Currently Reading Secret Believers: What Happens When Muslims Believe in Christ By Baker Publishing Group, Al Janssen see related

Finally

   Well folks I guess this is long overdue. My life is surprisingly busy for not being able to do much on anything but level ground. Galen and I have been studying, and pretesting for our GEDs.  So last week, Wed.-Thur. we took our test and........... PASSED! WHOOHOO! We decided that we must be smart now. The night before, we celebrated our last night of ignorance. So now I'm not quite sure what I'm going to start next. I've been looking into several possibilities, and praying about it. My foot isn't really good enough to start working a regular job. I would appreciate some extra prayer if anyone cares to do that for me. Thank in advance.

   Sunday evening I went to Montgomery (I think that's how its spelled), and took Jenny along. The message was really good (about trials being what makes our faith grow stronger), and we had a great time, it helped me not feel so lonely with Em, and Jo gone. I might take her along to market on Sat., we'll have to see if that works out.

  I would write more but I'm feeling kind of sleepy, and lazy so.........

!Adios!   Doug

Market funnies!

   Tee shirt, and bill cap quotes from market.

There were other funny quotes, but when you try to think of them they all disappear. I think I did quite well under the circumstances.

Emily and I had a great day, and lots of fun at market. We almost sold out!

Update on the ankle: I can walk on it now...... some, but I have to be really careful on rough terrain. If I down watch real close I can feel it try to give, and pop out of joint. It sure is hard for a guy like me, since normally I lead a very active life - lots of jumping, running, and riding bike when I can. If I get the time in the next few days, I might do a little longer post about what I've been doing while I'm down, and what the Lords been teaching me through this time.

So with that I'll sign off,

Doug

 Well we made it safely back from our trip to WI. It took a little longer than usual, because someone missed the one exit (well there is ACTUALY no proof that it was me, I was just the one driving)and we ended up wayyy beyond where we were supposed to turn. But like I say there is no PROOF it was me.

  We had a great time up there!! Thanks again to everyone who let us stay at their place while we were up, and thanks to all our friends that made it so cool. It's great to know that ya have really good friends, even if their a thousand miles away. I guess thats what xanga, and email, and IM is for right? (hint, hint) Galens left for WI almost as soon as we got home. I tried hard to convince Galen that he needed a relief driver. But he's the only one who agreed.

  Today I went and cut weeds for Melvin. I worked till I used up all the gas he had. So while he went to get more, I shoveled gravel on his parking lot. When he got back, I finished weed eating, and as I was coming back to the house with the weed eater I came to a ditch that was about 5 feet wide, and decided that I wanted to jump across. I didn't feel like going all the way to the end of it, and it isn't really the smartest thing to walk down into such places here in the south, too many snakes. besides all that I just plane down like to jump. I did have the presents of mind to turn off the weed eater before I jumped though. The jump was perfect, I landed well on the other side and the weed eater didn't even touch the ground. However my right foot landed on a loose rock and rolled off. when I looked down at it it was off at a strange angle. Without thinking about it I reached down and moved it back into place with a good solid pop (sorry for all the details). I felt it start to swell almost immediately and quick hobbled to the house. It just so happens that the mans wife is a chiropractor, when she heard about it, she told me that I could have let her put it in for me. After I got paid I hopped out to the car and realized that I would have to drive with my left foot for the first time in my life. The painfulness of the ride was not helped at all by the fact that the road was extremely rough and it took my left foot a little while to get coordinated. So now I'm sitting on the couch with my foot propped up and an ice pack on it while everyone else is at a picnic. Oh well at least I didn't have to do chores.

 Have a great night,

 -Doug

Chickens......ahem! I realy don't mind it that bad.

 Yes we actually butchered chickens again yesterday. It was just Galen and me, because everyone else was "busy". We didn't get started very early, but we were determined to get a bunch out of the way by chore time. Well we got all set up, stopped for dinner, and then finally got started. We had a hole that we were planning to throw all the feathers and "stuff" (I'll spare you the details) into, and then cover it up. But upon realizing that the hole was too small we decided to dig another one. By the time we finished that it was starting to thunder, but we didn't see very many clouds, so we decided to go ahead and start. We got the first two killed, and were just starting to pluck them when the rain came. It started kind of slow and we thought maybe we'd just stay out there and keep plucking, but suddenly it started raining very hard, and HUGE drops, so we made a bolt for the house. After standing indecisively in the door way for a few minutes, watching the rain, we decided that one of Galens small out buildings would work. We dashed out there and stood under the shelter with a pale and tried again to pluck our chicken. By this time they were rather cold, and fyi feathers don't come off off a cold chicken very easily. It seemed like they were growing them as fast as we could pick them. To make things more uncomfortable, the fire that we had going under the water to keep it hot, began to blow the smoke right in through the door of the building we were standing in (or rather the wind did that). We finally managed to get them picked fairly clean, though that definitely set the record for the longest time spent plucking one chicken, at least in my book. About the time we finished drawing, and cutting them up it stopped raining so we went out and got two more. No it didn't start raining on us again, but in the final head, or rather body count, we were able to see the rewards for our great show of persistence, for we had done four. That definitely wasn't a very big reward.

 So today not wanting to repeat that experience twice, (it looked like rain) Galen decided that we wouldn't butcher, and instead he went to town. Guess what we didn't get more than about three drops today. We should have butchered, but instead I went and worked in the strawberry patch for several hours.

 Not much else new, except that I started to learn guitar, and am very surprised at how ease it is to learn. Only 12 days till we leave to go to WISCONSIN, I can't hardly wait. It's hard to believe that it's actually been 7 months since we moved down here, but at the same time it seems like forever since I saw ya'll.

 Doug 

Currently Reading Revolution in World Missions By K. P. Yohannan see related

Woaw where did time go??

This is pretty bad. I had lots of really good excuses thought up for why I haven't updated yet, but when I saw the date of my last update they all paled, especially because of what my last update stated. I had been intending to update within the next 24 hours after that post, but......

 As you all probably already know, we went to Alabama to visit Steven's, we had a great time, since it was already written about I'll just let ya'll go to the link. Well as soon as we got home and walked in the door, I was informed by Galen that I didn't have a job anymore. My boss who has heart trouble was put in the hospital, so his son needed someone who was more experienced to help him finnish up the job, and after they had him they didn't need me anymore. So I was job searching again. I tried everywhere I could think of, but no body was hiring, or else they didn't want somebody under 18. Everything is different down here. Up in WI. I could walk into about any place and ask for a job, and when they found out that I was homeschooled it wasn't a problem that I was under 18. After many fruitless attempts, I decided to let the Lord worry about it since obviously my worrying wasn't helping anything. So I just started in on weeding our 4000 strawberries. Not long after that I was told that one of the chiropracptors in the area was wanting her lawn weadeated. I got up with her and got the job. I went over there to do it and while I was there, two guys stopped by. One was the uncle of the man I was doing the job for, he wants me to paint his metal barn roof, and two trailer roofs. The other man has a two acre field that he wants me to weedeat (not so sure about that one). The man that I did the job for wants me to come every week and mow his lawn, as well as wash and wax his car, and motorcycle. He also wants me to help him with remodeling his house. If things keep going like they have been, I might have more work than I need. Praise God for always watching out for his children.

 In other news, Galen and I have been going to market each week with baked stuff, and butter. Hopefully it keeps picking up so we can soon start selling out.

 Last evening we went with some of our cousins to the shopping center where they had a big tent set up and they did a few hours of gospel singing, and the at dark they shot off fireworks. It was the best 4th of july display I have seen in a couple of years (It seams like they get worse every year).

 thats all I can think of right now so......

 this is Doug signing out.