Faye & Karen

Karen came by herself and shares a room with Faye. She works with us in the kitchen and is so sweet. She hung out with us for our day in Vienna.

Stirring up something good

Food Services is a different experience than last time. It's a team effort. You might be stirring up something good but not know what the end result will be until it finds it's way on the table.

Everything is large. It's like taking your groceries from Costco and cooking it all at once. You use two hands instead of one to stir things and there's a very specific method to everything. Mostly because if you don't do the method it causes a problem later, if you don't use the right tool it doesn't look as nice and if you don't use the right ingredients or amounts it obviously won't taste as good.

Chef Sunny is trying her best to keep us all in line so we serve up the best food to the students. She is firm with finesse which is hard to do. I'll try to take some pictures of the kitchen so you can see what it looks like. I'll have to be quick as once I report for duty it's all about stirring up something good for the upcoming meals. By the way, we each got assigned a daily specific duty and mine is 'Fruit of the Spirit'. This means I'm in charge of creating a fruit platter every day for the students and I set-up the fruit every day for breakfast. I like this job.

Sent from Sandy's iPhone

Walking Path to Monastery

We had sun today!

More of the same

Today we finished hanging the drywall in the staff housing and getting it ready to tape and paint. The rest of the maintenance team worked on planting some sort of flowers that will blume in the winter. Did not catch the name of them. Later in the day I caulked the tile in one of the newly constructed student housing bathrooms in the horse barn. I don't get to see what the kitchen crew is doing very much but the food is great, the students seem to enjoy it also.

Getting to spend more time talking with different students at meals and finding out where they are from and their background.

We got together as a team and are doing a few sections out of "My utmost for his highest" devotionals when we have free nights.

It is nice to complete some meaningful tasks everyday, and I never know what tomorrow will bring.

Sent from Jeff's iPhone

Bring your A game

Today was the first full day with students starting classes and everyone on campus for meals. Breakfast is done as self-serve with the kitchen staff keeping the buffet fully stocked for the breakfast hour. It was Sandy's turn to keep the breakfast line going, so she has to report 15 minutes early to the kitchen. We had so many great meals today, I am not sure I could remember all of them, but Sandy, Jody and Faye are doing a fantastic job.

The maintenance crew had a wide variety of tasks today. I started out getting some old woodpile pieces ready to send to the wood recycling site. Jeff Z. and Ron worked on cleaning leaves out of gutters to make sure the rain we have been getting doesn't backup. I spent the rest of my day getting a new wall insulated separating two staff living areas that will have new occupants in the spring. Moved the drywall into place so that tomorrow we should be able to hang the drywall and put the fixtures in.

After dinner and dish cleanup, we had a time together with the TCM leadership and the professors to ask questions and find out new opportunities that are emerging. We also had a chance to taste some of the local desert tortes and chocolates.

Things are really in full swing for the next few days and everyone is working really hard and it shows.

Sent from Jeff's iPhone

Jeff in front of maintenance shop

Jody cleaning up Patio classroom