A few favorites from this month…

1. This vegetarian chili recipe…which I’m recreating from memory:
Ingredients:
-2 small yellow onions (chopped)
-2 cloves garlic (minced)
-1 yellow and 1 green bell pepper (chopped)
-1 can kidney beans (rinsed and drained)
-1 can cannelini beans (“)
-2 cans black beans (“)
-2 cans stewed tomatoes
-cumin, chili powder, salt (all to taste – I was heavy on the chili powder and lighter on the others)
-canned chili peppers in adobo sauce (1 or 2 peppers, depending on how hot you like your chili, a spoonful of the sauce)

Directions:
In a large pot, drizzle olive oil and add onion and garlic. Cook 3 to 4 minutes or until soft. Add bell peppers, cook an additional 3 minutes. Add all beans and tomatoes and stir. At this point I was worried that there wasn’t enough liquid and added some water, but I think I would have been fine without it. After stirring, start adding the chili peppers and seasonings, to your taste. Cook the chili until hot through, but don’t boil. Cover and allow to simmer for 30-45 minutes. You can serve now – but if you take it off the heat, let it sit for an hour, then heat it back up, it’ll be better. The chilies in adobo sauce really make the flavor of this delicious, healthy chili! I promise you won’t miss the meat.
I made a big pot, ate a bowl, and froze the rest. I thawed it once to eat some (and it was even better the second time) and re-froze it. I should have frozen it in smaller quantities so that I don’t keep freezing and thawing the whole batch. You live, you learn.

2. Skype:
My dear Candler friends Josh and Kate moved to Germany this year. Josh was selected for a really competitive exchange program to take a year of theology courses at the prestigious Georg-August Universitaet in Goettingen. Kate is working with a missionary in Frankfurt, supporting international congregations of the United Methodist Church across Germany. Kate’s internet options are kind of slim where she lives, so I hadn’t gotten to speak to her but once since she’s been there. Two weeks ago, while she was visiting Josh, I got to talk to them BOTH and hear all about their lives in Germany. a) I was extremely jealous. b) I was extremely happy for them that they both get these unique experiences as part of their time in seminary. c) Josh was the inspiration for the aforementioned chili recipe. Thanks, Josh.

3. Sitting around the fire pit in my backyard with friends:
This has happened on two Saturdays this month – first with our young adult group from church and then with my close Candler friends. There is nothing more quintessentially “autumnal” to me than this favorite activity. Notice the blankets and mugs – it was chilly! Thankfully, Meg brought hot chocolate and peppermint Schnapps to keep us warm.

4. My experience at the New Baptist Covenant II:
In a nutshell, NBC is about racial reconciliation and unity among Baptist denominations, social justice, and Jimmy Carter. (Ok, its not about Jimmy Carter… but he was a major instigator of this movement.) You can click on the link above to learn more about NBCII. You can also watch the worship services from Thursday night, Friday morning and Friday night on-line. The gathering happened in Atlanta, and videos were streaming live across the country.
I got to take part in NBC in a couple of ways… helping out in the office during the event and giving an invocation in the Friday morning worship service. In this service, the Voices of Hope women’s choir of the Lee Arrendale State Prison led us in worship – so very powerful, as an emphasis of NBC is this biblical mandate:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news for the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Luke 4:18-19

I was humbled to be among so many great Baptist leaders. On Saturday morning, we served in different locations across Atlanta – doing construction, painting, yard work, etc… a great weekend.

5. Thanksgiving. Need I say more? I can’t wait to be reunited with family and friends in Kentucky!

Blog posts may be sparse until the end of the semester… hopefully though I will post pics when our little house is decorated for Christmas.
Ciao!