This week on Jean: Jean returns with her stories of the past weeks while away!

Jean is old order Mennonite from New York State.Jean and her husband David and family live on a dairy farm, and travel their community using horse and buggy. She tells her story exclusively on Amish Stories.

Marilyn has asked me to include on this post a thank you to Jean and David and everyone else who had helped her during this stressful time of moving, and the real meaning of true friendship was realized during this time. So i write this for Marilyn with many thanks, and for myself its so nice to see people helping people and the old order Mennonites and the Amish all working together to help someone regardless if they are plain or not. Well done everyone and i think some of us could learn a thing or two about helping one another again, like we used to do. Richard 

Marilyn and I are both sorry about the delay in getting post's to you. Marilyn was having trouble in her computer service plus she moved to another apartment. I kiddingly told here that she would never make as an old order Mennonite. She can't give up her car or computer. She said I could put that in here. At our house we have what Michael says is Wi -Fi which means if we had a computer, which we don't, we could get service without having to pay for it. Where Marilyn lives she must pay for it. Her computer works at our house. I don't understand this, but Michael and Marilyn do.

We went to Marilyn's apartment to help her pack and move to her new apartment. She hurt her back lifting a box so Martha's parents drove us to her house. I had called our Amish/Mennonite Chiropractor and talked him into taking Marilyn as a patient. Martha's parents drove us to the doctor who worked on her back. She and her dog spent the night at our house. The doctor did adjustments and advised hot compresses on her back which I put on.

The next day we went to the chiropractor and back to her apartment. We packed more. The night before she moved into her apartment and then  she stayed at our house over -night again. The day she moved David, my Mom, David's Mom, myself and a other ladies I knew came over to help set up her kitchen and bedroom. We unpacked many of her boxe's. She still has some boxe's to unpack and the living room has to be set- up so we may be going there again. She spent two weeks unpacking boxes and has some more to do. We plan on going this coming Saturday when Michael, David and I can go. The men can move the furniture and us ladies can finish up the boxes. We must thank Martha for taking care of Susan and Baby David for us while all of this was going on.

Marilyn has tried to pay us, our driver, and more, but we do not accept money. I told her that she has repaid us in the many times when  she had driven us some place's. She would do it again if we needed her. When the time comes that we need help she is here so when she needs help we are there. We don't charge - she doesn't charge.

I know some of you want some recipes. I will get them to Richard. The ones I have are Amish Friendship Bread, Rye Bread and there was another one-I don't remember. It might have been a stew. If you will let me know in comments I will look it up.

Be With God,

Jean


Lazy Monday Cake: 1 cup dates- 1 tsp baking soda -1 1/4 cups water -1 cup sugar -3/4 cup shortening or butter -2 eggs- 1 1/2 cups flour -2 tsp cocoa -1/2 tsp salt- 1 cup chocolate chips- 1/2 cup sugar -1/2 cups nuts- Bring the dates, baking soda and water to boil. Remove from stove and cool. Mix sugar, shortening, eggs, flour, cocoa and salt. Combine with cooled date mixture. Top with chocolate chips, sugar and nuts. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes. Enjoy. Jean

 Sunset images from leekelleher-markmemories-Eriknielsen-glo k2006 from Flickr



Next week Jean talks about puppy mill's