Pumpkin Cheesecake Ala Mexico

 Sarah’s Swirled Pumpkin Cheesecake

Crust:
2 cups white flour
4 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp powdered ginger
1/4 tsp powdered cloves
1/4 tsp powdered nutmeg
mix well in 9″ deep dish pie pancombine 2/3 cup vegetable oil and 3 Tbsp milk — whip together with fork and pour over dry ingredients in pie plate. Mix well and form into a pretty crust pressing into place across bottom and up sides. Bake at 400 degrees 10 minutes. Let cool.

 Filling:
2 packages cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
4 eggs
1 cup pumpkin pie fillingBeat together cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until creamy. Add 3 eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Set aside 1 cup of mixture for swirling. Add one cup pumpkin and the last egg to the mixing bowl and beat well. Preheat oven to 350 and place pie pan on large cookie sheet (unless you like cleaning cheesecake drips off the bottom of the oven.) Carefully pour the pumpkin mixture into the pie crust. Now, for the fun part: swirling.

Starting at the outside edge, pour a pinwheel shape, very slowly, around the edge and toward the center. With that done, take a toothpick and starting at the center gently and slowly pull to the outside edge (visualize with me here) at 12 o’clock, 3 o’clock, 6 o’clock and 9 o’clock. Stick the toothpick in your mouth, grab another toothpick and starting at the outside edge, pull gently to the center at 1:30, 4:30, 7:30 and 10:30. Viola! Marbled. Stick the other toothpick in your mouth.

Now, open the oven door and CAREFULLY slide the cookie sheet into the moderately hot oven and bake about 55 minutes (or until the center tests done).

Disfrutalo!!!! (enjoy!)

Meet The Coult Family

I met Rebecca at the recent Ultimate Blog Party.  She and here husband and their kids are missionaries in Mexico.  I was thrilled to interview her for Missions Month. 

What is your typical school day like?

English classes meet 3 days a week for an hour and a half.  We learned while taking intensive Spanish classes just after moving to Mexico, that an hour is just not enough time and more than 2 hours makes your brains hurt.  There was no problem giving a 3 hour English class to the School of Ministry students — they’re accustomed to long, grueling studies, but we knew that no one from the community could handle a class that long.

How does teaching English classes fit together to the School of Ministry?

Following Christ’s mandate to “be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth” (Acts 1:8), Calvary Chapel Boca del Rio’s School of Ministry is training pastors and workers to minister in local villages, distant parts of Mexico, and other countries as well.  Students have come from Tijuana, Puebla, Queretaro, Monterrey, and other distant cities.  Many local youth, from Boca del Rio and the surrounding area, have entered the school also, and in 2006, six American students from New Mexico, California and Oregon, including Doug, enrolled in the intensive one-year program.  After his graduation in October of 2007, Doug and I began to pray about giving English classes to the Mexican School of Ministry students.  Two of the young ladies who graduated at the beginning of this month feel God’s call on their lives to work with Adapt International in Africa.  In order to do this, they will need to be able to speak English well, since translators are available in Africa for English but not Spanish.  The teachers of the school also desire to speak English so that they can teach American students at the School of Ministry without translators.  With all this in mind, we began offering free English classes to School of Ministry students, members of the church, and anyone else in the community who wanted to come.

How many students do you have?

At the beginning of the year, we had 15 students.  Most of these are still faithfully attending.  One young mom was forced to drop the class when her husband objected to having his lunch hour disturbed.  (We’re praying for this guy.  He and his brother are the last non-christians in the family.  ;^) )  My friend from Las Glorias, Basilia, has threatened to quit at least a dozen times, but her husband won’t let her, and I told her she can quit if she wants to, but I’m still picking her up to go to the classes!)  The director of the School of Ministry has declared that the English class is mandatory, so 8 of our students have no choice.  A captive audience, as it were.  The two young ladies who are planning to become missionaries in Africa will be moving into our house next month.  Afterall, the best way to learn another language is immersion.  Moving in here is as close to “immersed” as you can get without a travel visa!

What do you do outside of the classroom?

Hmm.  This is one of those questions that could take pages to answer.  Let me explain, no…there is no time…let me sum up:

Doug gets up, leads family devotions, eats breakfast and “heads off to work.”  Sometimes he’s around our village of Las Glorias or in Boca del Rio (which are really only separated by a street, but are distinctly different villages) working on a construction or repair project in town alone or with his friend Esteban.  Between the two of them, they are the leading electric, mechanical, plumbing, carpentry and metalfab professionals in town and have just about every tool anyone would need for any project…and everyone around here knows it.  Men stop by almost daily with broken tools that need fixing or various projects they need help or advice with.  Sometimes, they just stop by to visit and pass a little time.  That’s a great part of Doug’s ministry: being able to take time to sit down and drink a Coke or a cup of coffee with one of the men who herd cattle on the plains behind our house and sharing about Jesus. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays Doug usually holes up in his workshop studying and praying and preparing lessons for one of the three youth groups he’s leading.

I get up, do my Bible study and begin the daily grind of nagging…er…I mean encouraging the children to do their chores and school work.  (Some things never change — no matter where you are!)  We do school until noon or one during the week and then the children escape to play on the dunes, explore the beach, play with neighbor kids, read or (for the older two kids) chat with their American friends on the internet.  We’ve home-schooled forever, and I see no end in sight.  Teaching has always been a passion for me.  A better way to say it may be that learning is my passion.  Teaching is the overflow from the passion!  When we began our family, 16 years ago, home-schooling wasn’t exactly planned.  It just “happened”.  I couldn’t bear to send my kids away to learn a bunch of things from other people ,when I could share all the amazing things I was learning with them.  (And there were, of course, other issues, but that would be for some other day and some other interview!)  The more I learn, the more I want to teach my kids.

I’ve been asked to co-lead a daily women’s Proverbs study starting in a couple of weeks.  This is very exciting to me because I love being able to share what God is teaching me (another part of that “overflow” idea, I guess!).  I really struggled my first year here with not being able to express myself to the sisters.  So many jokes have been made about a woman’s need to talk, but these jokes have their basis in truth.  I believe that God made women with a need to connect to other women in heart-to-heart conversation.  Not being able to do that for over a year was a very hard thing.  My husband was so incredibly gracious and honestly, he listens really well.  But he has that manly tendancy to want to “fix what’s broken”.  He has a really hard time just listening quietly without giving input.  I do praise God for the godly counsel we received in our premarital counseling (Thanks Pastor Ron!) 16+ years ago.  Sometimes the man just has to know when to sit down and put his arm around his wife…and say nothing.  Now that I’m getting more comfortable speaking Spanish, I’m developing some great friendships.  The pastor’s wife, Christina, is such a sweetheart and is very forgiving of my “feo” Spanish! (That’s “ugly” — she says that it’s not “feo”, and I tell her she’s lying!!!)  I’ve taught a couple of Bible studies in Spanish and haven’t fainted yet and the sisters said it was a blessing.  Proof that God can use anyone!!!

What led you to Mexico?

This is another question that could go on and on.  Nutshell version: our family was invited to La Cruz, Mexico, on a short-term mission trip in November 2004.  When it was time to leave and travel back to Oregon, none of us wanted to go.  Returning home was really hard.  God had begun to move us south.  After much prayer and godly counsel, we were commissioned by our home church, New Hope Evangelical Free Church of Winston, Oregon. sold our house, packed a trailer and a storage unit and moved to Las Glorias, Sinaloa, in February 2006.  God is “faithful to complete that which he began”.  (Phil 1:6)

How will you be celebrating Easter this year? 

Easter in this part of Mexico is something very special.  At the end of January, the whole village begins the process of “spring cleaning”.  During holy week, known here as semana santa, more than 100,000 people will descend upon the beaches of Las Glorias and Boca del Rio.  More visitors come during that one week than during the entire rest of the year combined.  Unfortunately, they’re not coming to celebrate the Lord’s resurrection.  This is “spring break”.  Traditionally, the School of Ministry students perform a drama on the beach reenacting the trial and crucifixion of Christ.  One student is chosen to portray Christ and carry a wooden cross made of 4×4 beams.  Other students play the part of Mary and the disciples while still more dress up as Roman soldiers and beat Jesus as the team walks about 2 miles up the beach and back.  They perform this drama 5 or 6 times walking each direction on Friday and Saturday of semana santa.  At the end of each performance, another student shares a gospel message and leads the crowd in prayers.  Other church members and students pass out tracts and pray with those who wish it.  Last year, our family purchased small plastic cups and set up a water station on the beach.  We gave 1000 glasses of free water to people on the beach.  Each cup had a Bible verse printed on it.  It was a great opportunity to talk with people and give gospel literature.  Doug and Pastor Ricardo were able to share Christ with several young men and I think we made an impact on our little piece of beach.

 

 

 

What school materials do you need?

Some things in Mexico are significantly cheaper than they are in the states.  Fruits and vegetables, soda pop and junk food, for example, are comparatively cheap.  Other items are rather expensive.  One of the things we’ve found to be considerably more than in the U.S. is school supplies.  While copies are fairly cheap to have made at local printshops, spiral notebooks, crayons and markers are more than double what we pay stateside.  We’ve made it a habit to stock up during the “back-to-school” sales in August, but with 15 English students and 20+ youth group members, you can imagine that we go through spiral notebooks and pencils very quickly!  Two other needs that have arisen recently are Spanish/English dictionaries and Spanish Bibles, specifically “large print” Bibles.  Our desire is to be able to give a Bible to every person who asks for one.  God has been faithful to supply all of our needs and we know that He will supply this need as well!

Would you share a favorite Mexican recipe? (pictured above w/recipe)

The food in our part of Mexico is absolutely fantastic!  Even better than the food, though, is the fellowship while eating it!  The Mexican people love to fellowship and no one is in too much of a hurry for a party to end.  Some of our favorite Mexican meals include tamales, posole and savichi.  I do have a great recipe, though, which I’ve posted on my personal blog.  It’s not exactly “Mexican food”, but all the Mexicans here absolutely love it and, best of all, it’s already typed and posted here!  I can’t buy canned pumpkin here, but I actually found winter squash at the market last week, so I can sense another pumpkin cheesecake coming!

I’m sure Rebecca would love to hear from you!

Rebecca’s blog:  Beautiful Feet