Cristo vos Grass, Chris is Risen, in Ukranian

Church art from Appomattax Virginia

On our way out from the national park that holds the surrendering ground of the Civil War we passed this beautiful Country Church.

Cracker Barrel, the new job and the new mission field

Cracker Barrel is a old southern restrant. Three months ago I found a job bussing tables and washing dishes there. This is a great job and I am juggling the community college and the dish washing job just fine. We stay busy with dishes coming, bussing tables, and cleaning the building. The job offers great P.T. such as lifting cup racks, delivering dishes to and from the wash room, and doing the garbage runs to the dumpster. God really blessed me with a great job when so many in the U.S. are unemployed, Give God Glory.

This picture shows my colleague. He is spraying off the dishes before they go into the dish machine. Similar to God recreating the earth by melting the elements of the old earth with fervent heat, so we also melt the elements of old food off our dishes.

This is me with a beard and hair guard rinsing off the dishes. Dunking the dishes into the bus tub was like baptism for the dishes. Most of the dishes at Cracker Barrel probably went through this baptism and are now born again. That is another great Biblical analogy that makes work interesting. Also I have the opportunity to show what a Christian talks and acts like.

Fertilizing our garden

As promised here are some photos of our garden after we moved the manure on to it.
Two years ago we had to brake up the ground with a ax. But now because of leaves, sticks, vegetable scraps, manure, and turning it over many times, it is really better. A friend loaned us his tiller. It was fun to operate and it turned the soil over excellantly. Our record size of vegetables are a one foot long zuchinni. It reminds me of the big grapes the spies brought back to Moses after checking out Canaan. God sure blessed our garden.

Do you have any funny garden stories?

Our garden is about 13 feet long and 30 feet long. That metal pole in the back round is my pull-up bar, "Can Do" 7 pull-ups.

One of my Bonsais. It is about five years. I recently changed out the old soil for new. In a my Bonsai club's news letter they said that changing out the soil yearly was healthy for the tree.

Emily's State Interpreting Certification Test

On February 7th, I (Emily) went up to Richmond to take my Virginia Quality Assurance Screening (VQAS) test. As you may remember, last May I went to take the written part of the exam. On the 7th, I took the signed portion. After an interpreter finishes their signed portion of the test, they will receive an interpreting level. There are four levels of VQAS; Level 1 holds a minimum of 50% correct, Level 2 holds a minimum of 65% correct, Level 3 holds a minimum of 80% correct, and Level 4 (which only two people have) holds a minimum of 95% correct. There are two different parts - ASL Interpreting and Transliterating, each of these having three categories under them; ASL-to-English, English-to-ASL, and Interactive. The raters grade you on your lowest grade. For example, if I received 80%, 65%, and 65% my grade would be 65% or Level 2.

The test went fairly well. :) I felt more confident because I have been practicing and interpreting for a Deaf friend at church every Sabbath for the past two months. My professions have encouraged me to go for it... and the way I look at it, this was a learning experience either way!

I will receive my grade in approximately 90 days... Please pray for me and that I may give God the glory no matter what... :)

Memories...

The G family have been missing Guam lately... this picture down at Spanish Steps sums up our memories on the island.

Fertilizing our garden

Yesterday a friend loaned us his pick-up and we loaded up some horse manure from a private resident's house. The private resident has two horses so they were glad to be rid of the manure. Instead it smelt like hay and grass. The horse looked at us like we were crazy to want that stuff. But loading it into and out of the pick-up was great exercise. The manure spread over the garden very well. The same friend that loaned us the pick-up truck also told us we could borrow his tiller. This tiller is a gem to use. Last year we used the tiller and we turned over the garden in 15 minutes. With a shovel, it would take us 40 minutes.

I will have photos later, but the camera is with Emily on a sign trip.