Kelly and Connie’s Place

Kelly and I just spent all of last week (May 12-16) in Albuquerque for our first ever, off-site Church Partner Forum. (We usually hold these forums in Orlando at our Pioneers campus.) The exciting part of this event was that none of the 8 churches who attended had any previous connections with Pioneers! It was a great opportunity to open the door for the possibility of future partnerships.

We took 3 of our team members with us and co-hosted this event with another agency called: You can learn more about this group at www.1615.org . They coach churches on how to design their missions programs to fit the DNA of their church.

One highlight of our trip was seeing New Mexico’s state bird – a real “Roadrunner” scooting across the parking lot at our hotel. Kelly captured a photo of one on his cell phone and maybe he will add his picture to the blog. Here’s a link to Kelly’s photo! This is the same bird that was made popular in Wile E. Coyote’s Warner Bros. cartoons. (Credit for photo above: Photo: and no it did not go beep-beep www.birdwatchersdigest.com/)

Roadrunner Facts: Roadrunner is the state bird of NM. They prefer walking or running, attaining speeds up to 17 mph. hour; and are quick enough to catch and eat rattlesnakes.

Description: The roadrunner has a long, graduated tail carried at an upward angle, long stout legs and a distinctive head crest.

Albuquerque Facts: Dry, dry, dry is my description. Officially, the climate is classified as arid (defined as: a severe lack of available water). That’s an understatement! The city was founded in 1706 and is named after a Spanish village Alburquerque (extra “r”) and a “family name” from Spain and Portugal. Living at sea level in Orlando, this view of the mountains is breathtaking. (See photo above)

The red area on map above shows where Albuquerque is located in NM. Population: 534,089 (2008); Elevation (at airport) is 5,352 feet (1,631 m) above sea level.

(Hot Air Balloon photo © Cindy Petrehn photo)

The Rio Grande (photo left) flows through the city north to south. (3 Albuquerque photos come from “wikipedia.org” ) A Striking Site: On a previous trip we got to see a view like this of the hot air balloons. A popular attraction in early Oct. is the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

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Take a walk with us…

…Yes that’s right, a walk. For us, walking each day is “what the doctor ordered.” And there’s no better place to take this kind of ‘healthy exercise’ than in beautiful Florida (with it’s thousands of lakes and ponds).

Every where you look, there is a pond or lake of some type. In our housing complex, there is a 30 acre spring-fed lake called Lake Frederica, and 3 flood retention ponds with beautiful landscaping and lots of wildlife to enjoy. Let me share some of this beauty and wildlife with you.

This is one view on our walk along the pond. This shot is taken from the sidewalk that winds along the edge of the pond.

Fish have beds!

Our walk takes us along one of the larger retention ponds and Kelly has helped me learn how to spot the fish in that pond. We have shad (which are easy to spot because they jump out of the water a lot), and there are bottom feeders, a kind of catfish—Florida style, and there are tilapia (which is quickly becoming the fish of choice at the grocery stores and at many restaurants).

Did you know fish have beds? Every spring, when its time to spawn they build these bowl shaped beds by swishing their tails back and forth in the sediment. Then, they lay their eggs in the bed and stand by to guard them from predators.

The beds also serve as a nest for the growing fry, which also have to be guarded. If we walk up too fast, the adult fish will pull back off the nest, hoping you won’t take notice.

Look real close and you’ll see the light brown bed just below the water’s surface. These beds are all along the shore line, and when the water level drops really low, the beds can be fully exposed.

Now look closely and see if you can spot the tilapia fish, sitting on the bed. Kelly put his Polaroid sunglasses over the camera lens to make the fish show up in the photo. If you know Kelly and his love of fishing, you can imagine how this stimulates his sportsman’s instincts. Watching for these fish on our walks makes the whole exercise thing a lot more interesting!

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