Happy Days in Lansing, MI

Moving to Lansing, MI felt like returning to a known environment for Gary and me. It took a while for our defenses to lower, but after several years we felt a part of the community. The nine years we spent with Grace United Methodist Church and living in Lansing were some of the best of our lives.

Gary, Chris and I

The church was located a few minutes from downtown, on Mount Hope Road near Cedar/MLK. The parsonage driveway was accessed by Mount Hope Road but the house faced Cambridge Road. It was a lovely neighborhood a few minutes from the Grand River, Francis Park with its rose garden, and the Governor's mansion. Across Mount Hope was the elementary school our son would attend.

The parsonage was well maintained. During our time at Grace many improvements were made to the house, including a new kitchen and two new bathrooms, custom made drapes, and new windows.

When the outgoing pastor's wife told me her dog had been hit by a car on Mt. Hope, I asked the church to install fencing between the house and garage to provide a safe area to let our dog out. The Trustees were obliging!

The church had been built in the 1960s as a new church start. The congregation felt like a big family.

The congregation was very social and church activities kept us busy over the years--starting with a welcome party.

Chris and I at the welcome party

The Vacation Bible School (VBS) was always a well planned, spectacular event. That first summer, VBS ended with a riverboat cruise on the Grand River!

Gary, Chris and I on the Princess Queen for VBS

The Princess Queen paddleboat moored at the Grand River 

I quickly found work at a Catholic school as a part-time secretary focusing on desktop publishing and other computer generated administrative tasks.

At the end of the school year I left for full-time work at the Lansing Art Gallery as the membership secretary. Before a year had passed, I was hired by Jostens, the class and championship ring company, for a newly created position as the state office manager. I was the hub for the management and sales team and their customers. Working from a home office, I provided sales support to the salespeople, customer service to the colleges, created and sent out promotional supplies, and sometimes even attended sales events or sold rings over the phone. The nine month a year job was perfect! Within two years I had doubled my salary.

Church members participated in the denomination's Family Camp held at the United Methodist church camp in Pentwater, MI. It became an annual family vacation. There was also an annual church family camp at Lakeview UM Camp.

Kili and Chris at the Pentwater family camp

We were less than an hour from Gary's parents and just over an hour from my dad and brother. We could make day trips. One of our favorite visits was to Crossroads Village and Huckleberry Railroad.

Dad at Crossroads Village 

Chris, Gary and Laura and Herman Bekofske
at Crossroads Village. (I made Chris's jacket)

We continued to take family vacations around Michigan. When the pop-up camper nearly burned down from an electric short we rented cabins around the state, including Ludington, Lake Louise, Cheboygan, and Tawas. The church's generous Christmas gift made the cost of the cabins possible. Gary and Chris also took father-son camping trips in the U.P. every year.

Mackinaw Bridge Sunset 

at Pictured Rocks

Lake Louise, Dad and Chris on rowboat

Chris and Kili at Tawas, MI

Kili after wading at Tawas

Whitefish Point Lighthouse

We took Chris to Washington, D.C.

Chris and Gary at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C.

Chris spent many weekends with my dad and brother at the cabin on Lake St. Helen. Chris loved to snowmobile.

Snowmobiling 

Kili at Lake St. Helen

Chris and I often visited Dad. He took us to the State Fair, the Henry Ford Museum, Greenfield Village, the Detroit Zoo, Belle Isle, the Auburn Hills Chyrsler Museum, and the Cranbrook Museum.

The iconic oven at the old Michigan State Fair Grounds was destroyed in a fire

The Wolverine at the Detroit Zoo posed for us!

1660s Windmill at Greenfield Village

The parsonage had four bedrooms and two full baths so it was easy to accommodate Dad and Tom for Christmas at our house. The Bekofskes usually came on Sundays for worship, including Easter Sunday.

Dad with a photo memory quilt I made

These years were a time of great growth in my life as a quilter. I joined the Capital City Quilt Guild. The large guild hosted nationally known quilters to speak and run workshops. For a while I was in the American Quilt Study Group and also a group supporting the Michigan State University Museum's quilt programs. The group met in our church and created a quilt to auction to raise funds.

I gave a presentation to the quilt guild on Handkerchief Quilts, and was told I had done a professional job! A proud moment for me! I entered a quilt into the World Quilt and Textile Show. It was a Barbie quilt made for an ugly fabric quilt challenge. One of the show organizers told me how they loved my quilt and got such a kick when they unpacked it. I scanned Barbie, printed the image on fabric, and dressed Barbie in the 'ugly' fabrics. I embellished the quilt with real Barbie clothes and accessories.

My Barbie Quilt

I made When Dreams Come True based on NASA photographs of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon.

I got a quilt frame for my birthday.

Kili keeping me company while I quilt 

I donated quilts to fundraisers including Habitat for Humanity auctions. When a staff member left I made a signature quilt signed by the congregation.

Signature quilt presentation.

When a staff member suffered losses I made her a quilt.

And when a young man tragically died I made this quilt commemorating his work with Habitat for Humanity.

My brother bought a cabin outside of West Branch, MI. We had two family cabins for our use whenever we could get away.

Tom's cabin outside of West Branch, MI

We enjoyed going to the area nature centers. Starting the summer we moved, Chris attended the Woldumar Nature Center day camp. When we was too old to be a camper, he volunteered as a counselor in training. He worked all day, all summer!

The Fenner Nature Center was a lovely place to visit as well, plus they had the annual apple butter festival, making the apple butter in a large copper kettle over an open fire!

Fenner Nature Center, Lansing, MI

Chris and Gary at Fenner Nature Center, Lansing MI

We took family walks with Kili around the neighborhood. We often stopped to talk to neighbors.

Walking Kili around the 'hood

Kili spent her time on the window seat. She watched the world, and slept there too! People asked if that was a fox in the window!

Kili in the picture window

We saw Beauty and the Beast at the Wharton Center and plays at Lansing Community College. We visited museums in Grand Rapids, the Kalamazoo Air Museum, and zoos in Lansing and Battle Creek.

We were active as a family in many church activities, including buying and wrapping Christmas presents for donation, delivering Thanksgiving meals, walking (with Kili) in CROP Walk, and fundraisers for Habitat for Humanity. Chris was in the church basketball team for several years, attended Sunday School, participated in plays and in Youth Group.

Youth Musical. Chris in the middle.

Newspaper article on CROP Walk at the church

I sang in the choir for several years, played piano for the children's choir, and for two years taught the Youth Sunday School Class. I loved teaching and had a great time. The kids seemed to enjoy me as a teacher, too.

Gary and I at a church dinner

One day a man came to church and joined our Sunday School class. At the end of class he asked several questions about the church's stance on sensitive social issues, especially reguarding human sexuality. That year the church held an eight session discussion on the issue, with many points of view presented. Although the majority of members were in consensus, they had agreed to disagree and continued to care and work with each other in love. When the man's question was met with silence, I spoke up. God gave me the words. I explained the offical UMC Social Creed, and that there was no universal consensus, but that in the Wesleyan manner, we supported the right to "think and let think."

The man next asked to see the pastor. After a discussion, he told Gary that he was coming back to denounce the church as followers of Satan. Several members moved quickly to contact the police. It turned out that the man was known to the police, and said that he was "off his meds." The Washington D.C. police contacted the church. They also knew about this man after targeting Senator Debbie Stabenow. Grace is her home church, and that made it a target for this man. We were afraid of what was going to happen the following week.

As worship began the next Sunday, police were on the scene. They prevented the man from entering the church, keeping him across the street as he ranted and raved. When church was over, people going to their cars or the Youth Building stood aghast at the vehemence coming from the man across the street. A WWII veteran who had given his life to God under siege at the Battle of Anzio was very upset that his church was being attacked. His wife restrained him from crossing the street! Youth were as upset as their grandparents. The experience brought the church together, all generations, united in their belief in their community and purpose.

Kili

There is another side to the story of these years: How the move impacted our son, including the challenge of a new social environment; how the school environment changed after Columbine; and finally our decision to opt for home schooling.

Me

A Story of Reconciliation and Healing: Convicted

When I was a freshman in small Michigan liberal arts college I asked a man where he was from. He said from outside of Benton Harbor. Where was that, I asked? He described the town in most negative terms and said, “if a bird flew from here directly west to Lake Michigan, and dropped a bomb just before the lake, that’s Benton Harbor.” Over the years I learned more about Benton Harbor and its affluent sister city across the bridge, St. Joseph.

I was moved to read Convicted: A Crooked Cop, an Innocent Man, and an Unlikely Journey of Forgiveness and Friendship by Jameel McGee and Andrew Collins with Mark Tabb because it was about Benton Harbor and a Michigan story.

Benton Harbor was once was a booming port town until the 1960s when manufacturing jobs disappeared and the white population moved across the river to St. Joseph. It has suffered forty years of racial tension, high unemployment, and the decay of city services and infrastructure. The murder rate per capita is one of the highest in the United States and drugs are rampant.

As in African American communities across the nation, the push to be tough on crime resulted in aggressive police tactics. Officer Andrew Collins yearned for recognition and success and became legendary for his narcotics related arrest rates and convictions. When he took short cuts and illegally manipulated evidence he justified it as part of putting away the bad guys. When he skimmed money off confiscated drug money, it was his just due for working for so little money.

Jameel McGee tried to keep away from drugs and criminal activities but was convicted for a crime he did not commit as a teenager. And then one day he asked a stranger to give him a ride to the store and his life changed forever. The police found drugs in the car and the stranger set Jameel up for the crime. The policeman who arrested him was Andrew, who manipulated evidence to ensure a conviction.

Convicted is the story of how these two men came to this fatal meeting, how it changed their lives, and how they each turned to faith and God. It is a story of how forgiveness is the first step in reconciliation and new life.

“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

The book is presented with first-hand stories by both Andrew and Jameel, which gives an immediacy and authenticity to the story. Jameel insists on his innocence, and Andrew professes that his using ‘short cuts’ was part of his wanting to do good by ensuring bad people were off the street. They both had to come to terms with their personal responsibility for their fate and to stop blaming others.

Jameel turns to God to help him let go of his murderous anger. Andrew turns to faith to find forgiveness.

Ten years after Andrew arrested Jameel they meet again. They must decide between vengeance and hate, or forgiveness and healing.

Convicted is an inspirational biography about Christian redemption. But the basic lessons shared are important and universal, applicable even for those outside of a faith community. Don’t travel the easy path, Don't justify your errors and choices. Anger corrupts. Admit your failings and ask for forgiveness from those you have harmed. Put aside hate and vengeance in order to grow into health.

He has told you, O man, what is good;And what does the Lord require of youBut to do justice, to love kindness,And to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

America has created a police culture that corrupted Andrew, as I read about in I Can’t Breathe by Matt Taibbi and Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, and the poverty that causes crime as I read about in Michelle Kuo’s Reading with Patrick.  For people of faith, it is clear that we are called to do justice and to forgive and to be kind. 

There are many ways of telling the stories that we need to hear. Perhaps Convicted will reach people who would not otherwise read about the issues of institutional racism, the failure of the police and justice system, and the poverty that fuels crime.

I received a free book from Blogging for Books in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Convicted

A Crooked Cop, an Innocent Man, and an Unlikely Journey of Forgiveness and Friendship

Jameel Zookie McGee & Andrew Collins & Mark Tabb

Publication Date: Sep 19, 2017 

Hardcover $21.99

ISBN: 9780735290723 

Ebook $11.99

ISBN: 9780735290730

Sitches From the Harvest: Hand Embroidery Inspired by Autumn by Kathy Schmitz

I love hand embroidery. And Autumn is my favorite season. In Stitches from the Harvest, Kathy Schmitz has combined both with some of my favorite motifs--oak leaves and acorns, rabbits, squirrels, and birds--in these 15 lovely new designs.

Hazel, from Stitches From the Harvest

Hazel, above, is one of my favorites from the book. I am working on it now, in different colors! I am reminded of Hazel, the main character in Richard Adam's novel Watership Down!

I also love this landscape with a cornucopia and cottage on the hill.

Welcome Home from Stitches From the Harvest

Simpler patterns will appeal to new at stitching, such as the squirrel and bird motifs for linen kitchen towels as shown below.

Great Rewards from Stitches From the Harvest

This pear and vine motif table runner would look lovely with a harvest dinner table.

Gather Together table runner from Stitches from the Harvest

Are you into less decorative items? There are patterns for zippered pouches, a bird coat pin, a tote, a sachet, and a pincushion, seen below.

Wild Oaks Pincushion from Stitching from the Harvest

Below is a needle keeper, and a pocketed notion keeper pattern is also shared.

Autumn Sheaf Needle Keeper from Stitching From the Harvest

Crimson Bounty Tote Bag from Stiches From the Harvest

The ebook has links to the website to download and print a PDF of the patterns. Embroidery basics, cording basics, floss color chart, and a resource guide is included in the book.

Schmitz is a MODA fabric designer and sells her own patterns. Her previous book is Stitches From the Garden; the pillow below is from that book.

pillow from Stitches From the Garden

I just adore these patterns!

I received a free ebook from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

link to the publisher's webpage for photos from the book:
http://www.shopmartingale.com/stitche...

Stitches from the Harvest - Hand Embroidery Inspired by Autumn

By Kathy Schmitz

Print Version + eBook $24.99

eBook Only $16.99

ISBN: 9781604688634

Publication Date: September 6th, 2017

The Far Away Brothers: The Journey of Twin Teenage Migrants

To solve a problem one must understand what caused it and address its root causes. That is a hard thing, requiring work and effort and creative thinking. Why not just make the problem illegal?

We have been trying that and it does not seem to work. "Just say no" to sex or drugs, prison sentences for drug possession, throwing a pregnant teenage daughter out of the house--none of these ever solved anything.

Illegal immigration has become the issue of the day under the present administration. Migrants have been arrested, abused, sent back, and yet more come. Build a wall, we are told, that will keep them out. I doubt it. There is a reason why people leave their homeland and family, and the reasons are rarely trite.

In her timely book The Far Away Brothers , Lauren Markham tells the story of  the twin Flores brothers who flee El Salvador to join their undocumented migrant brother in America. We learn about their lives in El Salvador, about their families, the challenges they faced on their journey north, and the multiple difficulties of their lives in the United States.

Markham, who has reported on undocumented immigration for a decade, spent two years researching for this book, plus she draws from her experience working with immigrant students at Oakland International High School. She chose to write about twins to illustrate how each immigrant has their own motivation and individual response to the experience.

In the past the draw to the United States was for economic opportunity and security. Today migrants leave their homes to escape the domination and violence of the gangs who have taken over power. Last year 60,000 unaccompanied minors entered the United States, most from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador--the 'murder capital of the world'.

When one of the Flores twins is targeted by their uncle's gang he decides he must leave to survive, and his twin brother joins him. The boys' family puts their livelihood at risk by offering the their land as security to raise money for transport to the border. They falsely assume the debt can be paid off quickly once the boys get jobs, but the interest blows their debt up to $20,000.

The journey leaves its psychic scars; one twin has nightmares and cannot talk about what he had seen.

To stay in America the boys must be in school, under their older brother's authority. Somehow they must also earn money to start paying off their debt to the coyotes. They are teenagers, too, who are finally 'free' and they don't always handle that freedom well. Readers may not always like the boys, but hopefully they will understand their fears, confusion, and motivations.

The author is not afraid to offer a paragraph on American policies that have contributed to the Central American 'catastrophe', by supplying weapons and by creating free-trade deals that hurt small farmers. Then there is the legacy of large corporations that bought up land for farming, controlling resources and the economic benefits.

As Markham writes, "People migrate now for the same reason they always have: survival." Investment in improving educational and economic opportunities, addressing the root causes of migration, would be a better use of federal funds than building a wall.

I read Enique's Journey by Sonia Nazario about ten years ago. Here is what she had to say about The Far Away Brothers:

“Powerful…Focusing primarily on one family’s struggle to survive in violence-riddled El Salvador by sending some of its members illegally to the U.S.,…[this] compellingly intimate narrative…keenly examines the plights of juveniles sent to America without adult supervision….One of the most searing books on illegal immigration since Sonia Nazario’s Enrique’s Journey.” —Kirkus

I received a free ebook through First to Read in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Far Away Brothers
Lauren Markham
Crown
Publication Date: Sept 12, 2017
Hardcover $27.00
ISBN 9781101906187

Remembering 9-11

On the morning of September 11, 2001 my son and I were in the dining room, homeschooling, when my husband called the house from his office. He told me to turn on the television. I asked, what channel? And he said any channel.

Chris and I went into the living room and turned on the television. We saw the World Trade Center tower with smoke coming out of it. And within a few minutes we knew what had happened. And then we saw the plane hit the second tower.

We were riveted all morning and past lunch time, watching the horrors unfold before us. In the early afternoon I went to the local grocery store, just a few blocks away. I felt like I was moving in a dream, detached and groggy. I realized I was in shock.

Our son pulled together his most precious objects into his back pack. His baby blanket. His signed first edition of The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan. Mementos. My husband remembered commuting to New York City on a train filled with people who worked in the World Trade Center, and wondered. How many weeks did uncertainty and fear rule? I don't remember. But America changed that day, and we have reeled unmoored ever since.

I wrote a series of poems.

The Day After the World Changed

By Nancy A. Bekofske

September 12, 2001

I awoke in darkness.

What kind of world would I find today?

The taste of dust was in my mouth;

My eyes were red and dry.

The dull rhythm

Of a building’s dance of collapse

Resounded in my ears;

The dance burned into my vision,

Like the sun too long observed,

The slow gathering of downward motion,

Story after story,

Thousand of stories,

Stories that ended that day.

Would I ever again wake

And not wonder,

What kind of world

Will I find today?

Will there be chaos today?

Reversal of fortune, vulnerability?

Bloody War?

Dancing in the sky?

The Slow Dance

A needle pieced an eggshell.

Hell burst out golden red.

A magician’s gathering of slow smoke filled the air.

The war god’s companions, Fear and Panic,

Graced with their presence heroic exploits,

Coupled with shocked incredulity.

I write the reflection of time,

The house of cards raining down,

Raining a civilization into chaos.

Precious papers flew for miles,

Sturdy walls became dust.

Women and men flew like birds.

Their arms became wings,

The air rushing about them

Full of the dust of their lives,

Their world’s residence.

Other became bowels,

The secret heart buried deep.

The incredible beauty of summer sun

High in a blue, empty heaven was

Obscured by unnatural clouds,

Belied truth, for night had fallen in the land,

millions lost in darkness.

Flickering images told the story

Of a slow dance, the timeless, fragile beauty.

All time compressed into a few seconds

As each floor fell into the next,

Beam buckling inward,

Desks and file cabinets and hopes and security

Instantly reduced

To cockroach shells,

Settling into a covering like new snow.

Twisted, broken, the grand dames

Mere rubble, reduced to an essence.

Repeated over and over

This dance craze of the day,

The slow decay of seconds

Etched into the mirror of our eyes.

What We Imagine

Our child is in the white hospital bed.

There are tubes and alien machines surrounding him.

We watch and wait.

There is red blood, vivid on the white sheets

Like a beautiful rose.

No, our child is in the schoolroom,

There is a blinding light;

Wisdom is not so enlightening as this light.

There is a flash of heat.

There is ash.

No, our child is playing with friends.

There is coughing.

There is headache.

Our child goes to bed.

Our child breaks out in death.

No, our child is called.

Our child bravely leaves his only home

His only family.

Our child is trained to kill.

Our child falls, he thinks of home, he thinks no more.

No, our child wakes up in the morning.

Our child sees the rain.

Our child remembers the old life,

The days before fear,

The security of knowing there were those

Who would always protect him.

Our child awakes in the morning.

Our child imagines

There is no one to protect him.

Conversation

They talk of weddings and college.

They talk of jobs and money.

My ears burn in resentment.

I want to talk about death.

I want to talk about how

I became a zombie that day,

Detached from my motions,

A robot moving without a heart.

I want to talk about war

And rumors of war,

And about peace

And the illusion of peace.

I want to talk about the children

And about fear; especially about fear.

How it sleeps with you in your bed,

Nestles into your ear, whispering, whispering

Late into the night.

I want to talk about fear taking residence.

They talk about life.

I want to talk about death

And dancing. The dance of the towers

And the dance of politics

And the dance of death that day,

Surreal and strange, the snow of death,

After the golden red fire of impact.

They talk about money and work,

And I want to talk about the dread

Of war settling into our living rooms

Each morning and evening, visiting

With images of destruction and hate,

Daily becoming less alien,

More familiar and cozy.

Words circle ‘round like a hurricane

Ripping the façade away

Baring the essential passions

Like a bone.

World Trade Center ruins, photo by Spencer Platt

The Spires

Organ-pipe spires, thin and reaching,

Airy and proud.

The remnant backbone of life,

The skeleton of power.

Architecture of hope,

110 stories high,

made of hollow bones and glass,

housing a world’s hope.

Broken spires, still proud and tall

Rising above the chaos below,

Directing vision upward

Like a beacon.

When I consider how our son's life was framed by world events, I shudder. This was not the world I wanted to give my child. I am not ignorant. I know my parents grew up with the atrocities of WWII and lost friends in the war. And my grandparents had the War to End All Wars. My great-grandfather's nephew died in a death march in the Pacific. There is no end to the atrocities and hate we humans can embrace. We are a family bent on fratricide.

And yet somehow I trust that there is also a strain of mercy and compassion that survives, and sometimes even thrives. Stories of sacrifice and courage also came out of 9-11.

There is only one race, the human race, I was taught when I was a girl. The Big Blue Marble photograph of Earth reminds us that we are stewards sharing one miraculous, small Eden.

I continually pray for peace.