It has been some time now since I last blogged. So sorry. Time just seems to be flying by.
I just came in from picking Mulberries. They are somewhat like blackberries, and very tasty. We have them right in our yard and they make a great addition to my apple crisp. I have frozen some for future use. They create a great quick desert when we have company coming. Today I am also making my mother's ice-box cookies. I try to treat the staff at the college with either banana bread or ice-box cookies every couple of weeks at our faculty meetings or BOA (Board of Administration) meetings. This week it will be cookies. I call these my mom's ice-box cookies because they were my favorite cookies when I was a kid. My mom never cooked from recipes written out. They were all in her head. I had never baked these cookies until towards the end of my mom's life, when I asked her for the recipe. She died about six months after that and they are the only cookies I bake regularly. I think of her whenever I bake them. When I take cookies or banana bread to share with our staff, I sometimes add Cokes as all these things are appreciated treats not affordable by our staff.
Our daughter Starla arrived on September 15th and is with us until October 14th. See picture below to see how excited I was to see her!!!
It is absolutely fabulous to have her here with us, although she has spent more time with her dad than with her mom. They are currently on a four day trip to Rifa, which is a hunting conservatory owned and operated by friends of ours from Bulawayo. Unfortunately, I am not on college break and so not able to tour around the country with them. I do, however, absolutely love what I am doing here and know that this is what God has called me to do and where I am to be at this particular time in my life. It is great, though, that Glen has both the time and the means to tour Starla around, showing her much of this beautiful country that has become our second home.
The three of us, Glen, Starla and I, spent a weekend viewing the sights at Vic Falls and Starla is certainly having some unique experiences while she is here.
Mid-term exam time has rolled around again so I am busy preparing those. Our friends the Norries have returned from Ontario and the Wilsons have returned from California. The eight of us, being the Allan's, the Wilson's, both from AOG (Assemblies of God) in the US and the Norries and us with PAOC in Canada, along with Starla, got together for fellowship and a meal out on Thursday this past week.
It is almost impossible to fathom that in about six weeks we will be returning to Canada and seeing many of you. We have now been in Zimbabwe for more than a year...with our sights set on being here for at least one more year.
Here is a picture of our some of our staff at work in the Academic Dean's office (which he and I share) on our self assessment as we work towards accreditation. Our goal is to be accredited by November, 2015.
We have just received an invitation from the Canadian Ambassador's office to attend a Canadian Thanksgiving complete with turkey and stuffing. We are looking forward to that and meeting some other Canadians serving in various capacities in this country. It is summer time here...about 34 degrees C today so it doesn't seem quite like Thanksgiving time, but we will enjoy celebrating in the sun. Christmas, however, will be in Canada and we look forward to getting together with many family and friends across the country during our short month at home.
That's all for now folks!!!!
Love and Blessings
Marj
Good morning, how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because through them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are very small countries with very few population, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this, I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Zimbabwe? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Zimbabwe in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Avenida Juan de la Cierva, 44
28902 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally, I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely