Signs of Spring?

This tree was the first one to show signs of Spring around our home. Would anyone know what tree this is?

 

Now almost all the snow / ice has melted and disappeared, and the green grass underneath all the snow is growing up. It's puzzling why the grass here does not turn brown, wither away and just freeze to death in the winter. The grass is always green here, even under a foot of snow and ice.

Apples

We picked these apples from a nearby farm.

 

Dumb cardinal

This dumb female cardinal kept pecking on the glass window for a while. What was it trying to get from inside the home?

 

The moon

What I really need is a tripod, so I can have better vantage points.

This was taken last night. The black bits that you see on the moon are tree branches.

 

Poncho for my Windows

Rain falling on my office window:

 

Spring?

Today, as the meteorolgists put it, was a mild day! It was a balmy 54 this afternoon. To celebrate the departure from the cold and freezing temperatures Christine wore a pretty skirt to work today.

And I rode bike this afternoon with the senior pastor of our church (Calvary Chapel). We rode ~17 miles. I was on Christine's mountain bike and he was on his road bike. It felt oh so wonderful to be riding on the roads again.

Now we have the birds chirping, ice and snow melting, roads getting cleaner, and the days getting longer. It is getting better around these parts! Thanks to God and his marvellous creation.

Serving the Under-served

Christine and I had a speaking opportunity at a local high school (Fairport High School) in a forum that is meant to promote global perspective among the students.

We got to speak to nearly three hundred students in three groups / periods. We felt that we were well received. Even though the students did not ask many questions during our presentation, quite a few came and spoke to us very excitedly afterwards.

Our presentation titled Serving the Under-served, covered our backgrounds, the state of the poor of the world, the distribution of wealth and resources among the different people sections, why we should help the poor and the needy, our heart for the poor and the under-privileged, our involvements in humanitarian projects and mission trips.

The school's newspaper Lampion has a nice write up about our talk here: it is called Friday Forum Inspires FHS Students to Think Globally - the second topic on the front page.

The above article is fairly accurate, except for a few mistakes: only Christine was going to go to New Orleans for Katrina-relief work (actually, she is there now this week); and to India / Mexico as well in Summer for mission trip. Otherwise, we felt that this article was very well written.

After that talk, we have been getting knowing-nods and hello's from youth working in Target and Wegmans (local grocery shop chain) - it's neat! The other day the kid checking out my groceries at Wegmans, recognising me from the talk at the high school, went on tell me at lengths about how he felt compelled now to go and visit other countries and experience other cultures.

Christine loves these speaking opportunities. She has given two other well-publicised speeches since then. We enjoyed speaking together at the school.

That was the very first time for me to visit a high school in the US, while the school was in session. So I was very curious about the goings-on there. The principal of the school, a kind-hearted gentleman, gave us a nice tour of the school.