Bible College Anniversary Banquet 2008

The Bible College just celebrated its 37th anniversary. The week ends with a banquet. There were over 600 people present. I am sharing some of these pictures for the benefit of our co-workers who are in the States and missed this years banquet.




Hannah played piano for the instrumental trio. The lady is from our church, the man on the left graduated from the Bible College last year from the music program and is currently teaching a few music lessons. He is also furthering his music studies at the conservatory downtown. The young man to the left is just 18, but an excellent violinist.


The choir sang a special.


Mens ensamble




The entrada was quite impressive. The current cook at the Bible College is a chef. On the side, he prepares food for banquets, weddings and other events. He enjoys showing off his creations and we are the fortunate people who get to enjoy them.


The main food was this chicken dish. We still haven't figured out what the green stuff was. It didn't have a strong flavor to distinguish what it was. The chef refuses to share his secret.


Every year they serve cake at the end of the banquet. It was close to midnight when we finally cut the cake. I was asked at the last minute to cut the cake and help serve it. To my left is the wife of the men's supervisor and to my right, the director's wife.

Contruction and Painting

The sidewalk was finally poured on Thursday after 4 weeks. I think the workers forgot about our street. They had the sidewalks done all around our street, but never got to our street until this week. Then they got it done quickly. I guess after more than a month of pouring sidewalks, they have become quite efficient.


They were even using a truck and tractor to take away the debris.


I took this picture out of my bedroom window. The interesting thing about this contruction site is that they are using the roof of the house next door to mix their cement and bend their reinforcement rods. They still block the street with their sand and rock piles and with their workers.



This past Thursday, the children and I continued painting the backyard and back of house. Since Jon was in an all-day meeting, I decided that we would not tackle the second floor. I took a picture of it this morning so you can see the contrast. The old color was white with brick red accents. Now we are painting it hazelnut and burnt earth (brick red). The next project will be to get the wood frames stained and varnished. They have also been neglected for too long.

Invention

Sarah's favorite past time is reading. When we need her, we just have to look in her favorite reading places.




The three boys invented a new game called, "Invented." Such an original name for their new game. They use a combination of the game, "Settlers of Catan," and K'nex pieces, and some pieces from a Monopoly game. They play this game for hours at a time. Mark invited Jon to play with them one evening. Jon says it is a game for kids since the rules are so complicated and only the boys understand how to play it.

Another River Trip

We live in a city of over 700,000 people. Our houses are close together and there are many city noises. Once in a while we like to just get away.

Jon and the boys finished the rock bridge.


Swimming in the new swimming hole.


The girls relax.

Painting the back wall

Since we moved into our house back in 2001, we have not painted the walls in our backyard. Now that the boys are older, they make great helpers. First we had to sand off the old paint. The color we chose was called hazelnut. Reminds me of a cappuccino.






The finished product. We got most of the wall done before we ran out of paint. On a later date we will finsh the rest, do the house, then the laundry room.

Construction Everywhere

They broke up our sidewalk three weeks ago. The workers have put in more sidewalks all around us. I think they forgot our street.


Construction is everywhere. We don't know from day to day which street will be closed by piles of sand and rocks.

The kids trying out Grandpa's new tractor.

A Morning at the River

Thursday is our normal family day. Unless there is some major event, we use this day to be together, do some house projects, some necessary shopping, or just to do nothing. This Thursday, we went to the river. During the dry season in the mountains, the river downstream has just a little bit of water and is a lot of fun for us. It is about a 20 minute drive from our house. Close enough to get to, but away from the noise of the city.


Luke and Mark are the only brave ones to actually get in to swim.


Jon and the boys make a bridge in the river with the rocks.


The bridge continues.


We have to park our pick-up on the river bank then walk though some sugar cane plants to get to the river. This picture was taken from there.

CSI Trujillo, Season 1

During the early hours of September 18th, some robbers entered our church and stole all of the plastic chairs, the portable organ, a guitar, the entire sound system, and a wood door which was to be put into the parsonage. Replacement value was about $1000.


According to CSI Nico and CSI Jon, the robbers entered a second floor window which was open. They used our new protection bars to hoist themselves up. Weren't they there to protect us?? Once inside they were able to open the big double front door, even with a deadbolt.


Since the police weren't too concerned with the petty theft, our CSI agents were hard at work. This is Nico measing the width of the tires.


The guilty footprint. Now which type of tenner is this?