Stay Close to your Family

-from Grandpa

March Birthdays

1 Kippy

7 Ami (Amelia Lydia Wood)

11 Gram (Jane Duncan)

18 Kyle

27 Jack

Future Wheaton Student

I thought some of you Wheaton alumni Miners might be excited to hear my news. I found out the day after Christmas that I was accepted to Wheaton College. A couple weeks ago I mailed a deposit!

It's exciting and a bit scary to have made this decision. I don't feel the relief that I had expected. Instead there is still so much uncertainty. Was it the right decision? Will I like it there? What will I study?

I'm seriously considering majoring in music education. Piano has been an important part of my life for the past five years. I really enjoying teaching my two piano students and I've enjoyed the extra hours of practice I've been putting in to prepare an audition. I love music and I know I want to continue studying it in some way, but I'm just not entirely convinced yet that a degree in it is the way to go. I love English too and Wheaton has such a great English department.

So many questions, so much uncertainty. And so little time left to decide. Thanks to all of you who have been praying for guidance and direction. Some decisions have been made!

60? come again?

Be extra careful. When you are over the hill you start to pick up speed!

Two Trips to South Africa

This past December, Jim and I travelled to Cape Town, South Africa for two weeks. Our main intention was to visit our friend Fritz van der Lecq, who we met in 2004 when he came to the Wheaton Graduate School as an international student. It was a wonderful time together, as he introduced us to his family and friends, took us around the area, and spent many hours discussing life in South Africa over coffee. While there, we also checked out the University of Cape Town, as Jim was accepted to a graduate program in education, to begin in July 2007. Jim's interests in the program were confirmed - heightened! - so we are continuing to pursue the opportunity to move there for 1-2 years as of this summer (or... winter, in the southern hemisphere). There are a lot of logistics to work through before then, however, so you can pray that the Lord would guide and provide! If you'd like to see 'some' photos, check out our google photos page. If you're wondering how long the flight is to Cape Town from Chicago is .. the answer is 20 hours.

We also took a second 'trip' to South Africa last weekend, via the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, who is hosting the showing of the play "Amajuba" (through 2/11). This play is a realistic and true telling of childhood in South Africa in the 70s, 80s, 90s, during the turbulent last years of apartheid. Songs were interspersed with the narratives of the five actors. It was very moving, and a good reminder of the power of story to communicate strong emotion and the importance of childhood experiences in our psychological development. (Did you know South Africa has 9 national languages? We heard at least 5 during the play.)

The steadfast love of the Lord from generation to generation was proclamed yesterday in the baptism of John Thomas Zuba, son of Ruth and Radu, grandson of David and Kippy Miner, great-grandson of Jack and Mina Miner, with the added blessing of Gram-Jane Stam Miner.  Grampa David was privileged to perform the baptism at Wallace Presbyterian Church, Hyattsville, MD, where his friend Dr. Stephen Clark is pastor, and where Ruth and Radu, and Mary are members.  Family in attendance included David and Kippy and  Carol,  Ruth and Radu,  Uncle and Aunt, Doru and Kelley Zuba, and Doina and Micea Zuba, JT's Buni and Bunica.

 

The opening hymn was Praise to the Lord the Almighty, a favorite which both Ruth and Elizabeth chose as their wedding hymn.  Pastor Clark's sermon from Mark 6:1-13 was entitled In Training.  It was apparently part of a series, not chosen especially for the baptism, but was certainly appropriate as we consider our part in bringing up John Thomas to fear and trust the Lord. 

 

After worship all the family and two out-of-town friends enjoyed a beautiful and delicious dinner at Ruth and Radu's.  For dessert Ruth served Orange Ice Box Cake, a recipe passed down from her Grandmother Reynolds, who would rejoice to see this special occasion. 

 

Our weekend in Maryland included unexpected time with Rachel  who, stopping overnight at Ruth and Radu's, told us about the work she is going to do in Uganda and caught us up on some family news.  If you want to set her record straight regarding family news, contribute to this blog!

 

 

 

 

 

 

February Birthdays

Happy Birthday today, David!

• Feb. 3rd - Rebekah
• Feb. 4 - David William
• Feb. 8 - Julianna
• Feb. 8 - Scott
• Feb. 16 - Mary Eleanor
• Feb. 26 - Katie Joy
• Feb. 27 - Bert

Family Chats

Aunt Joyce and I had a nice phone chat this afternoon, neither of us being to comfortable with Instant Messaging. It's remarkable to think how Grandpa's family is really spreading out over the globe. This website should be a great way to help us all feel more connected. Thanks, Kate, for your work on it. I'm glad that it's fun for you. Thank you to all who are praying for Mark's kidney situation. His test will be on March 15; then we should find out if the procedure he had back in December was effective. Please keep praying that God would be gracious to use this "Deflux" to heal Mark.

here goes

All right, folks, here's our "home page." This is sort of a test: anything can be changed and we can scratch this for something better if the format doesn't work out too great for us. And seriously, anything can be changed...if you're not a fan of the font, colors, whatever, let me know.

First off, some common terms defined:

• post: what you call what I'm writing now
• sidebar: what you call the stuff on the left side of the page. It can be moved to the right, or basically do anything you like. I can add anything to the sidebar you like - just tell me. We can put links to old posts in the sidebar...things we might commonly refer to, like a list of birthdays.
• archives: what you call old posts. blogspot automatically archives things, and I've selected to have our posts archived monthy. You can peruse through the archives in the sidebar.
  
• labels: when you put a label on each of your posts just so that you can read similar entries together. For example, one label might be: old family pictures, and every time grandpa posted one, he could add that label to the end of the post. If you ever wanted to peruse through them all, you could just click on that tag in the sidebar.
  
• comment: v. adding a note at the end of a post. n. a note at the end of the post. To post a comment click on "0 comments" at the end. You don't have to have a blogspot account to do this: just click on "other" and type in your name.
  
• template: the huge mess of computer language that makes the blog look like it does. Our new blog from blogspot is very user-friendly, and a lot can be changed very easily. The real template is harder to manuever, but it's like a fun puzzle trying to figure it out. I don't think anyone will be able to see it but me. But if something looks weird, let me know.
  
• If anything is still confusing, just comment on this post and ask.
  

Now, how you can be a part of this.

• Check it for updates. Use bloglines.com to tell you when there are new posts.
  
• Link. Use the sidebar to link to our personal blogs....You can send me your blog/page to be added to the side bar. (Let me know if any links are "broken.")
  
• Post comments. It's fun to read what others have said about a post, and it will make this a fun place to visit. =)
• Post. There are 2 ways to do that. 1. When we're up and running, I will email you all a email address that you can write to that will then post it directly onto the blog. That will be an easy way for everyone to post. (Just make sure you delete any extra stuff that normally goes out at the end of the email.) I'm not sure how easy it is to add pictures that way; we'll see. 2. I can invite you to be a member/co-author. You will have to have a blogspot or gmail account. Of course it's free, and really quite easy. (And a gmail address is the best kind of have =)

first post

William Perkins Miner
Kate's great-great-great grandfather Miner
Born early 1840's