Happy St. Patrick's Day

Here in Chicago they always put green die in the river and have a big St. Patrick's Day parade. It would have been fun to go down town and enjoy the festivities. Although, when I was in my high school marching band we always had bad weather when marching in the St. Patrick's Day parades. Today would have been one of those days that it would have been chilly standing outside watching the parade. Therefore, I settled for wearing green and making green dinner rolls and green cinnamon rolls. Green isn't really the most appetizing color but everyone still ate the green baked goods in the spirit of St. Patrick's Day. I did miss being at home and making my kids green pancakes but there is always next year!

Happy Birthday Mother!

Today was my mother's birthday. It was very nice to be able to be here for her special day. Unfortunately she was not feeling that well. It was however special to see 12 of my 14 siblings who have stopped to see my mother the last couple of days.

Happy Birthday Ruth!

God has blessed me with some wonderful sisters. It was very special to be able to celebrate my sister Ruth's birthday with her yesterday. (The first two pictures are of me and some of my sisters and the group picture includes a couple of friends.) Us ladies had a great breakfast filled with many good laughs together. My sister Gay ordered a German pancake which was quite interesting. It looked like a bowl or upside down hat. I hope you had a wonderful birthday Ruth it was so nice to be here to help you celebrate.

Ladies Day In

Wednesday night all of the student and staff ladies at the Training Center got together for a "Ladies Day In". The evening started off with a lovely dinner. Kathy did a wonderful job of decorating her basement with a Paradise Theme. The food was amazing and the fellowship around the table was great. After we ate Judy shared with us on "Trusting God". After that we had the option of playing games, making cards and doing scrape booking, or having a time of pampering. You will see from my pictures I picked the pampering option. After that we had some very yummy desserts and watched a movie. It was very fun "Ladies Day In".

Day of Prayer

Yesterday was a day we call "Day of Prayer". Once a month we set aside a day in which we pray for all the countries that the Mission works with. We also hear a couple of field reports on what God is doing in different countries. Yesterday morning we heard a report on the country of Mozambique and then one on the Philippines. The two groups that worked on the reports did a good job giving us an over view on the country they were presenting and also on the needs in that country.

A Taste of Home

One thing that we really enjoy eating is empanadas. It is something you can buy from street vendors in Venezuela. The outside is made of a white cornmeal mixture and in the inside there is either chicken, beef, pork, or fish. I bought the white cornmeal back with me so that we could enjoy a few empanada meals. So this evening Ruth and I made a bunch of empanadas for supper. They turned out very well and we all enjoyed eating our "taste of home".

Flashlight Night

Last night at Cubbies was another special evening we had Flashlight Night. It is probably one of the "special event evenings" that our Cubbies enjoy the most. I like to buy glow necklaces for the kids to add to the fun of the evening. During our Bible story the kids have to put their flashlights under their chairs otherwise we plan on using up the batteries in the flashlights. The favorite song for the evening is "This Little Light of Mine". Our game time was a lot of fun as I had hid a bunch of stuff animals and we went on a safari and tried to "catch" as many animals as possible. We played several games with our flashlight but then we sat around in a circle and went on a scary "Bear Hunt". The kids had a great time with that and wanted to go on a lion hunt so we did that as well. Then we ended our game time playing "I Spy With My Little Eye".

Academy Program

This afternoon the academy had their annual academy program. The different classes recited poems, sang songs, or did skits and several of the students played piano solos. There were also different displays set up around the room showing off art projects and other class work the children have worked on. All the children did very well and it was an enjoyable program. Titus' French class did a skit in French of "David and Goliath". Titus did very well and doesn't seem to mind getting up in front of people and hamming it up. Titus also did a couple of songs with the violin class. Ruth participated in a skit that her Spanish class did. She had originally planned on doing some live chemistry demonstrations since she is taking chemistry this year. But that was before she got sick and it would have taken more energy then she had. (It is day four of Ruth being back to school and she is feeling VERY tired.) Thank-you academy students for presenting a great program.

Under Pressure

There is plenty of snow on the ground but in three months our students will be in the middle of building their jungle camp houses and almost ready to move up into the bush. Therefore it was time to do our class on pressure canning meats. As you will remember there is no electricity in our bush homes so pressure caning meat is the only safe way to store meat. Pressure canning was a total foreign concept to this city girl. But 24 years ago Vern and I worked together on pressure canning our meat for jungle camp. It was a positive experience and my grandmother bought me my own pressure canner to bring overseas. Many missionaries do not have to use this method overseas but there are still some who do. So this is a valuable skill to learn in case you are one of those people who do use pressure canning overseas. Although I didn't do a lot of pressure canning I did pressure can a whole cow on the field. I also canned other smaller things as well. Yesterday we went through the steps and all the procedures to pressure canning meat. In the next months now before jungle camp all our students will have the opportunity to pressure can their meat. If you have never tried pressure canned meat it really is quite tasty.

The Road to Better Health

The Road to Better Health does not have a speed limit on it, although most travel it very slowly to get to their final destination which is Enjoying Better Health. We are trying all sorts of things to help our daughter build up her immune system and enjoy better health. Beside the carrot juice and eating lots of fruits and vegetables here are the supplements we have added to her diet. There is Barely Green, Ester C, Florafood, Proancynol 2000, Flax Seed, a multi- vitamin, calcium, carrot powder, and beet powder. Some need to be taken on a empty stomach and other with food so it is quite something to be able to take all these supplements at the right times during the day. We are hoping that in the next few weeks we can start to see a difference and that Ruth will start to feel better. Although we know the thing that will help her the most is prayer, so please continue to pray for her. THANKS!