VOL - What is that?

VOL stands for Virtual Online Learning.com. And what is that? VOL is a wonderful group of successful people who have made the decision that learning never stops no matter how old we become. There is always something new to learn. Always something we can improve or change to make better. Kudos go to Danna Crawford for starting the group. She'll be your biggest cheerleader!


We are all business people of all ages and from around the world who come together in a virtual classroom and learn from each other stuff related to the internet. Most of it relates to how to improve our eBay businesses but any business that has a website online can benefit from this group.


What I personally like about it best is the fact that its all inclusive and Deaf friendly! I am Deaf but I'm still welcomed and can participate. Yes, all the classes are done via talking over the phone or via the computer speakers but most (if not all) also come with a PP (powerpoint) slide presentation and the leaders take the time to transcribe their notes for me (and anyone else who requests written transcripts).


I am very blessed to be a part of this group. I invite you to come join us and I invite you to do it soon as I have seen that the fee is going to go UP January 1. This is a one time life time fee and a real deal! Don't delay. If you have a business, it is required that you continue to learn from others. Don't waste time figuring it out yourself when you can have mentors who are able and willing to answer your questions 24/7. Make wise use of your time! See you on the VOL boards!

There is a huge Gap - Shown in ASL

An excellent video. Please click on the video to see it in whole on youtube. Sorry wasn't able to make it fit here. Please watch!

Master's Hands Deaf Church - In the News

SWARTZ CREEK, Michigan — Brenda Bienlein remembers feeling left out at church.

“I grew up going to a hearing church,” Bienlein said in sign language. “I heard nothing. I tried to lip-read. I didn’t have much success.

Even going to a traditional service with interpreters signing the words poses challenges, she said. It’s like worshipping in a second language.

John Ehlke | The Flint Journal
Shannon Pierce, Mike Pierce and Deena McGee of Mt. Morris sign with each other during a Sunday School session during a test run at Master Hands Deaf Church in Swartz Creek.

Giving the deaf a chance to worship and gather in their first language — American Sign Language — is the idea behind Master’s Hands Deaf Church, which held its first service Sept. 12 in its own building, said John Bienlein, Brenda’s husband and the pastor.

The new church, 6299 Miller Road, grew out of efforts to expand services for the deaf at Cornerstone Baptist Church, which is next door. About 15 years ago, Cornerstone began a deaf ministry, which included having interpreters for worship service. About three years ago, Master’s Hands was formed as a sort of church within a church. Now, the congregation has moved into its own building, a four-bedroom ranch-style house on Cornerstone’s property.

At Master’s Hands, all services are conducted in sign language.

“Interpreting is always involving a third person,” said John Bienlein, 50, who is not deaf. “It’s better to have a message received in your own, natural language that you grew up with, that you know.”

The congregation at Master’s Hands, like all deaf churches, is smaller than hearing churches, the pastor said. About 10 to 15 people attend Sunday mornings. The main seating area, formerly a living room, has 21 folding chairs set up.

Aside from all communication being in sign language, the church is similar to hearing churches, Bienlein said. He gives a sermon and leads prayers, and even traditional hymns are signed in unison.

“They know the words. ... The words have meaning to them,” he said.

People also are free to sign questions or feedback to the pastor during the service, an act that would draw stares at a hearing church, he said.

“Here, if there’s an idea that pops up, a deaf person will speak up,” he said.

The church plans to host Sunday School at 9:45 a.m. each week, followed by a worship service at 11 a.m. and a 6:30 p.m. Bible study Wednesdays. Hearing people are welcome to attend, but they might need an interpreter.

“It’s very important to go to a deaf church because (it’s the) same language,” Brenda Bienlein signed. “It’s more inclusive. ... It’s good to have fellowship with other deaf.”

Video

Master's Hands Deaf Church - New Church in Town

It is always so exciting to be part of God's work! It is always a joy to get a call to be involved and obey. It is amazing to see God do "his thing" and know it is God in action. Last month I was blessed to be there for a very important day. Master's Hands Deaf Church became its own church on September 12, 2010. This is a mission church of Cornerstone Baptist Church. I am blessed and honored to be the pastor's wife and to support my husband, Pastor John, 100% as he obeys his call from the Lord. Our local news channel was there. The local newspaper was there. So much attention and all for a wonderful reason... to spread the gospel. That is our goal. Its not about numbers. Its about our relationship with Jesus Christ. Its our goal to teach and show both Deaf and hearing how to improve and make stronger their everyday relationship with Christ. Jesus wants you so much to be a part of his kingdom. He wants you to be a child of a King. You can have that today. How? Simply admit and agree that you are a sinner (all of us are). Believe that Jesus died for your sins on the cross. Why? Because he wants to save you. What does that mean? Save me from what? He loves you so much and wants to have eternal life with you! Confess your sins to him and make it a goal to live your life as Jesus would. Make Jesus smile!

Where will you go after you die? There are only two possibilities. You can go to heaven or you can go to hell. Its your choice. Don't make the wrong choice. Don't delay either as you never know when you will take your last breath. Accept and believe in Jesus today! If you are local, we welcome you to join us at Master's Hands Deaf Church in Swartz Creek, Michigan. If you are out of the area, we ask that you pray for our ministry to be true to the gospel of Jesus Christ and to reach out to the lost (both Deaf and hearing). Thank you. God bless you richly.

Wacky Cake...Are you familiar with that?

Birthday Cake

Last week was my daughter's 15th birthday. She asked for a chocolate cake with vanilla icing. I am not a big baker or even an everyday cook. I am blessed to have a husband who enjoys cooking and willingly cooks the family meal most days. I do cook now and then. Because we simply don't need the calories of baked goods its a treat when I do bake.

Anyways... its my daughter's birthday and she wanted a birthday cake. Ok... I immediately think of Wacky Cake. Have you ever heard of that? I grew up on this and I'm pretty sure its the most often baked cake in our family history. Not only is it super moist and tastes good but its easy, its fast and it doesn't require a lot of ingredients. The most likely reason its made is because we probably already had those ingredients in our cupboards so it didn't require a trip to the store. There are no eggs, butter or milk in this cake.

And that is the reason I made Wacky Cake for my daughter's 15th birthday last week. Before I give you the recipe, I want to share a funny story that is constantly told when the family gets together and Wacky Cake comes up.

Funny Story

As I mentioned above, I grew up on this cake. I come from a big family of 8 kids but by the time I was in my early teens, only 5 of us kids were still living at home. My father had a grocery/garden combination store. We lived above the store. That comes in handy sometimes if we need an ingredient and hope my dad carries it in his store! Anyways, all of us kids were expected to work in the store. I just so happened to be half of a twin so when we came home from school, one of us was responsible for making supper (we didn't call it dinner in those days) and the other one responsible for working in the store until it was time to eat. Since I was not a big fan of cooking, I usually opted to work in the store and my twin sister made supper. However now and then we did switch roles.

Trying to impress my family that I could cook if I wanted to, I decided to make a Wacky Cake for dessert one day. I had made this before so it was not the first time I made this. I carefully followed all the instructions and it came out beautifully. My mom came in the kitchen and asked why it smelled like vinegar. I told her I made a wacky cake for dessert. We had supper and then it was time to have dessert. I proudly showed off my Wacky Cake. I think it was my mom who had the first piece. She took a bite, made a face and spit it out. OH NO... it was that awful?? Seemed I had switched the measurements for vinegar and water! Oh boy! So.... obviously that explained why the whole kitchen smelled like vinegar and why we didn't have dessert that night. (I don't remember for sure but we probably sent someone down to the store to pick out a bag of cookies or something for our dessert that meal! We ALWAYS had dessert with our meals)

So, I take a ribbing about this every time Wacky Cake comes up in the family. Here is the recipe.... be sure NOT to switch the measurements for vinegar and water! Consider yourself warned.

Wacky Cake

3 cup flour

2 cup sugar

6 tbs cocoa

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp Salt

Mix the above dry ingredient in a bowl with a fork. Make a well in the middle to pour the liquids in.

2 tsp vanilla

2 Tablespoons Vinegar

3/4 oil

2 cups water

Mix the liquids together with a fork

Pour the liquid into well made in the dry ingredient bowl. Stir with fork.

Pour into a rectangle cake pan (this does not work as a double cake. Its too moist)

Bake 350 degrees for 40 mins.

After cake cools, sprinkle with a dusting of confectioner sugar or icing of your choice.

More facts about Wacky Cake

I googled "Wacky Cake" and found out more about this recipe ...

Wacky Cake was actually born out of the seriousness of wartime rationing. At various times during the world wars, eggs, butter, sugar, and milk were all in short supply, so inventive home cooks and home economists did their best to create dishes with limited ingredients. Wacky cake is a moist chocolate cake prepared, miraculously enough, without eggs or butter.

Enjoy.

How much does a prayer weigh?

I believe in miracles. This is one of my favorite stories. This is not something that I wrote but am sharing. I have seen it in shorter versions in email forwards but I like this longer (and maybe its the original?) version best. I hope this causes you to wonder on the power of prayer too. Be blessed and seek the Lord today!

The question is: How much does a prayer weigh?

The only man I ever heard of who tried to weigh one still does not know.

Once upon a time he thought he did. That was when he owned a little grocery store on the west side. It was a week before Christmas after World War 1. A tired looking woman came into the store and asked him for enough food to make up a Christmas dinner for her children. He asked her how much she could afford to spend.

She answered, "My husband didn't come back. I have nothing to offer but a little prayer."

This man confesses that he was not very sentimental in those days. A grocery store could not be run like a bread line.

So he said, "Write it on paper," and turned about his business.

To his surprise, the woman pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to him over the counter. She said, "I did that during the night, watching over my sick baby."

The grocer took the paper before he could recover from the surprise; then he regretted having done so, for what could he do with it? What could he say?

Then an idea suddenly came to him. He placed the paper without even reading the prayer on the weight side of his old fashioned scale. He said, "We shall see how much food this is worth."

To his astonishment, the scale would not go down when he put a loaf of bread on the other side. To his confusion and embarrassment, it would not go down though he kept on adding food - anything he could lay his hands on quickly, because people were watching.

He tried to be gruff, but he was making a bad job of it. His face got red, and it made him angry to be flustered.

So finally he said, "Well, that's all the scales will hold anyway. Here is a bag. You will have to put it in yourself. I am busy."

With what sounded like a gasp or a little sob, she took the bag and started packing in the food, wiping her eyes on her sleeve every time her arms were free to do so. He tried not to look, but he couldn't help seeing that he had given her a pretty big bag and that it was not quite full. So he tossed a large cheese down the counter, but he did not say anything. nor did he see the timid smile of grateful understanding which glistened in her moist eyes at this final betrayal of the grocer's crusty exterior.

When the woman had gone, he went to look at the scales, scratching his head and shaking it in puzzlement. Then he found the solution. The scales were broken. But as the years passed, he often though of it and wondered if that really was the solution. Why did the woman already have the prayer written to satisfy his unpremeditated demand? Why did she come at exactly the right time when the scale was broken? What confused him so that he did not notice it and kept piling on the food with only a scrap of paper in the weight pan? He had felt like a fool and hardly knew what he was doing.

The grocer is an old man now. his head is white, but he still scratches it in the same place and shakes it slowly back and forth with the same puzzled expression. he never saw the woman again, and come to think of it, he had never seen her before either. Yet, for the rest of his life, he remembered her better than any other woman in the world and thought of her more often.

He knew it had not been just his imagination, for he still had the slip of paper upon which the woman's prayer had been written: "Please Lord, give us this day our daily bread."

What happened on the day you were born?

This Day Trivia

This is fun and educational! Click on the date of your birth - or any date - and see what happened in history.

I discovered that Ben Franklin first flew his kite on my birthdate in 1752. In 1919, the first Trans Atlantic airplane took place. Oh yeah.. in 1992, then Vice President Dan Quayle misspelled "potato" during an elementary school spelling bee.

You also get to see what famous people share your birthday or had the misfortune of dying on that date.

Check it out and learn something new today!

This Day Trivia

Slow Down...You Move Too Fast

I received this in my email today and it deeply impacted me. I want to share with you and hope this will make you think as well. I don't do a lot of driving myself as I work from home so really don't have anywhere I MUST go everyday in a car but it really irritates me to see people flying down the freeways with no thoughts beyond getting to where they need to go as soon as possible. Please... please slow down.. you are moving TOO FAST!


Read This Slowly


Jack took a long look at his speedometer before slowing down: 73 in a 55 zone. Fourth time in as many months. How could a guy get caught so often? When his car had slowed to 10 miles an hour, Jack pulled over, but only partially. Let the cop worry about the potential traffic hazard. Maybe some other car will tweak his backside with a mirror. The cop was stepping out of his car, the big pad in hand..

Bob? Bob from Church? Jack sunk farther into his trench coat. This was worse than the coming ticket. A cop catching a guy from his own church. A guy who happened to be a little eager to get home after a long day at the office. A guy he was about to play golf with tomorrow. Jumping out of the car, he approached a man he saw every Sunday. A man he'd never seen in uniform.

'Hi, Bob. Fancy meeting you like this.'
'Hello, Jack.' No smile.
'Guess you caught me red-handed in a rush to see my wife and kids.'
'Yeah, I guess..' Bob seemed uncertain..
Good.
'I've seen some long days at the office lately. I'm afraid I bent the rules a bit -just this once.'
Jack toed at a pebble on the pavement.
'Diane said something about roast beef and potatoes tonight. Know what I mean?'
'I know what you mean. I also know that you have a reputation in our precinct..'

Ouch.
This was not going in the right direction. Time to change tactics.

'What'd you clock me at?'
'Seventy. Would you sit back in your car please?'
'Now wait a minute here, Bob..
I checked as soon as I saw you. I was barely nudging 65..'
The lie seemed to come easier with every ticket.
'Please, Jack, in the car'
Flustered, Jack hunched himself through the still-open door.
Slamming it shut, he stared at the dashboard.
He was in no rush to open the window.

The minutes ticked by.

Bob scribbled away on the pad..
Why hadn't he asked for a driver's license?
Whatever the reason,
It would be a month of Sundays
Before Jack ever sat near this cop again.
A tap on the door jerked his head to the left.
There was Bob, a folded paper in hand
Jack rolled down the window a mere two inches,
Just enough room for Bob to pass him the slip.
'Thanks..'
Jack could not quite keep the sneer out of his voice.

Bob returned to his police car without a word.
Jack watched his retreat in the mirror.
Jack unfolded the sheet of paper.
How much was this one going to cost?

Wait a minute.
What was this? Some kind of joke?
Certainly not a ticket.. Jack began to read:

'Dear Jack, Once upon a time I had a daughter. She was six when killed by a car. You guessed it - a speeding driver. A fine and three months in jail, and the man was free. Free to hug his daughters, all three of them. I only had one, and I'm going to have to wait until Heaven Before I can ever hug her again. A thousand times I've tried to forgive that man. A thousand times I thought I had. Maybe I did, but I need to do it again. Even now. Pray for me. And be careful, Jack, My son is all I have left.' 'Bob'

Jack turned around in time to see Bob's car pull away and head down the road.
Jack watched until it disappeared. A full 15 minutes later, he too, pulled away and drove slowly home, praying for forgiveness and hugging a surprised wife and kids when he arrived...

Life is precious. Handle with care.

This is an important message;

Drive safely and carefully.

Remember, cars are not the only things recalled by their maker.

Out of Touch

Isn't it interesting how we get into routines and then just as quickly, we get out of them again? I know I was blogging pretty faithfully last year but I can't even remember what happened... but something did and I got distracted and simply just forgot to blog. I have to relearn how to do this again. I even struggled to remember my password to get in here!


Blame it on old brain cells or lack of interest and motivation? Probably both. I know this is my first blog post this year so far. I know my blogs were in the "dead" zone because I was getting constant spam messages in the comments. I have since changed my settings. I apologize for the inconvenience for having to figure out what all those bunched up letters and numbers are to leave a comment but they do cut down on spam.


So... what is new with me since last fall? I'm thinking...


My life is pretty stable...always has been. I pretty much stay the same year after year without making major changes but more like baby steps. I am still working on eBay and I'm still a "Power Seller" although they have now changed that term to "Top Rated Seller". Just got my certificate in the mail this week which is hanging on my eBay hall of fame door. Hey... I got several new consignment clients the past few months too! They keep my inventory fresh and varied.


Business is also stable... not getting rich but enough to pay the bills and have a little left over for "stuff" - mostly to pay for stuff related to our kids. We have one kid graduating from high school this May so that means we will be having an "Open House" for him this summer. I guess that will be my summer project and motivate me to do things to improve the inside and outside of the house.


I'm still involved with Deaf Cafe which went through some rough ups and downs the past 6 months or so. What a ride that was but God provides for our needs, as always and we give Him an applause of praise and thanksgiving.


My husband is still working for Delta/NW so I still do a little bit of traveling.. not as much as I wish but we go as we are able. I was in Wash DC/VA area a week ago and it was good to force me to get out of town. Sometimes traveling is a pain in the neck with the packing and in my situation, being stuck in airports if there are no standby seats available. I learn to be flexible and patient!


Hope you all have a lovely day and I hope to get back to more frequent blogging!