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,…
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…
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:…
Many years ago as we were seeing a missionary friend off on a bus trip, another friend turned to me on the terminal platform. “Is there anything more typical of missionary life than traveling?” she remarked. How on-the-nose she was, because Jesus’ “go ye” gives us an open door, a travel ticket to the world….
Although during nearly 40 years as a missionary I’ve visited 12 American countries, I’ve only once traveled outside the Western Hemisphere. A trip around the world—or at least to a few places on the other side of the globe—definitely has a spot near the top of my Bucket List. Along the way in my travels,…
“What would you like to have from this house when I move?” my mother asked every time I visited her in Maine. For a decade, I hardly liked to answer. Even if she meant downsizing more than dying, it seemed sort of greedy and grabby to put dibs on her possessions. But eventually, I mentioned…
Is anything more exciting to a writer than a new notebook and pen? Or to a child-artist than a fresh box of crayons? The other day while packing, I came across the green-and-yellow tin of 64 Crayola colors. One of my first acquisitions (as a collector not a kid Picasso), today it holds my hot-glue…
I got a new tin about a month ago. Yeah, go ahead and laugh. But little did I know I’d rename it the Italian Tragedy, and never mind the bucket-list Italian holiday I dreamed of when I bought it. We (I probably should admit, I) gobbled up the packages of puff-pastry cookies in the tall…
Twice this past week, I’ve waited in an office and finally departed, ready to bite someone’s head off, like I used to do with my animal crackers. Talk about a zoo. Instead of spinning a Tin Collector’s Tale about animal crackers, I hardened my heart and collected grievances. Never mind that I prayed for some…
