Suprised Pumpkin

We were in Greensboro, NC on Halloween. Our hosts, Josh and Katie let Sandra carve her first ever Halloween Pumpkin.

Sandra actually enjoyed scooping all the gucky stuff out of the pumpkin. Josh salted and roasted the pumpkin seeds for an additional treat.

Mural in Greensboro

As part of their Fall Global Celebration, Westover Church had a family day in a nearby park. There was a 5k run, food samples from around the world, (we brought Dutch licorice), and a big mural that everyone could paint on. Sandra was the brave one to paint first and contributed a Bonaire flamingo.

Pretzels

I like pretzels. They are not always available on Bonaire, so I chow down when we are in the States. Here is a picture of pretzel nirvana at a farm show in Pennsylvania. Sandra and my mom also tried their hand at making some large soft pretzels of their own.

They were quite tasty, and chewy the next day, just like the pretzel stand pretzels. So I think they got the recipe right. We'll have a go at making these on Bonaire from time to time.

Fall Global Celebration 2008

Sandra and I are at Westover Church, in Greensboro, North Carolina all this week, as they celebrate 60 years of Global Ministries.

There was a picnic and 5k run on Saturday, all sorts of meetings on Sunday, and they are keeping us busy each day during the week too. We've had lots of opportunities to present the world wide outreach of Trans World Radio. We've seen a bunch of old friends and made many new ones too.

If you have a high speed Internet connection, check out this video of the opening of the "Fall Global Celebration." We appear briefly by the Bonaire flag that we brought along with us, about 2/3 of the way through the video clip.

The video was edited to shorten in some and the opening remarks that provide a context for all the drumming aren't there, but take my word for it, it was a great kickoff for a special week.

Project Hannah

For the month of November, the Trans World Radio web site's home page features Project Hannah, a woman's advocacy movement, radio program, and prayer ministry that is celebrating its tenth anniversary.

Founder, Marli Spieker says, "God has done amazing things in the past 10 years of PH ministry. It has progressed from a simple concept to a vibrant, worldwide radio ministry, prayer and advocacy movement in more than 104 nations, as well as numerous mercy ministries on the ground. There’s also been an astonishing growth from one radio program in English to 47 languages, and 15 more on the way."

There are links from this month's TWR home page to video clips, info. sheets, and downloadable prayer guides.

Project Hannah has much more information on its own web sites in both English and in Spanish.

The women in the picture are from Bonaire, and work together to produce a Papiamentu edition of the Project Hannah radio program.

Adventures in the New Jersey Woods

Sandra stepped on a snake when we were hiking the other week. She screamed and then Nancy stepped on it too. (it was under the fallen leaves and they couldn't see it) When Nancy stepped on it, the snake jumped into the air. I guess it was a friendly snake because no one was bitten. The colors in the woods were really pretty. We must have sounded like a herd of elephants walking through the leaves. Louis L'Amour would not have been impressed.

Richard drives under this walkway over I-287 every day on his commute. It is labled Cannonball Trail. So one afternoon we hiked in and walked over it. I rode his bike on part of the trail as well. The Cannonball Trail was used during the American Revolutionary Way to move supplies in secret from the British troops.

Some of the fallen leaves were yellow. Others were red. The colors on the trees and on the ground, and the filtered sunlight made the woods a beautiful place indeed.

Rainy Bonaire

The crew on Bonaire is painting another of our towers. They had to stop for a while because of Tropical Storm/Hurricane Omar. Sunny weather has returned to Bonaire, but the antenna fields at TWR are still flooded, as you can see here.

We've seen this before, but last year wasn't this wet.

Thanks go to George Zensen for these photos.

Sandra and I are hoping for a wet winter on Bonaire, so that the Olive bushes around the perimeter of our back yard, that we cut way back, will grow in nice and bushy.

An Apple a Day

Apples are one of the few raw fruits and/or vegitables that I can eat without various annoying allergic reactions. We've enjoyed some delicious (no pun intended) apples this fall, and had a great outing to the Cherry Hill Orchard, in Lancaster, to pick our own apples, fresh off of the trees.

The trees were fairly short and bushy. Some of them were really loaded with apples.

We picked a big bag full of Cortland apples and have been enjoying their crisp texture and slightly tart flavor. The Cortland apple trees were pretty picked over, so I had to reach waaaay high to get some.

Stained Glass Windows

My mom really likes stained glass art. I snapped these pictures at the First Baptist Church in Asbury Park, NJ.

Fall Foliage

It's chilly, windy and rainy here in PA today. But it has been a great fall up 'till now. We were in Perry Hall, MD last week. Had a good time with friends at the Perry Hall Baptist Church and got in a couple good bike rides on some very hilly MD roads. Here are a couple pictures of the views from NJ, not too far from where Richard and Nancy live.

All new TWR Web Site

The Trans World Radio website was completely overhauled this past summer. The home page is changed each month to highlight a different part of the worldwide TWR ministry.

Browsing through the drop down menus will uncover a wealth of information.

The month of October features our broadcasts to Latin America and the Caribbean.

The Other Side of New Jersey

I have to admit that some areas of New Jersey are less than picturesque, but during this past week we enjoyed some bike riding and hiking in a breathtakingly beautiful part of the state. The trees are beginning to get colorful and the weather has been perfect.
We could see the New York skyline in the far distance, but were far removed from its hustle and bustle.
Check out these overgrown ruins of the Van Slyke Castle located in the middle of the forest.

Swedish Coffee Bread

Here's a picture of Brad's mom, whipping up a batch of her yummy Swedish coffee bread. After all the secret ingredients are in the dough. It is rolled up and braided to make a loaf of the coffee bread.
These special snips seem to help the flavors mingle during baking.
Here's the final product shortly before is was consumed.

Book Bargains

Sandra and I recently attended one of the largest, if not the largest, used book sale in the USA. The selling prices got lower at the end of the three day event. Sandra and I were there, armed with a 12 page printout of our home library, and came away with 43 used hard back and paperback books for about 13 dollars.

I even spotted a copy of TWR founder, Dr. Paul Freed's book, "Towers to Eternity."

Click on the picture for a bigger version and see if you can spot Sandra towards the middle of the picture.

Brooks Tegler Big Band

I attended an interesting concert recently. The Brooks Tegler big band recreated a World War 2 Glen Miller Army Air Force Band concert, right down to the drum set and uniforms.



There were a surprising number of people in the audience who had actually heard an original Glen Miller band.

Asbury Park - Ocean Grove

We recently spent a weekend with the folks at the Asbury Park Baptist Church in New Jersey. This church has been involved with the ministry of Trans World Radio since before the Bonaire station was constructed. Richard and Nancy drove down for the weekend and stayed in neighboring Ocean Grove. It was a rainy and foggy weekend so the beach was deserted. When the fog really filled in, we couldn't even see the water from the street. The weather didn't dampen our spirits however.
We went for a walk in the evening and the foggy scene was really amazing, like something out of a Sherlock Holmes story.
This church has a Spanish speaking congregation as well as the English speaking one. They both met together for the missions emphasis weekend. Here we see Sandra singing a couple songs with the Hispanic group on Friday night.

Tuneful Tangemans

We saw Terri Tangeman and her sons, Benjamin and Cort, this week. I generally don't mention the names of young people on the blog, but these guys are part of an award winning music group, the Mountain Aires, and very much in the public eye. These young guys are accomplished musicians and I really enjoyed getting to hear them play.
Benjamin is on the far left in the group photo. Mentor, Marvin Heath can be seen in the white shirt at the center. The guys were working on one last song for their upcoming (November) Christmas CD. I did a Google search on them and found that songs from their first album, "Echo the Legacy," are available for download. The actual CD can also be found at the Great Smokey Mountain Association stores at parks in North Carolina, and from the group itself. These young musicians are budding businessmen as well.

Bonaire Birds

Well, we're in the States right now, but we've still got some great Bonaire memories on the laptop. We've also created some 8x10 photo books on www.winkflash.com that we'll use to share images of Bonaire with our family, friends, and ministry sponsors.

TWR Cary

Sandra and I were at the Trans World Radio office in Cary, North Carolina earlier this week. It was good to see some "old" friends and make some new ones. The photo above has the hopefully current statistics about TWR worldwide. You might have to click on the picture to see it big enough to read the info. There is a pdf that lists all those 225 languages available on the TWR web site.
The lobby has this big wall sized panel outlining the six ministry foci of TWR's Global Strategic Plan.

Bonaire Day - Biker Day

Today is Bonaire Day, hooray. The official festivities are at the community center in Antriol this year, running from about 8:30 am until late tonight.

It is also the umpteenth annual Bonaire Biker Day. Now these are not the sort of bikes that my buddies and I huff and puff around Bonaire on. These bikes are beeeeg Harleys. Lots of bikers come from Aruba and Curacao to join the Bonaire contingent. They have special organized rides, meals and other festivities all weekend.

I'm attaching a picture of some of the bikes resting between activities.

Early Morning Musings - Reflections on a Flamingo

When Miguel and I rode by Gotto Lake early Tuesday morning, we couldn't help but notice the beautiful reflections in the mirror like surface of the water. So I drove back on Wednesday morning, braved swarms of "nose gnats" and shot a ton of pictures.
Here are a few friendly Flamingos posing with their imaginary friends.
I've been wanting to get images like these for a long time, since Keith Johnston gave me the inspiration.
It is probably safe to click on these thumbnails, even if you have a fairly slow Internet connection, because the file sizes are about half of what my usual pictures are.

Wild Weather

The weather here on Bonaire has been hot and sultry for a couple weeks now. Basically when storms pass through the northern Caribbean, they shut down the trade winds down here in the south where we are. One night last week the southwest horizon was lit up with an amazing light show. The lightning flashes were bright and frequent enough that it reminded Sandra of the strobe lights one sees when having an EEG. It was awesome, but a little weird too.
I'm not sure how these pix will look for you. They are of a type that will depend a lot on how bright your monitor is compared to mine. Back in my youth when I was living, cycling, and skiing in the fridged winter months, we paid attention to the wind chill factor that made it seem colder than the thermometer was indicating. I had to be careful about my prone to frostbite nose.
Well, apparently there is a warm weather factor as well. A friend just told Sandra that the NOAA reported that considering the temperature, lack of wind, and humidity, (I'd throw in Sun intensity too, but I don't know if they do) it feels like 120 degrees F on Bonaire these days. That makes me feel better, (well mentally at least) 'cause the thermometer is only registering temps in the low 90s, yet we've been melting. I've had an amazing lack of energy, even on my early 6 to 7:30 am bike rides. When we take a shower at mid day, we set the tap to the hot water position, because the sun heated water coming out of the cold water line is unbearably hot, and the nice insulated water heater isn't set that high.
But it could be worse, we're not bearing the brunt of all those storms. We really have to laugh when we watch the so called Tropical Update on the Weather Channel. There'll be this big storm just beating the living !%$#**&! out of Hispanola and the people on the TV spend most of the session waxing eloquent about if the storm is likely to hit the USA.
The islands are taking a beating. Here is what Georgina, the director of the Trans World Radio ministries in the Dominican Republic has to report. "Please keep praying. Some times I prefer not say too much of our happenings because I’m afraid of sounding dramatic, but life here for me is like an action movie. The stormy season is giving us a lot of hard times. My heart is broken because of those homeless. Most of the city is suffering long power outages. Not all our activities are able to go on normally because they depend on whether or not our staff and guests are able to get to our offices. I am able to get here because I drive the office car and I live 8 minutes far, and usually my way is safe."