Sweet Surrender
By Michaela Feldmann
Tess Etherington spent the first eight years of her life in South Sioux City, Nebraska, surrounded by family. Her parents were both from the area, and she grew up close to her sisters, Anna and Carey, in a tight-knit web of relatives, including aunts she describes as being like older sisters.
“The Lord has just always put strong women in my path.” —Tess Etherington
“We lived just a block from my paternal grandparents and close to my maternal grandmother. My aunts were like older sisters to me. We were all just very close,” Tess explains.
When she was eight, her parents bought an acreage near Homer, Nebraska where her dad taught his daughters how to set lines for catfish in the Missouri River and how to shoot, skills Tess says that many girls never learn.
Summers meant weeding onion rows in the family garden: rows good enough to win fair ribbons. But the person who shaped Tess most was her grandmother, Helen. Throughout Tess’s life, God placed strong women in her path to guide and shape her, and none left a deeper mark than Helen.
“She was just comfort,” Tess says smiling. “People were drawn to her: her smile, her laughter, the way she could make you feel seen, known and heard. She was a safe place for me and offered a place where I could fully be myself.”
A single mother who raised four children after her husband left, Tess’s grandmother Helen worked full time as a nurse while raising her family. “She also showed me how to keep going,” Tess adds. “Despite her grief, she pressed forward with incredible strength. She was a true representation of Christ.”
That example would guide Tess for the rest of her life.
After graduating from Homer High School, Tess enrolled at the University of South Dakota with her best friend, intending to become a high school teacher.
“I studied speech, English and theater. Those were what I loved in high school, but I quickly discovered that I didn't fit into that world.”
The Lord was providentially leading and prepared a path for Tess that her grandmother walked before her.
“I had also been considering nursing as my grandmother and aunt were both nurses who I admire very much. I switched my major to nursing my sophomore year and graduated from USD in 1994 with an associate degree in nursing,” Tess explains.
She found her footing in long-term care. While working at Matney’s Colonial Manor nursing home in South Sioux City, she discovered her true calling: hospice care.
“It was really an opportunity for ministry in a way. You’re with people and their families during one of the most memorable days of their lives. It’s an opportunity to give comfort, to let people know they are not alone,” Tess shares.
She spent 17 years in the work, years she described as both deeply rewarding and quietly exhausting.
“When I left, there was this realization of how heavy it was for so many years; what we brought home, what we saw, what we experienced all weighs on you. Sometimes people died afraid. But sometimes I had the opportunity to tell people that God is there.”
From there, Tess transitioned to North Star Services caring for people with special needs, work that carried a personal connection.
“My sister Carey has Down syndrome and I actually got to work with some of the people she went to school with. I got to oversee their care and their care planning. That was really rewarding.”
While her career took shape, so did the other great project of her life: her family.
“Through mutual friends Beth and Steve Venne, I met my future husband, Jeff. Jeff had asked me out on several occasions for the span of about a year before I gave in! After our first date, where we saw the very first “Mission: Impossible,” which has become the theme of our marriage, I called my friend Beth and told her I was going to marry that guy,” Tess shares.
“Jeff was so unlike anyone I had ever met, humble, kind and attentive and so very interested in knowing me. At the time he was the head athletic trainer at Morningside College. We dated just six months and were engaged and married six months later on July 26, 1997.”
Their family would eventually grow to five children: Jack, Katie, Kindi, Josh and Tommy, though the path there wasn’t easy.
“We really struggled with having kids. We looked into adoption,” Tess adds. “I’m a control person. I kept saying I was going to make this happen. My plans were going to work out.”
Eventually she learned she couldn’t will a child into existence. So, she turned to her greatest comfort instead.
“In First Samuel in the Bible, Hannah struggled with infertility. Her story really hit me hard because she knew there was nothing she could do. She had to put her trust in the only One who gives life and he gave her Samuel. I prayed her prayer and the Lord answered.”
They named their son Jack Samuel, a tribute to that answered prayer. Six months later, they found out they were expecting a daughter, Kathryn.
By 2003, the family had outgrown their small house in South Sioux City, and as they were house hunting in Jackson, a much bigger home suddenly came on the market; far more room than their family of four needed.
“We started the process of taking foster and adoption classes and believed God must have a plan to fill each of the six rooms,” Tess explains.
In 2004 Tess learned she was pregnant again, putting their adoption plans on hold.
“Unfortunately, we lost her. I wondered what God must be doing. But he was teaching me to trust in Him and His timing. In April of the next year, we found out we were pregnant with our son, Thomas.”
"During my third trimester, Jeff was diagnosed with lymphoma," Tess says. "As a hospice nurse, I believed I'd be a widow by Christmas. I remember so clearly laying on the bathroom floor weeping my heart out to the Lord and asking Him to heal my husband. I did not hear an audible voice, but in my spirit, I heard the Lord say, 'I am enough for you.'"
She told Jack and Katie that God was good, powerful, and could heal their daddy—but even if He didn't, that wouldn't change who He was.
"So many prayed, and I saw the Lord heal through the gracious gift of chemotherapy. I saw my soft-spoken husband fight for his life and his family," Tess explains. “The day I gave birth to Tommy, Jeff had his last chemotherapy and he was officially pronounced in remission a few weeks later. For three years we lived with some fear of a recurrence and it did happen. That diagnosis sent Jeff immediately to the University of Nebraska Medical Center. The recurrence meant a stem cell transplant. That process of harvesting Jeff's own stem cells and then basically destroying his immune system with chemotherapy brought him as close to the point of death as I have seen. Once again, in God's mercy in giving Jeff the strength to fight and amazing Medical Care Jeff has now been healed of the lymphoma for 17 years.”
God, it turned out, wasn’t finished growing her family. Years later, a medical mission trip to Ethiopia changed everything.
“What we saw there was life changing. Both of us left changed with our hearts on adoption again.”
In November 2012, Tess and Jeff met their daughter Kindehafty (Kindi) age 11 and son Gezae (Joshua) age 9.
“When we called the agency, they told us a little boy and girl had just arrived. It’s who God had for us. It was so obvious and clear when we saw them. We knew they were ours,” Tess shares.
Watching their five children grow, Tess says, has brought her back to the same lesson over and over: “I can’t control everything. I have to practice surrender and give it to the One who can.”
That same willingness to let go brought her to one of her greatest passions: the kitchen. While homeschooling their kids in a co-op, Tess was asked what class she’s like to teach, and she settled on bread making. She found a one-hour cinnamon roll recipe online, a practical choice for a busy teacher with little time to spare.
“That was all the time I had. I’m teaching all these kids, and you don’t have a lot of time to make bread,” Tess notes. “I could put it all in the KitchenAid and mix it in three minutes, throw it out on the counter and let it sit there when I did another batch with the kids. I can see how God was lining things up for me.”
When friends needed to raise money for a mission trip, Tess donated cinnamon rolls for the auction, and the response surprised even her.
“Plates of six cinnamon rolls were going for $1,000,” she says with a smile. “I started to advertise cinnamon rolls for $15 a dozen and I was making them so much I could do them in my sleep.”
After 12 years, the family enrolled their kids at Siouxland Christian and Tess took a job as the school’s lunch lady. During summers off, she imagined what she could do with the gift of her home and time off. “I had the idea of offering lunches for sale to workers in the area,” Tess adds. “Serving people has definitely been a calling on my life in many areas as that’s the nature of motherhood and nursing, and also being a lunch lady.”
“In 2019 we found this little Winnebago camper, and we gutted it, making it into The Lunch Box. The kids all had a hand in fixing it up, and they’ve all worked for me in some capacity over the years. Josh, Kindi and Tommy worked with me in the camper, and we had a lot of fun. It was hot. We had this tiny air conditioner, and we just served lunch and cinnamon rolls,” she says laughing.
That same cinnamon roll recipe became a local sensation. Parked in the family’s driveway on Highway 20, The Lunch Box set up picnic tables under their ash tree and welcomed anyone who stopped by.
“We served people just passing by and construction workers during the expansion of the highway. When COVID-19 hit, people could sit outside and they were safe.”
As the business grew, so did the vision. The family eventually set their sights on the old Sweet Tooth building in Jackson, moved their little camper out back for storage and opened The Lunch Box as a full brick-and-mortar shop.
“The heart and soul of The Lunch Box has always been our sweet friends and family who work for us. My parents make our Saturday special of biscuits and gravy, our youngest boys fill in when we need them, and my sweet sisters in Christ give the most amazing customer service.”
Five years later, Tess says God is once again calling the family down another path and into a joyful new season.
“What a joy to see God at work here. It’s the thing that has made it so hard to make the decision to close this chapter and move our cinnamon roll business back home where it all began. Our family keeps growing and more grandbabies are arriving and we want to have time to spend these moments with them. They go fast,” Tess shares.
For this next stage in her life, Tess says she’s going to surrender to the One who can handle it all.
“Jesus means everything to me. He has been the biggest constant in my life. He is everything. He continues to show me He is steadfast and true.”
Looking back, she sees her life as part of something much larger than herself.
“I know He has a big, big story and I got to be a part of people’s lives: at the Lunch Box, in Ethiopia, at Siouxland Christian and in so many other places along the way. Who knows what God has done. But He chose to let me be part of it in some small way. That’s an amazing gift to me.”
More with Tess
Tess loves reading, especially theology. While she makes cinnamon rolls, she is listening to audiobooks and is currently addicted to “Theo of Golden.”
She loves to study the Bible and holds a women’s Bible study twice a year at her home, drawing about 20 women each time.
Jeff and Tess bought a camper in July, a longtime dream for Tess, separate from the Lunch Box camper, and they've wasted no time using it, already taking three trips in three weeks to Wagner, South Dakota, and Valentine, Nebraska.
These days, Tess and Jeff are enjoying life as empty nesters, filling their time with family meals, pool days and visits from the kids and grandkids.