Hello, DL here. Sorry that I haven’t posted in a while. I still have a draft from April that hasn’t been put up yet. Life has been quite busy as you can see from the title. I’m thinking about starting my own blog, separate from this one. I’m not sure.

June has been a hectic month for our family and for the Mansion. Our family returned from a 3 week trip to the Pacific Northwest at the end of May. We worked to get school done and Memorial Day rolled around. June started and we had our June HCC course coming up. HCC stands for Healing in the Context of Community. It’s a one week course where people can come in and learn more about our ministry. If you wish to know more about HCC, contact my dad. We had 25+ people enter the hill on June 12-13th and they stayed for a week. It was a busy week for everyone. The hill had no time to pause for as soon as the HCC folks left, we had a work group arrive from Florida. And for the next week, we had 3 different work groups on the hill at once. Someone didn’t schedule that quite right. Team Connecticut, Team Florida and Team Maine. The work groups have since left and we are allowed to take a breath. But not for long as the 4th of July weekend looms ahead of us.

We finished school on June 15th. Yay! Mom has said that we have to do some summer school. About an hour of school a day. Not too bad. We’ve been doing some deep cleaning and organizing over the weekend. The basement looks absolutely amazing. It hasn’t looked that clean in a long time. Our school room is also very neat. Floors have been mopped, the house vacuumed and bathrooms cleaned as normal chores. So the house looks quite presentable at the moment. You should drop by for a visit now! No, just kidding. We have relatives coming for the 4th of July weekend. My dad’s parents and his sister and her family. My birthday is on Saturday and the special 4th of July picnic is a week from today. What else is going on…. We sent out our newsletter this month! Hopefully many people have received by now. If you would like to be on our newsletter list, then contact my dad and he can put your name down.

Summer is going well here. Lots of sun and some rain for the gardens. Children playing outside. Birds chirping. The sound of lawn mowers. A picnic table outside. Bicycles on the grass. Green leaves. A slight breeze. Ah, the joys of summer. That’s all for now. Signing off. -DL

This is DL here, the 13 year old in the family. I’m going to try to write a post every month at least. More posts within the month if something comes up. But since Mom and Dad don’t really have time to maintain the blog, then I’m going to try to do it. Posting something every month, I’ll keep you updated on what’s going on. Or at least, attempting to. I don’t have a good title for this month’s but I’ll try to make up something more catchy for April. So what happened this March…

Well, the old saying that ‘March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb’ is more or less true here in New England. It was pretty cold at the beginning of March but now at the end of March, it’s been getting warmer. A good lot of the snow has melted and we don’t have to wear our puffy winter coats very often. So spring feels like it’s coming. We’re just hoping that it won’t snow. Snowstorms have been known to come as late as April. For one week, we had HCC here at His Mansion. HCC is Healing in the Context of Community. It’s a chance for people from the outside world to come and learn about what we’re doing at His Mansion. Then they can take what they have learned and apply to their own churches, communities and neighborhoods. It was a smaller class, about 12 people. Also during that week, we had a group from Messiah College come to work here. The week before HCC, we had a group from Wheaton College come out and stay and work for a week. So for 2 weeks, we had lots of extra people here on the hill. HCC went really well and everyone enjoyed having the college students with us. After those two weeks, things calmed down a bit. But they didn’t stop. Something is always going on around here.

This is personal since I’m the only one in my family who experienced it but I want to write about it. I went on a retreat with my youth group to a place called Camp Berea, which is a little more than an hour north of where I live. There were 9 kids, 5 high schoolers and 4 jr. highers and 3 leaders who went from my youth group. It was the 12 of us and about 300 other kids and leaders there that weekend. We all had a really good time. There was a band called Attaboy which drove all the way from Indiana for the weekend. Our speaker for the weekend was Brian Pruitt. The whole weekend was a blast. Since our group wasn’t very big, everyone mostly stuck together. Occasionally a couple people would go off and do something or half the group would go watch volleyball but everyone hung out at the same place generally. It was a really good chance to bond and be able to connect with each other. That was the best part for me. The best part was spending time with my friends. Getting to know them better, hanging out, cheering them on and just being together. I very much enjoyed the time with my youth group. I know that since I’m an introvert, this sounds a little strange but it’s true. That was a highlight for me this month.

Easter is just around the corner. Time to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection! Wait, isn’t Easter about jellybeans, chocolate bunnies and creme eggs? No, silly Easter Bunny, Easter is about Jesus and his wonderful grace and love. We will be celebrating Easter with our Mansion family. I don’t know if we’ll be doing anything special but we’ll be together and that’s what counts. I hope that you have a good Easter. That’s all for now from the Tso Family. Signing off. -DL

Hello, it has been a long time since anyone has posted. Sorry about that. The holiday season has been busy and crazy. Not unusual. This is DL by the way, the 13 year old. I was thinking about writing something about the New Year, 2010 but decided not to. Instead, I’m going to tell you about something that’s going on in my life and has been in the works for a while. I thought that I should make it public and so that way I don’t have to remember who I told and who I haven’t. This post will also be on Facebook (with a few modifications) for those of you who are on Facebook.

So what am I doing? I am going out to Oregon for 5 weeks this summer. I am going by myself, my family will not be coming with me. One week, I’ll be seeing my friends and family. One week, I will be at High School Camp out at Eagle Fern. The other 3 weeks, I will be serving on TCL (Training Christian Leaders) at Eagle Fern Camp. Now, Eagle Fern Camp is a Christian camp in Estacada, Oregon. Eagle Fern has different weeks in the summer where you can go to camp depending on your age. I will be attending High School Camp. Eagle Fern also has a 3 week session where you can be on TCL. When you’re on TCL, you are volunteer staff. You aren’t paid anything, you just get to serve God and others. I think that it’s like 6-7 girls and 6-7 guys from 10-13th grade along with 2 TCL leaders. I am a 13 year old 9th grader and God willing, I will be serving on TCL this summer. The TCLers do a lot of the background work and the work that keeps Eagle Fern running. Setting the tables, cleaning bathrooms, scrubbing floors etc.

Now that you know what I’m doing, why isn’t my family going? Well, my parents decided that this would be a good way for me to stretch my wings. To be more independent and do more of my own stuff. Since my family isn’t going with me, I am earning the money to pay half of my plane fare, part of my camp fee and some of my personal expenses. I also have to arrange transportation, plane info, housing and other stuff. My parents will help with some of it, like they’ll pay for the other half of the airfare and camp fee but I have to do a good chunk of the work. If I really want to go out to Oregon, I have to earn the money and take the responsibility of calling people and thinking about where I’m going to stay and such. Plus, I have to navigate the airport and catch probably 2 flights to get out to Portland. I’ve been earning money for this trip since September. I’ve got the amount of money that I need for half of my plane ticket. All I need now is part of the camp fee and some for my personal stuff. The dates that I will gone are July 16-August 22. These aren’t set down in stone yet. Dad is going to help me figure out my plane ticket and then we’ll decide exactly when I’m going.

So that’s the whole story. That’s my summer endeavor. I don’t think that I’ve left anything out. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. Just comment and I’ll try to get back to you as soon as I can. I would appreciate your prayers as I prepare for the trip. I know that it’s quite a while away but I’m a person who likes to plan things out. I will post more updates on what’s going on as the months go by. I’ll write more later. Signing off. -DL

DL here to post about our 3 week trip in Portland, Oregon. 3 weeks is a long time and there is so much to tell! I’ll try to condense it as much as I can. Let’s see, we’ll start at the beginning.

Mom and us 4 kids left early on July 10th. Dad stayed behind for graduation (residents complete the 1 year program, it’s a big celebration) and to work for another week. Mei went off to camp for a week, starting July 12th-July 18th. Mom, me and the 2 boys just hung out mostly during the first week. Seeing friends here and there, arranging play dates and sleepovers, going out for coffee dates (that was Mom) and hanging out. Fairly low-key. Dad arrived on July 17th, picked him up from the airport. Mom picked Mei up from camp on July 18th and our 10 days together as a family began.

We went to our home church, Spring Mountain Bible Church during the 3 weeks we were there. We spent time with another missionary family who were also in Portland at the time. We went to Sunriver which is a very sunny resort in Bend, Central Oregon. We went with another family who we’re really close to, we rented a house from a family who goes to our church. It was a lot of fun, going to Sunriver was our “vacation” on our vacation. We went to Sunriver from July 21-24th. On July 24th, that evening, I got to go to a sleepover at a friend’s house who kindly let me invite a couple more friends over so that was a lot of fun. On July 25th, some friends threw us a pool party and gave an open invitation to people in our church. Dad preached at Spring Mountain on July 26th. I went to camp from July 26th-August 1st. During that week, my family did a lot of stuff. Saw friends, having play dates, going to the beach and all sorts of stuff. I’m not exactly sure about everything b/c I wasn’t there!

Camp was a lot of fun for me. I went to Jr. High Girls Camp at Eagle Fern Camp. If you want to know more about Eagle Fern, contact us. I loved it! I had fun with friends, camp activities, playing in the creek during the 100+ degree weather and just talking with people. Eagle Fern is really cool, this was my 7th year going to Eagle Fern. It’s an awesome place! My dad picked me up early on August 1st from camp and we picked everybody else up and the luggage and headed to the airport. For a trip back home. And we are back home now in New Hampshire. It’s our 4th or 5th day back and we’re pretty much adjusted to the time change. Dad has been going to work and the rest of us are settling back into routine. Thank you to those who we saw in Oregon, we had fun spending time with you. That’s all for now. Over and out. -DL (Dog Lover)

Hello, DL here. We went strawberry picking on June 24th. We went with 3 or 4 other families to a strawberry farm in Antrim, a town 15-20 minutes away from where we live. My dad didn’t go, just my mom and us kids. We didn’t get rained on, thankfully. Just a moist, cool morning with mosquitoes all over the place. The red ripe berries were peeking at us from under the leaves. That sounds like poetry, kind of, doesn’t it? Maybe all the poetry that I’ve been reading for school is influencing me. Oh no! (mock horror) I don’t want to become a poetess! Just kidding. I don’t really want to write poetry though. Not my thing. I prefer to write in prose if I have to write at all. I’m not a big fan of my writing assignments for school. =[
Anyway, getting back onto the subject, between the 5 of us picking, we picked 25 lbs of strawberries in about an hour or so. Pretty good! Even Garrison picked strawberries, Mom taught him which ones were ripe and he filled up his own container. It was fun going with friends though, more interesting than if we had just gone by ourselves.

We brought the berries back and Mom picked up some stuff to make jam. A couple of us kids helped Mom make jam. I hulled the strawberries, Mom washed them and Di squished them into a mushy pulp. Then Mom did the rest. I have no idea how to make strawberry jam or any jam for that matter so if you want to know, ask Mom not me. Mom did 2 batches of jam and from both batches, she got 18 jars of jam!
We ate some strawberries but they didn’t taste super great. Dad says we’ve been spoiled from having Hood strawberries from Oregon. I guess that the strawberries from Oregon taste better than the ones grown in New Hampshire. I helped my mom sort strawberries, wash strawberries and hull strawberries. And after I was done hulling strawberries and sorting them. I was sick and tired of strawberries! I was humming a tune to myself, “strawberries here, strawberries there, strawberries everywhere” over and over again. I’m not really sure why, maybe b/c I had gone strawberry crazy! Just kidding. My mom said that she would close her eyes tonight and see strawberries. I don’t know if that happened or not but there definitely a lot of strawberries. We also froze 2 gallon-sized bags worth of strawberries. Mostly the frozen berries are for smoothies! Which are absolutely delicious and make a fabulous summer treat. I hulled a lot of berries for that as well. Berries and berry stems. Oh no, they’re floating before my very eyes!! Just kidding. I’m being too dramatic.

Dad and Mom are planning to give most of the jam away. It’s very good jam by the way, I had some on toast for breakfast this morning. Mom said that maybe she would give it away to people for Christmas presents. An easy gift, not expensive, they’ll most certainly enjoy it and it’s edible. What’s better than that? I know! Chocolate! I’m getting off subject again and being silly. Sorry! I don’t know how you save jam until Christmas. It’s a good 6 months away, but then again, I don’t know much about jam or canning either so go figure. I don’t want to see strawberries though for a while. For the next couple of weeks, I’m going to be strawberried out! I know strawberried isn’t a real word but I made it up and thought it was fun. Well, hope you enjoy this post about strawberries! I also hope that you get to eat some delicious strawberries yourself this summer. Just don’t send any to us! Signing off. -DL (Dog Lover)

DL here. I just got back from Tae Kwon Do. Our family drove up in our minivan on the way to Tae Kwon Do class but I decided to walk down with my brother, Di. It turned out that both of us ran down the whole way. I heartily recommend that to anyone who just wants a bit of exercise. Run downhill a cool night just for a little bit. If you run really hard, then you get cramps. At least I do. If you have long hair, let it out behind you. I don’t know why but I like running downhill on a cool night with my hair flowing behind me. Thought that I’d recommend it for somebody else to try. It just feels good b/c it’s not too hot nor too cold outside and I like the feeling of the wind blowing through my hair. Interesting, huh? That’s all for now. Just a short and sweet post. Signing off. -DL

PART THREE:

I am ready to finish this series on the cows escaping. I’ll tell you about two of the cows first. They found two of the missing three cows the same day that they started looking for them but then scared them into running off our property into the Audubon Forest. I don’t exactly know what that is. You’d have to ask someone who’s lived in New Hampshire longer than I have and knows the area better than I do. So they were trying to chase the cows and I’m not exactly sure of the whole story but I think that they lost them for a little bit since this Audubon Forest is like 600-700 acres big. Our CEO alerted our neighbors and one of the neighbors called at like 10 o’ clock at night and said that they found two of our cows. Our Director of B&M (Building&Maintenence) went and walked the cows up to our property. He wasn’t leading the cows, the cows were leading him. He was just walking behind them, making sure that they kept on going all the way up to our property. He said that it took him about 30-45 minutes or so. The cows were worn out and tired so they just walked right into their pen. 

Now about the third cow. A bit of background first, a young adult group from Connecticut came up to His Mansion to serve for the weekend. Late on Saturday night (the 30th), a few of them decided to go to McD’s right in Hillsboro. They passed a police car which was baby-sitting a cow. The people from the Connecticut group called to let us know where the third cow was. So our CEO and Director of B&M came down and looked after the cow. They decided to put the cow in a pasture with a bunch of other cows. I think that our CEO knew the owner of the pasture, I’m not sure. But they just penned the cow in there for the night. The next day, they took the stock trailer in there and with bit of coaxing, the cow walked into the trailer and they hauled it back up to the property.

Now, these cows really went wandering around. People spotted them walking around on some of the nearby roads. Our CEO was really worried about them and as it grew later, he decided to put a bounty on their heads. He was going to shoot them, had a freezer ready to chill the meat and everything. But nothing of that sort happened. All three cows are safe and sound back at our barn. Everybody was glad and relieved that the whole thing was over. That’s the end of the this series. Hope you enjoyed it! Signing off now. -DL

P.S. There is never a dull moment around here! And if we still lived in Portland, we would never get to experience all of this. Cows are also not very smart animals.

P.P.S. You don’t have to be very smart to catch cows, you just have to be (do you know where I’m going with this?) smarter than the cows. I thought that that would be funny especially after my last P.S. So I hope that some of you thought that that was funny. If not, that’s okay. I’m not a comedian, honestly, I’m not.

PART TWO:

NEWS FLASH!

Dad came back from working in the Office and gave us a bit of news about the cows. He said that people found the cows but the cows won’t allow themselves to be herded back up to the pasture. Dad doesn’t know where the cows are but he said that our CEO is worried that someone might hit the cows and they’re thinking about maybe shooting the cows since they won’t come back up to the pasture. So they might be near the road or something. I think that someone is keeping an eye on the cows but I don’t know what’s going to happen. If anything else comes up, I’ll post it up. This is DL signing off.

PART ONE:

Just a quick post. This morning 3 brown and white cows got out of their pasture. We have 6 cows, I believe. At about 8:15 this morning, about 5-6 guys were out fairly deep in the woods behind our duplex looking for the missing cows. Those 5-6 guys looked diligently but they didn’t find them. Our family went up to breakfast at the dining hall this morning, our Director of Operations made an announcement at breakfast, “Here at the Mansion you learn to be flexible.” And he went on to explain that he was having everybody go out to look for the cows. The men and the women alike. He gave instructions on what to do and what to do if you found a cow. The danger is that the cows may have gotten down to the road and off our property. That was earlier this morning and we’ve been home since breakfast so I don’t know if they found the cows or not yet. But I sure hope so! Our Director of Operations also said, “That’s your steak this fall.” Everybody thought that was funny. At least, it’s sunny and some blue sky, not rainy or anything. That would be no fun. All the men and women went out looking for cows except for a few who stayed back to work in the kitchen and a couple other places. The cows unfortunately ran down the fields that border their pasture so now the fields have to be done again. That is a downside to the cows getting out other than the safety of the cows and having to take the time of chasing them. We’ll let you know if the cows are found. Stay tuned. We’ll be right back after these messages. Just kidding. That’s all for now. Signing off -DL

DL here again. I’ll catch up on some Mansion news. Everything is green again, the trees have their leaves back and it’s warm enough so there are dandelions popping up all over the place. People have been hoeing in the fields by our house. I don’t think that they’ve planted yet. There is a marked section for Long Term Staff gardens. There are 4 or 5 LTS women who are doing gardens. Mom started her garden, she hasn’t planted anything yet. We have a little space right in front of our house and Mom put in some dwarf sunflower seeds so that will be cool. I think that Mom is planting Chinese veggies, basil, tomatoes, snap peas and some other stuff. She’ll have to write her own post about her garden. Mom’s doing the garden work now but she says that we get to help her with weeding and harvesting. Harvesting is okay, you can see all of the bright colors of the vegetables and you get to eat them. I’m definitely not a fan of weeding. That’s just me. I’d like to meet someone who does enjoy weeding.  The weather has been nice although we have some rainy days inbetween. Mom recently put her plants into the ground, she said that she wanted to put them in before it rained. This isn’t the best post but I’m definitely not an expert on gardening. Hope spring is pleasant wherever you are! Bye for now. -DL