One year anniversary!

Today is our first anniversary in our new home.

I'm still unpacking boxes; the last of them are the ones for my office and ones out in the shed. Everything else is done, with the excess hauled to Goodwill. My office will be finished by the end of this summer and the shed will be finished by December (don't fool with it during the hot, hot summer).

We have renovations planned: the kitchen and both bathrooms. All the ceiling fans have been replaced and most of the light fixtures (no more "contractor specials"!). We have installed a new front door and a new door to downstairs. And plan on replacing all the other interior plastic doors with wooden 3 panel doors. We are going to rebuild and expand the deck and put on a front porch. And there is painting to do. This isn't all at once... we have years to work on our home.

I've spent a year watching the yard, and now I am ready to start working on it. There were some beautiful springtime surprises of daffodils, tulips and crocus (most of which I have to move!). This year we will be laying out some of the bones of our gardens... lots up weed/grass killing and mulching (some areas are just too much a pain to fool with mowing), putting in flower beds, a cactus garden, in the lower corner an area of grasses (ones that like it dry!) and a fire pit. Taking out bushes planted wrong (growing too big for where they are) and adding in some in other areas. One of the mulched areas will be a butterfly and bird garden. Herbs and veggies are going to have to wait another year, too much needs to be done to prep the soil.

Not such a fun surprise was the bad drainage problem (the sellers of this home had some gravel hauled in to hide the ruts when they put on the market... first hard rain showed what they did!). So this month we are having the "upper drive" redone... making the approach from the road wider, the drive less angular and the parking area MUCH larger. Also will be addressing the drainage issues by have a ditch worked on and the walls of a French drain repaired.

It has been an adjustment being a 'country mouse' rather than a 'city mouse'. I make a very careful shopping list because to "run to town" to pick up something I forgot is a 14 mile one-way trip (unless I want to stop at the VERY spendy little market 4 miles away). Six miles up the road is the "convenience center": known to us as the "mini dump". No trash pick-up in the country and I've learned I can't have 2 ton trash bags anymore...since I have to lift each bag over my head to throw it in the dumpster! That's where the nearest gas station is too.

In the country you brake for deer and strutting turkeys, not dogs and snarly teens. In the country you stop and help a neighbor catch up his loose bull before you head into town. In the country you realize that people still wave 'hello' and aren't using another hand gesture... In the country you find out that a house makes all sorts of sounds you never heard over the noise in town. In the country you realize that birds still sing and ones you have never seen before come to your feeders. And in the country you look up at a million stars in the night sky and know you don't want to ever live any place else again.

Why we give

In Zimbabwe, children pick up single corn kernels that have been spilled on to the road by trucks ferrying maize imported from South Africa.

In Kenya, children unload food donated by Feed The Children. Tonight 1000 children will not be hungry when they go to bed... many for the first time.

A Hero for Today: Pemba Gyalje Sherpa

The savior and the storm on K2

Heroism: Pemba Gyalje Sherpa

Text by Christian DeBenedetti
Photograph by Daniel Pepper

On August 1, 2008, at just about 8 p.m., a massive serac cleaved from a glacier near the summit of K2, the world's second highest mountain, and barreled down a section of the Cesen climbing route called the Bottleneck. In an instant, one climber was dead, key safety lines were swept away, and 17 climbers were trapped above 27,000 feet with little chance of escape.

In the days ahead, the disaster on K2 would become one of the deadliest mountaineering incidents in history, leaving 11 victims in its wake. The tragedy would shake modern mountaineering to its core. And it would yield a hero, Pemba Gyalje Sherpa.

Pemba, 34, and three members of his Norit K2 team—leader Wilco van Rooijen, Marco Confortola, and Gerard McDonnell—reached the Bottleneck minutes after the serac fell. Rather than face a dangerous descent in total darkness, Pemba's three teammates decided to bivouac for the night. At 27,000 feet the temperatures would reach minus 40ºF. Pemba, a seven-time Everest veteran, knew the dangers of the death zone. He chose instead to descend the Bottleneck alone, without oxygen, picking his way down the 60-degree couloir guided by a single tattered safety line that had survived the avalanche. He reached Camp IV by 1 a.m. His teammates, he assumed, would be down at first light.

By daybreak on August 2, chaos reigned. More than a dozen climbers were missing or dead, and the weather had worsened considerably. Van Rooijen had staggered away from the team, desperate to get down by a different route, and soon became hopelessly lost. McDonnell had wandered back uphill, apparently confused. Frostbitten and delirious, Confortola had climbed partway down the Bottleneck, unable to remember how he'd done it. Just before he passed out from altitude sickness, a second avalanche swept toward him carrying McDonnell's mangled corpse.

With his team in shambles, Pemba had to act fast. He heard over the radio that Confortola had been spotted midway up the Bottleneck. "I thought, OK, if we are lucky, I can rescue Marco," Pemba says. So he began to climb, soloing through swirling snow up the couloir. "It was very scary, but I knew Marco was still alive," he says. "I could not turn back."

When Pemba reached Confortola some hours later, the Italian was in bad shape, unconscious and suffering from severe altitude sickness. Somehow Pemba managed to revive him with oxygen and guide him to the base of the Bottleneck. At that moment another slide roared from above, this time carrying the bloodied bodies of two Sherpas and two Korean climbers. A chunk of falling ice blasted Confortola in the back of the head. Dazed, the Italian began to slip. "I was falling," he told a reporter. "The avalanche would have taken me away. But Pemba grabbed me from behind. He was holding my neck. He saved my life."

By the time the pair made it to Camp IV, Pemba was shattered, collapsing into his tentfor a few hours' sleep. When he woke that evening, he got word that van Rooijen, the lost Norit K2 leader, was still alive. He had to go out again.

After a night alone in the open with no water and no ice ax, van Rooijen had been presumed dead. Then, unexpectedly, he called his wife on his satellite phone. Using the call data, the Norit K2 team fixed his location on the mountain's South Face, far from any known routes.

Armed with only rough coordinates, Pemba, along with another survivor, Cas van de Gevel, struck into terra incognita, picking across avalanche-prone terrain at night. After searching for hours, the pair decided to resume the next day. They finally found van Rooijen in the late afternoon by following the sound of his ringing cell phone. The three men staggered into Camp III well after dark, on August 3, exhausted but alive.

In the weeks after the tragedy, Pemba returned to his Kathmandu home, far from the horrors he'd just witnessed. You'd think that after such an experience, he would never want to climb again, soured forever. But Pemba has no such plans. He'll be back in the mountains, he says, by the time next season rolls around. Thank goodness. Climbing needs more heroes like him.

Bonsai Workshop

Himself and I traveled an hour and a half east to Lebanon, TN to attend a bonsai workshop. The workshop lesson was on how to pick out trees to work with from nursery stock. Excellent!

We were told to bring anything we were working on that we’d like to get some help with. For me… that was EVERYTHING! All five of them. One was the tree I’d worked on in March (the sticks – which by the way have leafed out nicely), three were nursery plants I had gotten at Lowes because I thought they had potential and the last was a Japanese maple that I had nearly killed in the move last year (trees do need watering occasionally!).

Now imagine my surprise when the lecturer used my table as his examples of what to look for! And my bigger surprise when he had only nice things to say about what I’d picked out!! That made me feel really good.

Next we went out into the nursery grounds and Owen showed what trees were good candidates and what were a bit too fussy to try to do bonsai on. He said “in general” nursery stock is a good choice because the plant is already used to being abused. He also said that the reject area of a nursery is a good place to look, as the plants go cheap and need some serious pruning anyway.

I found 2 plants in the reject area and 3 in the regular area that I want to work on.

So these 10 should keep me busy for this year!














My nursery stock prospects.















Working on a tree















Wiring the branches















Finished... for now...




















Making the tree look aged

Pruning for the perfect shape

A Hero for Today: Ashley Clements of World Vision

Dynamo in the Disaster Zone
Humanitarian Work: Ashley Clements
Text by Lucas Pollock
Photograph by Justyna Mielnikiewicz

The cyclone-ravaged Irrawaddy Delta in Myanmar. Iraqi refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon. Georgia after the Russian invasion. These are not destinations most people seek out. But Ashley Clements is not like most people.

As an emergency coordination specialist for U.S.-based World Vision, Clements, 27, is the aid world's equivalent of a first responder. He shuttles into emerging disaster zones, often ahead of other humanitarian groups and mainstream press, to scout situations, drum up global support with photos and video, and get aid flowing in the right directions. Then he rolls up his shirtsleeves.

In Myanmar, Clements arrived to a land leveled by storm, with an estimated 130,000 dead or missing. Among the ruins, he interviewed orphaned children and fought to reunite them with relatives, however distant, before they were placed in the state's corrupt and squalid facilities. In Jordan, he photographed Iraqi refugees, specifically children, for CNN and the BBC. "I reached 125 million people with[a single] image," he says—an effort that helped integrate thousands of refugee kids into Jordanian schools. In Georgia, Clements touched down before the bullets stopped flying, to assist the 80,000 or so Ossetian and Georgian refugees who had fled to Tbilisi. There he prepped them for winter, handing out blankets and helping to establish cooking facilities, which delivered food to some 25,000 people. There were other disasters in 2008, of course—Darfur and China, to name just two—and other aid workers doing miraculous work. But in terms of sheer global reach and tireless advocacy, few can match Ashley Clements.

Fellowship, Serving, Missions and Good Works

In organizing a group for the purpose of doing mission projects, I've come to find out that there is a lot of confusion between 4 very different activities. Christian Fellowship. Serving in your church home. Doing mission work. And doing "good works".

In the research I've done, I have found that all are mandated in the Bible. And that EVERY Christian is expected to do ALL four as an every day part of their lives in Christ.

Christian fellowship is the 'gathering' of believers for companionship/enjoyment, education and encouragement. It is Sunday school, community groups, a bunch of Christian friends having a bar-b-q, youth group going to a theme park, a Bible study, two believers meeting for lunch...

Serving is your responsibility as a member of a group of believers (a "church") to give of yourself in support of the church. You serve by being a part of the team doing the work needed for the church service to happen. The Sunday School teachers. The ushers and greeters. The worship team. Office volunteers. The guy that makes the coffee. Picking your trash up off the floor before you leave. In serving you are giving to your particular church.

Missions is going out AWAY from your church and doing something that either brings the gospel of Jesus to nonbelievers or is a supporting action to those who are spreading the Word. The purpose of missions is to let other learn about Jesus. I was pretty ticked when at my former church the youth pastor decided a grand "mission" trip would be to take the youth to Disney World. When told this was NOT a mission trip, he attempted to justify it (with a grin and a wink) by saying "We will hand out tracts as we wait in lines!" Sorry dude, that is a fellowship trip... not missions.

I'm also finding out that another "trend" with mission activities is the belief that once an activity is finished, those participating need to be "rewarded" for doing it. Especially among those who work with youth. Excuse me? Isn't being a part of God's plan for this earth reward enough?? Fellowshipping afterwards over a burger is one thing (a good thing) but expecting to do something like going to a water park is another entirely different thing.

And good works are when you do activities that have a positive impact on your community or even the world but these activities do not result in the spreading of the gospel. This is the one I personally need to be more aware of when selecting activities. Christians doing "good things" is not missions. For example, our ladies mission group is participating in the Komen Race for the Cure. And we were thinking of it as a mission activity, especially since we have church members who are fighting this battle. But when you think about it, there is nothing to do with missions in this activity. Good works...yes. Fellowship... yes. Missions...no.

We are supposed to do good works. But we are also called to be good stewards of that which has been given us (money, time, energy, resources). My personal take on that is that a majority of what we do should be directly related to proclaiming His Word. And a few activities should fall under that good works umbrella... and while we are doing them, we need to make sure that those watching can at least see Christ in our actions.

Updates from this winter

It has been a BUSY three months! But you sure can't tell it by looking at this blog. Ouch! So, I'll get y'all updated on what's been going on and then try very hard to not let it slip again.

Himself once again is up in Alaska as medical officer on the M/V Independence. They spent this season in Akutan Bay.

I've spent this winter while Deane is gone finally going thru those boxes from the move. I have sorted...put up...Goodwilled... dumped.... more boxes then you know. But I have almost finished that huge pile in the garages. And will finish them by the time Himself gets home. And I have finished with my upstairs sorting and putting up. What a relief.

Now that spring is coming, my attention is being pulled by our yard. This year we will be doing a lot of foundational work to set up future planting and seating areas. A LOT of mulching. I have been delighted by the spring bulbs that have come up in the yard. However, most will have to be moved as they are right in the areas we are going to re-do.

To help with all our yard projects, I have started attending the Montgomery Co Master Gardeners meetings. In March I was able to take their "short course" series of classes, which gave me some basic information and lots of people to call for help.

Photography is going fairly well. I'll be very happy when I get some of this home work stuff finished so I can pay more attention to it. I've had one showing with the group and entered the KY Extension Service photo contest again (received two 3rd place ribbons). I have been shooting a LOT of photos, and that is an improvement. To help with that discipline, I've started a blog photo site. I've seen a few places where people are shooting at every day and posting one photo each day that they have taken. It's called Project 365. My site is at: http://project365-teri.blogspot.com/

In January, Brenda and I decided we needed to be doing more mission type service. So Brenda and I formed a group we call "Mission Chicks". There are six of us right now and I expect a few more will come in. We are *partnering* with our church to do missions. Kinda of an "I'll scratch your back and you scratch mine" thing. When we do partner, they basically provide us the resources of people, money or name backing and we provide them with the leg work, organization/planning and recognition. It's a win-win situation. If we come up with something they don't want to be a part of, we do it anyway ourselves.

We kicked off on the 15th with a one day collection of items for one of the Mission Chicks who is going to Nicaragua on a mission trip. We didn't do badly at all.

Now we are planning in April a month long...church wide involvement...focus on our crisis pregnancy center (Hope Pregnancy Center www.clarksvillehope.com ). We're calling it "A Month of Hope".

The director is a member of our church (it's his son that I hire to help me occasionally). Rog says the 3 things they always need are 1. disposable diapers 2. formula 3. maternity clothes. So we are organizing collections of all three! We're going to have a competition between the elementary kids (girls v boys) on who can bring in the most diapers. Winner will get something (TBD ). The adult community groups will collect formula. And we will have a hamper at church that anyone can drop off maternity clothes in. Also, the center has a deck that needs painting and landscaping to be neatened. Our youth will be doing that one Saturday.

And besides that... (as if that is not enough) we have a breakfast to host at the site of a room makeover for an ill teenager, a community Easter egg hunt and a team for the Koman Race for the Cure that will be here in Clarksville on 18 April.

In for a penny... in for a pound!!

Beginning of the year, we received notice that our first Compassion child - Sintayehu from Ethiopia - had left the program. She will turn 21 this July. She decided it was time to leave school and enter adult life. We had been her sponsors for 8 years.

Then a short time after that I received notice that my favorite Compassion "writing buddy" (a program in Compassion to write sponsored children whose sponsors - for whatever reason - will not write them) had lost his sponsor. Did I want to take him on? It didn't take long to answer that query with a "Yes!". I will post about Sundar a bit later on.

And towards the end of Jan, a girl in the Kenya's Kids In Need program needed a co-sponsor. I had wanted an older student (the other 2 we sponsor thru them are in 4th and 5th grades). Ivine is also an orphan and lives in the boarding house portion of the school. I'll write more about her later on also.

And a bit of housekeeping on some older posts...

On 7 Feb I posted about the Sheldrick Trust rescuing the tiny baby rhino "Maalim". I am happy to let you know that he is thriving and has doubled his size in that time.

11 March I posted an appeal for Compassion sponsored "Global Food Crisis Day". Compassion was hoping to raise $1M in this campaign... instead they raised $3.1M!!! Incredible!!!

OK, now that I have this done... I will really try harder to be a better blogger!