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February 12, 2010
Just a quick note to mention that Dave Fiedler will be speaking at the Southcenter SDA Church near Seattle, Washington, on February 27. Here's a link to their website for directions to the church: http://www.southcentersda.org/. If you have an interest in Metropolitan Evangelism, Adventist History, or just plain getting the Lord's work done, you are cordially encouraged to attend!
February11, 2010
It's a bit hard to call my additions here anything better than "somewhat infrequent." My apologies to anyone who is checking in here every day....
But the Good News is that we've made substantial progress. In fact, d'Sozo opened it's doors on February three! We did a "soft opening" (no advertising whatsoever) because we figured it would take us a bit to get up to speed. After two days, we put a 3' x 5' "Now Open" banner out by the road. Both customer count and sales have shown a consistent climb since day one. The biggest surprise has been how many vegetarians and vegans have come out of the woodwork here in meat-and-potatoes Wichita.
After seven days of business, we have several customers who have been in for lunch at least three times, and some probably more like five times. When we first started, we were praying that we'd establish good contacts with witnessing opportunities "in the first month." Well, that was pretty faithless, or at least far from pressing the boundaries. We've already got one couple who want to spend a week at the Farm/Health Retreat, another gentleman who received a less-than-encouraging health assessment from his physician told us, "I'm putting my life in your hands. I'm eating lunch here every day--you just tell me what to eat," and our Chef has been asked to give health talks in a local non-SDA church.
If I were going to try to put a number on "good contacts," I'd say that there are probably 8-10 that would easily fit into that category. Curiously enough (for those who know David Asherick's conversion story) one of those better contacts is a young man who hopes to enter the X-Games as a skateboarder.
With a little luck, I'll remember how to post new pictures so you can see what it all looks like now.
November 5, 2009
We've added to our Bible Worker ranks! That's something we're especially pleased with. Jordan Fowler has been working for our local chuch for a couple years, but saw an opportunity to continue in the same line (and area) while picking up some additional skills. He'll be continuing his Bible Worker activities (perhaps on a slightly reduced level), and learning the restaurant trade and chefing skills as well. More than that, he's in on the ground level of a medical missionary resurgence and gets to learn the lessons of making the nuts and bolts work right. Look for him to be leading a new project in a few years. (Much the same for our #1 pioneer Bible Worker volunteer, Veronica Jenkins, who has been with us since June!)
Slightly less exciting was the news that U.S. Trademark law doesn't work the way we thought it did! We received a courteous letter from the CEO (not the legal counsel) of Sprouts Farmer's Market. We had thought that there was quite a bit of difference between just "Sprouts" and "Sprouts Farmer's Market." Well, it turns out that the trademark officials had decided that "Farmer's Market" was a generic term that couldn't be trademarked--not even as a part of a larger name. So their trademark is only for "Sprouts," which makes our use of the name a non-starter in the world of trademark law. So we're looking for a new name for our store/restaurant/bakery.
Anybody want a very pretty (but kind of useless) sign? Yes, we already thought of re-arranging the letters, but we don't like "Spots," or "Spurts," or "Stropus." We did notice that you could spell out a good name for a new bar, but we haven't found anyone who wants to buy a "Stupors" sign....
October 19, 2009
We are nearly done with the equipment acquisition stage of things. It has taken some time, but the Lord has blessed with a number of key purchases. We found a double stack convection oven at a school district down in Florida that was in quite good shape. It may say something about how much the Lord has been spoiling us that--when we managed to buy it for about 40% of what it might have sold for--we felt like we were having to pay "real money."
We felt better when we got a nice Acme Model 8 dough sheeter/moulder for about 10% of the new price. There was the minor detail of getting it trucked in from Massachusetts, but sometimes you've just got to do what needs to be done.
Perhaps our biggest advance came when our Chef, Miguel Larcher (Lar-SHAY--hey, he's a French Chef...), managed to break free from his busy schedule and come help us amateurs figure out what it takes to run a kitchen. Here's a hint: it takes a lot of slicers, dicers, pots, pans, containers, tongs, toasters, waffle makers, whips, peelers, gadgets, gizmos, and stuff.
August 10, 2009
At present, we are in the finishing stages of equipping the kitchen, bakery, store, and dining area. That means things like tables and chairs, ovens, bread mixers, store racks, literature shelves, salad bars, napkin dispensers, refrigerators, etc., etc., etc.
This has taken quite a bit longer than we anticipated. In fact, it seems to me that the Lord has used this process as a means to cool our jets a bit--perhaps because of some as-yet-unseen development? I don't know for certain....
But the Lord has clearly blessed. Larry Cook--the financial mainstay and manager of project development--has a strong background in business. Among other things, he once operated a salvage goods store, so he knows everyone who has anything to do with that sort of thing. A couple weeks ago we got 6 reach-in fridges, an ice maker, 10 stainless steel tables, 3 Alto-Shaam "hold ovens," 20-some wire racks, 2 six-burner stoves (one with a 24-inch grill), 4 twenty-quart Hobart mixers, a 14-foot salad bar, a bread slicing machine, a single-door Kwik Thaw/proofing oven, 2 pallets of stainless and plastic small ware, 6 shopping carts, 20 shopping hand baskets, and a pineapple slicer/corer--all for less than $2200. Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!
