Achilles Update and Tropical Wave

After two weeks, my achilles tendon injury is healing well. I've done a lot of hanging out watching the olympics on TV with my foot resting on an ice pack.

I rode to work on Wed. without pain, it's less than a mile each way, and then I went for an easy ride on Friday afternoon. I got up bright and early on Saturday to have a go at a longer ride and wouldn't you know it, right when I got outside the rain started pouring down.

That big orange and red blob just above South America is a tropical wave the is passing over us. There isn't too much wind, but there is rain and some lightning in the South. I'll be unplugging all our appliances and electronics soon if it gets closer.

Friday Night Fun

We kicked off the anniversary weekend with some food and fellowship in the activities building. The Tuckers and Tom Corcoran joined us after they arrived on American Eagle at 8pm.


We chowed down on veggies and Bonairian snacks like pastechis, and croquettes.


Here we see Grandmas Lusse and Mial catching up on the latest photos.


Jon Savage led us in some rousing choruses. You can tell Jon is an accomplished guitarist, 'cause he can play with his eyes closed.


Rich Fuller, our fearless leader, read us some greetings from our regional partners.

My Office

Knowing that people might be touring the studios and offices today, gave me the incentive I needed to finally get some pictures hung on the walls of my office.

If you click on the picture to see it bigger, you will be able to see items of interest such as: computer training books, autographed bat and baseballs, 1960's era Yankees pennant, old bike wheel, and a microfiche reader for perusing Suzuki Samurai dealer parts books.

Memory Lane

Berni Lusse and Susie Milgate have assembled photo panels with pictures of the TWR of yesteryear.

They are in the studio lobby for the 40th anniversary celebration and will stay there after that.

I have photos of each of these panels on my club photo site. I left the photos at a very high resolution, so if you have Internet Explorer set to NOT auto resize the pictures, you will be able to scroll around and see the individual pictures on these panels.

Sandra has put scans of some of these archival photos on the TWR Bonaire web site, so you can see them full size. There are links to them from the home page.

Bonaire Youth rally

Oops, I hit the enter key prematurely and got some of these pictures out of order. But if you scroll down, you'll get the whole story eventually.

About 90 young people came to the youth rally. They did a great job decorating the building with a watersports theme.

The young people sat on giant driftwood logs, when they weren't standing to sing.

Snacks were available after the rally.
Don't forget, you can click on these pictures to make them bigger so you can identify friends, loved ones, and others.

The next morning when I came in to set up the sound system for church, all evidence of the rally was gone. One would never have suspected that the building had been transformed into a windsurfing beach 8 hours earlier. Rumor has it that some of the cleanup crew was there until 4 am.

(this is the part that was supposed to lead off this story)
School is starting back up here on Bonaire. A few local churches got together and held a youth rally saturday evening at the TWR activities building.

Three local pastors did the speaking and Dennis Martinus organized the music. Here is the band. 

TWR - Bonaire Celebrates 40 Years this Week

The weekend of August 20-22 will be our big 40th anniversary weekend here on Bonaire. We'll have a bunch of special visitors and special activities. I plan to post plenty of pictures here and on my Club Photo site, so stay tuned.
Don't forget that you can click on any of the pictures in my blog to see larger versions of them.

Pelican School is Open

Thursday was the first day of the new school year here on Bonaire, including the new Pelican School that is located in our old office wing. It was funny to see the parking lot full of cars again.

Here is a look at the opening day, get acquainted, party. Looks like mostly Dutch kids, which figures, I guess, since the school is taught in Dutch, and the other schools are moving to Papiamentu in the lower grades. By the way, the guy leaning against the wall at the top right of the picture owns a bike shop here on Bonaire. He is also an international water polo referee.

We put a kitchen in what used to be Scott or Joe's office, I think.

Ivan is putting the finishing touches on the boys bathroom, in what used to be my office.

We put in a back door at the end of the hall to server as an emergency exit and for easy access to a play area that the school may build back there.

Here is a shot from yesteryear when the open office area was being added to the office wing. I have more pictures from the archives on our club photo site. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the open office construction photos.

No Bike Ride Today

Last night was another of our FNL (Friday Night Live) shindigs for the students of the two medical schools here on Bonaire.

While I was (foolishly) playing volleyball with the students, being careful monitor the stresses on my aged knees, I did something to my achilles tendon. I heard a pop sound and felt pain. Grrrr.
I'm going to be good and do lots of rest, ice, and elevation (my foot is propped up on my trusty Cambridge Soundworks subwoofer as I type this) and see if I can't be back to normal soon.

I think swimming might work ok, if I can't ride for a while.

Trans World Radio in Spanish

In the Spanish language, Trans World Radio (TWR) is Radio Trans Mundial, or RTM. If you speak Spanish, or if your church has a Spanish language ministry, I thought I'd help you get acquainted with the Spanish version of TWR.

Here is the home page of RTM. There are also individual pages for:
Brazil
Bolivia
Chile
North America
Peru
the Dominican Republic
Paraguay
Uruguay
Venezuela

Here is the first page of the July newsletter of the Dominican Republic office of TWR. There is a story about a lady who came to faith in Jesus Christ after listening to TWR. There is also a story about the Project Hanna - Women of Hope ministry for women.

If you click on the picture, it will load a version big enough for you to read it. At least it did on my computer. If your computer starts to load the picture very large and then shrinks it to fit your screen, you may need to click on the Tools heading at the top of your screen, and then click on Internet Options, then on Advanced, and then Uncheck "Enable Automatic Image Resizing" under the Multimedia heading. This way the picture will stay big and you can scroll down to read the whole newsletter.


Here is page two of the July newsletter. It has an overview of the last 15 years of the DR office and some prayer requests.


Here is the August newsletter. There is a story about a guy who came to know the Lord at a Steve Green concert on Bonaire, which was part of our 25th anniversary celebrations. Later this month, we'll be celebrating 40 years of broadcasting from Bonaire.


Here is page two of the August newsletter. It has stories about a new producer for one of their youth programs and a profile about Amy Richardson, who was a summer intern at the DR office. Amy maintained an online blog while she was in the Dominican Republic. Way to go Amy!

Sardines

At first I thought it might be a New England thing.... I can remember frequently having sardines and crackers for a Sunday evening snack in my youth.... and Jon Savage is from MA. But it turns out that Bob Lassiter (NC) and Ivan (Bonaire) also are sardine lovers.

They decided to have a Sardine feast one day at lunch and invited the rest of us to join them. As you can see, there were no takers, but it looks like they had a grand old time scarfing down Sardines, baked beans, crackers, Gouda cheese, and Coke. Bob L. says one is supposed to drink Pepsi with Sardines, but he couldn't find any on Bonaire that week.

Ezels

North American visitors to Bonaire are often perplexed by the European style road signs. Can you guess what this one means? If you can't read the sign, click on the picture to make it bigger.


Here's a hint. In this picture, one of those sneaky ezels is preparing to ambush an unsuspecting car.


More "brainless quadrupeds", as the old drivers ed manual called them. But we know better now, right?

Blogging Breakthrough

Whoo, whoo! I've recently added a comments feature and now I've learned how to place more than one picture in each of my posts. Who knows what will be next.

All I had to do was to check out the blogger dot com FAQ. Previously I had to do a posting for each picture, in the reverse order that I wanted them to appear online, which was a pain, and also clogged up the index.

See the following story on the Washington Park bike ride for an example of my new improved, multiple picture blog.

Washington Park Bike Ride

A bunch of us rode our bikes in Washington Park last Saturday morning. I think everyone had a good time and might even consider doing it again sometime. :)

I've posted a bunch of pictures from the ride on our Club Photo site, and I've included two here to whet your appetite. You can click on these pictures, as well as the ones on Club Photo to see them bigger.

The road from Playa Funchi to Wayaka is really nice. Sometimes one can see iguanas sunning themselves on the edge of the cliff by the sea.

If you call ahead of time and pay a small fee, the rangers will open the park early for you. We really appreciated this because it allowed us to ride before the sun got too hot. By eleven or so, the park is broiling hot at this time of the year.

Riding in the park first thing in the morning is also great because the sun makes interesting shadows. During the heat of the day, the lighting is flat and hides the features of othe terrain.

Friday Snorkel Adventure

We snorkeled at Andrea II on Friday evening.  We saw some big fish again and took a few pictures, although the sun was getting too low in the sky for good lighting.  We saw a green flash as the sun set over the hills behind the oil terminal.

This Tarpon came cruising by us a number of times. He is probably about four feet long. 

You can click on any of these pictures to see them bigger.

Tiger Grouper 

I kept expecting these baitfish to form pictures as in Finding Nemo. They were facinating to watch as they moved in formation. 

The late afternoon sun makes nice shadows on the fire coral.