Scratch Pot Luck

In today's world cooking by scratch is almost a lost art as it can be time consuming.  However, in some of the areas that our students will be living, there will not be grocery stores close by. They might not be able to buy box mixes or already prepared foods like what we can get here in North America.  Therefore, we have encouraged our students to try out cooking from scratch.  To some it is something they already do and to others there is a bit of a learning curve.  Some of us staff ladies had scratch cooking demonstrations at our houses.  Then last week our students enjoyed a week of cooking from scratch and we ended the week with a "Scratch Potluck".  There was all sorts of great food that showed up at our pot luck.

The Stinky Fish Food Challenge

Our students have been enjoying several food challenges throughout the year.  They had a food challenge with stinky black eggs, stinky cheese and several others.  As you know Vern enjoys a VERY wide variety of foods many of which I will not touch.  One of the things he enjoys is stinky smoked fish.  He ended up soaking some in vinegar with hot peppers, onions, and garlic.  He thought it would be fun to bring in his tasty treat to challenge the students into eating it.  I believe most of the students were up for the challenge.

No More Teenagers in the House

Well after 17 years of having at least one teenager in the house we are now saying good-bye to the teen-age years.  I can clearly remember when Caleb celebrated his first day of being a teenager.  We were in the tribe and played the Wayne Watson song: "Teenager in the House" MANY times throughout the day.  Now it is time to pack that song away as we no longer have a teen-ager in the house.  Twenty years ago, in a hospital in Caracas, we welcomed our youngest child into the world, Titus Otto Dyck.  Happy Birthday Titus, we are so blessed to have you as our son.  We are so excited to see where God has taken you, and for the man you have grown into.  Keep pressing on, making a difference in this world.  Know we love you and are cheering you on in life.

Snapshots

Since some of you who follow my blog aren't on facebook, I thought I would post a few more pictures of our time in Charlotte.  

Training Session

One area I have been involved in these last couple of years is training our child in areas of Child Safety.  Last week Brenda and I  had the opportunity to attend a "Praesidium" Presenters Training.  A big part of the Praesidium course is teaching kids self protection, building healthy boundaries, and then learning how to respond if someone tries to violate those boundaries.  I am looking forward to seeing how we can implement all the things we learned to help our children in areas of Child Safety and Protection.