Friends Reunited

Gladys Ethel Ana Ronora circa 2003

Gladys Ronora Ana June 2012

(no worries, Ethel's still alive. just married)

we also chanced upon dear friend Jeffrey with Lendle.

Happy Evening. :)

seeds and sunflowers

i'm vegetarian.

i've been asked why. 

humans aren't supposed to kill for food.

but plants are living things too, right? when you eat a plant, then you kill it too, right? right?

wrong.

the difference is that, when you take an animal -say a chicken- for food, you end its life and take away all possibility of it reproducing ever again. okay so this arguable. you take away all possibility of it reproducing naturally ever again.

but when you take a plant for food, what usually happens is you leave out the reproductive parts allowing the plant to live on and die its natural death. like in an avocado. you take a fruit from the tree, the tree lives on to produce more fruit, you eat the flesh of the fruit, and plant the seed, thus making way for another avocado tree just like it.

see the difference?

great! because that really wasn't what i was planning to share. haha

what i did want to share are photos of the sunflower seeds the inmates at jail gave me. i put them in a little seed bed and just two day later, they've sprouted!

a fresh batch of seeds 

i can't wait till they're full-grown sunflowers with bright yellow heads that follow the sun!

p.s.

did you know? after a sunflower blossom withers  and dies, that's the time you get to "harvest" the seeds from the blossom head and plant them to get a whole bunch of new sunflowers. 

what i've been up to

we've been so busy this past summer that i almost can't believe it's just been two months.

early April we had our first ever Bible Boot Camp for the youth at church, and was it fun! it seems that the boot camp opened so many doors to learning that we never knew existed. we saw a glimpse of just how much we want to study and learn and teach the kids. we had classes on cooking, arts, prophecy, gardening, church history, health, and music. and the kids bonded so well and just had so much fun.

of course, it wasn't all fun for us teachers. but it was a boot camp we wouldn't mind having again next year. in fact, we'll make sure to have it again next year. i'm already starting on my lesson plan. :D

just a week after boot camp, we had our camp meeting - the most interesting part being the presence of Pastor Patrick and Dr. Diane Herbert. having them is always a huge, huge blessing to us. theme was "No Time to Lose: Be Ye Holy" which brought so much needed reminders to everyone who attended. for the young people, there was a presentation about a God-approved boy-girl relationship. there were also hydrotherapy lectures and lots of singing.

on Sabbath, we had baptism and child dedication. and the ordination of our new church pastor.

two weeks after camp meeting, we had to be ready for Vacation Bible School. the kids from the community were all excited and eager to learn. some of them come to the church grounds so early their older brothers would come fetch them so they'd get to bathe first. lol

so that was boot camp, camp meeting, and VBS - each a week-long activity. and we did it all in six weeks. God is so wonderful.

the sad parts were that one of our older members passed away just before camp meeting started. but we rest in the hope of the resurrection of our brother through our Lord Jesus. also, one of our members had a stroke during the camp meeting. he's now recovering in his home and we all continue to pray for him.

so yes, it has been a wonderfully stressful two months. and we needed to have a good break afterwards. so we retreated toward our highland campsite. more on that and the details of the summer events in the next posts. ciao for now!