Preparation

Last Saturday my brothers drove their tractors back and forth across the sand to pack it down. The boys are preparing to pour concrete. Then they will reassemble a pole building to use as a shop.

Name

Every name has a story. 

It's the story of someone, usually a loving relative, looking down at a baby's face and choosing words filled with meaning, hopes and ambitions. 

Wednesday I read some of those stories. I asked my students to write 8-10 sentences using simple present and past tense to explain the meaning and history of their name.

All of my students completed the assignment and all of them earned full credit.

What's more, I loved reading their submissions. I learned that "Al" is a definite article like "the" in Arabic. One student's last name means mayor, because his ancestor was the mayor of the town. Another student's name means "sweet" and was chosen by his older siblings. Another student wrote about how his parents chose his name with the hope that he would be successful in life. 

In a few short, and often grammatically incorrect sentences, I witnessed words become sentences and sentences become a paragraph that conveyed meaning. I watched my students write a real story in English. Their story.

Green

Life chain

Jesus heals and forgives.

Study buddies

Amanda and Amy studying while camping at Lazy T Ranch. Photo by David Byler.

Last summer Amanda and I stopped by the university. A brand new health building was added beside the education building after we graduated.  We decided to go inside and snoop.

As we were walking toward the buildings, I told Amanda, "We are not signing up for classes."

One year later Amanda is pursuing her master's degree as a nurse practitioner and I am teaching at the university. 

Miracle

Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.  ~C. S. Lewis

Caramel apples

We dipped apples in caramel and sprinkled them with nuts during our church's annual camping outing at Lazy-T Ranch.