Epiphany Tea

Today held the surprise of discovering my youngest sister and her family were in town! 

We had a brief moment of one hour carved out of a busy weekend of visiting their former church, family and friends. . . so we had tea at my home. 

I had wanted to try a new recipe I'd read about online, it was a tea cake recipe from Lottie Moon, a missionary to China. She used tea cakes as a means of earning the trust of the people in her village in China. She became known amongst the children as 'the cookie lady' instead of 'foreign devil'. You can read about it at the website when you click her name above in this paragraph.

While her recipe used teacups for means of measuring - I used the adapted recipe which used measuring cups. I baked many dozen and had to lower the temperature a bit with each batch to until finally my last 2 dozen were baked just right. The temperature in the posted recipe is WAY too hot and results in burnt cookies. (not the fragrance I wanted in my home as I greeted my sister, but, well, sometimes that is the way things go with hospitaliTEA!) 

I used 350 for 5 1/2 minutes to get perfectly crisp but not burnt cookies.

Since it is Epiphany Sunday I baked the cookies as stars to represent The Star Of Bethlehem. 

We nibbled upon these tea cookies with some flowering tea - 

a delightfully light and beautiful tea to share on a very cold wintry day.

We shared prayers, I gave her her birthday gift (her birthday is Tuesday, the actual day of Epiphany!) and we shared about our families. Then we said our goodbyes.

As my sister headed back to her awaiting family for their next planned visit, 

my husband and I headed out to our church's Ephiphany service. 

It was a pretty perfect day!

Truth For Life

You are the light of the world. 

A city on a hill cannot be hidden.

Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. 

Instead they put it on its stand, 

and it gives light to everyone in the house.

In the same way, let your light shine before men,

that they may see your good deeds 

and praise your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5:14-16