Barbara Vining and I recently gave two workshops on "Embracing the Periodicals" in Florida at Winter Park and St. Petersburg; there were great turnouts and a very enthusiastic response to gaining a renewed vision of the periodicals-especially The Christian Science Monitor. We met two boys about middle school age that confirmed to us that they knew their way around the Internet better than their parents, but they weren't aware that The Monitor was online.

I've been spending more time with the online Monitor lately and I'm finding CSMonitor.com is a very engaging source of news. It's fun to listen to reporters talk about their stories with podcasts. I've become quite fond of little Bill Clinton Hadam, an immigrant from the Congo. Hearing about his experiences in school has made we aware of some the challenges immigrant children have trying to get used to our country-something to pray about.

Speaking of getting used to our country, one of the trickiest parts of traveling around our country giving workshops is finding good places to eat. I enjoy unique, local restaurants that give me a flavor of the area-excuse the pun. On our way to a workshop, Barbara and I were driving from Orlando to Winter Park looking for a place to have dinner. All we saw along the main road were fast food and chain restaurants. We were trying to settle on one of the better chain restaurants we'd seen, when we drove into downtown Winter Park. We had this serendipitous discovery that the old city center has been restored with a beautiful town square, many boutique shops and unique restaurants. We chose to eat at a Turkish place called the Bosporus. We had what they called "sautés"-they were delicious!

We have four "Embracing the Periodicals" workshops next weekend, February 20-23: Friday night in Houston, Saturday in Dallas, Sunday in Phoenix, and Monday night in Tucson. Hope to see you at one of them.