Get to Know Me #1

What’s your favorite season and why?

My favorite season is Winter. I love the cold/cool weather. I grew up in Mongolia where is was very cold in the winters and in the summers it would always cool down at night. Our house was fairly well insulated but we would wear slippers and sweaters a lot. Also Mongolian winters even though it was cold the sun shone 90% of the time. I very much prefer putting on layers than to be to hot. I also like lots of snow. The beauty of snow and the close, cozy feeling of having to stay inside during and after a snow storm is so neat. But the close second would be Spring. When the flowers are just blooming, the leaves are just starting to come out and everything has a green haze. God just has created such a beautiful world and I am so thankful for it.

What’s your favorite holiday and why?

I think I would have to say that Christmas is my favorite with 4th of July a close second. Christmas time has always been special to me. It has been a time to give. No, we never have had a tree, presents or many decorations. But we were taught that this was Jesus birthday and that we were to give back to Him. Every December for years we would find someone to bless with a gift. Many times in Mongolia it was a poor family we learned about and for the month of December in the dining room at the homes was a box(s) that we filled with food items, candles and household things. All the children and workers were encouraged to participate. It would absolutely thrill us to find ways use our allowance to buy things. In more recent years it hasn’t been as much kept up but now that everyone has their own way of earning money we can find ways to bless people at Christmas time. I for sure want to keep up the tradition though I wasn’t as consistent in the past few years as I would have liked. I am extremely thankful for the teaching my parents gave us regarding this issue. To many times we get caught up in the fanciful things at Christmas but the real meaning gets pushed back towards the rear of our thinking. I really believe that that training has a lot to do with my desire to help others.

Name some of your favorite books and why?

Oh dear…. .this is a tough one. I have read so many good books and love many of them. The Elsie Dinsmore Series has been one of my all time favorites. I always appreciated the deep spiritual truths and example that I learned through those books. Another favorite is “Not My Will” and the sequal “The Light in My Window.” The struggles that Eleanor went through to break her will and surrender to God has always touched me and deepened my desire to serve God. Some others would be The Jungle Doctor Series(about a doctor in Tanzania, Africa), “Light from Heaven” (about a boy who overcame the cruelty of a father who everyone else knew as a Christian but who showed different colors at home and the patience, piety and submission that led him to forgive his father and trust His heavenly Father), “The Hospital by the River” (telling of a 2 doctors who went to Africa and started a hospital for outcast women who had fistulas as a result of poor care when their babies were born. Most of the time the babies didn’t live and the women were forever outcast because of their disability) “Little Lord Fauntleroy”, classics like “Little Women” and “Anne of Green Gables”, etc. and The Blessing Series by Lauraine Snelling. Her books I think would be classified as historical fiction. Her books are based on the Norwegian immigrants who came to this country and settled in the Dakotas and how they proved up on the land. But tells details of the life and work that they lived which is very fascinating. So now you have an idea of what I like to read. There are so many more I could mention. 🙂

Who are your favorite authors?

Christmas Carol Kauffman, Francena Arnold, Martha Finely, Lousia Mae Alcott, Lauraine Snelling, Frances Hodgsen Burnett, Dr Catherine Hamlin.