On Saturday morning, our missions conference started at 9:00, with some coffee, juice, bagels, and muffins, followed by our keynote speaker.  The theme of the conference was Reaching our International Neighbors - in other words, people who might be from other countries and cultures who live here in the US, in our neighborhoods, workplaces, colleges, etc.  We learned about understanding other cultures and relating to people on a personal level, listening to them and their stories, and establishing relationships with them, and being able to share our lives AND share the gospel with them.  We had some in-depth teaching on a few of Jesus' parables.

Besides the keynote speaker, we heard reports from several missionaries, including one young man who serves the international community at Virginia Tech.  It was all very interesting and informative!

Following the morning sessions, which lasted until lunchtime, we had something we have done before - an International Tasting.  We had members of our congregation make food representing all of the countries that we have missionaries serving in.  We put flags up from each country, and at each table, besides the food, there were stickers from each country.  Everyone had a small "passport", telling about the missionaries and the countries, and with a space on each page to put the sticker from each country.  Also in the passport was information about our church's missions activities and how we support our missionaries financially.  You go around to each table and try a taste of each food!

Here are some general pictures of our fellowship hall all set up -

                                 

                                 

                                 

                                 

                                 

                                 

                                 

                                 

                                 

                                 

                                 

                                 

                                 

Remember Al, our 90 yr old dear friend?  He made 2 different dishes, representing China and Thailand -

                                 

Jim and I had the Canada table.  Remember that moose that is still in our freezer ( we have been eating it, but goodness, there is a lot of it!) from Newfoundland?  Well, here it is in meatballs and sausage!  It was a big hit, especially when people heard that Jim went there and hunted it himself!

                                 

                                 

One of our elders and missions committee member was drawing a lot of attention with his Celtic drum -

                                 

                                 

We had a woman come and play traditional accordion polka music - it made the whole thing very festive and fun!

                                 

                                 

                                 

Here is our good friend, David, and his daughter -

                                 

I'm showing a lot of these pictures because some of my local friends will enjoy seeing these people!

We had another special evening program, and that brought the conference to an end.  It is always such a wonderful weekend!  I had the special privilege this year of signing the morning program for Betsy, who came with Bryan, her new fiance.  That kept me quite busy!  I was glad I was interpreting for my own daughter, who was so gracious and sweet about any mistakes I made!  I still have a long way to go, but it was good practice and the only way to improve is to keep working on it!

This weekend we had our annual Missions Conference at church.  Jim and I have been on the missions committee for many years, and the missions conference is always a highlight of the year for us!

For the past few years, we have started out the conference on a Friday night by hosting a dinner for the missionaries and the missions committee and a few extra people, at our house.  Everyone from the missions committee brings food, so I just really need to get the house ready and the tables set up!

I purchased these fall tablecloths last year, and I put some fall-looking items on them as centerpieces, like this.  That's the limit of my creativity!

                                     

                                     

Here we all are, eating - we had 19 people, spread at several tables -

                                     

                                     

                                     

The man on the right here, was our keynote speaker for the weekend.  On the left is Pam, wife of Steve, our missions conference chairman. 

                                     

Here are Pam and Steve -

                                     

More people as they are eating!

                                     

Here, Jim is on the left.  On the right, is one of our missionaries, who does missions work in Germany and other places in Europe -

                                     

Betsy and Bryan are posing with Al, who is Pam's father.  Al is a very young 90 year-old who has more energy than the rest of us put together!

                                     

Looks like Pam and Bill are having an interesting discussion -

                                     

Here is John, our pastor -

                                     

After dinner, Jim and our good friend, Bud, are relaxing -

                                     

This man is from Germany; we really enjoyed getting to know him!

                                     

                                  

On the right here is Martha, our pastor's wife, and she is here chatting with Art, one of our elders and missions committee members -

                                     

That was a fun evening, where everyone can just mingle and the missionaries can get to know some of the church people before they are overwhelmed by everyone else when the conference starts the next morning!

More later - our Saturday conference!

Here are some pictures of my grandchildren, and their happy aunt, from the past week.

                                  

                                  

                                  

                                  

                                  

                                  

                                  

                                  

                                  

                                  

                                  

The Swinging Bridge restaurant is in a small town called Paint Bank, VA, about an hour from Roanoke.  It was a half-way point between Union, West Virginia and here.  My friend, Evelyn, who used to live here, but now lives in St. Louis, was visiting family in West Virginia, and so we met for lunch.  My sister-in-law, Joan, who has also been a friend of Evelyn's went with me.

                                   
                                        

The restaurant is right on the main road and was connected to an old-fashioned general store.

                                        

Here was the store that we went through on our way into the restaurant -

                                        

                                        

Inside, there is a swinging bridge -

                                        

When you go upstairs to see more of the store, you can walk across the bridge!  There are buffalo and bears all around!

                                        

                                        

Sorry, that one was dark.  Here are Joan and Evelyn -

                                        

Me and Evelyn - it was such a windy day; we were all cold and windblown!

                                        

We had a nice lunch!  You could get buffalo meat in various forms, but there are many other choices.  We all opted for chicken salad sandwiches on a crispy sub roll.  Very yummy!

Paint Bank was so easy to find.  And it was an absolutely beautiful drive through the mountains on this fall day!
                                

Betsy got engaged to Bryan this past weekend!  What a lot of excitement we had!  Jim and I are so happy to be welcoming him into our family.

                                  

Here is her beautiful ring -

                                     

The wedding date is April 3rd.  So now we will all be planning a wedding!         

We had a church picnic this afternoon, at lunch time!  Wonderful food and fellowship!  Here are some pictures!

                                              

                                       

                                        

                                         

                                            

                                           

                                            

                                               

                                             

                                             

                                             

                                             

                                             

                                             

WIT - stands for Weekend Interpreter Training.  Here's the story - I am in a sign language study group that we call JAVAS.  There are 4 of us, who have taken most of our ASL and interpreting classes together, and a few years ago, we formed a study group.  We had the initials - JAVAS - first, because we always met in a coffee shop.  Then we had to come up with the full name - so we decided on Jubilantly Aspiring Virginia ASL Signers.  We meet once a week on Monday nights and we do a variety of things - we go through different ASL curriculum, we practice fingerspelling, watch videos and DVD's of ASL and interpreting-related things, etc.  Sometimes we have special people come and teach us something in their field of expertise, like ASL storytelling, idioms, use of signing space, special terminology, how to set up an interpreting practice, etc.

Two of us are now doing interpreting in our local school systems!  That is so exciting!  Two of us, me and Gina, are not.  The area we live in has an opportunity for further education for anyone working in the area of interpreting in the schools, called WEIT - which stands for Weekend Educational Interpreter Training.  It is an entire weekend, once a month, of classes at a community college an hour or so away.  Gina and I wanted to do something similar, so we decided on WIT - Weekend Interpreter Training.  Neither of us can really spend the number of hours the educational interpreters do on their weekends away, but we can still do quite a bit.

So, we started this weekend, last night, meeting to work on signing skills, continued this morning at the rehearsal for the show "Scrooge," which my daughter Betsy is directing and which will have one interpreted performance by JAVAS along with 2 other interpreters.  This afternoon and evening, we continued working with some books and DVDs that we have to study with.  We felt like we made a lot of good progress!

On a side note - late last night, we were at Starbucks - it was close to closing time - when a young college student pulled out of her parking place right into my car!  I was in Starbucks blissfully drinking my decaf mocha and signing with Gina when someone else saw it happen.  Not much damage, but a little - enough to have to spend this week taking my car to the shop, driving a rental, talking to the insurance co again, I am sure.  The poor girl was pretty shaken up about it!  I imagine that her father, who pays for her car and her insurance, isn't very happy right about now!  Everyone was fine, and I tried to calm her down, but she was pretty shaky!  No one was hurt and cars can be fixed!

Luna has been promoted!  To Level 3 in her dog obedience training.  And yes, we are keeping her!  We think she will make a great hearing dog, and we will be working with her on her issues with other dogs, using a Gentle Leader.  We are wondering if all that time she spent with so many dogs has made her aggressive with dogs now.  Who knows.  I'll keep everyone posted about her training.  Meanwhile, here are some pictures of Luna on Saturday, going in the car, working at the dog school, and a few of other dogs. 

                                    

                                    

                                    

                                    

                                    

                                    

                                    

Here you have to "meet and greet."  The dogs are suppose to stay sitting or lying down, while another person walks up and chats with you -

                                    

Here are some of the other dogs that were there Saturday -

                                    

                                    

                                    

                                    

I think that Luna is the only dog in this class that is being trained to be a service dog right now.  Here is Ann, who was the trainer for today -

                                    

Luna did pretty well.  We have another class Tuesday night.  I think she'll be in Level 3 awhile, because the work is harder, and her difficulty in behaving and working when other dogs are around is going to take awhile to work on.

In other news, the kids came over for Labor Day dinner!  Here is Charlie -

                                    

Here he is with his Daddy, out in our woods -

                                    

                                    

And here is Megan, first on her Mommy's lap, and then with Grandpa -

                                   

                                   

That was our weekend!  Dog training, visiting, cleaning, and a little bit of sewing!  I'll put up pictures of the quilt I am piecing when I get it pieced.  And some of you might remember that last year I started a Christmas cross stitch stocking for Charlie that I never finished.  Well, I am now working on it again, and I intend to get it finished for this Christmas!  I have one to make for Megan too!  If we could only put Christmas off for a couple of months. . . .

Last week I started an online search for some long-lost relatives.  And I found some!  Praise the Lord!  I was able to "chat" via Facebook and e-mail with 2 of my cousins.  One, a young man who is the son of a first cousin.  And the other is his mother, who I haven't seen in over 35 years.

I'll start from the beginning -

My mother had 4 siblings.  2 brothers, who had died long ago, and neither had children.  2 sisters, and all 3 of the sisters (my mother was the youngest and she is now 89) had 2 children each, a boy and a girl.

In my growing- up years, we spent a lot of time in my mother's hometown of Philipsburg, PA with her oldest sister and those cousins.  I am still close to them today, closer lately, since my mother has been ill.  The other sister lived in Morristown, NJ, and we also spent a lot of time there, with those cousins.  Somewhere in the years between the time that middle sister died and now, my mother lost touch with that family.  I was in high school at the time of my aunt's death.

My mother never wanted to keep in touch with her sister's family, and I was not in a position to tell her what to do or pursue it on my own, and then I let it drop as well.  My parents moved to FL, I got married and moved around with my husband's military career, and so on. 

Lately, with my mother in a nursing home and in a debilitated state where she does not remember any of this, I have been writing back and forth with the Philipsburg cousins.  One of them now lives in FL, and we are Facebook friends, and so we keep up with each other.  Lately we have been talking a lot about the old days and my parents, and last week, we chatted about that other set of cousins, wondering where they are and how to find them.

So, we started an online search.  We found an obituary for one cousin, who sadly died in 2004 at the age of 59.  We knew he had MS.  And then, through the obituary, I found out the names of his 4 children - I knew that he and his wife had divorced many years ago.  So, I started with the obvious - FACEBOOK!!!  I looked up the names of the children, who I knew had to be somewhere between the ages of 30 and 40+ now, and I found 2 of them!!!   One of them, a young man, was very gracious and happy to re-connect with family after all these years.  He gave me his mother's e-mail address, and she and I have been writing back and forth!  We are still trying to piece together the story of where the relationships fell apart and how it was that there had been no communication all these years.

But the sister, who is now about 66 - 68 age-range - has not been heard from all these years.  They told me that they had run her brother's obituary for a couple of days, hoping she would get in touch with them.  So, now I had her married name - 2 married names, actually - and the name of her son, and try as I have, I cannot find them.  Not even an obituary.  The son's name is very common, so I would have trouble there, but the sister's name isn't.

So, here is my request after that long story. . .  who knows . . . it is a small world.  I am putting the names on her just in case anyone knows anyone by these names!

My cousin's name was Georgianna Daher, and she was originally from Morristown, NJ.  She married a Frank Flanagan, and they had a son, also Frank.  The last known address for Georgianna was Dover, NJ.  The son, Frank, was last known living in PA somewhere.  Apparently, after her divorce from Frank Flanagan, Georgianna married a man named Joe Brady.

The whole family was originally from Philipsburg, PA, near State College.

I have been praying about this and I know that if the Lord would have me find Georgianna, it will happen. 

But, the important thing to learn from this sad story is not to follow my mother's ( and some of her family's) footsteps and let pride, hurt, and a desire to be "right" keep you from staying in touch with family members. 

I have asked my mother about these family members, in hopes that she will remember something that will help, but she is not lucid enough to remember any of this.

My other cousins, the ones who I am continually chatting with and am soooo thankful for, are talking about putting together a written record of the family.  No one has done it, to our knowledge, and I think it is a great idea!

Fed up with frivolity, the fall will focus on factual forays but not fully, for fictional friends will forever be favorites.

Every summer for many years, Betsy and I have come up with a topic for summer reading, and then make up an alliteration to fit it.  Then she had gone back to school in the fall, and she had too many academic assignments to work on during the school year.  But this year, she is not going back to school, and so we came up with a fall reading alliteration after I told her that so much of what I read this summer was frivolous and I was ready to get back into some serious, worthwhile reading.

Basically, this one means that we are going to do more non-fiction reading but with some fiction thrown in!

Our fall reading officially starts on September 1st.  But, although it is fiction, Julie Paulsen and I have already started a book very highly recommended by our husbands and Betsy, Atlas Shrugged.  It isn't frivolous by any means!