Twenty-five tins that contain—or once contained tea—line the shelves and cupboards of my home. While I consider myself more of a coffee drinker than a tea fan, those special cups of tea remind me of dozens of “tea reads” over time. The main character of my original story world, Melissa Travis of Destiny at Dolphin…
A few months ago, I promised you a second helping of chocolate. So today I’m delivering! This time, it’s a canister-shaped chocolate-brown tin labeled “Premium Milk Chocolate ITALY” in gold letters. It also features a red-white-and-green flag and the filigree-framed bust silhouette of a woman—could represent iconic Italian actress Sophia Loren? My question is, what…
Twenty-five years have passed, give or take a few, since I chanced on this little gem for my tin collection. Doing errands in bustling downtown Santiago, I ducked out of the drizzle and smog into a recently discovered “treasure hoard” of a store. Todo A Mil (“Everything for 1000 Pesos”—the Chilean equivalent of a dollar…
Friends sometimes call me the Tin Woman because of my large collection of tins. The moniker recalls one of my favorite childhood movies, The Wizard of Oz. While it both terrified and fascinated me, it also taught me about some of life’s important values: brains, heart, and courage, embodied in the Scarecrow, the Tin Man,…
It’s HOT in our city of Coquimbo, Chile, during this final week of the Advent season. Still, the port’s most iconic landmark, the Third Millennium Cross, towers above the summer haze on the highest hill. A testament to the power of the Name, as I reminded a group of women at a year-end tea. During…
When I was a child, I ate milk chocolate. For sure, most of the candy bars in those days consisted of milk chocolate and whatever other gooey or crunchy delights the recipe called for. But when I became a woman, I put away the milk and turned to dark chocolate to survive the darkest days…
So much of my life revolves around food. Purchasing, preparing, eating, and cleaning up food! Even as I start to write this post, my mind wanders to the kitchen and the squash-apple soup I plan to make for lunch. I’m not a great cook or even super passionate about cooking, but I sure love to…
With all that’s going on in the world, we’re sometimes tempted to ask God: Whose side are You on? Does He love the Russians more than the Ukrainians, or the Ukrainians more than the Russians? Whatever, we’re sure He loves our own country, whichever that is, just a little more than everybody else’s. You know…
Sometime in the past decade, the Sahne Nuss tin pictured above came home with me in a green-and-white shopping bag from our Jumbo supermarket in Santiago. Everybody, myself included, loves classic Sahne Nuss milk-chocolate-and-almond bars, but mostly I fell in love with the image on the lid. It perfectly pictures our life in the Chiloé…
Can I make it around the world in 80 tins? I’m still unpacking, and the only thing I know for sure is that today the traveling tins will take me home to Chile again. After a lengthy stop in Canada, I usually cross either the St. John or St. Croix rivers into the State of…
In the last few weeks, we’ve experienced the cliff notes of a whirlwind tour of Europe. We came up a little short of the goal last time. However, today we’ll jump right back into the race around the world in 80 tins, because I have LOTS of Canadian classics in my collection to tell you…
“What do you want to accomplish with your writing?” In meditating on this question recently, the answer, “Serve the Lord with gladness,” popped immediately into my head. What a challenge—to bring joy to the world, to the Lord, and to my own life. In Psalm 2:8, God offers Earth’s true king, our Lord and Savior:…
