked. The moisture from the filling gives the cornbread a nice moistness. It's a little bit cajun, a little bit like cornbread "dressing".

This is a great way to use up all the leftover bits of this and that one has inhabiting the fridge and freezer. Southern living would advise you to serve it with a green salad to make a meal, but alas all we had were apples, so that's what we ate. I think it lends itself to variations (crawfish instead of chicken, for example). Hope this inspires you to make your own version!

(the cornbread recipe is courtesy of Southern Sideboards)
Ingredients:
for the cornbread topping:
1/2 c. butter
1 c. milk+1 tbsp lemon juice or vinegar
1 cup self-rising cornmeal, or, (regular cornmeal+1 tsp baking soda and 3/4 tsp salt)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 egg, beaten
thinly sliced or grated cheddar cheese (less than 1/2 cup)

For the filling:
1 1/2 Tbsp of Fat (oil, lard, butter)
1/4 large white or yellow onion, small dice
3 small stalks of celery, small dice
2 cloves, garlic, chopped
1/2 cup bell pepper, chopped
1/2-1 cup okra, sliced
1/2 pound of sausage, quartered and sliced
2-3 chicken thighs, de-boned and chopped
1 can ro-tel
1/2 block cream cheese, sliced

Preheat oven to 350

In a skillet over med-hi heat, warm the oil and add the onions and celery, season with salt. I chop as I cook, so while that is cooking, work on the next items, adding to the skillet as you go. Make sure the sausage is nicely cooked and add the ro-tel, plus one more dash of salt. Turn the stove to med-low and let the filling simmer. (hold off on the cream cheese for now)

While the filling is simmering, make the cornmeal topping. Pour 1 cup of milk into a cup, add 1 tsp vinegar or lemon juice and set aside. Melt 1 stick of butter (or 1/2 cup lard--which I did not use--this time. ahem). In a bowl, stir the cornmeal, baking powder, salt and whole wheat flour together. Beat the egg into the milk and add to the dry mixture. Stir, set aside.

Turn off the burner on the filling, and top the filling with slices of cream cheese. Pour the melted butter into the cornbread mixture and stir. It will seem like a lot of butter, but keep stirring. Spoon the cornbread mixture over the filling keeping it somewhat even. Pop into the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes, checking for doneness around 25 minutes. When you check it for doneness, sprinkle the top with Tony's and a bit of salt and the cheddar cheese. Return to the oven until the cornbread is "done" and the cheese is melted.

Oh goodness, I am swooning just thinking about this recipe and the possibilities! Crawfish! Black eyed peas! Nothing but okra! (okay, I love okra too much)

Hope you enjoy!

How We Met Part Nine--More Declarative Statements

In the days of my youth, when I was full of crazy ideals and expectations, I would have quickly informed anyone that I would not kiss anyone until I was married, I would definitely not declare my love to anyone FIRST, nor would I have done what I am about to share with you all.

Isn't it lovely how God humbles us and teaches us that perhaps we didn't have it as right and all-together as we thought we did?

Over four years, God had constantly opened and shut doors, weaving my life in a way I never expected and finally, I was in a most unexpected place: Hattiesburg, Mississippi; going to school at USM and head over heels for a boy I never would have chosen for myself.

And, yet, in Fall of 2001, there he was. And at that point, Tuan met nearly every criteria on my high school "list".

Am I the only girl who made such a list in high school?

I think the only "qualifications" he didn't meet were: playing the guitar (bass and trumpet instead--acceptable), being taller than me (exactly the same height--mere superficials) and being a "Twin Lakes Guy" (still, he was a "camp" guy--Twin Lakes was to come).

The truly essential qualities, though, he met to a "T": loving the Lord, treating his Mama well, being Reformed, putting the toilet seat down (thanks, Mrs D!) and so on and so forth.

In about a three week span, several things were happening. I had confessed my love to Tuan (blush, run, hide), I had had a heart-to-heart with my dear friend Josh Fortier, who had prayed for me in the Wal-mart parking lot, and I was seeking counsel from my campus minister, Clint Wilcke.

I was one of Clint's first RUF'ers and I'm sure I was keeping him busy with my questions. One day, as I was going over the whole "Tuan situation" with him, Clint said,

"Paula, the problem is, you are making it too easy for Tuan to not make a decision. When he comes around, you are there. You need to draw the line in the sand and cut him off, so he has to make a decision."

Yikes. Crazy. Campus ministers love to provoke and say hard things. They also like to strongly encourage people to marry, but that is for another post.

Spurred on by Clint's encouragement, I realized that he was right and I needed to follow his advice. Did I mention that I was terrified?

The weekend of October 13th, Tuan came home to Columbia for the weekend and we made plans to hang out that Saturday. We spent the morning with Troy and another friend, then I left them to go to a shower for one of our RUF girls.

I was as nervous as can be. I was literally sick, because of what I needed to do and was so not sure of how to do it!

Unbeknownst to me, Josh Fortier, in his big-brother way, had sent an e-mail to Tuan laying it all out. Tuan says it was a "if you don't realize it, Paula likes you--here's your sign" kind of letter. I so wish I had a copy of that e-mail, but it is gone. Anyway, Tuan checked his e-mail while he and Troy were hanging out and read it very quickly before anyone saw what it was.

Tuan has been known to dwell in the land of oblivion at times and he says that despite my declaration of love at the bonfire, things had not altogether clicked. It wasn't until he read Josh's email that afternoon that he became more aware of what was going on deep down within himself.

Tuan says he went from a "I could be in a relationship with Paula" kind of place, to a "I should be in a relationship with Paula" kind of place.

So, all these things were coming together, much like the end of _The_Gods_Must_be_Crazy_, where the guerillas, the bushman, the scientist and the school teacher all collide in one glorious plot explosion.

That night, we hung out with Troy and another friend and watched _You've_Got_Mail_. I don't know if I paid much attention to the movie as I was still sick and nervous about it all. When the movie ended and everyone got up to leave, I asked Tuan to stay behind. It was late--somewhere around midnight and we went back into my apartment and sat on the couch facing each other. My roommate, Jeanine, was back in her room, oblivious to the significant and important event occurring in our our living room.

What happened went something like this:

"Um, er . . . " I stumbled, "I um, well, you need to make up your mind what you're going to do, because I'm tired of hanging on a limb."

That was not quite what I intended to say and every time I've shared with with my single friends, I encourage them NOT to do things the way I did. But God in his providence worked things out that way for us, and Tuan, having already been awakened by Josh's email, quickly decided what we were going to do.

"Okay, then, we are going to do this"

That's what he said, more or less.

We spent the next hour or more hashing things out. Each of us had a few concerns or reservations and we spent some time talking about those things. My roommate be-bopped into the living room at one point, realized the seriousness of the situation, then fled. A few minutes later, she walked into the room again, loudly announcing that she needed the radio and some ice cream and grabbing those essentials, returned quickly to the safety of her room.

Saturday turned into early Sunday morning and we reached compromise about our concerns and differences. Tuan may be laid back, but when the rubber meets the road, he is decisive and sure. At the end of our conversation, we were in a committed relationship that was definitely heading towards marriage.

Towards marriage, as in, we were practically engaged.

Tuan is a very intentional guy.

I walked him to the door, where Tuan kissed my hand, said good night and I watched him walk to the Jeep. It was a warm fall night and the air was slightly humid, making the streetlights a bit blurry and atmospheric.

"Wait!" I called out. He stood on the Jeep's running board and said, "what?"

"What are we going to say?" I asked.

I was asking what we were calling this new relationship: dating? going out? courting? betrothed?

"I LOVE YOU!" he called out.

"No, no, I mean, I love you, too but what are we?"

And that, my friends, is how Tuan and I met and started dating.

How We Met Part Eight-declarative statements

Oh, goodness, we are so close to the resolution. Obviously, we are now married and have three children, but still the question remains: just HOW did we get together?

I'm not going to begin with the impression that this is the last post. I just don't have time tonight, but we are getting very, very close--as in one more post after this!

I stopped Part Seven around August of 2001. I had become increasingly convicted about my own obsessions with Tuan and had basically thrown it out to the Lord and was waiting to see what He would do.

I was trying to focus on school and RUF and work. Tuan and I were still e-mailing and talking, but I was definitely in a different kind of place. There was more of a trusting in the Lord happening within me and less of a constant wondering and wondering and thinking going on. I was at a place where he really and truly could have begun to date someone else and I would have been okay.

It is funny how things work out. When I let go and truly gave it all over to God, things began to happen. I also cut my hair off.

It was short.

I had gone on a silly lark that spring and had my long, thick hair permed into a body wave because my roommate had the coolest, thickest curliest hair imaginable and I wanted to experience life as a curly girl. It took hours to roll my hair into hundreds of rods and set it. Not to mention the expense! The ridiculous splurge on a 6.00/hr salary of 75.00 to put in a body wave!

Curly girls do have more fun.

When the humidity is all right and ideal.

I had a LOT of fun with a head full of curly hair. But as time went on it grew out and I hit the awkward stage where the top was straight and the bottom curly. My roommate and I tried to straighten it, but it only resulted in straight top and wavy-bottomed hair. If I took the time to roll it or blow dry with a round brush it was lovely.

But I never took the time.

When camp came, I trimmed it, but still had this awkward straight/wavy mess. On the first day of the week and the last, I hot rolled my hair for the sake of camper parents and the rest of the week, the humidity took its toll and looked AWFUL!

The week the summer staff stayed with us, one of the girls I had worked with, Hilary, had gotten this cute post-camp cut which inspired me to go shorter.

My cut wasn't so cute.

When I got back to Hattiesburg, I found a girl--Tameka-- who knew what she was doing and she fixed my hair, but by then it was super, duper short.

I need to find a picture.

Oh dear, I did digress! The whole point of this was that all my college years I had very long hair. As in down my back long and it got lots of compliments. Boys would say, "oh, don't cut your hair!" and then they would start dating girls with short hair.

I was amused and discouraged by the hair hypocrisy surrounding me.

That is why I was even further amused that when my hair reached phenomenally short lengths things started happening to me in the romantic realms.

Not to imply a Sampson connection.

So, the hair was very short and I was at a place of walking with God and trusting in him.

Tuan was e-mailing and every now and then would say something very sweet, but I was much cooler and relaxed about it.

One week in late September, we made weekend plans. Tuan was coming home and invited me to come out and visit that Saturday evening. Somehow we decided a bonfire was in order for the evening and I made plans to come out after I worked the ropes course at Twin Lakes.

When I got to Tuan's house, he was not there, having run to town with his Dad for groceries. Sonny, Mrs. Dorothy and I decided to play a little prank and hid my car behind the house. When he got back they told him I'd called and couldn't come out because I was too tired, blah, blah, blah. I feel bad for doing that now as Tuan had spent the whole day chopping wood for the bonfire, but it was fun in the moment. Long story short, I surprised him and we had a lovely bonfire with his family, who all eventually drifted off to bed, leaving us out there under the stars. We talked a while and then it was time for me to leave.

Tuan walked me to my car and gave me the usual side-arm friend hug.

But this time it lasted a little bit longer than usual.

I sighed and effortlessly, out of my mouth came the words,

"I love you, Tuan . . . "

Oh stink! What had I done?!?!

I got out of there as fast as I could.

How We Met Part Seven! Kicking the Can.

This is the part of our story where chronology is getting confusing. I've taken you, my sweet readers, through four long years and five summers and now we are getting into the details, the minutia of how we met and got together. Of course, all the details, while seeming trivial were all in the grand scheme of God's planning and workings.

Looking back, we both laugh at how blind we were to obvious truths. "Were we really dating all that time and we just didn't know it?" "How did you not know I liked you?" "Everyone else did?" Honestly, I was so in the dark about how Tuan felt about me and I had been waffling myself up to the end of that summer, so in my mind it was perfectly rational that the guy who had written me multi-page missives all summer, could truly be taking me to meet his "future wife. " Also, I had been the "friend-girl" to so many guys that had been very good buddies and then paired up with other girls, that again, it made sense to me.

I didn't know what to expect when the door opened. Would I like these new friends? Was Tuan really in love with one of them? I was so confused! However, when the door opened and I was greeted with big warm friendly smiles and huge hugs and exclamations of "we are so glad to meet you!" I didn't care one bit if he married any of the sweet Ridgehaven girls. I liked them immediately! We had a bitter sweet evening of fellowship--grieving with Josh and at the same time listening to the Ridgehaven crew reminiscence about their summer (camp sub-cultures are so cool).

It was early August--the time when you're moving back to school, but things haven't really started up yet and there's lots of free time to be had. I'm sure we hung out a little bit, but one of the episodes that stands out in my mind is when Tuan asked me to go down to Baton Rouge with him. He was moving back into his apartment and invited me to come, stay the night and go to church with some of our campers from Harvest. "You can stay with my friend ______, she lives in our complex and you'll like her, she's a great girl.

I was thinking, okay, now we're getting somewhere! We'll get to hang out, maybe have some good conversation--you don't just invite any old friend to do something like this. There's gotta be something going on!

Instead, I left Baton Rouge on Sunday afternoon even more confused than I was before and quite ready to wipe my hands of the whole situation.

I followed Tuan down to Baton Rouge and we were not at his apartment but perhaps three minutes before there was a knock at the door. It was his neighbor, who we shall call "Lucy".

It quickly became very clear to me that there would not be a moment alone with Tuan the entire weekend as "lucy" was on the prowl and bound and determined to take Tuan for herself. I am not exaggerating, people. It was wild. Where Tuan went, there goeth she. I was bewildered and amazed. Was something going on between them? Had I misplaced my paranoia on the Ridgehaven girls all to find that he had a girlfriend in Baton Rouge?

I stayed in her apartment that night and it was quite chilly. Just when I thought that things could not get even weirder, we headed to the parking lot intending to go to church the next morning. We'd decided to take my car and since I was totally lost in Baton Rouge, I handed the keys to Tuan so he could drive. She immediately hopped into the front seat of my car.

The front seat.

Of MY car!

You are thinking to yourself: "oh no she didn't!" and I am telling you, "oh, yes, she did!"

There is a line that you do not cross in the game--nay, war--of love and that was the line. I sat in the backseat of MY car (did I mention I was in the backseat of MY car?) and there sat in stunned, amused bewilderment and I thought to myself, "If she really wants Tuan that badly, I am not getting in the way."

I went back to Hattiesburg that afternoon, I was confused, and perplexed. What in the world was going on with this? One night soon after, I went to eat at McAllister's with Josh, Troy, Leigh, Anna and some friends from church. Leigh, Anna and I went to the bathroom together (as girls do) and we were rehashing the same conversation we'd probably had many times before, but this time there was new information as Troy and Josh had been loose-lipped. "Paula!" Anna said, "Josh and Troy said that Tuan talked about you all summer and he definitely likes you!" "Really? AUGH!!!" I said jubilantly and somehow jumped up in the air and simultaneously kicked the garbage can across the girls bathroom. It was loud. I was so mortified (and all at once grinning and sheepish). We came out of the bathroom painfully aware that the entire restaurant had heard our ruckus.

But, O, take that, Lucy!

Lest my readers think that all I did in those days was gallivant between fun destinations and socialize (like the Jane Austen characters I so longed to be), I actually did go to school, worked everyday, spent hours upon hours on projects (I was studying art/graphic design) and was involved with RUF. With school starting I was getting to know our brand new campus minister, Clint Wilcke and staying busy. I was also becoming convicted.

It became clear that I was getting very consumed with Tuan--whether it was the idea of a relationship, wondering about it all, or just being rather head-over-heels for the boy himself. It wasn't a good thing and I'm thankful God helped me to see what was going on deep down. I realized that I could not keep on obsessing and thinking and daydreaming. I needed to be focused on the Lord and living the life he had called me to live right then and there.

I prayed about it and just kind of said, "God, I'm sending Tuan to you and if this works out, so be it, but I cannot cling to this." It sounds so abstract, and I'm going to make it more so by saying that I put the whole idea and the hopes and dreams of a relationship with Tuan in a bottle, corked it and threw it out to sea. If God wanted this to happen, it would.

It was time to wait a little longer.

How We Met Part Six--the long awaited account

Okay, I am just tickled at the response our story is generating. The sweet comments and notes have made this very, very fun.

Two things fueled the speed of the first five posts. First, Tuan was out of town all last week which left me with long and winding and empty evenings to write my heart out. Second, our laptop was working which was the equivalent of writing with the perfect pen. Our laptop screen bit the dust this week--alas--and I am now hacking away on this keyboard that is so difficult to type on my arms are aching. But, the story must go on.

It was spring of 2001 and my heart was leaning towards this sweet, cute guy who was a very, very good friend. God had opened the doors wide open for me to go and work at my beloved Twin Lakes and Tuan had realized that Christian camping was more his calling than computer engineering. (Go figure!)

He was applying to work at Ridgehaven along with several of my good guy friends from church and stumbled in the application process when it asked if he agreed with the Westminster Confession of Faith.

Oh, how cool is God's providence! Here I was, liking Tuan but still doctrinally different enough that I could not entertain the possibility of him as a future spouse, when along comes this question and the door is opened.

"So, what is the Westminter Confession of Faith?" he asked.

I talked a bit about it, but he (in his wonderful Tuan-ish way) had already printed it out from the internet and was planning to read the entire thing before his interview.

I realize many of you are familiar with the WCF, so I am not going to delve further into the details of it, but you can find a copy online if your curiosity is raging.

Mack, Ridgehaven's camp director was down in our area and stopped in Hattiesburg to meet the guys and conduct interviews. Tuan had read the WCF and while he was still digesting much of it, was definitely hung up on limited atonement and made that clear to Mack. Nevertheless, he got the job and was all set to go off to North Carolina for eleven weeks with four guys he'd barely met.

School had ended and I was getting ready for Twin Lakes and saying good-byes. Tuan was back home preparing for Ridgehaven and wanted to get together before he left.

"Want to go to the Drive-Inn and watch Shrek?"

At that time the vintage Beverly Drive-In was playing movies and it was quite the novelty in Hattiesburg. Now, I realize the story could go in a very obvious direction here. Heh. The "drive-in". However, our story never went in a very obvious direction and I will comfort you all right now with the forewarning that there was no smooching in the Jeep that night. Oh, no there was not.

Tuan came to pick me up with Sonny, John (the once-despised, purported baseball player turned good friend and skit buddy) ,and another guy we'd worked with at Harvest named MIchael Schepemaker.

We piled into the Jeep and head to the Beverly. Tuan backs into the parking space so the rear of the Jeep faces the screen and pulls out the back seat and turns it around so there is a very convenient viewing spot. He indicated to me that there was a spot for me on that back seat and as I sit down--FULLY expecting him to join me, nay, hoping he would join me, Fourteen year old, sweet, oblivious Sonny flops down right beside me leaving Tuan out in the cold.

Thwarted.

Tuan is such a nice brother that he did not kick Sonny out and settled for an awkward perch on the fender in front of me. We settled in to watch Shrek and the whole time I was wistfully wishing that he was beside me. Halfway through the movie, I randomly reached out and touched his head and let me tell ya folks,

SPARKS FLEW!

I'm sure everyone in Hattiesburg saw them in the sky that night. My breath caught and then, more than ever I knew I was starting to fall for this crazy cute, hottie friend of mine.

We saw each other once before he left and only for a few minutes. I went to Twin Lakes, torn because he was not "reformed" (even though he was beginning to think about things) and I still had Mr. "X" the wonderful magical PCA man who fit my list floating around in my head.

I had also learned my lesson from previous heartbreaks and even though I liked Tuan, he did not have my heart. My prayer still was, "Lord, please keep me out of a relationship until it is with the right guy."

So . . . Twin Lakes. At last! It was great and really really hard. I was with some of my best friends in this wide world and loved being a counselor and had so much fun with my girls, but it was a hard summer. Being a counselor is emotionally difficult and physically exhausting and Twin Lakes had doubled in size, making it very different from the small camp of my LIT days. There was much leaning on Jesus that summer.

One of the most restful parts of the week was the counselor hunt. We were sent out to hide in the woods and wait for our campers to come find us. The forty minutes or so of sitting in the somewhat quiet woods was the perfect time to write long letters to Tuan about my summer and to also read and savor his multi-page missives.

Tuan got a fun and lovely introduction to the "Carey guys" the night before they left for Ridgehaven and on the way up to North Carolina. One of the first things he wrote to me was, "Do you realize how flatulent your friends are?" He was also thrown in to a very different place than he'd ever known, the world of the PCA and it's culture. He loved Ridgehaven, but was in a great deal of culture shock and still grappling with reformed Theology.

Much of our letters from the summer deal with those issues and especially limited atonement (dum dum da dum!). However, by the end of the summer, Tuan was loving Ridgehaven and the dear friendships he'd made and, yes, had reconciled himself to Reformed Theology! I rejoice at how God used those circumstances to bring him to that point and to bond with Troy and Josh who are still such dear, dear friends to us both.

Meanwhile, back at Twin Lakes, I had completely let go of the "wonderful magical Mr PCA idea" and by the time camp ended, was pretty ready to see Tuan. Oh, was I ready to see Tuan! I had no idea at all how he felt about me, but I was feeling it.

Did I mention Twin Lakes ran for seven weeks and Ridgehaven for ELEVEN. I wasn't going to be seeing this boy any time soon.

My parents were living in Florida, so I very casually invited anyone on staff who wanted to to come spend a week with us. Twenty-two people signed up and THEN I called my parents and ask if it was okay. Thank goodness they were laid back about those things. We had a lot of fun that week and then four folks ended up staying an extra week due to car trouble, leaving one more LONG week or so. I was getting pretty antsy and so I called Mrs. Dorothy.

If I couldn't talk to Tuan, I could at least talk to his mom. This was before everyone had a cellphone. I had one at that point, but it NEVER left my car. My roomate would get so mad at me for never carrying it. It was so expensive to talk on one--when you could get near a tower and Tuan certainly did not have one. We only talked once that summer--when he finally got to a pay phone and it was a super short conversation. It's funny how much things have changed.

I don't remember seeing him for the first time when he returned, but Tuan, Josh and Troy were very excited about their summer, had all these great stories and games to share and were talking non-stop about how wonderful the staff had been and there were these great girls and fun guys they'd worked with.

Wait a minute. Great girls?

I did not want to hear about "great girls" from Tuan. Oh, no I didn't. And these "great girls" (and guys--I was filtering out "guys") were coming to Hattiesburg. For a visit. They couldn't wait for me to meet them.

Josh's parents had moved to Hattiesburg that summer. His dad, Mr. Andy had diabetes and was suffering many complications from it. Being in Hattiesburg would be good for it's access to hospitals and doctors. They had bought a great house that they had plans to use in some sort of ministry way and all the Ridgehaven crew was going to gather there. The guys wanted me to join them.

Sadly, the day of the gathering, Mr. Andy passed away. Mrs. Les, in spite of it all, encouraged us all to come on over and be with Josh. Josh called to see if the girls could stay at my apartment that night and Tuan picked me up to go over to meet everyone and see Josh.

It was sobering, honestly. Mr. Andy, Mrs. Les and Josh were so dear to me and had been for many years.

On the way over, I was upset for Mrs. Les and Josh, but also very, very nervous about meeting these girls. I had really and truly convinced myself that Tuan was in love with on of them and that he was taking me to the Fortier's house that night to introduce me, his dear "friend", to the girl he was one day going to marry.

I was a nervous, emotional wreck as we knocked on the Fortier's door.